Using Students’ Intrinsic Need for Self-Knowledge to Teach Personality Psychology
Posted May 6, 2016
By Sara Branch
“Who are you?” asks the caterpillar to Alice. “Whooo. Arrre. Yooou?”
“Well, I hardly know, sir. I’ve changed so many times since this morning, you see.”
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Who are you? This is the first question I ask students in my personality psychology course (with the drawn out “whooooo” and all). Who are you? Knowing oneself is notoriously difficult, if not impossible (Silvia & Gendolla, 2001). But that doesn’t stop most of us from trying. The “self-improvement” industry represents a $10 billion per year industry in the U.S. alone (Forbes, 2009). Seemingly random online personality quizzes go viral - who can resist knowing which city they should live in or which ‘Friends’ character they are (Slate, 2014)? And even researchers maximize response rates simply by compensating participants with feedback about themselves (Vazire, 2006)!
Using Students’ Intrinsic Need for Self-Knowledge to Teach Personality Psych
Who are you? Students have a surprisingly difficult time answering this question. Sometimes out of shyness, but often because they really don’t know (they’re far better at discussing who they think I am). As a part of my personality psychology course students complete a series of low-stakes writing assignments that ask them to actively engage with some aspect of the material and then reflect on their own traits, needs, or motives.
Over the course of the semester, students complete 4 low-stakes writing assignments. Each assignment has two components: 1) a structured active-learning exercise, and 2) a written self-reflection.
An Example Assignment
One popular assignment asks students to create two separate online profiles – one for their current self and one for their ideal self (Higgins, 1987, 1999). Each profile includes a photo, descriptions of their interests/hobbies, occupation, personality, values, and goals. What they include is left somewhat open-ended so that students can draw on what is important to them. They are given the option of creating a profile in on online social network (like Facebook), using some other program, or doing it by hand (paper and pencil). However they chose to do them, however, they have to be able to share them with me.
After constructing both profiles, students compare them. They write about the defining features of each self, the factors that have influenced the development of these selves, how similar or different their current self is from their ideal self, and how that similarity/difference influences them. The last question is perhaps most important. It asks students to apply Higgins argument that self-guides have motivating properties – in this case, focusing attention on achievement and goal accomplishment.
Why “Low Stakes”?
“Low-stakes” means that the students’ grades on the project primarily reflect the degree to which they have thought critically about the material, appropriately applied it to their self-analysis, and articulated their understanding, rather than writing mechanics. The goal of low stakes assignments is to get students to think, learn, and understand course material (Elbow, 1997). It removes pressure or anxiety associated with fears of writing or a lack of skill and instead gives students the opportunity to express their thoughts. I have found this to be particularly valuable when students are writing about themselves.
Why the Self?
Everything we know about ourselves hangs together in our memory in a nicely organized, well-developed network of information (Markus, 1983). When students think about new concepts in regard to the self, they are better able to elaborate and organize that information (Symons & Johnson, 1997).
What do Students Think?
Each semester, students provide informal feedback on the class, including their opinions about the various components of the course. Here are some of their evaluations of the reflection papers:
“Fun and interesting way to apply material to real life.”
“They helped me gain a better understanding myself.”
“These really helped me understand core concepts because I learn material better when I apply it to my own life.”
“My favorite part of the course!”
“[Add] more reflection papers. They were really fun to do and I learned a lot.”
It is rare that students explicitly advocate for having more of any given assignment in my classes, so I’ll take that as a win.
What Hasn’t Worked?
Most of the time these assignments help me get to know my students. There is a noticeable difference in the rapport I build with students in my personality psychology class compared to my other courses. When students share parts of themselves and their lives with me in their writing, it creates a sense of familiarity that builds a sense of community in the classroom. However, a few students have noted in their evaluations that they felt uncomfortable disclosing information about themselves. No one has ever asked to be excused from a project, and for those projects that require self-disclose of potentially sensitive information I always allow students to edit what they submit. But this is a challenge to be aware of – it may be beneficial to give students a set of potential assignments and ask them to complete a subset of them that they select.
Who are you? I ask this question again on the last day. Whether students have really discovered who they are or not, who knows. But I do know that they embrace their roles as amateur personality psychologists (Larsen & Buss, 2014). They are better able to think about how their personalities influence their experiences of the world, and vice versa. And if they leave with that, I consider the semester a success.
Bio:
Sara Branch received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Purdue University. She is an Assistant Professor of Personality Psychology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Her research focuses on the intersection of social and cognitive psychology as an approach to scholarship of teaching and learning.
References:
Elbow, P. (1997). High stakes and low stakes in assigning and responding to writing. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 69, 5-13. doi: 10.1002/tl.6901
Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological review, 94, 319-340. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.3.319
Higgins, E. T. (1999). Promotion and prevention as a motivational duality: Implications for evaluative processes. In S. Chaiken & Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual-process theories in social psychology (pp. 503-525). New York: Guilford Press.
Larsen, R.J., & Buss, D. M. (2014). Personality psychology: Domains of knowledge about human nature. New York: McGraw Hill.
Lindner, M. (2009, January). What are people still willing to pay for. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/15/self-help-industry-ent-sales-cx_ml_0115selfhelp.html.
Markus, H. (1983). Self-knowledge: An expanded view. Journal of personality, 51, 543-565. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1983.tb00344.x
Roller, E. (2014, January). Which type of Internet user are you? The unstoppable rise of the Buzzfeed quiz. Slate. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2014/01/buzzfeed_quizzes_taking_over_facebook_feeds_what_makes_them_so_shareable.html.
Silvia, P. J., & Gendolla, G. H. (2001). On introspection and self-perception: Does self-focused attention enable accurate self-knowledge?. Review of General Psychology, 5, 241-269. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.3.241
Symons, C. S., & Johnson, B. T. (1997). The self-reference effect in memory: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 371. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.121.3.371
Vazire, S. (2006). Informant reports: A cheap, fast, and easy method for personality assessment. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 472-481. doi: doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2005.03.003
