PSYC 305: Personality Psychology
Instructor: David King
There were 3 exams, each worth 33%. This makes each exam non-cumulative, which, in my perspective, is preferable over the traditional midterm and cumulative final. Also, as an alternative, you could do an optional term paper and write an psychobiography. That is, an analysis on real person or fictional character that you know using one of the psychological theories that was discussed in class. In this alternative grading scheme, each of the 3 exams will be worth 25% and the paper will be worth 25%.
The exams have short & long answer questions that test on lecture material, and multiple choice questions that test material from the textbook. The textbook was Personality Psychology (1st Canadian edition), and the professor David King was one of the co-authors. Dr. King wanted to solidify our understanding of the lecture material as well as make it more interesting by introducing 3 case studies for each module - Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, and Malala Yousafzai. You can expect exam questions about certain aspects of the personalities of these 3 individuals.
Almost like every other Psychology course that I took, this course looks into the different areas of psychology, including psychoanalytical psychology, health psychology (which is Dr. King’s area of research), cultural psychology, evolutionary psychology, and so on. There were 2 entire chapters of the textbook that was dedicated to psychoanalytical psychology (yes, Sigmund Freud’s theories will once again make their way into the curriculum) although Dr. King expressed that he does not endorse them, only acknowledges their contribution to making psychology its own discipline.
Dr. King provided his students with a study guide, which tells you which concepts to focus on in each chapter as well as which ones won’t be examinable. It’s important to stick to this study guide as it will save you a lot of time (as you won’t be studying non-examinable material) and help you do better on the exams. And, as always, make sure you know the learning objectives in lectures well enough to produce them via recall during the exam. Chances are, some of these will become the written questions.
I took this course because I was interested in social psychology. Ironically, I had never taken PSYC 308, the social psychology course due to scheduling conflicts. With personality psychology is one of the sub-branches of social psychology, I decided to take the course.
While I don’t deny the importance of personality and how it is ubiquitous in every branch of psychology, I couldn’t shake of the feeling of not being too impressed by this course. Perhaps because this is my 6th 300-level psychology course, and my 8th psychology course during my undergrad. I found that by the end of my run to get my Psychology minor, none of the courses felt like a novelty. “Been there, done that”. I loved PSYC 307 (Cultural Psychology) though, and I would recommend it to anyone who has even the slightest interest in learning about cultures.