Dear Tipsters, Michael Britt wrote: It’s funny you should bring up this topic Annette. I’m teaching Intro to a class of non-psych majors and I’ve been thinking a lot about the upcoming chapter on personality. The topics really are quite old. As is typical of most Intro books, the chapter starts out with the venerable old Freudian theory of id/ego/superego and then continues on with the “usual suspects”. I just really wonder what in this chapter is really worth exploring - especially for non-majors.
Comment I think that the personality chapter is important in introductory psychology. My approach is as follows. It is taught after motivation/emotion/stress where the issue of individual difference was brought up. For example, why are some people higher in achievement motivation and why are some people more resilient to stress (hardy)? The topic of personality is introduced as an examination of stable individual differences of this kind. The most obvious approach that reflects this is trait theory. The other theories are then presented, always with an eye on the notion of individual differences. Freud's is interesting because it has a developmental hypothesis of personality and this can be used to discuss the issue of nature vs nurture in personality development. The idea here is to teach the chapter content on the major theorists, but to connect them to issues that arise in other places in the course. Sincerely, Stuart ______________________________ “Recti Cultus Pectora Roborant” Stuart J. McKelvie, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Bishop’s University, 2600 rue College, Sherbrooke (Borough of Lennoxville), QC J1M 1Z7, Canada. stuart.mckel...@ubishops.ca (819)822-9600X2402 “Floreat Labore” ______________________________ From: Michael Britt [mailto:mich...@thepsychfiles.com] Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2015 1:01 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Teaching theories of personality It’s funny you should bring up this topic Annette. I’m teaching Intro to a class of non-psych majors and I’ve been thinking a lot about the upcoming chapter on personality. The topics really are quite old. As is typical of most Intro books, the chapter starts out with the venerable old Freudian theory of id/ego/superego and then continues on with the “usual suspects”. I just really wonder what in this chapter is really worth exploring - especially for non-majors. Maybe this is a contrast effect: we’re going to finish up with Social Psych next week and there is so much in this topic that is relevant to their daily lives. Personality, by contrast, seems much less so. What do people think are the really relevant parts of Personality? Michael Michael A. Britt, Ph.D. mich...@thepsychfiles.com<mailto:mich...@thepsychfiles.com> http://www.ThePsychFiles.com Twitter: @mbritt On Mar 27, 2015, at 3:42 PM, Annette Taylor <tay...@sandiego.edu<mailto:tay...@sandiego.edu>> wrote: I posted this yesterday but it was not in my digest today :( So I hope this goes through this time. We offer a course in our department called Theories of Personality. IMHO, given the syllabus of the person currently teaching the course, it should be called History of Theories of Personality, as the course features theories by May, Allport, Maslow, Freud, Kelley, Rogers, Cattell, Bandura and Rotter, in no particular order, I just jotted them down as quickly as I could. If this course is still widely taught, would this look the appropriate theories to talk about? I saw next to nothing about trait theory except for Cattell. And is that all there is? There are no syllabi to compare to for a theories of personality course in project syllabus younger than 2006. That is 9 years ago and the content does seem similar. So does this mean that in the past decade this has phased out? Annette Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor, Psychological Sciences University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110-2492 tay...@sandiego.edu<mailto:tay...@sandiego.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: michael.br...@thepsychfiles.com<mailto:michael.br...@thepsychfiles.com>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13405.0125141592fa9ededc665c55d9958f69&n=T&l=tips&o=43409 or send a blank email to leave-43409-13405.0125141592fa9ededc665c55d9958...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-43409-13405.0125141592fa9ededc665c55d9958...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: smcke...@ubishops.ca<mailto:smcke...@ubishops.ca>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13510.2cc18398df2e6692fffc29a610cb72e3&n=T&l=tips&o=43428 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-43428-13510.2cc18398df2e6692fffc29a610cb7...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-43428-13510.2cc18398df2e6692fffc29a610cb7...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@mail-archive.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=43433 or send a blank email to leave-43433-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
