Steven A. Miller, PhD

Dr. Steven A. Miller (he/him) is an Professor of Psychology. He received his PhD in Social Psychology from Loyola University Chicago. Additionally, he holds M.S. degrees from Illinois State University and Loyola University Chicago in Psychology and Mathematics with specializations in Clinical Psychology and Probability and Statistics, respectively.

Dr. Miller joined the faculty of RFUMS in 2013. His research focuses on personality characteristics/individual differences and emotional experiences, as well as on anxiety and emotional disorders and the relation between them. He also has interests in social cognitive models of personality, the application of quantitative methodology to applied psychological questions, and the evaluation of novel data analytic techniques.

Within the psychology department, Dr. Miller teaches courses in multivariate statistics, longitudinal models, categorical data analysis, and theories of personality and emotion. He also serves as a statistics consultant for RFUMS.

Curriculum Vitae

Personal Home Page

Are You a Prospective Graduate Student?
Dr. Miller will not be accepting a student for the 2025/2026 academic year. Do you have questions regarding the admission process or what it is like working with Dr. Miller? E-mail current lab members George Bate, Aaminah Khan, Jesse Bahrke, Kristen Anderson, Alex Schleicher, or Joshua Armstrong to gain a student’s perspective.

Research

1. The relationship between personality characteristics/individual differences (especially expectancy and belief) and emotional experiences
2. Emotion, both in the general population and in individual with psychopathology
3. Comparing models of the structure of psychological constructs (e.g. factors, classes, factor mixtures, networks, etc.)
4. History/philosophy of both psychology specifically and science in general
5. Application of novel quantitative methodology to applied psychological questions

Representative Publications

My major substantive research interest has to do with personality and emotion, both individually and particularly as they intersect. I am interested in these in clinical populations (e.g., individuals with psychopathy or suffering from mood or anxiety disorders) as well as non-clinical populations (non-clinical folks have personalities and emotions, too, you know – and understanding those is necessary to understand pathology).

• Miller, S. A., Major, M., Saman, G., Schneider, K., & Rosenblatt, N. J. (in press). Validating a fear-of-falling related activity avoidance scale in lower limb prosthesis users. PM & R: The Journal of Inquiry, Function, and Rehabilitation.
• Leib*, S. I.*, Miller, S. A., & Chin, E. (2023). Latent structure of working memory and emotion regulation in pediatric ADHD. Child Neuropsychology, 29(4), 644-655. https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2022.2107626.
• Faith, R. N.*, Beussink, C.L*, Miller, S.A., & Kosson, D. S. (2023). Examining the association between speed-accuracy tradeoffs and psychopathy among male offenders in a facial affect recognition task. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 14(2).https://doi.org/10.1037/per0000570
• Faith, R. N.*, Miller, S. A., & Kosson, D. S. (2022). Facial affect recognition and psychopathy: A signal detection theory perspective. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 44, 738-749. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-022-09969-5
• Obert, G. T.*, & Miller, S. A. (2022). The net worth of networks and extraversion: Examining personality structure through network models. Personality and Individual Differences, 181, doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.111039.
• Grotkowski, K.*, & Miller, S. A. (2019). Optimists or optimistic: Replication of a taxometric study on optimism. Journal of Research in Personality, 82. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2019.103854.
• Gorin, H. M.*, Kosson, D. S., Miller, S. A., Fontaine, N. M. G., Vitaro, F, Séguin, J. R., Boivin, M., Côté, S., & Tremblay, R. E. (2019). Psychopathic traits in middle childhood: Evidence of a hierarchical three-factor structure. Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 41(3), 341-352. doi: 10.1007/s10862-019-09733-2
• Miller, S. A., & Grotkowski, K.* (2018). Physiological hyperarousal (2018). In V. Zeigler-Hill & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.). Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. New York: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_453-1.
• Kosson, D. S., McBride, C. K., Miller, S. A., Riser, N. R. E.*, & Whitman, L. A. (2018). Attentional bias following frustration in youth with psychopathic traits: Emotional deficit versus negative preception. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology. doi: 10.5127/jep.060116
• Fowler, D.R.*, Weber, E.N.*, Klappa, S.P.*, & Miller, S.A. (2017). Replicating future orientation: Investigating hope, optimism, and their subscales through replication and expansion. Personality and Individual Differences, 116, 22-28. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.04.010
• Longley, S. L., Miller, S. A., Broman-Fulks, J., Calamari, J. E., & Holm-Denoma, J. M., & Meyers, K. (2017). Taxometric analyses of higher-order personality domains. Personality and Individual Differences, 108, 207-219. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.12.018
• Catanzaro, S. J., Backenstrass, M., Miller, S. A., Mearns, J., Pfeiffer, N., & Brendalen, S. (2014). Prediction of symptoms of emotional distress by mood regulation expectancies and affective traits. International Journal of Psychology, 49(6), 471-479. doi: 10.1002/ijop.12062.
• Garrison, A. M.*, Kahn, J. H., Miller, S. A., & Sauer, E. M. (2014). Emotional avoidance and rumination as mediators of the relation between adult attachment and emotional disclosure. Personality and Individual Differences, 70, 239-245. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2014.07.006
• Shoji, K.*, Harrigan, J. A., Woll, S. B., & Miller, S. A. (2010). Interactions among situations, neuroticism, and appraisals in coping strategy choice. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(3), 270-276. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2009.10.009

