RESUBMISSION
SMC Core Curriculum Course Proposal Form
Electronically submit a copy of the course proposal form and attachments to
the Chair of the CCC. Please submit a separate copy of the proposal form for
each learning goal.
1. Name of Proposer: Paul Zarnoth
2. Email address: pzarnoth@stmary-ca.edu
3. Department/Program of Proposer: Psychology
4. Name of Department/Program housing the course: Psychology
5. Name(s) of Program Director/Department Chair (if not the proposer):
6. Course Acronym, Number and Title: PSYCH 150 (Theories of Personality). Note:
The name of this course is in the process of being changed to Personality
Psychology.
7. Semester(s) in which course will be offered: Fall and Spring semester
8. How often is this course taught? Typically 3 sections per academic year
9. Course Prerequisites (if any): PSYCH 1: Introduction to Social-Personal
Psychology
10. Unit Value of Course: 1 unit
11. Proper Audience for the course (delete those that don’t apply):
Sophomores
Juniors
Seniors
12. The Learning Goals for which the course is being submitted
(Courses may apply for at most one Pathways to Knowledge goal, and for as many
Engaging the World goals as is appropriate. Please complete a separate proposal
form for desired goal.)

Pathways to Knowledge
Social, Historical, Cultural Understanding
Expected Attachments
(1)
Syllabus: Course syllabus containing a course description and a list of
learning outcomes. The course’s learning outcomes should include coverage of the
Learning Outcomes associated with the Core Curriculum Learning Goal for which
the course is being proposed.
(2)
Teaching: A brief narrative (300 words) that explains how the course will
guide students toward achieving the Learning Goal. The CCC believes it would be
simplest both for the proposer and for the Working Groups if the narrative
addressed the Learning Outcomes one by one.
1. Examines human activity in particular periods or places from a social, cultural or
historical perspective.
Personality psychology examines human behavior from a social perspective.
While social psychology emphasizes the situational (external) factors influencing
human behavior, personality psychology emphasizes the dispositional (internal)
factors impacting human behavior.
The specific human activities explored within the course differ from one
instructor to the next. Currently, both instructors are using the same textbook and
the same set of assigned articles. Some illustrative examples of human activities
(both positive and negative) that can be found in the current reading list include
those listed below. Naturally, the full range of human activities and specific settings
discussed in class goes far beyond those included within this list.
1. Mother-child interaction in testing situation (Rothbart, 1971)
2. Childhood sexual abuse (Edelstein et al., 2005)
3. Play in a preschool setting (Lepper et al., 1973)
4. Coping behaviors carried out business owners after natural disaster on the
East Coast (Anderson, 1977)
5. Disclosure and other aspects of everyday interpersonal interactions
explored in China and the United States (Wheeler et al. 1989)
6. Client-therapist interaction in Korea (Lee et al., 2004)
7. Test-taking behavior among students in the U.S. (Holroyd et al. 1978)
Personality psychology examines human behavior from a social perspective.
This is true in two different ways.
First, each personality theory attempts to explain the development of an
individual’s personality, and most theorists believe that personality development is
largely the result of the individual’s experiences with other people, the larger society,
or both. For example, Karen Horney and Alfred Adler both wrote about the role of
parent-child interaction in personality development. Modern attachment theorists
have built upon these earlier perspectives but still emphasize the impact of early
social relations on personality development. Similarly, phenomenological theorists
(e.g., Carl Rogers) emphasize the impact of close relationships on one’s ability to
self-actualize. Behavioral personality psychologists (e.g., Skinner) describe
personality development in a different way. They focus on the rewards and
punishments that we receive from other people and the role of these reinforcers in
determining our behavior patterns later in life. Social-cognitive theorists (e.g.,
Bandura) build upon the behavioral perspective and also focus on reinforcement.
These theorists emphasize vicarious reinforcement – learning from witnessing or
hearing about the behavior of others and the outcomes of those behaviors. Thus, we
develop our personality by modeling the behavior that we see others carry out,
including behaviors shown in books, television and other media.
