Personality Psychology: Exploring the Effect of Individual Differences on Intimate Relationship and Human Behavior

Course 18: Personality Psychology: Exploring the Effect of Individual Differences on Intimate Relationship and Human Behavior

I. Course Description

What is a “personality”? How to study and measure it scientifically? To what extent do biological, social, and cultural factors shape a personality? Is personality the manifestation of our genetic makeup and biology, the apex of our social influence, the interaction of the two, or the result of random events? In this course, we will review the main theoretical paradigm of personality psychology, discuss contemporary research, theory, and methodology, and study key historical arguments in the context of “personality” research.

This course teaches students how to identify major theoretical paradigms of personality psychology (e. g. biology, characteristics, phenomenology), And can compare and contrast how paradigms embody similarity / differences, Curriculum objectives include: being able to identify ways in which specific theoretical paradigms shape contemporary research; Be able to discuss seminal empirical findings in the psychology of personality (for example, Five major classifications), And how and why these findings affect the current conceptualization of personality; Identify the most influential thinkers (e. g., Allport, Freud, Skinner), Their theoretical assumptions about human nature and psychology, And how their work has shaped contemporary personality studies; Differences between additive models and interaction models that can explain human behavior; Being able to identify the limitations of drawing causal inferences from scientific discoveries, and so on.

II. Professor Introduction

Vivian Zayas – Tenured Professor at Cornell University

Professor Vivian Zayas is a tenured professor in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University and holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Washington. His research areas include social cognition, attachment, relationships and social exclusion. She has received several honors, including the nor / Wallis Antenberg Communication Fellowship in 2020-2021, the Distinguished Guidance Award in 2018, and the “Most Admirable Scholar” in 2016. Professor Zayas has a high reputation in academia, serving as an editor of several academic journals, including as the chief editor of Social Psychology and Personality Science and Frontier Psychology, and as a consulting editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (ASC).

In addition, Professor Zayas has published several important papers in academia, such as “Attachment and Social Rejection: The Role of Individual Differences”, which explores the relationship between individual attachment styles and social exclusion, and “Impact of First Impressions on Interpersonal Relationships”, which analyzes the effects of first impressions. She has also co-edited several academic books, such as Risky Decisions in Relationships: An Empirical Investigation, which have deeply researched the relationship between adult attachment and risk decisions.

III. Syllabus

1. Personality psychology and its research methods
2. Analysis, from personality traits to temperament
3. Judgement of different personalities
4. Expression of personality charm and temperament
5. Neuroscience level
6. Psychodynamics- -motivation level
7. Behavioral conditions level
8. The level of individual conscious experience in phenomenology
9. Social and cognitive level
10. Knowledge integration and application of personality psychology