Individual Differences

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• learn how to write a concise critical essay weighting up a complex question on the topic of personality or intelligence
• compare and critically evaluate major theories about personality and intelligence
• understand several major theoretical perspectives on intelligence
• understand yourself and others better, in terms of who are you, and what your skills are
• grasp the general nature of individual differences
• understand some basic issues in psychometrics (item quality, scale structure, reliability, and validity).
• understand how to construct scales to assess personality traits and/or mental abilities
• grasp many issues and controversies that affect the topic individual differences
• appreciate the assumptions underlying major theoretical perspectives on personality and intelligence
• understand several major theoretical perspectives on personality
• discuss and evaluate how empirical research can test theories about personality and intelligence

COURSE CONTENT (BY WEEK)

I: PERSONALITY TOPICS will include:

Session 1: Introduction + Trait Theories

Session 2: Psychoanalysis (Freud) + Psychoanalysis (After Freud)

Session 3: Learning Theories I + II

Session 4: Social Learning Theory + Evolutionary Theory

Session 5: Biological Theories + Nature and Nurture

Session 6: Humanistic Theories + Cognitive Theories

II: INTELLIGENCE TOPICS will include:

Session 7: Introduction to Intelligence + Theory and Measurement

Session 8: Interpretations & Mechanisms + Heritability and Environment

Session 9: Gender & Race + Emotional (EQ)

III: APPLIED TOPICS will include:

Session 10: Scale Construction + Psychometrics

IV: ASSIGNMENT TOPICS will include:

Recorded Session A: Essay Overview

Recorded Session B: Essay Topic 1

Recorded Session C: Essay Topic 2

Teaching and learning methods

The standard approach each week (varying from COVID-19 lockdown conditions in 20/21, which employed a wholly-online “flipped-classroom” model) will be to

• lecture weekly in a face-to-face capacity, and
• organize a follow-up weekly session on Blackboard.

These synchronous lectures will provide information about, and help students to get to grips with, the basic topics on the course. The follow-up sessions will include Q & A, pop quizzes, issue discussions, and other activities designed to consolidate learning in an engaging way.

Students will also listen to three asynchronous lectures online. One lecture will give an overview of, and advice concerning, the essay assignment (which involves the receipt of two types of feedback and a follow-up submission). Two additional lectures will each cover one of the two questions that students must choose between for their essay.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Nettle, D. (2007). Personality: What makes you the way you are. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Deary, I. J. (2020). Intelligence: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Maltby, J. ,Day, L. & Macaskill, A. (2017). Personality, Individual Differences and Intelligence. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Assessment strategy

Multiple Choice Quizzes:

Students will complete two multiple-choice quizzes (MCQs): a midterm MCQ (prior to the mid-term break) and a final MCQ (exam period).

The midterm MCQ will cover the first half of the course.

The final MCQ will cover the entire course, but will assess the second half of the course more thoroughly.

Specifically, the midterm MCQ will contain about 40 items on personality, while the final MCQ will contain about 60 items on intelligence and psychometrics/questionnaire construction and about 20 items on personality. Note the 2:1 ratio, in terms of the number of items on the midterm MCQ (40 items) and final MCQ (80 items). 120 items across both MCQs meets standards of measurement reliability. Moreover, the cumulative 80-item final MCQ may be used as a standalone assessment if the midterm is missed.

The midterm MCQ will count for 15.5% and the final MCQ for 32% of the marks (total = 47.5%)

If COVID restrictions resume, in a manner that makes mass administration of MCQs in the same room problematic, then the two MCQ assessment will revert to the MCQ Creation Task assignment, applied the previous year.

Several reasons justify the substitution this year of standard MCQs for the MCQ Creation Task. First, COVID restrictions are less likely to be enforced next semester. Second, the marking of created MCQs is labour-intensive, and PGTA support is Psychology under strain, meaning the use of MCQs, especially in Year 1, can be justified on efficiency grounds. Third, elsewhere in the Psychology--in particular in the optional Year 3 module PSYC3059--the skills of MCQ creation are still taught, for interested students.

The items used in the two MCQs will be adapted and refined from the items generated by prior students in MCQ Creation Task over previous years. The generation of such items will reflect student input into a fair and comprehensive set of items, while their adaption and refinement will reflect instructor oversight that they meet rigorous standard of assessment validity.

Coursework Essay Assignment

All students will write a coursework essay of 1,200 words. Students will have choice between two general questions, which can be answered in respect of either personality or intelligence or both, one of which pertaining to the issue of their origin, and the other of which pertains to the issue of their structure. Content for these essays is supposed by regular sessions, as well as additional recorded or live sessions.

All students will submit a draft of their coursework essay. Thereafter, two types of feedback will be provided for them. First, the most common types of errors committed will be tabulated, and circulated as collective feedback, including in a supportive live session. Second, each student will receive targeted individualized feedback on their own essay. Thereafter, all students will create a second related document: a set of corrections. In this set of corrections, students will draw on both the collective feedback and individualized feedback given. Specifically, they will, for every error identified that applied to them, name the error made, write it out again, and then generate an appropriate correction or describe an appropriate remedial procedure. Students will be given separate credit, both for the quality of the coursework essay they originally submit, and for the quality of the correction sheet they subsequently submit.

The Coursework Essay Assignment will count towards half of marks for the module (50%).

Participation Credits

The remaining 2.5% of the final mark will be made up by research participation credits for the Psychology Research Participant Pool.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External