Second, the perspectives of interactionism and reciprocal determinism have
become dominant within the field of Personality. Both of these perspectives emphasize
the role of the social situation in directing human behavior. Interactionism (as our
student’s read about in Swann and Seyle, 2005) describes human behavior as
resulting from a combination of dispositional and situational forces (e.g., social
pressures). Reciprocal determinism is the perspective that the social situation,
cognition, emotion, personality, and human behavior all mutually impact one
another. As one relatively simple example, Anderson (1977) examined how a
natural disaster impacted business owners with different personalities in different
ways. They responded differently both in their stress reactions and in their
behavioral responses. The responses of the business owners caused them to receive
differing levels of social support. Social support impact business recovery, and
whether or not the individual’s business recovered, in turn, impacted the
individual’s personality. Thus, the social situations that we find ourselves in, in
combination with our personality characteristics, are presented as fundamental in
directing our behavior.
The personality theories that are presented in this course were all developed in
the years since the late nineteenth century and most of the research testing these
theories has been conducted in Western nations. As a result, these theories are
somewhat bound to a particular place and time. The phenomenological perspective,
for example, can now be seen as a product of the 1960s. On the other hand, as
touched upon earlier, students in this course do learn about the impact that the
broader society has on personality and human behavior. Students also learn about
certain dimensions of culture, including individualism/collectivism, tight vs. loose
cultures, and cultural complexity (as defined by the number of social roles that one
plays). Students learn about the ways in which these dimensions help to shape an
individual’s sense of self (e.g., Marcus and Kitayama, 1998) as well as the impact of
these cultural dimensions on interpersonal behavior (e.g. Wheeler et al. 1989).
2. Presents theories of human behavior, relations, culture, or institutions; or
interpretations of historical causation and change.
Personality Psychology is a course that is organized around a series of
theoretical perspectives for understanding personality development and the impact
of personality on human behavior. The kinds of theories presented in the course are
fairly consistent from one instructor to the next. They include approaches
developed by psychoanalytic and neoanalytic theorists (e.g, Freud), behavioral
theorists (e.g., Skinner), phenomenological theorists (e.g., Maslow), dispositional
theorists (e.g., Eysenck), biological theorists (e.g., Buss), social cognitive theorists
(e.g., Bandura) and cognitive theorists (e.g., Kelly).
3a. Asks students to employ social science or historical methodology to collect
evidence about the social world. AND 3b. Asks students to employ social science
or historical methodology to interpret evidence about the social world.
Students in Personality Psychology learn that the research methodology
employed by personality psychologists often differs from the methodologies used by
other research psychologists. Most psychological research uses the nomothetic
approach, which attempts to uncover general patterns of human behavior (in other
words, “what is true most of the time for most of the people”). Personality
psychologists do use nomothetic research strategies, including experimentation,
observation and survey methods. However, personality psychologists also conduct
ideographic research, which is less common in other areas of psychology.
Ideographic methods are used to learned detailed information about a single
individual.
Students in Personality Psychology begin learning research methodology and
how to interpret evidence beginning as soon as the second day of the semester. One
day during the first week of class is dedicated to introducing students to different
forms of research methodology with an emphasis on ideographic methods including
case studies, clinical interviews and the analysis of personal documents. Students
are then introduced to personality assessment (i.e., personality testing) over the
following two days of class. Students learn about the different classifications of
personality tests, how they are developed, and how they are interpreted.
The focus on research methodology and the interpretation of evidence
continues throughout the remainder of the semester. As noted above (#2), the
course is organized around a series of approaches to understanding personality.
Prominent theories from each approach are discussed, and students learn about the
research that has been conducted to develop and test each of these theories. They
also learn about specific forms of personality assessment that are associated with
each of the theoretical approaches. Students read, present, and discuss a series of
articles, the vast majority of which are empirical in nature. Throughout the
semester, students learn how to select an appropriate research strategy and how to
critically evaluate research evidence.
Learning: A brief explanation of how coursework (e.g., papers, exams, videotaped
presentations) will be used to measure student achievement of each of the Learning
Outcomes. Please address the outcomes directly and one by one.
1. Examines human activity in particular periods or places from a social, cultural or
historical perspective.
AND 2. Presents theories of human behavior, relations,
culture, or institutions; or interpretations of historical causation and change.
Student learning associated with these two learning outcomes is evaluated
using at least four methods. Both instructors currently use the same evaluation
methods.
