Theories of Personality Course Overview

Course Details

• Course Title: Theories of Personality
• Course Code: PS338
• Academic Year: 2024-25
• Semester: 1
• Lecturer: Dr Jenny Groarke
• Email: [email protected]

Managing Expectations

• Be patient
• Be kind
• Extend kindness to others, including staff

Assessment

• 1 multiple-choice question (MCQ) exam
• Exam scheduled by the exams office
• Attendance at lectures is expected
• Reading course chapters is crucial
• Participation in discussions is required
• Use of learning technologies is expected
• Weekly research and revision is recommended

Course Workload

• 5 ECTS credits
• Estimated workload: approximately 100 hours
• 24 hours estimated lecture attendance time
• 76 hours estimated independent study, reading and preparing for class, revising for the exam

Succeeding in the Course

• Regular, shorter study sessions
• Following instructions carefully

Core Text

• The Personality Puzzle
• Seventh Edition (2016)
• Eighth Edition (2019) (International Student Edition)
• Author: David C. Funder
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Weekly Reading

• Syllabus/module outline on Canvas
• Chapter 1 of the core text, "The study of the person" (basic introduction to personality concepts and ideas)

Module Questions

• What is personality?
• Does personality change over time? (and if so, why? If not, why?)
• Why is personality important to understand?

Module Themes

• Personality theories as problem-solving tools
• Overlap between personality theory and abnormal psychology (a significant part of clinical psychology)

Assessing Personality Theories

• Testability: considering the complexity of human beings
• Active vs passive role in creating one's reality: considering the theoretical perspectives
• Idiographic vs nomothetic approaches: idiographic focuses on individual elements of people and allows comparison; nomothetic approach focuses on groups of people, looking at commonalities

Important Considerations

• Applicability to different groups/generalizability
• Importance of factors like gender and culture
• Does the theory explain normal and abnormal behavior?
• Developmental focus of the theory
• Practical usefulness and applicability of the theory

Understanding Personality

• Why do we use the term 'personality?
• We all have personality (most of us)

Focus of Personality Psychology

• Psychological triad: combination of how people think, feel, and behave
• Overlap with clinical psychology
• Normal vs extreme patterns of personality
• Personality disorders
• Whole-person understanding
• Connection with other areas of psychology

Gordon Allport Quote

• "Personality is too complex a thing to be tied up in a conceptual straight jacket."

Working Definition of Personality

• "An individual's characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour, together with the psychological mechanisms – hidden or not – behind those patterns." (adapted from Allport, 1961).

Origins of the Term "Personality"

• Persona (Latin): mask
• Evolved (Allport): what's underneath the mask

Personality Psychology Goals

• Mission: Impossible – explain the whole person within their daily environment
• Think about a recent important behaviour and the reasons behind it

Course Topics

• Measurement of personality and research methods
• Trait theory
• Evolutionary/biological theory
• Social cognitive theory
• Learning theory
• Psychoanalytic theory
• Object relations and other Neo-Freudian theories
• Humanistic theory
• Personality disorders (DSM-V)
• Cultural issues

Basic Approaches to Personality

• Trait approach: how people differ psychologically
• Biological approach: understanding the mind in terms of the body
• Psychoanalytic approach: focusing on the unconscious mind and internal mental conflict

Learning and Cognitive Processes Approach

• Learning: how behaviour changes due to rewards, punishments, and life experiences
• Classic behaviourism: focusing on observable behaviour
• Social learning: how observation and self-evaluation influence behaviour

Phenomenological Approach and Humanistic Approach

• Phenomenological approach: focusing on people's conscious experience of the world
• Humanistic theory: understanding how conscious awareness creates unique human attributes and the basis for happiness
• Cross-cultural approach: considering how the experience of reality might differ across cultures

Competitor or Complement?

• Major advocates for basic approaches claim their approach explains everything.
• Approaches are not mutually exclusive: address different key questions.
• Each approach ignores many key concerns.
• One Big Theory (OBT): To explain everything (But is difficult).

Advantages and Disadvantages

• Accounting for the whole person and real-life concerns: inclusive, interesting and important, but sometimes over-inclusive.
• Basic approaches: good for certain topics but doesn't address others well.

Pigeonholing vs Appreciation

• Personality psychologists emphasize individual differences (negative = pigeonholing, positive = sensitivity and respect).
• Other areas of psychology tend to treat people as if they are the same.

Personality Definition

• Personality is individual differences that are:
  • Psychological in nature
  • Outside the intellectual domain.
  • Enduring dispositions (not transient states).
  • Relatively broad and generalized patterns.

Psychology's Model of Individual Differences

• Temperament, character, creativity, emotional intelligence, intelligence, abilities, are all linked to personality, via habits, attitudes, beliefs, tastes, emotions, skills, aptitudes and competencies.

This quiz covers the essential details of the Theories of Personality course (PS338) for the academic year 2024-25. It includes information on assessment methods, core texts, and recommended study strategies to help students succeed in the course. Understanding these elements is crucial for effective participation and preparation.