*Student co-authors

Research Lab

Personality and Emotion Research Laboratory

Bill Revelle, the former president of the Association for Research in Personality and of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, once wrote, "Personality is to emotion as climate is to weather." Our research laboratory focuses on examining and further understanding this relationship. Specifically, we examine not only the correspondence of emotion to personality, but also on the nature of intra-individual variability and how such patterns may be characteristic of people. Furthermore, we examine roles of situational contingencies and individual expectancies in emotional response. We employ a range of methodologies, from experience sampling studies to laboratory experiments. Please feel free to contact me or lab members with questions about our research projects.

Ongoing Collaborative Projects

With Rachel Greenley at Rosalind Franklin and Susan Tran and Joanna Buscemi at DePaul University

We have completed a data collection project examining the daily experiences of emerging adults. This data collection examined experiences of hassles and included actigraphy, self-report, daily diary, and biomarker data. Here are some publications that have come from our collaboration:

• Bate, G.*, Buscemi, J., Tran, S. T., Greenley, R. N., & Miller, S. A. (2023). Salivary cortisol levels across tripartite dimensions of anxiety and depression in emerging adults. Biological Psychology, 176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108469.
• Bedree, H. B.*, Miller, S. A., Buscemi, J., Greenley, R. N., & Tran, S. T. (2021). Using technology to assess bidirectionality between daily pain and physical activity: The role of marginalization during emerging adulthood. Children[special issue], 8(9). 756. https://doi.org/10.3390/children8090756.
• Tran, S. T., Grotkowski, K. G.*, Miller, S. A., Reed, B. W.*, Koven, M. L.*, Buscemi, J., & Greenley, R. N. (2021). Hassles predict physical health complaints in undergraduate students: A dynamic structural equation model analysis of daily diary data. Psychology and Health. 36(7), 828-846. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2020.1800010.
• Tran, S. T., Grotkowski, K. G.*, Miller, S. A., Reed, B. W.*, Koven, M. L.*, Buscemi, J., & Greenley, R. N. (2021). Hassles predict physical health complaints in undergraduate students: A dynamic structural equation model analysis of daily diary data. Psychology and Health. 36(7), 828-846. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2020.1800010.
• Tran, S. T., Grotkowski, K. G.*, Miller, S. A., Reed, B. W.*, Koven, M. L.*, Buscemi, J., & Greenley, R. N. (2021). Hassles predict physical health complaints in undergraduate students: A dynamic structural equation model analysis of daily diary data. Psychology and Health. 36(7), 828-846. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2020.1800010.

With Dave Kosson in psychology at Rosalind Franklin and Noah Rosenblatt in podiatry at Rosalind Franklin

We have collected preliminary data on romantic couples and the role of psychopathy and other personality dimensions in their relationships. We have also collected movement data. We have presented preliminary findings on dyads and are working on more publications and presentations. We are currently using Group Iterative Multiple Model Estimation to characterize movement patterns. We are also engaged in Bayesian analyses of small-sample dyadic data and are preparing for more data collection.

• Ryu, H.*, Bate, G.*, Keller, K.*, Lee, J.*, Martinez, G., Miller, S. A., Sher, T., & Kosson, D. S. (November, 2022). The dyadic impact of psychopathy and neuroticism: An exploration of intimate partner violence. Poster presented to the 2022 Conference of the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy. New York, New York.

With Rosaleen Duggan Bloom at Texas A & M University and Erin Kased and Erin Gandelman at Rosalind Franklin

We have been examining social media use of individuals with chronic illness and have a rich data set. We have engaged in various forms of language modeling (e.g., Linguistic Inquiry Word Count, Latent Semantic Analysis, Latent Dirichlet Allocation) and continue to present and publish.

• Bloom, R., Kaseda, E.*, Bitterman, J.*, Namuhmuh, K.*, Gandelman, E.*, & Miller, S. A. (revise and resubmit). From a distance: Leveraging digital media research to collaborate with undergraduate research assistants. SPUR: Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research.
• Gandelman, E. M.*, Bloom, R. D., Bitterman, J. B.*, Kaseda, E. T.*, & Miller, S. A. (2022). More authentic and less confident language use in #Hodgkinslymphoma following COVID-19 pandemic onset. Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, IL, United States.
• Kaseda, E. T., Bitterman, J. B., Namuhmuh, K., Gandelman, E. M., Swenson-Noyes, J., Miller, S. A., & Bloom, R. D. (2022). Hospitals, hobbies, and hair loss: How adolescents and young adults with cancer use TikTok. Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, IL, United States

With Brian Feinstein at Rosalind Franklin

Dr. Feinstein has recently received a large NIMH grant examining the rejection experiences of sexual minority youth. We are currently preparing for data collection of a response burst study with multiple experience sampling waves. Individuals interested in the complexities of this type of dynamic data as well as various forms of cross-lagged panel modeling are encouraged to apply.