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Objectives and Outcomes Examine a personality theory in-depth

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Objectives and Outcomes

• Examine a personality theory in-depth.
• Apply concepts that you have learned in the course materials.
• Acquire knowledge about a specific topic or issue related to personality theories that is of interest to you.
• Analyze and synthesize information about your chosen topic.
• Practise writing an essay using APA style.

The three essay assignments for this course fit together and build on one another. The first essay explores a specific personality theory applied to a superhero character. The second essay explores a *different* personality theory applied to the *same* superhero character. The third essay provides discussion and concluding remarks.

Instructions

Your first assignment is to choose a specific theory from one of the five perspectives (psychodynamic, humanistic/existential, dispositional, biological/evolutionary, learning-cognitive), and write about how it relates to the personality of a superhero in the movie The Avengers: Age of Ultron that came in your course package. Please limit your comments to this DVD and not other films or comics that relate to the Avengers.

You are given a choice of superheroes from among

• Iron Man (Tony Stark)
• Captain America (Steve Rogers)
• Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff)
• Thor
• Hawkeye (Barton)
• The Hulk (Bruce Banner)

Choose with thought and care, because you will be analyzing the superhero that you choose *throughout all three of your essays*. It may be helpful to review the instructions for all three essays before beginning the first one. You may also want to ensure that you manage your time so that you can receive feedback from one essay before starting on the next one. (You can learn more about time management at: Learner Support Services: Time Management). You are advised to discuss your choice of superhero and specific personality theory with your tutor before you write this essay. Your tutor can recommend sources for your research and help with any problems that you may encounter in the various stages of your work.

Your treatment of your topic must reflect the purpose of the course; that is, your essay must address the psychological theories of the major personality theorists and apply the ideas presented in the research literature to the superhero’s personality. Remember, the aim is not to provide a film critique or your personal opinion of the film or particular superhero, but to engage with personality theory. The goal of the assignment is to demonstrate your understanding of the chosen theories and your ability to apply them.

For this first paper, you must use three to four academic (scholarly) sources. These may include original research articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and secondary sources—that is, books or articles written by someone with appropriate academic credentials that criticize a piece of original research or that compare several pieces of research on a single issue. Remember the supplementary materials lists that you can find on our course homepage, although you are not limited to using the resources in them. All of your sources should have been published within the past five to ten years. The only online sources that you may use are electronically published scholarly journals, such as those that you will find in AU Library’s journal database collection. Wikipedia, the Internet, newspapers, and popular magazines are not acceptable sources. Use of the textbook should be minimal. At least one of your sources should be a research report of an empirical study. You can read a brief description of empirical studies in Empirical Research in the Social Sciences and Education, from the Penn State University Library.

To learn more about how to search for and access material from AU Library, use the navigation bar—particularly “Get Help” and “Find Resources”—at the top of the Library and Scholarly Resources home page.

You will, of course, acknowledge all of your sources in a scholarly way throughout your paper. Please review the Essays page in the Course Information manual, particularly the sections on “Format,” “Citing and Referencing,” and “The References List.”

Structure

Introduction

The introduction to your paper should address these questions in a scholarly way:

1. What do you intend to do?
2. What issue(s) will you discuss, and from what point of view?
3. What approach to your topic will you take?
4. What will be the limitations of your research and your discussion?

This section should define what you will and will not cover.

The most important part of your introduction is the thesis statement. St. Cloud State University’s Literacy Education Online has a clear and simple outline of what a Thesis Statement is and is not, and The University of Toronto’s Writing Advice provides information about Using Thesis Statements. Both resources are succinct and provide clear examples.

Body

In the body of your paper, you should follow through on what you said you would do in the introduction. Make sure that your interpretation of the superhero’s character is clear, and make sure that the theories, concepts, and research findings that you use to support it are directly relevant to the personality theory that you have chosen. It is important that you organize the paper in a meaningful way, that you express yourself clearly, and that you argue and document your ideas. You are encouraged to use quotations from the movie relevant to your character, but please use paraphrasing for the rest of the paper. Any ideas attributable to someone else must be acknowledged with proper in-text citations, and listed in proper APA reference format at the end of the paper.

The Form of the Essay

Your paper should be written so that your ideas flow logically, there are connections between your ideas, and you use new paragraphs for new sub-topics. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, and typing errors will be taken into account in the assessment, as will your careful use of APA style in your paper in general, and in your in-text citations and your references list in particular. Refer to the Citing and Referencing section in the Course Information manual for several sources of information on APA style.

Before you complete this assignment, please read the section on Plagiarism on AU’s Write Site.

