Psychology 401

Required Readings:

     Johnson, J. A. (1997). Units of analysis for the description and explanation of personality. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, & S. Briggs (Eds.) Handbook of personality psychology. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

     Cronbach, L. J. (1957). The two disciplines of scientific psychology. American Psychologist, 12, 671-684.

     Cronbach, L. J. (1975). Beyond the two disciplines of scientific psychology. American Psychologist, 30, 116-127.

     Block, J. (1978). The Q-sort method in personality assessment and psychiatric research. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. (Original work published 1961)

     Bowers, K. S. (1976). There's more to Iago than meets the eye: A clinical account of personal consistency. In D. Magnusson & N. S. Endler (Eds.), Personality at the crossroads: Current issues in interactional psychology (pp. xx-xx). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

     Hofstee, W. K. B. (1994). Who should own the definition of personality? European Journal of Personality, 8, 149-162.

     Megargee, E. I. (1972). California Psychological Inventory handbook. Chapter 2: Philosophical basis of the CPI (pp. 9-20.) San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

     Gough, H. G. (1989, April). The new California Psychological Inventory: Implications for research and practice. In P. McReynolds (Chair), Recent advances in psychological assessment. Invited symposium conducted at the annual meeting of the Western Psychological Association, Sparks, Nevada.

     Gough, H. G., & Bradley, P. (1996). CPI manual (3^rd ed.). Chapter 1: Introduction (pp. 1-16). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

     Meehl, P. E. (1945). The dynamics of "structured" personality tests. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1, 296-303.

     Johnson, J. A. (1997). Seven social performance scales for the California Psychological Inventory. Human Performance, 10, 1-30.

     Wolfe, R. N. (1993). A commonsense approach to personality measurement. In K. H. Craik, R. Hogan, & R. N. Wolfe (Eds.), Fifty years of personality psychology (pp. 269-290). New York: Plenum.

     Briggs, S. R., & Cheek, J. M. (1986). The role of factor analysis in the development and evaluation of personality scales. Journal of Personality, 54, 106-148.

      Goldberg, L. R. (in press). The comparative validity of adult personality inventories: A first empirical application of a consumer-testing framework. Chapter to appear in S. R. Briggs, J. M. Cheek, & E. M. Donahue (Eds.), Handbook of adult personality inventories.

     Hogan, R., & Nicholson, R. A. (1988). The meaning of personality test scores. American Psychologist, 43, 621-626. The following articles are responses to the Hogan and Nicholson article.

     Edwards, A. L. (1990). Construct validity and social desirability. American Psychologist, 45, 287-289.

     Walsh, J. A. (1990). Comment on social desirability. American Psychologist, 45, 289-290.

     Nicholson, R. A., & Hogan, R. (1990). The construct validity of social desirability. American Psychologist, 45, 290-292.

     Howard, G. S. (1990). On the construct validity of self-reports: What do the data say? American Psychologist, 45, 292-294.

     Kagan, J. (1990). Validity is local. American Psychologist, 45, 294-295.

Instructional Goals for Course:

1. To allow students to understand personality research as a world view, complementary to experimental research.
2. To allow students to understand how to conduct, quantify, analyze, and interpret structured observations of personality.
3. To allow students to understand how to quantify, analyze, and interpret self-reports of personality.
4. To allow students an opportunity to learn about hypothesis testing through the construction and preliminary validation of an original self-report personality scale.

Grading:

Grades will be based on performance on three take-home essay tests (100 points each), three labs begun in class and completed out of class (100 points each) and a final independent research project due at the end of the course (200 points). Attending class and reading the assigned writings are essential to successfully completing the tests, labs, and final project. Each assignment will be graded on how well you follow directions. The assignments are described in more detail in the additional documents that accompany this syllabus. Final letter grades will be assigned according to percentages of 800 possible points:

744-800 = A
720-743 = A-
704-719 = B+
656-703 = B
640-655 = B-
624-639 = C+
560-623 = C
480-559 = D
0-479 = F

Statement of Academic Integrity:

Plagiarizing
Submitting the work of another person as your own
Tampering with the work of another student.

Students violating academic integrity in any way will receive an F for the course. Further information, including appeals processes, are described the current Policies and Rules for Students handbook.

Course Outline: