Instructor:
Office:
Office Phone:
Email:
Class Meetings:
Office Hours:
Ryne Sherman, Ph. D.
Behavioral Sciences 203
7-3382 rsherm13@fau.edu
M & W 9:30–10:50, College of Business Bldg., Room 104
M & W 11:00–1:00 or by appointment
Course Units and Prerequisites
This course is valued at 3 credits and graduate standing is a required prerequisite.
Required Text
John, O. P., Robins, R. W., & Pervin, L. A. (2008). Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research (3 rd ed.) . New York: Guilford Press.
Course Description
This course is designed to acquaint students with personality psychology—the scientific study of an individual’s characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, together with the psychological mechanisms—hidden or not—behind those patterns. We will survey and discuss a variety of classic and contemporary readings in personality psychology. The topics to be discussed include the history of personality psychology, trait models of personality, personality judgment, the biological and evolutionary roots of personality, psychoanalytic approaches to personality, personality development, and cognitive approaches to personality. In addition to these topics, a number of applied topics will also be examined including, happiness and well-being, personality disorders, and personnel selection.
Course Format and Requirements
Class meetings will be devoted to the discussion of assigned journal articles and book chapters, which
(where applicable) will be made available in .pdf format on blackboard. Students are expected to read the assigned readings and to post their comments on the readings before each class meeting. A discussion board will be set up on blackboard so that students can post their own comments and view the comments of others. These comments will be used to facilitate discussion during the course meetings. There are no quizzes or exams for this course as the goal of this course is not to memorize facts, but to enhance your knowledge of the field of personality psychology and to develop your abilities to think critically and communicate your ideas effectively.
Grading
Your letter grade for this course will be based upon your participation on the discussion board and during the class meetings. Students are expected to complete the readings for each meeting, post their comments about the readings on the discussion board, and to bring their thoughts to the class discussion.
Academic Integrity
Plagiarism, cheating and other violations will not be tolerated. Violations will be subject to severe penalties in accordance with FAU procedures (e.g., receiving an “F” for the course and/or expulsion from the University). Please see http://www.fau.edu/ctl/AcademicIntegrity.php
for more information including the FAU code of academic integrity: http://www.fau.edu/ctl/4.001_Code_of_Academic_Integrity.pdf
.
Students with Disabilities
It is the responsibility of students with disabilities to inform the instructor within the first week of the session of the need for reasonable accommodation of their disabilities. Students are advised to seek assistance from the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD) on campus (see http://www.osd.fau.edu/ for more information). As soon as the need for accommodation is determined by OSD and the need is communicated to the instructor by OSD, reasonable accommodations will be made.
1

Week 1
Monday 1/9 Topic: N/A
No Readings. Course Overview, Requirements, and Syllabus
Wednesday 1/11 Topic: History of Personality Psychology
1) Barenbaum N. B. & Winter, D. G. (2008). History of modern personality theory and research. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality:
Theory and Measurement (3 rd ed pp 3-26). New York: Guilford.
Week 2
Monday 1/16 Topic: Personality Traits: What are Personality Traits?
1) Allport, G. W. (1931). What is a trait of personality? Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology, 25 , 368-372.
2) Allport, G. W. (1937). The Theory of Traits. In G. W. Allport (Author). Personality a
Psychological Interpretation (pp. 286-311). New York: Henry Holt and Company.
3) Allport, G. W. (1937). The Nature of Traits. In G. W. Allport (Author). Personality a
Psychological Interpretation (pp. 312-342). New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Wednesday 1/18 Topic: Personality Traits: The Big 5
1) Goldberg, L. R. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits. American
Psychologist, 48 (1), 26-34.
2) John, O. P. & Srivastava, S. (1999). The big five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of
Personality: Theory and Measurement (2 nd
ed pp 102-138). New York: Guilford.
3) McRae, R. R. & Costa, P. T. Jr. (2008). The five-factor theory of personality. In O. P.
John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and
Measurement (3 rd
ed pp 159-181). New York: Guilford.
Week 3
Monday 1/23 Topic: Personality Traits: Beyond the Big 5
1) Block, J. (1995). A contrarian view of the five factor approach to personality description.
