Course Syllabus
2130 Personality
Psychology, September
2010
“Know
Thyself”
Section C, Mondays 7:00-10:00, Curtis Lecture Hall E
Section A, Tuesdays 11:30-2:30, Vari Hall C
Prerequisite:
PSYC 1010 6.0 with the minimum grade of C
Course Website:
http://www.yorku.ca/ianmc/psyc2130/Syllabus2130September2010.htm
Instructor
Prof. Ian McGregor,
PhD: ianmc@yorku.ca, 240 BSB
http://www.yorku.ca/ianmc/
Teaching
Assistants’ Email and Office Hours:
Email questions about
course content from students in both sections C and A: Eric Oosenbrug:
eoosen@yorku.ca
In-person office hour
(Room BSB 150A; 5:45-6:45) for Monday night section C students: Eric Oosenbrug:
eoosen@yorku.ca.
In-person office hour
(Room 307 BSB; 10:15-11:15) for Tuesday afternoon section A students:
Gayle Goldstein: ggold@yorku.ca
For anything to do
with missed tests, doctor’s notes, and make-up test rescheduling:
Gayle Goldstein: ggold@yorku.ca
For anything to do with
your SONA sign-ups or your research participation: Justin Mullin: jmullin@yorku.ca
Email: When
sending email to TAs or the Instructor, always indicate the course code
“2130” and your specific section letter (i.e., C or A) in the
title of your email.
Readings:
are provided at: http://www.yorku.ca/ianmc/psyc2130/readings.doc.
A pdf version can be found at: http://www.yorku.ca/ianmc/psyc2130/readings.pdf
Research
Participation: 5% of your grade will come from research participation
(mostly online). See below for details.
Course Objectives:
1. Learn about historical
roots and theories of personality
processes and individual
differences.
2. Gain appreciation
for why personality science is necessary and how it is conducted.
3. Understand the
evolving relation between theory and scientific research
4. Appreciate how
personality psychology can inform your life and world events.
WEEKLY SCHEDULE
Sept 13, 14: Historical Roots and
Important Administrative Information
Research: Get 2130
SONA account and start participating in PSYCH-2130 studies
Sept 20, 21: Greek Foundations of
Personality Processes and Individual Differences
Reading:
Plato’s Cave Allegory, The Ancient Greeks, Freud and Jung Lectures
Sept 27, 28: Freud and Jung
Reading:
Freud and Jung Biographies and Theories
Oct 4, 5: Motives and Traits (after
Quiz 1 worth 19%)
Reading: Needs and
Motives, Traits
First
Research Participation Deadline: The first laboratory study
(2130 Study 1) must be completed by the end of reading week.
Oct. 11, 12: Reading Week
Oct 18, 19: Research Methods
Reading:
Correlations, Experiments
Oct 25, 26: Goal Dynamics (after
Quiz 2 worth 19%)
Reading:
Pavlov
Research
Participation Deadline: Your online (i.e., 2130 Personality
Studies 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b) and remaining in-lab (i.e., 2130
Personality Study 5) research participation must be complete by midnight on Sunday, October 31.
Nov 1, 2: Goal Dynamics and
Well-Being
Reading:
Rogers and Maslow
Nov 8, 9: Neo-Analytic Theories
(after Quiz 3 worth 19%)
Reading:
Erikson, Adler
Nov 15, 16: Self-Esteem, Narcissism,
Attachment Style, and Repression
Reading: Learning, Horney
Nov 22, 23: Threat and Defense
(after Quiz 4 worth 19%)
Reading:
Fromm
Nov 29, 30: Culture, Religion, and
Politics
Reading:
Buddhism and Meditation, World Religions, William James’ Varieties of
Religious Experience.
December 6, 7: Quiz 5 (19%)
Optional session
after quiz for review of results of personality research you participated
in during the course.
No Final Exam
Make up quiz for Quiz 3, 4, & 5 held on Thursday
December 9th between
1:00-3:00pm in 108 Founders. Please bring documentation and
Identification.
Lecture Timing:
Lectures will begin 5 minutes after the scheduled start time, and end at
least five minutes before the scheduled end time. Lectures will have a 10
minute break somewhere near the middle.
Lecture Attendance:
Lecture attendance is vital because much of the material you will be tested
on is not in the readings. It is highly recommended that you exchange
contact information with a few classmates at the beginning of the course
for sharing notes if one of you has to miss a lecture.
Technology
Regulations: Please step outside the lecture hall to call, text, or
check your phones, Blackberries, and other messaging devices. Laptops are
permitted for note-taking only. Using laptops during class time for other
work, email, face-book, video-games, or surfing is not allowed (too
distracting for professor and other students). Please be considerate and
use your laptops for note-taking, only. Further, it would be much
appreciated if those of you who choose to take notes on your laptops could
please sit at the back half of the class so that I won’t be
distracted by you and so that students who want to avoid being distracted
by your laptops can sit near the front.