The first method is the exam. Students complete four exams that include
multiple choice and short answer sections. The short answer questions require
responses ranging from a few sentences to a page-long response. The exams test
the students’ understanding of theories of personality. Recall from above that
theories of personality are theories of social behavior, because personality is
assumed to be partly determined through social interaction and because personality
is assumed to influence the nature of an individual’s social interactions. The exams
contain three types of questions, and the three types of questions appear with equal
frequency. The first type of question tests students’ knowledge of basic facts (e.g.,
definitions and descriptions of specific theories). Second, some of questions are
integration questions which require students to think about how the various
concepts and theories compare with one another, contrast with one another, and
build upon one another. Finally, one third of the questions are application
questions. Some of these application questions ask students to use theories to
predict how an individual would be expected to behave in a particular place or
situation. Others ask student to use theories to develop recommendations for how
to best respond to specific social situations.
The second method is the presentation method. Each student works with a
partner to present one of the 16 assigned articles to the class. One of the grading
criteria for the presentations is that the presentation must help the rest of the class
better understand the material in the article. Therefore, the presenters not only
need to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the theory and social behavior
presented in the article, they also need to seek out additional evidence and
information to increase the likelihood that the rest of the class will know something
more than they would have by just reading the article on their own.
The third method is the miniquiz. Students take a short quiz before each
presentation. Although the main purpose is to guarantee that the class will be ready
to actively participate in any activities carried out by the presenters, the quizzes also
test the students’ knowledge of the theory and social behavior discussed in the
article.
The fourth assessment method is the case study method, which will be
discussed below in 3a.
3a. Asks students to employ social science or historical methodology to collect
evidence about the social world.
Students are asked to employ social science methodology in three ways in
Personality Psychology. Two of the three methods are ideographic techniques,
which are more commonly used in the field of personality than in other areas of
psychology. (See the Teaching section for an explanation of ideographic techniques
and how they differ from nomothetic methods.)
First, students take a series of objective self-report personality tests
throughout the semester (typically during class time). They then score the
personality tests to assess aspects of their own personality. No student’s
personality test score is ever made known to either the instructor or any other
student due to the obvious ethical issues involved. For a similar reason, the
students do not ask anyone outside the class to complete a personality test either.
We only use established measures of personality. Students in the class are not
asked to develop new personality measures, because they cannot be expected to
have the necessary background in either psychometrics or statistics to develop a
valid or reliable test.
Second, students carry out a number of simple correlation studies in class (a
nomothetic method). For example, in one study, students complete and score a
multidimensional measure of achievement motivation and record their birth order.
These data are then collected in a method to maintain anonymity and the data are
analyzed to reveal the small but reliable differences in achievement motivation that
exist between people of different birth orders. In a second example, students
complete and score a measure of self-monitoring and record the number of people
whom they have dated over the past two years. These data are collected using a
method to maintain anonymity and the data are analyzed to reveal that high selfmonitors date approximately twice as many partners compared to low selfmonitors.
The first two methods are guided activities and require little mastery on the
part of the students. Therefore, the completion of these exercises is only evaluated
as part of the students’ participation grades.
The third way in which students are asked to use the methods of Personality
Psychology is through a case study. Late in the semester, students are asked to
choose an individual to study from a list of well-known figures from government,
sports and popular culture. The students then use the case study method (an
ideographic technique which is discussed throughout the semester) to learn more
about the target individual including the development of the target’s personality.
Students report their results in a short graded paper.
3b. Asks students to employ social science or historical methodology to interpret
evidence about the social world.
Students are asked to employ social science methodology to interpret
research evidence in multiple ways in Personality Psychology. Perhaps the most
important are in the class presentations and in the case studies.
The students gather information about a well-known contemporary figure in
their assigned case study. The students are instructed to interpret their findings
with a minimum of two personality theories discussed in the course. The theories
that student choose must be selected from at least two different general approaches
to understanding personality.
The students also are asked to present one of the assigned articles for the
class. These articles describe empirical research, and students are expected to not
only interpret the meaning of the results but are also expected to discuss how the
research findings could be applied.
Any course approved for the core must provide data for the assessment of Core
curriculum learning goals at an institutional level. Via this proposal a chair/program
director agrees to oversee the submission of the student work necessary for the
assessment of the learning goals. If the proposal is from an instructor, that
individual agrees to oversee submission of work from appropriate sections of their
course.
Similarly, while courses, and individual sections within courses, may vary, the Core
should provide somewhat consistent experiences within each Learning Goal. To this
end, by submitting this proposal a chair/program director/instructor agrees that
instructors of Core courses will participate in assessment exercises.