The Work

I will be posting the full assignment overviews, requirements, and rubrics.

Personality Check ins

These personality check-ins are essentially journal entries where I ask you a question geared toward having you lightly analyze the personality of people in your life. This person can be real such as a parent, friend, or romantic partner OR they can fictional like TV show, film, or video game characters. Each check-in will ask you to use different tools and theories taught throughout the course to help you speak to the personality of the person. Each check-in you may focus on the same character or you can change it up each time. There will be 5 personality check ins throughout the semester each worth 30 points equating to a total of 150 points. I will announce when they are available and due in class they will always be due on a Friday by 11:59pm on Blackboard. But the tentative schedule of these check ins is as follows. Check back here every so often to see if these dates change. Changes will be highlighted.

Check in 1: Radical Honesty

  • DUE DATE: 2/3/2023 via Blackboard
  • Based on Williams (2016) Radical Honesty and my in class example students will craft their own radical honesty statement. Letting me know who they are. There are no specific requirements for this assignment other than introducing me to you in whatever way feels most truthful to you. Submit this assignment in whatever format feels comfortable to you. (ex: Video, written, powerpoint, prezi, audio recording, etc) 
  • Some helpful points and questions
    • When you think back on your life what has shaped you into who you are?
    • How do those things, events, people, etc influence you to this day?
    • What do you care about? What cares about you?
    • People are complex made of many parts, sometimes complementary sometimes contradictory. What are the most important parts of you?
    • What are you goals, hopes, dreams?
    • Who do you have in your life?
    • What do you do to find joy?
    • What are you morals and values?

Check in 2: Personality Lifeline

  • Due Date: 3/3/2023
  • Open format again except: You will be submitting a picture or recreation of the personality lifeline activity done in class. For those who aren’t present the instructions are
    • Draw a line representing your life (From birth to this moment). Let the line go up when it was good times/ positive, down when it was negative, plateau when things remained consistent, loops if things got repetitive, etc. Contextualize your line by either adding time period, a few descriptor words, or notes about your personality/environment at the time.
  • Using your lifeline you will be asked a few questions related to personality development and assessment.
  • Requirements
    • 5 pts Your Personality Lifeline (its best to just insert the image into a document, powerpoint, or other presentation that you are answer the other questions in. blackboard is weird with uploading images.) 
    • 5pts Character: point out a lesson you learned that shaped your character. (Remember character is Learned and applied emotional, cognitive, and behavioral patterns based on one’s own self-concept, goals, and values.)
    • 5pts Environment: Point out and describe a moment where your environment influenced your personality in some way.
    • 5pts Selection , Attrition, Manipulation: Point out and describe a time when you utilized selection, attrition, OR manipulation in order to assuage or better fulfill your personality.
    • 5pts Assessment: Take ONE Personality test on Psycho Tests or Open Psychometrics and copy/paste your results
    • 5pts Connection: What kind of test did you take? Discuss these results in connection to your lifeline, do they feel accurate, do they help summarize or explain your personality? Do you feel you would’ve received a different result at a different point on your lifeline? Where? Why?

Check in 3: Using Perspectives

  • Due 4/7/2023 via Blackboard
  • For this assignment you will be asked to use some key components from personality perspectives in order to describe and assess a fictional character. Each response will connect to and build on one another so think carefully about which character you choose. As always open format.
  • Requirements:
    • 6pts Character: Choose and describe your character physically and psychologically. (for physically feel free to just include a picture)
    • 6pts Trait Perspective: Select one or two personality trait(s) and discuss them in terms of stability and consistency.
    • 6pts Biological Perspective: Do you believe the traits above could be considered socially desirable and lead to increased fitness? Discuss why or why not.
    • 6pts Psychodynamic perspective: Describe a personality process scenario involving the above mentioned trait(s). Detail the negotiation process between the ego, id, and superego during this scenario.
    • 6pts Jungian perspective: Thinking about the scenario above what jungian archetype might this character be influenced by? Why?

