Conceptual & Historical Issues in Psychology & Personality and Individuals

1. Conceptual & Historical Issues in Psychology & Personality and Individuals Dr Peter Bibby Dr Claire Lawrence Professor Eamonn Ferguson Tuesday 4-6pm Pope C14

2. Aims of CHIP & PIN • CHIP • To present and discuss the scientific, historical and philosophical underpinnings of psychology as a discipline • To demonstrate the inherent variability and diversity in the theoretical approaches to psychology • To supply a good knowledge and critical understanding of the influences on psychological theories • PIN • To provide detailed discussion on main theories of personality in psychology • To present links between personality and individuals differences and relevant applications • To examine IQ and intelligence within the scope of individual differences

3. Conceptual and Historical Issues Lectures (Semester 1) • An introduction to Historical and Conceptual Issues in Psychology • The Ancient Greeks • The Medieval Thinkers • Consciousness Invented • The Science of Human Nature • On the Threshold of Psychology • The Study of Consciousness • The Death of Consciousness • The Return of Cognition • Is Psychology a Science?

4. Personality and Individuals Lectures (Semester 2) • Historical overview and what is a trait? • Eysenck’s model • Gray's Model • Big 5 • IQ and trait complexes • Social learning theory (Locus of control and self-efficacy) • Personality and abnormal personality • Personality and occupational psychology • Personality and criminal behaviour • Personality and health

5. Workshop (Semester 1) • Workshop (1 to 2hrs) • 20th October 2009 • An introduction to annotated bibliographies • A list of topics from both CHIP & PIN • Confirmation of Submission Deadline

6. Assessment • One Annotated Bibliography • An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief (about 100 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited. It is expected that students will identify no more than 20 relevant articles. • To be submitted 11th January 2010. • One 3hr Examination • 1hr Multiple Choice Questions (60) • 2hrs for 2 Essays • 1 Essay for CHIP • 1 Essay for PIN

7. How the Annotated Bibliography Contributes to the Overall Mark • The examination contributes 95% of the final mark • The annotated bibliography contributes 5% of the final mark on a pass/fail basis. • Examination - 65% • Annotated Bibliography – pass • Overall mark – 66.8% • Examination - 65% • Annotated Bibliography – fail • Overall mark – 61.8%

11. Workload • A number of students last year were concerned about their workloads. • So how much should you be doing? • The university assumes that each single credit is worth 10 hours study time • For a 20 credit module that means 200 hours. • For this module there will be approx 25 hours contact time so that means 175 hours outside the class • Assuming that the annotated bibliography takes at most 40 hours that leaves 135 hours • 22 weeks of lectures so approximately 6 hours a week of study for this module.

12. Histories of Psychology • Prior to the 1970’s there were numerous books on the history of psychology mainly written by academics who identified themselves as psychologists • For the most part the underlying purposes of these histories seemed to be the establishment of Psychology as a scientific discipline and to show it’s long history (i.e. it follows on from the Ancient Greeks such as Aristotle and Plato) and continuity through the ‘great men’. • Richards (2002) cites the cliché ascribed to Ebbinghaus “Psychology has a short history but a long past” • Post 1960’s the histories of Psychology changed following challenges from historians and sociologists of science. • The ‘great men’ (and a few women) approach was more or less abandoned. • The emphasis was placed on psychological practice and not practitioners.

13. Books • Modern • Brysbaert & Rastle (2009) Historical and Conceptual Issues in Psychology, • Danziger, K. (1997) Naming the mind. How Psychology Discovered its Language • Latour, B (1987) Science in Action. How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society • Leahey (2004) A History of Psychology. Main Currents in Psychological Thought • Smith, R. (1997) Fontana History of the Human Sciences • Classics • Boring E.G. (1950) A History of Experimental Psychology • Hearnshaw, L. (1964) A Short History of British Psychology 1840-1940 • Klein, D.B. (1970) A History of Scientific Psychology: Its Origins and Philosophical Background • Miller, G.A. (1962) Psychology: the Science of Mental Life • Watson, R.I. (1963) The Great Psychologists – Aristotle to Freud.

14. Other Readings • A list of readings are available for each lecture. • All readings are available in the library (physically or electronically)
 • Useful resources • http://aleph.nottingham.ac.uk/ALEPH • http://plato.stanford.edu/ • http://portal.isiknowledge.com/ • http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/ • Useless resource • Wikipedia

15. Another Useful Resource • The BBC programme “In Our Time” is a collection of discussions about how different philosophers (and others) have changed the way we think http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_archive_home.shtml • Here’s a short selection of links: St Thomas Acquinas, Islam and the Greeks, Avicenna, Socrates, Ockham’s Razor, Spinoza, Popper, Hobbes, The Mind/Body Problem, Nature vs Nurture, Francis Bacon, Darwin, Neuroscience, A History of the Brain, The Humours, Artificial Intelligence, Psychoanalysis