W.M. Breland Short Bio Sheet
William Breland, Ph.D., joins the psychology department as a specialist in adult development and research design and analysis. This specialty includes specific experience as a NIH fellow in the multidisciplinary approach to understanding human behavior and adult development as well as expertise in structural equation modeling techniques, analyses of normal and non-normal distributions, factor analysis, measurement invariance, and interindividual vs. intraindividual research design. Born and raised in Mississippi, he received his undergraduate degree in mathematics and literature at William Carey College in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. His graduate education in psychology was obtained at California State University Northridge and his Ph.D. was earned at the University of Southern California.
William currently resides in Port Hueneme, CA with his partner, Kathleen Linthicum. His two daughters, Elyse and Gaedin, live in Pasadena, CA and Portland, OR respectively. In addition to his research interest in the relationship of creativity to life satisfaction, he enjoys jazz, blues, playing bass, writing music, painting with various media, friends, and family.
Other interest points:
w Hypothesizes a structure of creative processing, which suggests that creative process is curvilinearly related to a specific dimension of personality that moderates the relationship between creativity and life-satisfaction, and proposes that an integrated interindividual/intraindividual examination is important to study these relationships within a multivariate, holistic system.
w Co-created a procedure, with John Horn, Ph.D., for using an incomplete data approach to unambiguously interpret the inter-relationships among ipsatively related variables.
w Executed SEM analyses that examine the longitudinal interrelationships of elemental language skills (oral language, phonemic awareness, emergent reading, and language processing speed) across the acquisition of a second language – Spanish to English – and their influence of later reading success in the second language (assisting Frank Manis and Kim Lindsey, co-principal investigators).
w Has managed data in ArcView, an Geographic Information Systems computer program, for the Child Neglect Project (Penelope Trickett, principal investigator) – mapping the subjects’ neighborhood risk factors as determined by the 2000 U.S. Census, preparing summary statistics of the data, and generating visual representations of the data.
w Has successfully completed a variety of tasks in the private sector – for example: created, engineered, arranged, and produced more than 30 compositions that have been sold to music background companies (several of which have found heavy rotation in adult contemporary radio); toured the world as a performing bassist with such artists as Helen Reddy, Alan Thicke, and the jazz group Pocket Change; produced a Top 40 European hit, Tear Down the Wall, for musical artist Joe Esposito; and, created and coordinated marketing efforts for Model Interiors (an interior design firm located in Thousand Oaks, CA), statistically identifying appropriate advertising models and reducing the cost of retail sales.
w Co-owns Mojo Loon Records, an independent music distribution company.