William Graziano, professor of psychology at Purdue University, is delivering a lecture titled “Motivational Forces in Development: Children’s Interests in Persons and Things” tonight at 6:30 p.m. in Room 208 of Gordon Palmer Hall. This lecture is the 2010 installment in the annual Harold Basowitz Memorial Lecture series.

“The Basowitz Lecture Series is outstanding,” said Ansley Gilpin, lecture coordinator and assistant professor in the department of psychology at the University. “It brings big names in psychology to the Capstone, ones that are mentioned over and over again in undergraduate textbooks.”

Gilpin said that the researchers invited to speak are foremost experts in their fields.

“They are usually engaging, entertaining speakers,” Gilpin said.

Some well-known speakers invited to the lecture from years past include Albert Bandura, Charles Carver and Dean Simonton. The Harold Basowitz Memorial Lecture is an annual event in memory of Basowitz, a distinguished professor who was personally invested in the University. He attended the University in 1940 until called into military service and then returned to Tuscaloosa in 1946 to complete his undergraduate degree in 1947. Basowitz’s career included administrative roles at the National Institute of Mental Health and professor of psychology for many years at New York University.

Grazian is a psychologist who studies interpersonal processes such as attraction, cooperation and conflicts, Gilpin said.

“There is a movement in the field [of psychology] to study positive, pro-social traits, such as agreeableness, rather than focusing on antisocial behaviors,” Gilpin said.

Graziano received his doctoral degree from the University of Minnesota in 1976. His work focuses on the area of interpersonal processes in adults and children. Graziano is a member of the only research team in the world that is systematically investigating the Big Five dimension of Agreeableness.

His research has been supported at various times by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and has served on the editorial boards of numerous professional journals.

The lecture is free and open to the public.