Timothy C. Bates (born 1963) is a professor of differential psychology at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include the genetics of reading and spelling, intelligence, and personality.

Biography

He is a member of the editorial board of the journal '' Intelligence''. His PhD was completed in 1994 at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and integrated the Eysenckian dimensional model of psychosis with the categorical model of schizotypy proposed by Paul E. Meehl, using measures of personality, creativity, evoked potentials, and

smooth pursuit eye movement In the scientific study of vision, smooth pursuit describes a type of eye movement in which the eyes remain fixated on a moving object. It is one of two ways that visual animals can voluntarily shift gaze, the other being saccadic eye movemen ...

dysfunction. The title of his doctoral thesis was ''Psychometric & psychophysiological measures for schizotypy, creativity & psychoticism''. Subsequent academic publications include demonstrating the existence of two separate forms of

dyslexia Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...

, underpinned by distinct genes, and, subsequently, demonstrating that the genes associated with dyslexia are also linked to normal variation in reading ability. This work lead to searches for specific genes involved in reading and language. In

positive psychology Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living, focusing on both individual and societal well-being. It studies "positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions...it aims t ...

, he showed (along with Alexander Weiss and Michelle Luciano) that the genes for happiness are genes for personality, suggesting that a general factor of genetic well-being and specific genetic influences from the five factor model traits of

Extraversion The traits of extraversion (also spelled extroversion Retrieved 2018-02-21.) and introversion are a central dimension in some human personality theories. The terms ''introversion'' and ''extraversion'' were introduced into psychology by Carl J ...

Neuroticism In the study of psychology, neuroticism has been considered a fundamental personality trait. For example, in the Big Five approach to personality trait theory, individuals with high scores for neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody ...

/Stability, and Conscientiousness completely explain the heritable component of differences in happiness. With Caroline Rae, Bates showed that creatine supports cognitive function – finding that creatine supplements in vegans substantially increased their cognitive ability and working memory by comparison with placebo. This supported a literal 'mental energy' model of intelligence, first postulated by Charles Spearman. In his work with the late

Hans Eysenck Hans Jürgen Eysenck (; 4 March 1916 – 4 September 1997) was a German-born British psychologist who spent his professional career in Great Britain. He is best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, although he worked on other ...

and subsequently with

Con Stough Con Stough is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, director of the Swinburne Centre for Neuropsychology and director of the newly formed National Institute of Complementary Medicine ( ...

on the role of basic information processing speed in human intelligence, he used ERP complexity measures to argue for a modification to the Hendrickson and Hendrickson error or "string theory" (so named as pins and string were used to make the measurements of EEG output) model of ability, to include a controlling role of attention. In related work on reaction time, he introduced a novel modification to the Jensen box, again controlling the role of attention in this task, and suggesting that under these conditions, intelligence is, as Arthur Jensen proposed, related to the rate of information processing defined in Fitts Law and using Claude Shannon's information metrics. At the University of Edinburgh he has investigated individual differences in intelligence, memory, and the genetic and environmental influences on social behaviours, such as coalition affiliation, politics, and

altruism Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for the welfare and/or happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core as ...

. Working with Ian Deary,

Paul Irwing Paul Irwing is a Reader in organisational psychology at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the editorial board of the '' Journal of Intelligence'' and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. Paul Irwing has published research on ...

, and Geoff Derr, he reported evidence for substantial gender differences in intelligence in the form of much larger variance amongst males than amongst females, with more boys and men scoring in both the extreme high range, and in the extreme low range.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bates, Timothy C. 1963 births Academics of the University of Edinburgh British psychologists Intelligence researchers Behavior geneticists Living people Dyslexia researchers University of Auckland alumni People from Auckland