Teaching Personality

Teaching Personality is a regular feature of P that encourages ARP members to share their ideas for teaching students—undergraduate or graduate—about personality theory and research. If you have an activity or assignment that you’d like to share, please let us know! Email a description of your assignment or activity to arpnewsletter@gmail.com. Include a title, the type of course in which you use it (e.g., personality lecture course, advanced seminar), a description, and any supporting materials (e.g., handouts or lecture slides). We’ll share a few ideas in each future issue.

Personality at the Zoo

Contributed by Jennifer Lodi-Smith

I am lucky to work about a mile from our local zoo. We have several classes that work closely with the zoo on a variety of projects, so I took advantage of this in my undergraduate personality psychology class. Called the “ Zoo Field Trip” for lack of a better name, we read Uher and Asendorpf (2008) and then use both bottom-up and top-down approaches to rating animal personality. In the bottom up approach, students choose an animal, observe its behavior and create categories for the behaviors observed. Then, using a more top-down approach, they independently try to categorize the animal on each of the Big Five traits . They compare the two approaches to see where each works and doesn’ t work for their individual animal, and then write a short essay (typically 3-4 pages) about each of their tasks, as well as what they observed and learned . We get free admission to the zoo, and the students seem to really love the project and learn a lot from it.

Comparing Self versus Observer Ratings of Personality

Contributed by Jennifer Fayard

To introduce the topic of self versus observer ratings of personality, I have my students complete the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 20013; see http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/faculty/gosling/scales_we.htm) in class. I give them another copy and instruct them to have someone else rate their personality using the TIPI as well. Then the students are asked to compare their self ratings with their friends’ ratings and reflect on why they see similarities or differences. It is a simple assignment, but students usually find it very interesting, as they have often never thought of the fact that others might see them differently from the way they see themselves.

Fiscal Riskiness as an Expression of Sexual Selection

Contributed by Bernardo Carducci

The purpose of this teaching activity is to provide instructors with a self-contained teaching module, including lecture material, an in-class activity, suggestions for in-class discussion, and supporting references, on the topic of gender differences in fiscal allocation based on the evolutionary principle of sexual selection. After defining and discussing the characteristic features associated with sexual-selection fiscal behavior (see pp. 2-3), instructors can introduce this in-class activity designed to provide students with an opportunity to examine and compare their fiscal risk-allocation tendencies . This activity involves students completing a modified version of the fiscal risk survey employed by Betz, O’Connell, and Shepard ( 1989).

Start this activity by distributing two copies of the “Risky Business” handout (see pp. 3-4) to each student. Students should be instructed to complete each of the two forms with the same responses, fold one copy of the form in half, and pass it to the instructor. After all of the forms are collected, they should be mixed up and redistributed to the class for the purpose of comparing the results of the entire class. Depending on the amount of time the instructor wishes to devote to this activity, a comparison of the results for each item can be made by asking the following questions and recording the responses:

  1. Estimates of Fiscal Risk: Before assessing the class’ responses to each item, ask the students to estimate what percentage of the class they believe said “yes” or “no” to each item. Do the same before assessing the percentage of males and females who said “yes” or “no” to each item.
  2. Assessing Actual Fiscal Risk of the Class: Ask the students to indicate by raising their hand if the person’s form they received said “yes” or “no” to a particular item.
  3. Assessing Gender Differences in Fiscal Risk: Ask the students to indicate by raising their hand if the person’s form they received was a male or female. Then ask them to keep their hand raised if the male’s or female’s form they received said “yes” to a willingness to engage in the particular item.

Instructors can supplement this lecture information and in-class activity by generating some in-class discussion. Here are some possible points of discussion:

This document provides more information, including a copy of the “Risky Business” survey, as well as lecture material and supporting references.