Psychology C01: Personality Research
Fall, 1997

C01 Fall, 1997 Outline:
Week Date Substantive Content Reading Requirements
Part I: Current Theories of Personality
Week 1: September 22 Introduction
3 approaches to psychology
Revelle, Annual Review 1995
September 24 Descriptive Taxonomies
Behavioral Taxonomies
Pervin: Personality taxonomies
John: The Big 5
Week 2: Causal Theories of approach and avoidance
Sept. 29Approach: Introversion/extraversion Eysenck
Oct 1 Alternative approaches to I/E Revelle (handout)
Week 3 Oct 6Achievement Motivation McClelland
Oct 8 Achievement motivation and efficient performance
Dynamic models of motivation
Atkinson (handout) Informal preliminary proposal
Week 4 Oct 13Avoidance: Anxiety
Anxiety and performance
Mueller (handout)
Oct 15Approach and Avoidance:
Personality, Motivation, and Performance
Revelle (handout)
Part 2: The Measurement of Personality
Week 5 Oct 20 Basic issues in measurementRorer Research Proposal due
Oct 22Fundamentals of reliabiltyHandouts on measurementReview/choose projects
Week 6 Oct 27 Midterm
Oct 29Types of reliability Item construction
Week 7 Nov 3 Scale Construction Design project
Nov 5 Factor analysis Scale administration
Week 8 Nov 10Validity and decision making Scale analysis
Nov 12 Validity
Pitfalls in Research
Part 3: Experimental Studies of Personality
Week 9 Nov 17 Evolutionary perspectives
Personality and behavior genetics
Buss (reserve)
Plomin
Nov 19 cognitive and self theories Cantor, Higgins Review and discussion of projects
Week 10: Nov 24 Review Data analysis
Nov 26Oral reports Data analysis
Week 11 Dec 8 Papers due, Final Exam

William Revelle
Revised September 21, 1997.