PSY 230: Personality and Its Transformations

Course Introduction

• Two key aspects of personality
  • How personality remains stable over time
  • How personality changes
• Reading sources
  • Book: Introduction to Personality and Its Transformations
  • Course webpage with a sequence of articles
• Access to course information
  • Professor's webpage
  • Readings and topics listed on the page

Course Organization and Assessments

• Practical Assignments
  • Two midterm exams (February 6, March 13)
  • One final exam
  • Two writing assignments:
    • Essay (15% of the course)
    • Personal analysis based on the Big Five model (7.5% of the course)
• Assistance and resources
  • Two teaching assistants (TA): Vanessa Go and Victor Swift
  • Office hours available on the course page
  • Professor's office hours: Wednesday 4:15 - 5:45 pm in office 446

Self-Authorship Technique

• Exercise based on Big Five
  • Five dimensions of personality: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Openness, and Conscientiousness
  • Relationship between traits, virtues, and flaws
  • Self-evaluation procedure
  • Demonstrated benefits: improvements in academic performance

Course Contents

• Part 1: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives
  • Clinical aspects of personality
  • Classical theories of personality (e.g., Freud, Jung)
  • Relationship between religion and psychology
  • Existentialism and phenomenological psychology
• Part 2: Psychobiology and Human Variability
  • Trait theories (Big Five)
  • Brain and personality relationship
  • Analysis of basic motivational systems
  • Science of measurement (psychometrics)

Course Approach

• Theory-Practice Connection
  • Personal, intellectual, and cultural relevance
  • Integrative perspective between psychological theory and biological substrates

Additional Details

• Course Requirements
  • Considerable dedication to reading
  • Participation in discussions and exercises
• Supplementary Material
  • Readings from original articles
  • Classic texts that are challenging but enriching in content