Psych: The Group Project

Dr. Hoffman is very hard to follow. I imagine it's because being a professor isn't his primary source of income, but he probably enjoys it. In a way, this is both good and bad. The good would be that he loves his job so much, he wants to share with us. That's great for me, since I plan on going into psychology. It's nice to have a reality check.

The bad? He's horrible at giving instructions. Last class was utter confusion over which task we were supposed to be completing, when it was due (first, he told us to have it done within 15 minutes in class, later retracted and said it was due by midnight, then retracted again and said it was due next week before midnight... errr). Thankfully, he put us in groups of 4 for the seminar, so we have 4 brains to figure out exactly what it is this guy wants from us.

The group project is pretty cool:

1. Group Project: Groups will be pre-selected in the first week of class by the instructor. Each group will choose a group leader which may converse with the instructor regarding the assignment. Groups will meet (both in class and out of class) on a regular basis to choose a personality theorist to research and discuss on a more in-depth basis. This will require each group to select and read at least one significant book written by the personality theorist. The group will be expected to then choose a contemporary personality (within the past 100 years) and read and discuss a biography of that person. Finally, the group will prepare a 10 page paper (maximum), describing the development of the identified personality, based on the writing of the personality theorist.

1. Grading Rubric for Group Project

· Participation 25 points

o Participant attended out of class meetings (4 Minimum)

o Participant contributed to group project

· Articulation of Biography 25 points

o Group cited biography of contemporary individual

o Presented key aspects of biography regarding personality

o Key aspects of biography were integrated into theory of this individuals personality.

· Articulation of Personality Theory 25 points

o Presented concise summary of personality theory

o Articulates key aspects of research beyond classroom text

o Demonstrates synthesis of theory that consistently explains the personality development of the contemporary individual (presented in the biography)..

· Paper is formatted in APA style 25 points

o Paper is to be presented in without spelling or grammatical errors.

o Paper is to be prepared in APA format with proper headings, in-text citations, and a works cited section.

My task for this weekend is to select the biography, as well as the theorist our group will be studying. I was thinking either Marya Hornbacher (of Wasted and Madness acclaim), or Sylvia Plath. After I pick the person, I'll go through the different theories in the textbook and select the best theorist to use to aid our study of this person.

The bonus assignment is to list all the works by the theorist and send it to the professor. Time to get started.

For the project, I think the best biography to pick will be Marya Hornbacher. She will be an easy target because her entire book is about how she had anorexia and bulimia, but she's also a talented writer. Her book Wasted is on her journey of the eating disorder.

Asceticism, or the renunciation of needs, is one most people haven't heard of, but it has become relevant again today with the emergence of the disorder called anorexia. Preadolescents, when they feel threatened by their emerging sexual desires, may unconsciously try to protect themselves by denying, not only their sexual desires, but all desires. They get involved in some kind of ascetic (monk-like) lifestyle wherein they renounce their interest in what other people enjoy.

In boys nowadays, there is a great deal of interest in the self-discipline of the martial arts. Fortunately, the martial arts not only don't hurt you (much), they may actually help you. Unfortunately, girls in our society often develop a great deal of interest in attaining an excessively and artificially thin standard of beauty. In Freudian theory, their denial of their need for food is actually a cover for their denial of their sexual development. Our society conspires with them: After all, what most societies consider a normal figure for a mature woman is in ours considered 20 pounds overweight!

Anna Freud also discusses a milder version of this called restriction of ego. Here, a person loses interest in some aspect of life and focuses it elsewhere, in order to avoid facing reality. A young girl who has been rejected by the object of her affections may turn away from feminine things and become a "sex-less intellectual," or a boy who is afraid that he may be humiliated on the football team may unaccountably become deeply interested in poetry.

All right! Got it!

Everything was updated to our Google group that one of the members created. Homework for one class, down!