UNIT 3 ASSIGNMENT

Note: This assignment asks you to pull on your personal experiences – past and present – as a way of demonstrating how your personal personality theory has evolved. You are not required to share anything you are not comfortable with. We want these papers to be personally resonant, but you should not feel pressured. Remember that University of Maryland instructors are required to report ongoing or past child abuse and neglect even when the former victim is now an adult and even when the former alleged abuser is deceased. If you disclose past or ongoing abuse/neglect your instructor is required by law to report it.

In this course, we cover nearly twenty theories of personality. Some will have more scientific support than others. Some will resonate with you, clear as a bell, whereas others just wont. Some theories may strike you as foundational, while others might simply be interesting but not wholly consequential.

At the end of the semester, youll coalesce your thoughts, reactions, and research into these theories and select a few to include in a toolkit that you will carry with you into your life and career. It will include the perspectives you found most logical, necessary, and useful and youll test the merits of this toolkit by applying it to the world around you.

But thats getting ahead of ourselves a bit! The toolkit assignment will be submitted in Unit 7. What about now? What can we do to prepare ourselves for this task ahead, making it a meaningful learning moment for us?

To find value to your learning and meaning in your toolkit, we need a point of comparison a point of contrast. Thats what well create here for your Unit 3 Assignment. Before you fully immerse yourself in the personality theories covered in this course, lets take a moment to consider your own personality theory what you believe to be true about how we develop into the people we do. According to George Kelly (whos theory youll learn more about in Unit 5!) we are all natural-born social scientists, we want to understand the world around us, predict what will happen next, and create our own theories that explain it all. We even go a step further, testing our personal constructs to make sure they hold up across most situations.

So, thats what we are going to do here in this assignment reflect upon your personality construct, the personality theory youve been operating on to this point in your life, without the influence of Freud, Jung, Sullivan, Erikson, Bandura, etc. (all those theorists you have learned or will learn about in this course). How did your personality theory develop? What was it influenced by? What does it propose about why people are the way they are? How have you tested that theory and what evidence to you have for it? How has it served you? These are the questions youll explore in this essay assignment. The details of which are listed below.

Ideally, the due date for this assignment would land closer to the beginning of class before you were influenced by Freud and the neo/post-Freudians. However, its a lot to ask of students to turn an essay assignment in those first couple of weeks, when we are just getting our sea legs and orienting ourselves to expectations and time management requirements. So, weve pushed the due date here into Unit 3. Hopefully the checklist nudges have helped you begin brainstorming and planning this piece early, allowing you to remain in touch with the you-before-335. If you are beginning this assignment in Unit 3, thats okay. Just take a step back from the computer screen and spend a little time thinking about you-as-scientist and what youve always believed about why we are the way we are.

Assignment Instructions:

Write a 1,200-word reflective essay that answers the following questions. An outline for how to organize your work is offered below. Avoid generalities in this essay; ground your ideas in concrete examples that resonate with your unique and central point of view. There is no right answer to this assignment. What you are being evaluated on is the depth and breadth of your exploration, your offering of this unique and centralized point of view, and how you set yourself up to succeed in your Unit 7 project with this interesting, personalized contrast point.

See Section on Generative AI below for more information on what is meant by “centralized point of view.” Also see the to orient yourself to the tone, style, and intent of this piece.

• Prior to taking this course, what did you fundamentally believe about why people are the way they are? Consider nature and nurture aspects, the fluidity vs. stability debate, but dont be limited by these factors explore everything youve believed to be true about how we become the people we do.
• How did your personality theory develop? What influenced it? Consider the effect of cultural factors, family upbringing, your education, etc.
• How does that personal construct (your own personality theory) manifest in your own life? In other words, looking at your own personality, how does it reflect your beliefs about how people become who they are?
• How have you tested this theory? What data did you collect? Were there ever any moments that did not fit? In other words, did your own actions or the actions of another person stand out because it contradicted what you knew to be true about the nature and development of personality?
• How has your personality theory served you thus far in your life? In what ways have you used it to understand, predict, and control your own behavior or interpersonal interactions youve had?
• Consider to what extent you are willing/able to add to, change, or shift your views on personality development to include ideas you learn in this course. What challenges might this create for you, if any? Or is it something you are excited to do?
• As you look through our syllabus/course calendar or click through each Units content, what theories do you think are going to align with your personal personality theory? Which will diverge?

