Instructor:

This course will provide an opportunity for students to explore the personality processes that underlie individual differences in happiness and psychological well-being. Selected topics will be drawn from disparate levels of analysis (e.g., from questions of free will to dopamine activity), and will be considered 'in-depth'. The course will be taught in a seminar format. All students will be expected to take personal responsibility for extracting content from the readings, and to actively participate in class discussions (i.e., don't expect much lecturing).

Course Requirements:

In short, this course will require a lot of reading, thinking, and active discussion. For this class, learning is best thought of as a collaborative process. That is, I expect that you will all come to class ready to share brilliant insights on the week’s readings, and thus, students will learn as much from each other as from the readings or me. Our in-class discussions will be the highlight of this course, and to encourage this dialogue, I offer these formal requirements:

In preparing these assignments, please keep in mind that discussion questions should go beyond the readings and be able to provoke thought and discussion. Thought papers are a further extension and/or demonstration of your thinking. More specifically, thought papers are brief essays (200-400 words) that react to the readings by raising a novel, but related, issue or implication, questioning an author's assumption, proposing further research, etc. Thought papers should not provide a summary of information contained in the article. Also, they should not contain a long string of unrelated questions or associations. That is, thought papers should consider a single issue in depth rather than touch lightly on a variety of issues. A good thought paper will provide a unique perspective or argument based on your own thinking, experience, academic and nonacademic knowledge. During the term you must complete three thought papers, but you can choose to write them in any three weeks for which there are scheduled readings. (Only one thought paper per week, and no writing about readings from past weeks.)

You will also write a final paper (12 +/- 3 pages, APA style) that discusses a topic related to personality and well-being. This does not restrict you to the topics we cover in class. (In fact I encourage you to investigate a topic we do not cover.) However, you must have your topic approved. This approval will be based on my evaluation of a brief conceptual outline that describes your topic and gives at least three scholarly references and a brief description of how each is related to your final paper topic. Requirements and suggestions for the final paper and conceptual outline will be discussed further in class.

Finally, most class periods will begin with a short quiz based on the day's readings. These quizzes should not require any special ‘studying’ over and above your preparation for discussion. That is, thoughtful reading and writing of discussion questions will likely lead to acceptable quiz performance.

Evaluation:

Final grades will be calculated using the following weights:

15% Thought Papers (5% each)
15% Participation (including discussion questions)
25% Quizzes (top 7 marks)
5% Conceptual Outline
40% Final Paper

Quizzes and the final paper will receive standard numeric grades. As noted above, I will use the average of your best 7 quiz grades to calculate your final grade. Because there will be more than 7 quizzes, this means that some of the lower marks will be dropped. However, there are absolutely no make-up quizzes. Missed quizzes (even if due to an acceptable class absence) are recorded as 0. The thought papers and the conceptual outline will be graded on a five point scale where 1 = substandard (corresponding to an alpha grade of C-/D), 2 = OK, but more thought is expected (roughly equivalent to a C/C+), 3 = good (roughly equivalent to a B/B+), 4 = very good (roughly equivalent to an A-/A), and 5 = great (equivalent to an A+).

I will also record the frequency with which you submit discussion questions, as well as whether they are acceptable or not. Although failing to submit good questions once or twice will not have a serious effect on your participation grade, further omissions will. Your active verbal participation during class discussions, including showing respect for other students, will also contribute the participation grade.

Required Readings:

Please see the attached reading list. Most of these articles are available online through the Carleton Library web-page. (The only exceptions are the book chapters.) All readings are also ‘on reserve’ at the library and available for 2 hour loan. Readings are in two course envelopes, which divide the articles by the lead authors’ surnames (A-K and L-Z). I recommend obtaining copies of readings, especially those not available online, well in advance. They may not be available the first time you try to get them (e.g., if another student has them). Additional readings may be announced in class.

A note on plagiarism: Don't do it! Carleton's regulations define plagiarism as, "...to use and pass off as one's own idea or product work of another without expressly giving credit to another." All cases of suspected plagiarism will be investigated, and may result in assignment of severe punishments. See the Undergraduate Calendar (http://www.carleton.ca/cuuc/regulations/049academic.html#140) for more information.

Students with disabilities requiring academic accommodations in this course are encouraged to contact a coordinator at the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities to complete the necessary letters of accommodation. After registering with the PMC, make an appointment to meet and discuss your needs with me or the TA at least two weeks prior to the first in-class exam. This is necessary in order to ensure sufficient time to make the necessary arrangements.

Schedule
 

Date	Topic or Deadline	Readings
Jan 8	Introduction	Seligman & Csikszentmialyi (2000) (skim)
Jan 15	Free Will	Ryan & Deci (2000) Schwartz (2000) Wegner & Wheatley (1999) (skim)
Jan 22	Well-Being	Diener (2000) Ryff (2002) Kahneman (1999)
Jan 29	NO CLASS (think final paper)	Find something good
Feb 5	Extraversion	Canli, et al. (2002) Robinson et al. (2003) Fleeson et al. (2002)
Feb 12	Emotions and Cognition	Fredrickson (2001) Lyubomirsky (2001) Gilbert & Wilson (2000)
Feb 19	NO CLASS —Winter Break
Feb 26	Goals Conceptual Outline Due	Sheldon & Elliot (1999) McGregor & Little (1998)
Mar 4	Optimism	Peterson (2000) Norem & Chang (2002) Langer (2002)
Mar 11	Positive Illusions	Taylor & Brown (1988) Colvin & Block (1994)
Mar 18	Happiness at Work	Heller et al. (2002) Judge & Larsen (2001)
Mar 25	Economics and Society Thought Papers: Last Chance	Layard (2003, March) (x 2)
Apr 1	TBA Final Papers Due	TBA

Reading List

If you have questions about APA style, you will find many helpful hints here.

You will find more links related personality and happiness on my lab web-page.