Psychology 221 Personality Psychology

Fall 2015
Dr. Mark Leary
E-mail: leary@duke.edu

Office: 306 Soc/Psy

Phone: 660-5750

Teaching Assistant: Katrina Jongman-Sereno, kpj3@duke.edu

This course is designed to introduce you to theory and research in psychology that deals with the human
personality, focusing on human nature (how all people are similar), individual differences (how people
differ from one another), and personality processes (the ways in which personality is involved in emotion,
thought, and behavior). Topics to be covered include: personality traits, genetic and biological influences
on personality, cognitive aspects of personality, motivation and emotion, self and identity, unconscious
processes, personality measurement, and personality dysfunctions.

Text: Larsen, R. J., & Buss, D. M. (2014). Personality psychology (5th edition). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Topics and Assignments:
Week of

Topic

Chapters

Aug. 23

Introduction; Personality assessment

Aug. 30

Personality assessment

Sept. 6

Traits and personality structure

3, 4

Sept. 13

Motivational aspects of personality

11

Sept. 20

Cognitive aspects of personality

12

Sept. 27

Emotional aspects of personality

Test 1 Oct. 1

13

Oct. 4

Personality and well-being

Genetic bases of personality

18
6

Oct. 11

No class Oct. 13 (Fall Break)

Physiological processes

Oct. 18

Evolutionary perspectives
Oct. 22 Paper 1 due

Oct. 25

Unconscious processes

9, 10

Nov. 1

Self and identity

Test 2 Nov. 5

----

Nov. 8

Self and identity

14

Nov. 15

Personality and social behavior

Nov. 19 Paper 2 due

15

Nov. 22

Personality and culture

No class Nov. 26 (Thanksgiving break)

16, 17

Nov. 29

Dysfunctional personalities

19

Finals week

Test 3Tuesday, Dec. 8 7:00 PM

Grades
Course grades will be based on three tests (100 points each) and two papers (25 points each). In addition,
occasional, brief reaction papers will be assigned. These papers will not be graded, but you will lose 5
points from your course point total for any of these papers that you do not hand in. Late papers (up to 5
days late) will lose 1 point per day.
Final grades will be assigned according to the following scale. These grade cutoffs are firm; that is, I will
not round point totals up to the next highest grade.
A+
A
AB+
B
BC+

339-350 points
325-338 points
315-324 points
304-314 points
290-303 points
280-289 points
269-279 points

C
CD+
D
DF

255-268 points
245-254 points
234-244 points
220-233 points
210-219 points
< 210 points

Papers
Paper 1: Reading a Journal Article. The purpose of this assignment is to give you experience reading,
digesting, and summarizing research articles in personality psychology. This will involve a 3-page paper
that summarizes and critiques an article that I will assign.
Paper 2: Applying Personality Psychology to Yourself. Toward the end of the semester, you will write a
3-page paper in which you apply concepts, theories, and research in personality psychology to an analysis
of your own personality. You do not need to start thinking about this paper until I give you the assignment a
few weeks before it is due.
Reaction Papers. I will also be giving a few very brief, 1-2 page writing assignments that are intended to
get you to think about the topics that we cover in class. These papers will not be graded, but you will lose
points from your course point total for any papers that you do not hand in (as described above).
Please submit paper copies of all writing assignments.

On-line Learning Center

There is an on-line Learning Center that includes study materials for your textbook at
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/007803535x/student_view0/
Depending on your own studying style, you may or may not find this site useful, but it is available for those
of you who want it.

Lab Component for Students Who Have Not Met the Departmental Research Requirement
To provide you with direct experience with psychological research, you must either (a) participate in 5
hours of research being conducted in the department or (b) write papers that review and critique published
studies in personality that I will assign to you. (You will write a 400-550 word paper for each 1-hour of
research credit.)
For those of who you have taken courses with a research participation requirement previously, the
department has a cap of 10 hours on the total number of hours that students must complete across all
psychology classes that they take. So, those of you who have previously completed more than 5 hours in
other classes will need to complete less than five hours of research or papers to fulfill the requirement. (If
you have completed 10 or more hours previously, you do not have to do the requirement at all.)
You should sign on to the research participation web site during the first week of class and declare whether
you will be participating in research or writing the papers:
http://psychandneuro.duke.edu/undergraduate/subjectpool
An initial prescreening study will be conducted on-line soon after classes start, which I encourage you to
complete because it will make more studies available to you during the semester. But you must register
quickly to take advantage of the prescreening.
Studies will slowly appear on-line during the first few weeks of class as researchers get their projects
started, after which studies will be posted at a faster rate. You should plan to complete your required studies
by Thanksgiving if possible.
Please take this assignment seriously. Not only do I want your research participation or article-reading to
be educational for you, but the studies in which you may participate are being conducted by faculty,
graduate students, and undergraduates here at Duke. The success of their projects and their education
depend on you taking the studies seriously. If you have any problems associated with this assignment,
please let Katrina or me know immediately.

Class Etiquette and Computer Use

Over the past few years, I have received many complaints from students about the fact that they find other
students use of computers for nonacademic purposes during class to be distracting and disruptive, and I
have also been frustrated when I see students so focused on their computers that they are oblivious to
what is happening in class. Because this has become a problem, I insist that you do not text-message,
read e-mail, use social media (such as Facebook), or surf the web during class. If you wish to use your
computer to take notes, thats fine, but you must not use your computer for anything other than taking
notes. If you are not taking notes on it, please put your computer (and cell phone) away during class.