Consider this outline to help you conceptualize and write your paper. Use creative subject headings throughout your essay to visually organize your points for both you and your reader. The word count listed for each section is approximate, although the estimates do suggest the level of detail needed in each section. The finished paper should reach the 1,200-word mark (title page and any references not included). Going over some is fine, but not to exceed the 1,500-word mark.

1. Introduction (100+ words)
2. Introduce your work with a compelling start
3. Summarize for your reader what you are going to share with them.
4. Body Section: My Personal Personality Theory and How it Developed (300+ words)
5. Corresponding with bullet points 1 & 2 above
6. Body Section: Case Study for My Theory (200+ words)
7. Corresponding with bullet point 3 above
8. Body Section: How I’ve Tested My Theory (200+ words)
9. Corresponding with bullet point 4 above
10. Body Section: How Has My Personality Theory Served Me? (200+ words)
11. Corresponding with bullet point 5 above
12. Body Section: Adapting My Views and Looking Ahead (100+ words)
13. Corresponding with bullet points 6 & 7 above
14. Conclusion (100+words)
15. Synthesize your take-home message for your reader, ending on a satisfying note.

Paper Writing Guidelines:

• Paper should meet the 1,200-word mark, not to surpass 1,500 words (title page and any references do not count toward the length requirement).
• Paper should be written in APA 7 style; this includes title page and document formatting (1-inch margins, double-spaced, 12-point font, etc.).
• An abstract is not required.
• References are not required. This is a reflective essay that emphasizes depth of thought and personal application. However, if you do use references, you must cite them in your text with APA formatted in-text citations and include an APA formatted reference section.
• Apply sound writing mechanics: write with clarity and pay attention to spelling/grammar. Consider reading your paper out loud or having a friend, family member, or dictation software read it back to you for a different perspective.
• Using subject headings to visually organize your paper for you and your reader.
• Submit completed document by assigned due date.

Remember to read the to orient you to the tone and specificity we are going for in this piece.

Appropriate use of ChatGPT/Generative AI

Generative AI programs like ChatGPT can produce content that, on the surface, looks like a good effort on this assignment. However, because this assignment requires you reflect on your personal perspectives, beliefs, examples, and take aways all from your unique student perspective – AI databanks do not have the insights necessary to provide the attention to nuance, critical thinking, and authenticity needed to do well on this assignment. It will offer vague connections and overgeneralized commentary, but not the level of specificity, creative/critical thinking, and genuineness we are looking for here (it also does not produce good writing using overly flowery, expansive, over-used language [i.e., AI-tells] so characteristic of its algorithm). So, in this instance, over-reliance on AI generative tools will not satisfy this assignment. AI simply doesnt do a good job with it.

You could potentially use ChatGPT and other generative AI software to think through your general writing strategy or to ask a pointed question (i.e., Whats a synonym for enormity?), but in your writing, you must speak from the point of view of the scholar of psychology that you are and bring in points that authentically represent your reflective and application skills. In other words, the written, submitted text must be exclusively your own.

If you need help getting started with this assignment or have any questions, please reach out to your instructor in the Ask the Professor thread in class. This can provide you (and other students reading it!) the clarity you need to get around any obstacles you might encounter! Your performance on this assignment is not hugely contingent on how perfectly you write (notice grammar/mechanics arent weighed heavily), but rather on the depth of your exploration and the authentic effort you make and engaging in this learning moment.