Psychological Bulletin, 117 (2), 187-215.
2)
Paunonen, S. V. & Jackson, D. N. (2000). What’s beyond the big five? Plenty!
Journal of
Personality, 68 (5), 821-835.
3) Ashton, M. C. & Lee, K. (2007). Empirical, theoretical, and practical advantages of the
HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Social Psychological Review,
11 (2), 150-166.
4) Hirsh, J. B., DeYoung, C. G., Xu, X., & Peterson, J. B. (2010). Compassionate liberals and polite conservatives: Associations of agreeableness with political ideology and moral values. Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin, 36 (5), 655-664.
Wednesday 1/25 Topic: Personality Traits: What do they predict?
1) Ozer, D. J. & Benet-Martinez, V. (2006). Personality and the prediction of consequential outcomes. Annual Review of Psychology, 57 , 401-421.
2) Roberts, B. W., Kuncel, N. R., Shiner, R., Caspi, A., & Goldberg, L. R. (2007). The power of personality: The comparative validity of personality traits, socioeconomic status, and cognitive ability for predicting important life outcomes. Perspectives on
Psychological Science, 2 , 313-345.
*Subject to Change at Instructor’s Discretion 2

Week 4
Monday 1/30 Topic: Persons vs. Situations – Early Issues
1) Mischel, W. (1968). Consistency and specificity in behavior. In W. Mischel (author)
Personality and Assessment (pp. 13-39). New York: Wiley.
2) Block, J. (1975). Recognizing the coherence of personality. Unpublished manuscript.
1
3) Epstein, S. (1979). The stability of behavior: On predicting most of the people much of the time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37 (7), 1097-1126.
Wednesday 2/1 Topic: Persons vs. Situations – Modern Perspectives
1) Funder, D. C. & Ozer, D. J. (1983). Behavior as a function of the situation. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 44 , 107-112.
2) Kenrick, D. T. & Funder, D. C. (1988). Profiting from controversy: Lessons from the person-situation debate. American Psychologist, 43 , 23-34.
3) Johnson, J. A. (2007). Not so situational. An e-mail to the SPSP list-serve. Received June
26 th
, 2007.
4) Funder, D. C. (2008). Persons, situations, and person-situation interactions. In O. P. John,
R. W. Robins, and L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and
Measurement (3 rd
ed pp 568-580). New York: Guilford.
Week 5
Monday 2/6 Topic: Personality Judgment – Theoretical Frameworks
1) Allport, G. W. (1937). The ability to judge people. In G. W. Allport (Author). Personality a Psychological Interpretation (pp. 499-522). New York: Henry Holt and Company.
2) Kenny, D. A. (1991). A general model of consensus and accuracy in interpersonal perception. Psychological Review, 98 (2), 155-163.
3) Funder, D. C. (1995). On the accuracy of personality judgment: A realistic approach.
Psychological Review, 102 (4), 652-670.
Wednesday 2/8 Topic: Personality Judgment – Empirical Studies
1) Ambady, N. & Rosenthal, R. (1993). Half a minute: Predicting teacher evaluations from thin slices of nonverbal behavior physical attractiveness. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 64 (3), 431-441.
2) Vazire, S. & Mehl, M. (2008). Knowing me, knowing you: The accuracy and unique predictive validity of self-ratings and other-ratings of daily behavior. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 95 (5), 1202-1216.
3) Biesanz, J. C. & Human, L. J. (2010). The cost of forming more accurate impressions:
Accuracy-motivated perceivers see the personality of others more distinctively but less normatively than perceivers without an explicit goal. Psychological Science, 21 (4), 589-
594.
1 A watered down version of this manuscript was later published as: Block, J. (1977). Advancing the psychology of personality: Paradigmatic shift or improving the quality of research. In D. Magnusson & N. S. Endler (Eds.),
Personality and the Crossroads: Current issues in interactional psychology . Hillsdale, N. J.: Earlbaum.
*Subject to Change at Instructor’s Discretion 3

Week 6
Monday 2/13 Topic: Biological Bases of Personality
1) Wells, S. R. (1873). The temperaments. In D. C. Funder & D. J. Ozer (Eds.), Pieces of the Personality Puzzle (3 rd
ed. pp. 121-127). New York: Norton.
