Psychology 301: Personality Research
Spring, 2006

last updated April 19, 2006

301 Spring, 2006 Outline:
Week Date Substantive Content
lecture notes
Reading
(for readings on the personality server, use
id="psych", pw="psych"
for readings at NU library, log in with your net id
for some journals, you need to be logged in at NU
Requirements
Part I: Current Theories of Personality
Week 1 March 27 Introduction to the course
3 approaches to personality psychology
Revelle, Annual Review 1995
Mischel, Annual Review, 2004
Take the
Big 5 inventory (latest version)
(If that doesn't work, try
Big 5 inventory
your scores are anonymous
March 29 Descriptive Taxonomies
Behavioral Taxonomies
the "Personality Coefficient"
Pervin: Personality taxonomies
John: The Big 5
Week 2 (pdf): April 3 The ABCD's of Personality
Causal Theories of approach and avoidance
April 5 Approach: Introversion/extraversion and Impulsivity
theories based upon Eysenck and Gray
Revelle, Amaral and Turiff (1976)
Revelle, Humphreys, Simon and Gilliland (1980)
(optional: see Eysenck web page
Week 3 April 10 Alternative approaches to I/E
I/E, arousal and performance
I/E and positive affect
I/E and within and between variability
Revelle, 1997 (impulsivity)
Revelle, 1993 (Broadbent)
Rogers and Revelle, 1998
Fleeson, 2001,
Fleeson, Malanos, Achille, 2002
Canli, et al., (2002)
April 12Approach: Achievement Motivation
classical theory of risk preference (html)
(class notes pdf)
hierarchical models
Elliot and Thrash (2002)
Week 4 April 17 Achievement motivation and efficient performance
Dynamic models of motivation
Revelle, 1986 Atkinson festschrift
Elliot and McGregor (1999)
Informal preliminary proposal
help in literature searches
Avoid common writing errors
April 19 Avoidance: Anxiety
Anxiety and performance (pdf)
Elliot and McGregor (1999)
Week 5 April 24 Approach and Avoidance:
Personality, Motivation, and Performance
a theoretical proposal (pdf)
Atheory of personality, motivation, and cognition: (Revelle (1992)
Personality and changes in affect over time Gilboa & Revelle
Personality and affective processing (Rogers and Revelle, 1998)
further thoughts on personality dynamics and a simulation
Proposal requirements and
a guide to searching the literature
April 26 Midterm
Part 2: The Measurement of Personality
Week 6 May 1 Basic issues in measurement
problems of measurement
review of variance/covariance) Review old statistics notes
May 3 Fundamentals of reliabilty reliability notes (pdf) Research Proposal due
Week 7 May 8 Types of reliability and validity Item construction
May 10 Scale Construction choose projects (in class)
Week 8 May 15 Factor analysis
scale construction
Design project
May 17 Validity and decision making chapter to criticize
Week 9 May 22 Validity
Pitfalls in Research
Pitfalls (pdf) prq analysis
Part 3: Experimental Studies of Personality
May 24 Evolutionary perspectives
Personality and behavior genetics
Behavior genetics, intelligence, life span studies
McGue and Bouchard, Annual Review of Neuroscience, 1998
Bouchard, 2004
discussion of projects
Week 10: May 29 Reading Week Using R to analyze personality data Data analysis (by appointment)
Week 11June 7 Papers due, (optional) Final Exam (June 7)
Course and Teacher Evaluation (CTEC)

William Revelle
Revised April 3, 2006