Psychology 2484: Personality: Empirical, Theoretical, & Clinical Perspectives

Fall, 1998

Sept 21: Introduction: What is personality and how do we know it when we see it?

I. Psychodynamic approaches to personality

Sept 28: From dreams to drives

• Westen, D. (1990). Psychoanalytic approaches to personality. In L Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research. N.Y.: Guilford Press. pp.22-65.
• Freud, S. (1910). Five lectures on psychoanalysis. New York: Norton, pp.1-48.
• Freud, S. (1905/1962). Three contributions to the theory of sex. New York: Dutton, pp.35-46, 57-60.
• McClelland, D., Koestner, R., & Weinberger, J. (1989). How do self-attributed and implicit motives differ? Psychological Review, 96, 690-702.
• Westen, D. (in press). The scientific legacy of Sigmund Freud: Toward a psychodynamically informed psychological science. Psychological Bulletin.

Oct 5: Ego functioning and psychic structure

• Freud, S. (1933). The dissection of the psychical personality. New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York: Norton, pp.57-80.
• Vaillant, G., & Vaillant, L.M. (1998). The role of ego mechanisms of defense in the diagnosis of personality disorders. In J. Barron (Ed.), Making diagnosis meaningful (pp.139-158). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association Press.
• Shedler, J., Mayman, M., & Manis, M. (1993). The illusion of mental health. American Psychologist, 48, 1117-1131.
• Colvin, R., Block, J., & Funder, D. (1995). Overly positive self evaluations and personality: negative implications for mental health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68.
• Erikson, E. (1986). The eight ages of man. Childhood and society, 3rd ed. New York: Norton, pp.247-274.

Oct 12: Columbus Day (Holiday)

Oct 19: Object relations, self psychology, attachment, and relational approaches

• Kernberg, O. (1984). Structural diagnosis. Severe personality disorders. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp.3-27.
• Kohut, H. (1966). Forms and transformations of narcissism. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 14, 243-272.
• Kohut, H. (1977). The bipolar self. The restoration of the self. N.Y.: International Universities Press, pp.71-199.
• McWilliams, N. (1998). Relationship, subjectivity, and inference in diagnosis. In J. Barron (Ed.), Making diagnosis meaningful (pp.197-226). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association Press.
• Main, M. (1995). Recent studies in attachment: Overview, with selected implications for c clinical work. In S. Goldberg, R.Muir, & J. Kerr (Eds.), Attachment theory: Social, developmental, and clinical perspectives (pp.407-474). Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum.
• Simpson, J., Rholes, W., & Nelligan, J. (1992). Support seeking and support giving within couples in an anxiety-provoking situation: The role of attachment styles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 434-446.

II. Trait approaches and the psychometric tradition

Oct 26: Test construction and classical trait theory

• McAdams, D. (1997). A conceptual history of personality psychology. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, & S. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology (pp.3-40). NY: Academic Press.
• Murray, H. (1938). Explorations in personality: A clinical and experimental study of fifty men of college age. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, pp. vi- xii, 38-49.
• Allport, G. (1937). Personality: A psychological interpretation. New York: Holt and Company, pp.285-314.
• Green, B. (1981). A primer of testing. American Psychologist, 36, 1001-1011.
• Cronbach, L, & Meehl, P. (1955). Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychological Bulletin, 52, 281-302.
• McCrae, R., & Costa, P. (1987). Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 81-90.

Nov 2: The Five Factor Model and the challenge to the trait construct

• McCrae, R., & Costa, P.T., Jr. (1997). Personality trait structure as a human universal. American Psychologist, 52, 509-516.
• Block, J. (1995). A contrarian view of the five-factor approach to personality description. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 187-215.
• Westen, D. (1996). A model and a method for uncovering the nomothetic from the idiographic: A comparison with the Five Factor Model. Journal of Research in Personality, 30, 400-413.
• Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York: Wiley, pp. 5-11, 20-30, 36-43, 68-72, 103-116, 145-148.

Nov 9: The challenge to the challenge: Will the real personality please stand up?

