Individual Differences

This course will examine two areas of psychological enquiry that focus on variation between people: personality and intelligence. It is assumed that both personality and intelligence are phenomena that are intrinsic to individuals but that vary a great deal between individuals. The purpose of this course is to examine what different theorists have said about these phenomena and explore why they vary between individuals. The psychology of individual differences could also be called the psychology of variation.

The course is split into two parts. In the first part we will examine some theories of personality. The course is, in part an exploration of some of the big ideas in the history of psychology; we will use personality as a prism through which to explore these. We will begin with where are now, with the trait and biological perspectives. We will then go back and cover the revolutions, or paradigm shifts, in psychology throughout the 20^th century by exploring the psychoanalytic, behaviourist and cognitivist theories.

In the second part we will examine the historical and contemporary theories of intelligence as well as some of the controversial issues surrounding intelligence theory such as the race differences in IQ.

You will also, as a group, take part in designing, writing and administering a personality questionnaire. We will carry out the questionnaire design study over three of the seminar slots. The group will decide the area of personality you want to investigate, each member of the group will contribute items to the questionnaire and then the members of the group will administer the questionnaire. The data will be entered and you will run the analysis (called factor analysis) and then as a group you will have to interpret the results; what each of the “extracted” factors mean. This will be written up as a research report.

Lectures

The following is the proposed lecture schedule for this term

• Week 1.    Personality: Types & Traits, and an introduction to personality assessment
• Week 2.    Personality: Biological perspective
• Week 3.    Personality: Analytic perspective
• Week 4.    Personality: Learning theory perspective                                          
• Week 5.    Personality: Humanistic perspective 
• Week 6.    Personality: Cognitive perspective
• Week 7.    Intelligence: Historical and contemporary perspectives
• Week 8.    Intelligence: Issues and controversies
• Week 9.    Revision

Lectures will be held on Monday at 9:00-10:50 in F06

Core text

Maltby, J., Day, L., & Macaskill, A. (2013). Personality, individual differences and intelligence (3rd ed). Pearson Education. 

This text is available in bookshop and there are copies in the library.

Please see the course specification for details of other readings available in the library that will be of use to you on this course.

Seminars

There will be research seminars held on Wednesday in the Ian Fairban Lecture Hall (Chandos Road)  at 11.15-13:05

Attendance at research seminars is compulsory and 10% of your Research Assignment mark will be based upon your attendance/contribution at these sessions.

You DO NOT need to attend all seminars as your year has been split in half. You need to check the group lists below for your group number, and then attend all weeks relevant to your group. If you miss a week, it will be extremely difficult to catch up, as the seminars are used to work on your assignment and each week builds on the previous session.

Your Group Allocation is as follows:

• Week 1.      Group 1: Trait selection
• Week 2.      Group 2: Trait selection
• Week 3.      Group 1: Questionnaire Creation
• Week 4.      Group 2: Questionnaire Creation, Group 1 Data Collection Week
• Week 5.      Group 1: Factor Analysis, Group 2 Data Collection Week
• Week 6.      Group 2: Factor Analysis
• Week 7.      Group 1 Write-up Drop-in Session
• Week 8.      Group 2 Write-up Drop-in Session 
• Week 9.      No seminars

 Seminar Group allocations can be found here. Seminar groups are allocated by the department and cannot be changed without the express permission of the module tutor.

Tutorials

The tutorials for Individual Differences will be held in F245 on Thursdays Weeks 1-8 at the following times:

• Group 1: 9:00
• Group 2: 11:15
• Group 3: 12:15
• Group 4: 14:15
• Group 5: 15:15
• Group 6: 16:15

Lists detailing your allocated tutorial group can be found here. Tutorial groups are allocated by the department and cannot be changed without the express permission of the module tutor.

The readings for the tutorials will be posted to Moodle each week and hard copies provided in the lecture.

In preparation for your tutorials, please read the allocated paper and complete the Tutorial Worksheet

NB. You will not be permitted to attend the tutorial if you have not completed your reading.

Assessments

You have one coursework assessment for this course:

• Factor Analysis Questionnaire study (40%) to be submitted by 10am Monday Week 9 (7th September). It is important that you attend all the questionnaire design sessions for your research group; attendance at the Factor Analysis sessions will be particularly invaluable when completing this assessment.
• 10% the final marks for this coursework will be dependent upon attending and contributing to the questionnaire design sessions.

You will have one exam for this module, to be taken in the Winter exam diet. This exam will account for 60% of your final grade. You will be required to answer two out of six questions; one on personality and one on intelligence. You will be required to illustrate your answer with appropriate theory and research findings. A revision session will be held in Week 9 where this will be explained in further detail.

Tutor Contact Details:

Emily Doe, F245 Verney Park Campus

emily.doe@buckingham.ac.uk

Twitter: @emily_doe

You can also follow the Psychology Department on Twitter @UB_Psyc