Background: Theories of Personality is an upper-level course focusing on the study of major theoretical paradigms of personality, including psychoanalytic, trait, biological, learning- cognitive and humanistic models. Students examine human commonalities and differences, as well as hereditary and experiential influences on emotion, cognition and behavior.

Challenge: Existential theory is often one of the most challenging paradigms for students to operationalize, as it is rooted in philosophy and contrasts heavily with previous units focusing on biological, neurological, trait, and psychodynamic theories that are covered in more depth in high school and pre-requisite courses.

Class Composition: Majority pre-health students (e.g., nursing, pre-med, counseling, physical therapy) seeking to work in applied settings.

Goal: This module was designed to facilitate an exploration of Existential theory in personal and professional settings.

Creator

• Pelc, Noelany

Language

• English

Keyword

• existential theory

• theoretical paradigms of personality

• Four Ultimate Concerns

• sequence of theories

• spectrum of experiences

• student engagement

Date created

• 2024

Resource type

• Poster

Rights statement

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/