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Individual Differences

Course leader: Dr Katherine Finlay
katherine.finlay@buckingham.ac.uk
One term (15 units)

This is taken in the first year and covers key approaches in the study of individual differences including intelligence testing and dispositional, psychoanalytic and cognitive perspectives of personality.

The aims are to provide students with an understanding of the core issues pertaining to individual differences, to highlight how theory links to empirical work, to explore how current approaches further theory development and our understanding of the structure and dynamic of personality.

On completion of the course students should have acquired a sound understanding of the issues above. In addition, students should be able to organise relevant material effectively and write / present coherently about theoretical and empirical issues in individual differences.

It contains the following topic areas:

• What are individual differences?
• Personality assessment - methods and issues.
• Personality - types or traits?
• Biological aspects of personality.
• Psychoanalytic and psychosocial theories of personality.
• Humanistic psychology and personal constructs.
• Learning and social-cognitive theories of personality.
• Cognitive views of personality.
• Intelligence - definitions and structure.
• Intelligence testing - mental measurement.

This course is assessed by both course work (40%) and written examination (60%)

Main texts:

• Carver, C.S. & M. F. Schier. Perspectives on personality (6th int.ed., Boston MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2007). ISBN: 978-0-205-57087-4.
• Eysenck, M.W. Individual differences: Normal and abnormal (Hove: Psychology Press, 1994). ISBN: 0-863-77257-9.
• Mischel, W. Introduction to personality (8th ed., Hoboken: Wiley, 2008). ISBN: 978-0-470-08765-7.