PSYC 3370 Situational Superpowers: Investigating the Interactions Between People and Contexts

Attention students!

There is still space to enroll in PSYC3370 this Fall. Though listed as Advanced Personality Psychology, the official course title is "Situational Superpowers: Investigating the Interactions Between People and Contexts". The purpose of this course is to investigate how and why people sometimes behave completely differently than we would expect them to given what we know about their personalities. Here is a brief description:

Why are some people better at lying than others? Why does one person experience sadness, whereas another feels anxious after viewing the same film? Why do certain individuals make better leaders, and in what situations might having “leadership” traits make people worse off?  In this course, we will explore the wonders of context effects -- the powers of situations to change how individuals behave -- from the lens of modern personality psychology.  We will attempt to answer how individuals, from romantic partners, to close friends, to complete strangers, sometimes behave radically differently than we would predict based on their personality traits. Each week covers a different situation and some example topics include deception, emotion regulation, power, deindividuation, and close relationships.  Through readings, activities, and discussions, we will grapple with conceptual explanations for how and why the situations we find ourselves in can dramatically shape the way we behave and make decisions in the short term, and the longer lasting effects that prolonged exposure to these person by situation interactions can have on personality traits and our lives.

This is an in person seminar class which runs on Tuesdays from 1-4pm. In addition to the situations listed in the description, the course is catered towards the students, and we will decide collaboratively what the topics of the final classes will be. All evaluations in this course are take-home, so it is perfect for anyone who is interested in personality psychology and does not like the traditional exam environment. Though PSYC2370 is formally listed as a prerequisite, you CAN take this course even if you have not taken that one.

If you have any questions about the course or are interested in enrolling and require a prerequisite waiver for 2370, please reach out to Dr. Ryan Lundell-Creagh at ryan.lundellcreagh@kpu.ca.