Readings:
Readings listed for quiz days
will not be included on that day’s quiz.
Research
Participation: 5% of your grade will come from participation in
research directly related to the course material. The instructor and the
TAs will have access to aggregated, anonymous data, only, and will not be
able to match your identifying information to your responses. (A researcher
who is not involved in other aspects of grading, Justin Mullin jmullin@yorku.ca
will administer your grade out of 5% for research participation). The research
participation is designed to give you hands-on experience with aspects of
contemporary personality research that will be discussed in lecture. You
will also be given the opportunity to see where your personality scores
stand in relation to those of the other students taking the course.
The research studies
will be administered by the on-line SONA system and overseen by a TA
dedicated to managing student research participation, TBA. If you have any
questions about your research participation, you can email TBA. Most of you
will have used the SONA system last year for URPP participation when you
took introductory psychology at York
University. You can sign up on
the SONA system at http://yorku.sona-systems.com/default.asp.
You must indicate that you are enrolled in one of the 2130 sections, and
then you must complete the online pre-test in order to have full access to
the research participation. In particular, you must complete the one
question in pre-test that asks you for the last digit of your student
number. Make sure to know this number when you are completing the SONA
pre-test. You will see dozens of other studies that the Introductory
Psychology students have access to. Please ignore those, and just complete
the studies for your 2130 course that will all have titles that begin with
“2130 Personality Study.”
There will be 5 of these studies and each will be less than an hour long.
Three can be completed on the web and two will require that you sign up for
and attend an in-person laboratory session. Make sure to sign up early for
the lab sessions to make sure you get a time that suits you best. All of
the studies must be completed before Midnight
on Sunday, October 31. This will allow time for us to analyze the data and
present your personality results to you in a review session at the end of
the course.
As an alternative to
research participation, students may choose to write an eight page essay
(double spaced, normal font and margins) integrating course themes related
to how goals relate to both classic personality theory and to contemporary
research. Students wishing to take this essay option must declare their
intention to do so before the start of the Week 4 lecture. Essays must be
handed in before the beginning of the final, Week 12 quiz.
Quizzes:
Questions will be drawn from readings and lectures. Half of the marks on
all quizzes will come from around 20 multiple-choice questions. The other
half will be based on two short essay answers (two double-spaced pages
each). It is vital that you arrive on time for quizzes and exams because no
one will be allowed to write a test once any other student has left the
testing room (for security reasons). About half of the marks on quizzes 3-5
will come from questions that require some integration of key ideas from
previous weeks.
Each quiz will be 45
minutes long. To do well on the quizzes it is recommended that you compose
and rehearse your answers to the short essay questions ahead of time when
you are studying so that you can simply reproduce your answer from memory
during the quiz. Otherwise, you may find that you run out of time.
Missed Tests:
Due to the number of students enrolled and limited administrative
resources, we are able to offer make-up
tests under extraordinary circumstances only (see below). If you miss a
test, you will receive a grade of zero unless you comply with the following
regulations:
1. You must either
email Gayle Goldstein: ggold@yorku.ca (preferable) or call my
secretary, Barbara Thurston (416-736-2100 ext. 66253), before the exam, stating why you are unable to write it.
2. Then within two days (i.e., weekdays) of
the missed test you must give documentation supporting your reason for
missing the test to the Gayle Goldstein, ggold@yorku.ca, or to Barbara Thurston (Room
283 BSB).
a) If you miss a test
for medical reasons, you must have a valid medical document, signed by a
medical doctor. The note must explicitly state that you were *medically* unable to take the
test at the scheduled time. It is
not sufficient to simply have a note saying you had a doctor’s
appointment.
b) If you miss a test
for non-medical reasons, you still must produce supporting documentation (e.g., a relative’s
death certificate or obituary notice, or a police report). Missing a test
for a vacation or a work commitment is not an acceptable reason.
3. Students with
valid reasons for missing an exam must be prepared to write the make-up
test within one week or less of the missed test. You must contact the TA to
find out the date and time for the make-up test. Again due to limited
administrative resources, the TA can not accommodate individual, special
requests for make-up test timing. The date and time of the make-up test
will be determined by the TA.
Drop Date: If
you wish to drop the course without receiving a grade, you must do so
before November 12th.
End of Course
Requests for Grade Bump-Ups: Every year dozens of students come to me
after the course is over and say something like, “I missed my B by
.3%, please bump me up—my whole life depends on it!!!” Because
one in six students are always in the position of missing a higher grade
category by a fraction of a mark, indulging all such requests would result
in unacceptable grade inflation. Accordingly, I am sorry that I will not
agree to bump you up.
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