Sterlin L. Mosley, Ph.D.
Sterlin Mosley, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Human Relations at the University of Oklahoma, where his teaching and scholarship explore the intersections of personality, identity, culture, and lived experience — and where he continues a family legacy within the department his grandfather founded. His work proceeds from the conviction that human behavior cannot be understood apart from the cultural, relational, and aesthetic systems in which it unfolds, and that careful attention to those systems is one of the most effective routes to genuine personal and collective transformation.
Beyond the university, he is the founder of Empathy Architects, a coaching and consulting practice through which he works with individuals, couples, and organizations on questions of personality, communication, and developmental growth — drawing on more than a decade of teaching, counseling, and applied research. As founder and Creative Director of Zykr Brand Atelier, a design and consulting studio at zykr.studio, he integrates branding, color theory, and personality science into a practice oriented around helping clients articulate visual identities that genuinely reflect who they are — including through his proprietary 12-Seasonal Color Personality System.
As founder and Creative Director of Central Oklahoma Ballet Theatre, a nonprofit company serving the Oklahoma City metro, Dr. Mosley extends the same developmental and aesthetic sensibility into the performing arts, drawing on his own classical ballet training — pursued with sufficient discipline to reach professional proficiency — alongside an ongoing studio practice in oil painting and other visual media.
He is the author of two books, The Narcissist in You and Everyone Else (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), translated into Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Russian editions, and Center of the Universe (2025), with Portuguese and Spanish translations forthcoming. His next book, Your Aesthetic Instinct, extends his research into the domain of taste, style, and visual identity — offering readers a framework for recognizing their aesthetic preferences as meaningful expressions of psychological identity rather than superficial accessories layered over a more essential self. As a contributing author for Psychology Today, he writes for a wide public readership on personality, empathy, neurodivergence, and the inner architectures that shape human behavior.
Dr. Mosley holds a Ph.D. in Communication, a master's degree in Counseling, and a bachelor's degree in English Composition, and he brings to all of his work the integrated perspective of a writer, a counselor, a dancer, and a visual artist. He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.