PSYC 356: Introduction to Personality Theories and Issues (Rev. C5) Report a Broken Link

Psychology 356 examines the field of personality from a scientific perspective. The key theorists and concepts associated with each perspective are highlighted, along with the strengths and limitations of that perspective.

Supplementary Readings


Focuses on common personality traits of achievement, anxiety, extraversion, dominance, and creativity to suggest that certain procedures seem to be morphogenic in nature, or at least semi-morphogenic, even while also remaining controlled, repeatable, and reliable.
The authors take issue with Seligman’s position on the Consumer Reports issue.
Explores evidence suggesting that traits may carry as much variance as experimental manipulations.
Discusses the trait perspective in personality as an explanation for the attributes individuals “have.” Suggests that a cognitive perspective on personality can complement this description, providing a view of what Allport called the “doing” side of personality.
Discusses a study focusing on the use of imagoes, personified self-concepts as a theory in assessing a specific personality.
Presents a research-based model that accounts for major patterns of adaptive and maladaptive behavior—the mastery-oriented and the helpless patterns—in terms of underlying psychological processes.
Hermans argues that both idiographic and nomothetic techniques should be used to study personal meaning. He also asserts the need for a new theoretical framework to integrate these two types of research methods.
Results of a study on the experiences, interests, and attitudes of graduate students’ learning the Rorschach, based on a questionnaire sent to 235 student affiliates of the Society for Personality Assessment.
Examines the findings from behavioral genetics that indicate the effects of environment on personality, while recognizing that siblings are not alike.
Proposes that research has failed to clarify the causal role of group cohesiveness in groupthink because of a failure to distinguish cohesiveness from friendship.
Examines the historical origins of the nomothetic and idiographic branches of science. Discusses the logical implications of these terms, the reasons psychologists espouse them, and alternative solutions to the underlying problems.
Hunt points what he sees as errors and inconsistencies in Seligman’s study.
Explores children’s initial dispositions to approach or to avoid unfamiliar events as temperamental factors in human development.
Explains how the electra complex is actually misrepresented and inaccurately described in most psychology textbooks.
Discusses the results of two studies exploring the positive correlation of the personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism with susceptibilities to positive and negative mood states.
Seligman argues that, by combining the results from efficacy studies with the results from the Consumer Reports study about the effectiveness of psychotherapy, a bridge between science and practice will be created and knowledge about the benefits of psychotherapy will be enhanced.
Seligman responds to criticisms of his Consumer Reports study in which he investigated the effectiveness of psychotherapy.
Seligman critiques his Consumer Reports study on the effectiveness of psychotherapy. He suggests that if the survey method is combined with the traditional efficacy method, researchers will be better able to validate psychotherapy empirically.
Relates the Consumer Reports (1995) study to the framework of the tripartite model of mental health and therapeutic outcomes (H. H. Strupp & S. W. Hadley, 1977) and calls attention to major unsolved problems in the assessment of therapeutic change.