Special Topics in Psychology
Personality Theories
Professor: Dr. Travis Langley Office: McBrien 301-F, 230-5222
Required textbooks
Theories of Personality, by Schultz and Schultz.
OVERVIEW:
This course looks at personality, your characteristic pattern of behavior (which refers to both overt actions and internal processes such as attitudes, thoughts, and feelings). Examining a variety of theoretical perspectives, the course explores personality development, gender roles, personality disorders, character types, and more.
SCHEDULE:
UNIT 1 All students: chapters 1-3
Graduate students: special readings
UNIT 2 Chapters 4-6, 8
Graduate students: chapter 7
UNIT 3 All students: chapters 9-12
Graduate students: chapter 13
UNIT 4 All students: chapter 14
Undergraduates: personality disorders
Graduate students: chapters 15-17
FINAL EXAM: Cumulative. Refer to semester schedule for time and date.
Refer to official schedule for last day to drop with grade of W. The professor will not assign WP to someone who is failing.
EXAMS
Each unit will conclude with a 40-point exam covering lecture notes, assigned readings, and class discussion. Bring #2 pencils for every test. Erase errors completely. Any answer marked wrong due to an incomplete erasure is simply wrong. After all, if you know you can get credit by going up to a professor later and say, "Look, I didn't erase a couple of errors, and it counted one of them wrong," that would not motivate you to be careful and responsible in the first place. Making responsible work habits part of your PERSONALITY will benefit you in all areas of life.
ONE test score will be dropped: either your lowest test score (even if it's the final) or one missing test score. Although the cumulative final will have twice as many questions, it will weigh the same as any other test. There will be NO makeup tests. There's no such thing as a perfectly fair makeup test, so that's why your professor simply drops a test instead.
GRADING SCALE
Test questions range in difficulty to get an accurate idea of exactly how much you know and understand about the course material. The scale on the 40+ point tests is simply this:
A 35.1 -->
B 30.1 – 35.1
C 25.1 – 30.1
D 20.1 – 25.1
F <-- 20.0
Your professor reserves the right to subtract any number of points from the grade of someone who disrupts class, or to assign a course grade of F to someone caught cheating. Keep track of your own grades. If you want to keep up with your grades, write down your numerical scores along the way, not the letter grade for each test.
ATTENDANCE
The number one correlate with poor grades in any class is poor class attendance. Missing class is therefore self-punishing because you miss important material. Copying someone else's notes simply can't convey the same understanding. If you aren't here when roll is taken, the reason does not matter, so please do not tell your professor why you were absent. Your professor reserves the right to drop any student for a pattern of profound absenteeism. Failure to complete required assignments counts as absenteeism.
WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM
Although the tests will have multiple choice questions, they will also include essay questions which will vary depending on current material.
The last question on every test will be "What else did you learn from the current course material that was not otherwise covered by this test?" The normal maximum credit for this is 3 points, although someone who writes a lot of extra material might earn 3.5 or 4.0. As a rule of thumb, you get half a point per distinct fact provided in your answer. Do not simply write a name or term. Tell what you learned about that name or term. For example: Writing Julian Rotter would earn no credit by itself. Writing that Rotter developed the idea of locus control would get you half a point. Defining locus of control would get you another half. Good examples could get another half. To earn full credit on the last question, you really need to talk about multiple topics. Write your answers in complete sentences that express coherent ideas.
PERSONALITY TESTS
Each week, you will complete different personality tests related to the various theories and approaches covered in class. You will assess your personality traits according to typologies (e.g., Type A, B, C personality), personality factors (e.g., McCrae & Costa’s OCEAN model), and other assessment issues covered with the course material. Your professor will instruct you on how to score and interpret them. You will keep a folder with all of these along the way. As long as you answer each question seriously, there are no right or wrong choices on a personality test.
GRADUATE STUDENTS
As noted on the schedule, you will read all chapters of the textbook. While the undergraduates learn about personality disorders, you will learn about additional theories. Attendance will be optional for you when we cover personality disorders; in turn, undergraduates will not attend your discussions on the additional theories.
Whereas the undergraduates will complete Internet assignments on Fridays, you will instead complete projects that involve writing assignments. Spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and other aspects of writing will be graded because you need to know how to convey cogent analysis of personality and how to express concepts to others in a professional manner. Citations/references should appear in APA (American Psychological Association) style.
Graduate students will take turns reviewing the undergraduates' work on their assignments.
WRITING PROJECTS
Dream journal
Because many of the earliest theorists (especially Freud, Jung, Adler, and Horney) included dream analysis in their therapeutic methods, you will keep a dream journal throughout the semester. You will presents some dreams of your choosing to the class for discussion so that we might examine how each theorists would have interpreted such a dream. We will also discuss dream journaling techniques, as well as how the very process of recording your dreams can change their memorability and possibility even their content. Later in the semester, you will write a short paper about one particular dream, contrasting and comparing (1) how each of those theorists might have viewed the dream, (2) what an additional theorist of your choosing, someone not covered by your professor or the textbook, might say about it, and (3) your own opinion.
Personality profile
Before the end of the semester, you will combine your personality tests' results with some autobiographical information to create a profile of yourself. This will include consideration of whether the various personality tests, typologies, and so forth accurately sum up who you are. This will not simply be a compilation of arbitrarily assorted numbers. Rather, you will report the information in a way that tells a story.
Character analysis
Similarly to your personality profile, you will analyze a fictional character of your choice, subject to instructor approval. Because this character cannot take personality tests for you, you will complete some personality tests by choosing the responses which you believe will best fit your character's nature. You will assess this character according to different typologies, personality factors, etc. In your eventual report of this character’s personality profile, you will consider much of the same information that you consider when writing your own personality profile. You must also contemplate states versus traits. In other words, you need to consider the extent to which that character’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are simply a function of the particular fictional situations in which they are presented as opposed to what this fictional person would be like on an everyday basis. You will submit these character analyses for potential presentation at a research conference.