• Epstein, S. (1986). Does aggregation produce spuriously high estimates of behavior stability? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 1199-1210.
• Kenrick, D., & Funder, D. (1988). Profiting from controversy: Lessons from the person-situation debate. American Psychologist, 43, 23-34.
• Funder, D., & Colvin, C.R. (1991). Explorations in behavioral consistency: Properties of persons, situations, and behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 773-794.
• Shedler, J., & Block, J. (1990). Adolescent drug use and psychological health: A longitudinal inquiry. American Psychologist, 45, 612-630.

Nov 16: Heredity, environment, and evolution

• Loehlin, J.C., Willerman, L., & Horn, J.M. (1987). Personality resemblance in adoptive families: A 10-year follow-up. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 961-969.
• Plomin, E., DeFries, J., McClearn, G., & Rutter, M. (1997). Behavioral genetics. New York: Freeman, Ch.11 and 14 (pp.195-216 and 245-273).
• Buss, D. (1991). Evolutionary personality psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 42, 459-492.
• Buss, D, Haselton, M., Shackelford, T., Bleske, A., & Wakefield, J.C. (1998). Adaptations, exaptations, and spandrels. American Psychologist, 53, 533-548.

III. Cognitive social approaches

Nov 23: From behavior to cognition

• Skinner, B.F. (1987). Whatever happened to psychology as the science of human behavior? American Psychologist, 42, 780-786.
• Rotter, J. (1954). Social learning and clinical psychology. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, pp.105-111, 165-168.
• Bandura, A. (1967). The role of modeling personality development. In C. Lavatelli & F. Stendler (Eds.)., Readings in childhood and development (pp.334-343). New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
• Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37, 122-147.
• Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. (1984). Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression: Theory and evidence. Psychological Review, 91, 347-374.
• Beck, A.T. (1996). Beyond belief: A theory of modes, personality, and psychopathology. In P.M. Salkovskis (Ed.), Frontiers of cognitive therapy (pp. 1-25). New York: Guilford Press.

Nov 30: Cognitive science and personality

• Mischel, W. (1979). On the interface of cognition and personality: Beyond the person-situation debate. American Psychologist, 34, 740-754.
• Cantor, N., & Mischel, N. (1982). A prototype analysis of psychological situations. Cognitive Psychology, 14, 45-77.
• Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, pp. xi-xiii, 1-22, 335-363.
• Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review, 102, 246-268.
• Strauman, T., Lemieux, A., & Coe, C. (1993). Self-discrepancy and natural killer cell activity: Immunological consequences of negative self-evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 1042-1052.

IV. Humanistic-existential approaches

Dec 7: Rogers, Maslow, and existential theories

• Rogers, C. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality, and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of a science, Vol.3, Formulations of the personal and the social context (184-255). N.Y.: McGraw-Hill.
• Maslow, A. (1962). Toward a psychology of being. Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, pp.3-8, 19-41.
• Becker, E. (1975). The denial of death. N.Y.: Free Press, pp.11-24.
• Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Simon, L. (1997). Suppression, accessibility of death-related thoughts, and cultural worldview defense: Exploring the psychodynamics of terror management. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 5-18.

V. The cultural context

Dec 11: Culture and personality

• Westen, D. (1985). Culture and personality: Dying species or vigorous hybrid? In Westen, D. Self and society: Narcissism, collectivism, and the development of morals. N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, pp. 285-298.
• Fromm, E. (1955). The emergence of the individual and the ambiguity of freedom. Escape from freedom. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Books, pp.24-39.
• LeVine, R. (1982). Basic concepts in an evolutionary model. Culture, behavior, and personality. Chicago: Aldine, pp.115-135.
• Triandis, H. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts. Psychological Bulletin, 96, 506-520.
• McAdams, D. (1996). Personality, modernity, and the storied self: A contemporary framework for studying persons. Psychological Inquiry, 7, 295-321.

Grading will be based on a 10-15-page paper due January 15.

Created: 16 January 1999
Last updated: 28 January 1999