Check in 4: Perspectives Part 2

  • Due 5/5/2023 via Blackboard
  • For this assignment the questions will be less related, but it follows the same premise as the previous perspective assignment. You will use various personality perspectives in order to tell me all about this character. These perspectives are a bit more tricky than the last ones so make sure to double check you know the meaning behind and how to apply these terms. OPEN FORMAT.
  • Requirements:
    • 6pts Character: Choose and describe your character physically and psychologically. (for physically feel free to just include a picture) this can be the same character as last time if you’d like.
    • 6pts Humanistic Perspective: Discuss this characters real self vs. their ideal self in reaction to their potential to become self actualizing.
    • 6pts Existential Perspective: Discuss & explain the where you believe this characters will to meaning lies AND what anxieties they have?
    • 6pts Social learning perspective: Use the stages of modeling to describe a time this character learned something new that influenced their personality.
    • 6pts Cognitive perspective: Which factors of this characters CAPS do you think are most important in helping them decide what to do?

OPTIONAL: Feedback for virtual class

  • Due Date: 5/20/2023
  • This assignment is optional students will receive credit regardless of if they submit it or not. I would just like some feedback on how to best translate this class in a jumbo (80-100 students) zoom context.
  • Things to definitely keep: What about this class should I absolutely try to keep as I translate it back to zoom?
  • Things to help with engagement: Do you have suggestions on how to keep folks engaged and ensure that they aren’t just turning on the zoom and checking out? Any thing other professors did that kept your focus and made things engaging? Thinking about this both with a larger class size and it being virtual.
  • Things to remove: Is there anything about this class you don’t believe will translate well to a zoom or jumbo context? Anything you think I should take out or completely revamp?
  • Anything else: Is there anything unrelated to the prompts above that you wanted to mention?

The Final™

Using whatever medium you choose your task for the final is to combine all that you have learned thus far in order to deeply analyze the personality of a fictional character of your choosing. I want you to give me a complete personality profile. Who is this person? Tell me about the intricacies of their personality. What would your favorite perspective have to say about them? Do they have any personality disorders? Try to have fun and be as creative as you like with this one. 

**** DUE May 19th by 11:59pm****

Submitted via Blackboard or presented to me in office hours if you’d like

Assignment Details

15pts  Character Physical Description

Required: Students give a picture or a physical description of the character. Students also describe any important related information such as: Occupation, hobbies, likes, dislikes, familial connections, location, etc. 

15pts Character Development 

Required: Students explain how this character has developed over time. Pinpoint important events or developmental milestones. Be sure to speak to how they have changed and stayed the same over time.  Feel free to make a personality lifeline for them like you did for yourselves. 

20pts Character Personality Assessment 

Required: Students assess and describe the characters personality using one or more objective or projective the measures from Psych Tests or Open Psychometrics (Or another test found online). This assessment should be comprehensive giving a clear picture of the characters personality. This assessment should focus only on WHO THEY ARE RIGHT NOW. (or most recently) 

20pts Adding Perspective

Required: Students analyze and draw some conclusions about the characters personality using ONE of the perspectives on personality (covered in class or not). Use this list: Personality-Perspectives if you are forgetting which is a perspective and which is not. Personality perspectives have distinct terms and factors that they include. Students are expected to use the language associated with the perspective. 

Helpful Comments/Questions: Think of some aspect of this characters personality and explain it using the perspective. Look at their development and think about which kind of factors had the most influence on who they are now and see which perspective that connects them with the most. 

10 points Personality Disorders

Required: Students will either explain in detail or rule out the presence of personality disorders within this character. Students will be asked to know the different look and criteria for personality disorders in order to decide whether their character has a personality disorder or not. 

10pts Clarity & Cohesion

These points are only deducted if a student submits an assignment that is confusing or unclear. Points here are usually deducted when a student doesn’t clearly emphasize each aspect of the final or when they submit an assignment thats just one long paragraph. Make sure your final overall is clear and easy to follow.