2)
Harris, J. R. (1995). Where is the child’s environment? A group socialization theory of development. Psychological Review, 102 (3), 458-489.
3) Borkenau, P., Riemann, R., Angleitner, A., & Spinath, F. M. (2001). Genetic and environmental influences on observed personality: Evidence from the German observational study of adult twins. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80 (4),
655-668.
Wednesday 2/15 Topic: Biological Bases of Personality
1) Caspi, A., Sugden, K., Moffitt, T. E., Taylor, A., Craig, I. W., Harrington, H., McClay, J.,
Mill, J., Martin, J., Braithwaite, A., & Poulton, R. (2003). Influence of life stress on depression: Moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science, 301 , 386-389.
2) DeYoung, C. G. (2010). Personality neuroscience and the biology of traits. Social and
Personality Psychology Compass, 4 (12), 1165-1180.
3) Krueger, R. F. & Johnson, W. (2008). Behavioral genetics and personality. In O. P. John,
R. W. Robins, and L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and
Measurement (3 rd
ed pp 287-310). New York: Guilford.
Week 7
Monday 2/20 Topic: Personality and Evolution – Theoretical Views
1) Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1990). On the universality of human nature and the uniqueness of the individual: The role of genetics and adaptation. Journal of Personality,
58 (1), 17-67.
2) Figueredo, A. J., Sefcek, J. A., Vasquez, G., Brumbach, B. H., King, J. E., & Jacobs, W.
J. (2005). Evolutionary personality psychology. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), Handbook of
Evolutionary Psychology (pp. 851-877). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
3) Buss, D. M. (2009). How can evolutionary psychology successfully explain personality and individual differences? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4 (4), 359-366.
Wednesday 2/22 Topic: Personality and Evolution – Empirical Studies
1) Nettle, D. (2006). The evolution of personality variation in humans and other animals.
American Psychologist , 61 (6), 622-631.
2) Jackson, J. J. & Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2007). The structure and measurement of human mating strategies: toward a multidimensional model of sociosexuality. Evolution and
Human Behavior, 28 , 382-391.
3) Penke, L. & Asendorpf, J. B. (2008). Beyond global sociosexual orientations: A more differentiated look at sociosexuality and its effects on courtship and romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95 (5), 1113-1135.
*Subject to Change at Instructor’s Discretion 4

Week 8
Monday 2/27 Topic: Psychoanalysis & Personality
1) Frued, S. (1933). Lecture XXXI: The Dissection of the psychical personality. In D. C.
Funder & D. J. Ozer (Eds.), Pieces of the Personality Puzzle (3 rd
ed. pp. 248-257). New
York: Norton.
2) Westen, D., Gabbard, G., & Ortigo, K. (2008). Psychoanalytic approaches to personality.
In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, and L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Measurement (3 rd
ed pp 61-113). New York: Guilford.
Wednesday 2/29 Topic: Personality and the Unconscious
1) Kihlstrom, J. F. (2008). The psychological unconscious. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, and
L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Measurement (3 rd ed pp 583-
602). New York: Guilford.
2) Schultheiss, O. C. (2008). Implicit Motives. The psychological unconscious. In O. P.
John, R. W. Robins, and L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and
Measurement (3 rd
ed pp 603-633). New York: Guilford.
Week 9
Monday 3/5
Spring Break – No Class Meeting
Topic: N/A
Wednesday 3/7
Spring Break – No Class Meeting
Topic: N/A
Week 10
Monday 3/12 Topic: Personality Development – Early Personality
1) Pomerantz, E. M. & Thompson, R. A. (2008). Parents’ role in children’s personality development: The psychological resource principle. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, and L.
A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Measurement (3 rd ed pp 351-
374). New York: Guilford.
2) Caspi, A. & Shiner, R. L. (2006). Personality development. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.),
Handbook of Child Psychology (6 th
ed, Volume 3: Social, Emotional, and Personality
Development , pp. 300-365). New York: Wiley.
Wednesday 3/14 Topic: Personality Development – Adult Personality
1) Srivastava, S., John, O. P., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2003). Development of personality in early and middle adulthood: Set like plaster or persistent change? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84 , 1041-1053.
2) Roberts, B. W., Wood, D., & Caspi, A. (2008). The development of personality traits in adulthood. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, and L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of
Personality: Theory and Measurement (3 rd
ed pp 29-60). New York: Guilford.
*Subject to Change at Instructor’s Discretion 5

Week 11
Monday 3/19 Topic: Personality & Life Outcomes
1) Gosling, S. D., Ko, S. J., Mannarelli, T., & Morris, M. E. (2002). A room with a cue:
Personality judgments based on offices and bedrooms. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 82 (3), 379-398.
2) Back, M. D., Stopfer, J. M., Vazire, S., Gaddis, S., Schmukle, S. C., Egloff, B., &
Gosling, S. D. (2010). Facebook profiles reflect actual personality, not self-idealization.
Psychological Science, 21 (3), 372-374.
3) Rentfrow, P. J. (2010). Statewide differences in personality: Toward a psychological geography of the United States. American Psychologist, 65 (6), 548-558.
Wednesday 3/21 Topic: Personality & Health
1) Booth-Kewley, S. & Friedman, H. S. (1987). Psychological predictors of heart disease: A quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin, 101 (3), 343-362.
2) Friedman, H. S., Tucker, J. S., Tomlinson-Keasey, C., Schwartz, J. E., Wingard, D. L, &
Criqui, M. H. (1993). Does childhood personality predict longevity? Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 65 (1), 176-185.
3) Hampson, S. E., Goldberg, L. R., Vogt, T. M., & Dubanoski, J. P. (2006). Forty years on:
Teachers’ assessments of children’s personality traits predict self-reported health behaviors and outcomes at midlife. Health Psychology, 25 (1), 57-64.
Week 12
Monday 3/26 Topic: Happiness & Well-Being
1) Lucas, R. E. & Diener, E. (2008). Personality and subjective well-being. In O. P. John, R.
W. Robins, and L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Measurement
(3 rd
ed pp 795-814). New York: Guilford.
2) Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55 (1), 34-43.
3) Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55 (1),
68-78.
Wednesday 3/28 Topic: Happiness & Well-Being
1) Lucas, R. E. & Schimmack, U. (2009). Income and well-being: How big is the gap between the rich and the poor? Journal of Research in Personality, 43 , 75-78.
2) Schwartz, B., Ward, A., Monterosso, J., Lyubomirsky, S., White, K., & Lehman, D. R.
(2002). Maximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 83 (5), 1178-1197.
3) Lyubomirsky, S., Dickerhoof, R., Boehm, J. K., & Sheldon, K. M. (2011). Becoming happier takes both a will and a proper way: An experimental longitudinal intervention to boost well-being. Emotion, 11 (2), 391-402.
*Subject to Change at Instructor’s Discretion 6

Week 13
Monday 4/2 Topic: Personality & Culture
1) Markus, H. R. & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98 (2), 224-253.
2) Benet-Martinez, V. & Oishi, S. (2008). Culture and personality. In O. P. John, R. W.
Robins, and L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Measurement (3 rd ed pp 542-567). New York: Guilford.
3) Benet-Martinez, V. & Haritatos, J. (2005). Bicultural identity integration (BII):
Components and psychosocial antecedents. Journal of Personality, 73 (4), 1015-1050.
Wednesday 4/4 Topic: Personality & Culture
1) Ramirez-Esparza, N., Gosling, S. D., Benet-Martinez, V., Potter, J. P., & Pennebaker, J.
W. (2006). Do bilinguals have two personalities? A special case of cultural frame switching. Journal of Research in Personality, 40 , 99-120.
2) Ramirez-Esparza, N., Mehl, M. R., Alvarez-Bermudez, J., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2009).
Are Mexicans more or less sociable than Americans? Insights from a naturalistic observation study. Journal of Research in Personality, 43 , 1-7.
3) Cohen, D., Nisbett, R. E., Bowdle, B. F., Schwarz, N. (1996). Insult, aggression, and the southern culture of honor: An “experimental ethnography.” Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 70 (5), 945-960.
