Personality Theory and Research
Catalog Description: An examination of various approaches toward understanding personality including Freudian, humanistic, trait, behavioral/social learning and cognitive. The research generated by each of the theories will also be examined.
Goals: The primary goal of this class is to teach students how to think like personality psychologists. Important theories and research relevant to personality will be covered because these are fundamental to what personality psychologists believe and what they do, but rather than rote memorization, it is expected that students will walk away with a deeper understanding of personality. This includes understanding of theory and how this translates to research, application to therapeutic and workplace settings, evaluation of one’s own personality using several personality measures, creation of a novel personality measure, evaluation of others’ personality influences when examining case studies, and modification of one’s own behavior.
Objectives:
Catalog Description: An examination of various approaches toward understanding personality including Freudian, humanistic, trait, behavioral/social learning and cognitive. The research generated by each of the theories will also be examined.
Goals: The primary goal of this class is to teach students how to think like personality psychologists. Important theories and research relevant to personality will be covered because these are fundamental to what personality psychologists believe and what they do, but rather than rote memorization, it is expected that students will walk away with a deeper understanding of personality. This includes understanding of theory and how this translates to research, application to therapeutic and workplace settings, evaluation of one’s own personality using several personality measures, creation of a novel personality measure, evaluation of others’ personality influences when examining case studies, and modification of one’s own behavior.
Objectives:
- Develop a working knowledge (both remembering and understanding) of relevant personality theory and research, including the following approaches: Freudian/Psychoanalytic, Neo-Freudian, Trait, Biological, Humanistic, Behavioral/Social Learning, Cognitive
- Understand the theories and the research behind them, their impact on the workplace, therapy settings and assessment, and comparing different theories and perspectives, particularly when debating two sides of an issue with classmates.
- Apply knowledge of personality theory when analyzing and evaluating case studies based on different theories, when performing a behavior modification procedure, and writing a personality measure.
- Evaluate case studies, and evaluate results of both a behavior modification and a scale construction project.
- Create and carrying out one's own behavior modification procedure, both measuring and evaluating the results, and then communicating those results in oral and written format. Develop a personality measure by writing an operational definition: creating and refining items to measure that characteristic, evaluating items, collecting data in order to refine the measure and test several hypotheses, and then writing a paper summarizing the procedure and findings.