Psychology 301: Personality Research
Spring, 2008

last updated March 30, 2008

301 Spring, 2008 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 31 Introduction to the course (very large pdf)
3 approaches to personality psychology
Revelle, Annual Review 1995
Mischel, Annual Review, 2004
Revelle and Oehlberg
Take the
Big 5 inventory

your scores are anonymous
April 2 Descriptive Taxonomies
Behavioral Taxonomies
the "Personality Coefficient"
Pervin: Personality taxonomies
John: The Big 5
Week 2 : April 7 The ABCD's of Personality
Causal Theories of approach and avoidance
Experimental Techniques in Personality Research
April 9 Approach: Introversion/extraversion and Impulsivity
theories based upon Eysenck and Gray
Wilt and Revelle Extraversion (in press?)
Smillie, Pickering and Jackson (2006) The new Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory: Implications for personality measurement.
Revelle, Amaral and Turiff (1976)
Revelle, Humphreys, Simon and Gilliland (1980)
(optional: see Eysenck web page)
Week 3 April 14 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 16Approach: Achievement Motivation
classical theory of risk preference (html)
(class notes pdf)
hierarchical models
Elliot and Thrash (2002)
Week 4 April 21 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 23 Avoidance: Anxiety
Anxiety and performance (pdf)
Elliot and McGregor (1999)
Week 5 April 28 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 30 Midterm
Part 2: The Measurement of Personality
Week 6 May 5 Basic issues in measurement
problems of measurement
review of variance/covariance) Review old statistics notes
May 7 Fundamentals of reliabilty reliability notes (pdf) Research Proposal due
Week 7 May 12 Types of reliability and validity Item construction
May 14 Scale Construction choose projects (in class)
Week 8 May 19 Factor analysis
scale construction
Design project
May 21 Validity and decision making prq analysis
Part 3: Experimental Studies of Personality
Week 9 May 26 Validity
Pitfalls in Research
Pitfalls (pdf)
May 28 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: June 1 Reading Week Using R to analyze personality data Data analysis (by appointment)
Week 11June 11/td> Papers due, (optional) Final Exam (June 11)
Course and Teacher Evaluation (CTEC)

William Revelle
Revised March 30 2008