Week 14
Monday 4/9 Topic: Personality & Dynamic Systems
1) Cervone, D. & Shoda, Y. (1999). Beyond traits in the study of personality coherence.
Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8 (1), 27-32.
2) Nowak, A. & Vallacher, R. R. (2005). The emergence of personality: Dynamic foundations of individual variation. Developmental Review, 25 , 351-385.
3) Mischel, W. & Shoda, Y. (2008). Toward a unified theory of personality: Integrating dispositions and processing dynamics within the cognitive-affective processing system.
In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, and L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Measurement (3 rd
ed pp 208-241). New York: Guilford.
4) Fleeson, W. (2004). Moving personality beyond the person-situation debate: The challenge and opportunity of within-person variability. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 13 (2), 83-87.
Wednesday 4/11 Topic: The Self
1) Robins, R. W., Tracy, J. L., & Trzesniewski, K. H. (2008). Naturalizing the self: In O. P.
John, R. W. Robins, and L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and
Measurement (3 rd
ed pp 421-447). New York: Guilford.
2) Klein, S. B., Loftus, J., & Kihlstrom, J. F. (1996). Self-knowledge of an amnesic patient:
Toward a neuropsychology of personality and social psychology. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: General, 125 , 250-260.
3) Baumeister, R. F., Bushman, B. J., & Campbell, W. K. (2000). Self-esteem, narcissism, and aggression: Does violence result from low self-esteem or from threatened egotism?
Psychological Science, 9 , 26-29.
4) Donnellan, M. B., Trzesniewski, K. H., Robins, R. W., Moffitt, T. E., & Caspi, A. C.
(2005). Low self-esteem is related to aggression, antisocial behavior, and delinquency.
Psychological Science, 16 (4), 328-335.
*Subject to Change at Instructor’s Discretion 7

Week 15
Monday 4/16 Topic: Personality Disorders
1) Widiger, T. A. & Smith, G. T. (2008). Personality and psychopathology. In O. P. John, R.
W. Robins, and L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Measurement
(3 rd
ed pp 29-60). New York: Guilford.
2) Clark, L. A. (2005). Temperament as a unifying basis for personality and psychopathology. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114 (4), 505-521.
3) Skodol, A. E., Clark, L. A., Bender, D. S., Krueger, R. F., Morey, L. C., Verheul, R.,
Alarcon, R. D., Bell, C. C., Siever, L. J., & Oldham, J. M. (2011). Proposed changes in personality and personality disorder assessment and diagnosis for DSM-5 part I:
Description and rationale. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 2 (1),
4-22.
Wednesday 4/18 Topic: Personality Disorders
1) Oltmanns, T. F. & Turkheimer, E. (2009). Person perception and personality pathology.
Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18 (1), 32-36.
2) Krueger, R. F., Schmutte, P. S., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Campbell, K., & Silva, P. A.
(1994). Personality traits are linked to crime among men and women: Evidence from a birth cohort. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103 (2), 328-338.
Week 16
Monday 4/23 Topic: Personnel Selection
1) Hogan, R. (2005). In defense of personality measurement: New wine for old whiners.
Human Performance, 18 (4), 331-341.
2) Hogan, R. & Kaiser, R. B. (2010). Personality. In: J. C. Scott and D. H. Reynolds (Eds.)
Handbook of Workplace Assessment . New York: Wiley. pp. ?--? (Chapter 4).
Wednesday 4/25 Topic: Personnel Selection
1) Barrick, M. R. & Mount, M. K. (1991). The big five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44 , 1-26.
2) Johnson, M. K., Rowatt, W. C., & Petrini, L. (2011). A new trait on the market: Honestyhumility as a unique predictor of job performance ratings. Personality and Individual
Differences, 50 , 857-862.
Week 17
Monday 4/30 Topic: Forward Thinking about Personality
1) Benet-Martinez, V., Donnellen, M. B., Fleeson, W., Fraley, R. C., Gosling, S. D., King,
L. A., Robins, R. W., & Funder, D. C. (forthcoming). Six visions for the future of personality psychology. In L. Cooper and R. Larsen (eds) Handbook of Psychology:
Volume 3 Personality .
*Subject to Change at Instructor’s Discretion 8