Marking Key

Introduction	Concisely states the rationale, purpose, and structure. Describes background of the personality theory chosen. Includes clear thesis statement.	19–20	20
	A wordy or sketchy statement of the rationale, purpose, and structure. Includes information either unnecessary or better placed later in the essay. Thesis statement clearly describes either what the paper is about or what point you are trying to make, but not both.	17–18
	A well-written, interesting rationale or background statement, which includes either the purpose or the structure. Unclear or inadequate thesis statement.	15–16
	A well-written, interesting rationale or background statement in which neither purpose nor structure is described. Unclear or inadequate thesis statement.	13–14
	Poorly written with neither purpose nor structure described. No thesis statement.	11–12
	No introduction.	0–10
Review of the Literature	Accurately discusses and integrates the main findings of 3–4 scholarly articles. Demonstrates a clear understanding of concepts, theory, and relevant research; demonstrates insight into personality theories. Well-organized, planned, and integrated material.	31–40	40
	Does not include recommended number of resources and/or some of these are non-academic sources. Demonstrates understanding of a small range of concepts, theory, and research evidence, but these may not be fully explained.	21–30
	Does not include recommended number of resources. A number of sources are non-academic. Basic understanding is evident in some aspects of the issues, but discussion is confused or sketchy.	11–20
	Incomplete, inaccurate discussion of secondary sources.	1–10
	No articles summarized	0
Application of Theory to Superhero and Discussion of How Well Superhero’s Behaviours Illustrate this Application	Excellent, thorough, and integrated discussion of how the theory relates to superhero personality. Includes examples of specific behaviours that illustrate the concepts. Thorough discussion of how well this theory explains (or does not explain) the superhero’s personality.	20–25	25
	Discussion of application of theory to superhero personality, but lacks depth.	15–19
	Confused or superficial discussion of application of theory to superhero personality.	1–14
	No discussion of application of theory to superhero personality.	0
Form	Consistent use of current APA style in title page, body of the essay, citations, and reference list. Excellent organization, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. (A well-organized essay will use headings and/or clear, logical transitions to shift from one section to the next.) Selects and uses a structural theme; reasoned order of presentation.	10–15	15
	Consistent use of APA style. Generally well-written (logical, clear) with a few minor errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation.	7–9
	Consistent use of APA style. Logical and clear, but with many errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.	5–6
	Use of APA style in most cases. Some confusion or lack of clarity in organization and writing.	3–4
	Use of a citation style other than APA. Generally confusing, illogical, and unclear	1–2
	No citations or reference list.	0
Total			100

Sample Essay

Here is an example of an essay focusing on the humanistic perspective.

Note how the paper does not give an exhaustive review of Maslow’s theory, but focuses on a specific tenet of his theory about the hierarchical priority of some of the needs. For your paper, you should also focus on just one specific aspect of each theory, and report on what recent and relevant research literature says about that specific aspect. There is an assumption that the reader knows the material written in the textbook, and so there is no need to summarize it here. If you choose Maslow’s theory for your essay, make sure you do not replicate ideas from this sample essay or you will lose marks.

Bruce Banner/The Hulk: Love/Belongingness Is a Higher Level Need than Safety

The italic text below gives an example of a thesis statement.

Although Bruce Banner/Hulk has people he can count on via the Avengers and particularly Natasha Romanoff, he is likely operating at the safety level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; demonstrating Maslow’s theory that lower level needs need to be satisfied before higher level ones can be considered. Bruce Banner/The Hulk has satisfied his physiological needs in that he does not have to worry about food and shelter, but he still has strong needs for safety.

Some research evidence supports Maslow’s idea that the lower level need of safety has to be satisfied before individuals can concentrate on the higher level need of belongingness. For example, Taormina and Gao (2013) created a scale for each of Maslow’s five conative needs and tested this notion with 385 adults. The researchers based the safety needs scale on Maslow’s examples of threats to safety, including such things as war, anarchy, catastrophic events, job loss, and financial ruin. Also included were items indicating a safe environment including, for example, shelter, having someone to count on, a trustworthy government, and a stable life.

To test Maslow’s theory about safety needs being more prominent than higher level needs among those who face threats to their safety, Taoramina and Gao (2013) compared underemployed migrant workers to wealthy professionals on their safety scale. The underemployed workers scored as significantly lower on satisfaction of these needs than did the professionals.

Additional evidence to support Maslow’s theory came from the results of the correlations among the need satisfaction scores (Taoramina & Gao, 2013). Correlations were higher between adjacent needs on the hierarchy than between non-adjacent needs. More specifically, the correlation between having physiological needs met (the lowest level on the hierarchy) and having safety needs met was higher than the correlation between having physiological needs met and having any other need met. Similarly, the correlation between having safety needs met and having belongingness needs met was higher than the correlations between safety needs and the other higher level needs. This lends support for the notion that satisfaction of each need is related to having satisfied the one near it, but not the ones far from it. Additional analyses by Taormina and Gao found that each need predicted the one immediately higher up. This includes the fact that having satisfied physiological needs strongly predicted having satisfied safety needs, and having satisfied safety needs strongly predicted having satisfied belongingness needs.

Despite the above findings, the literature is not consistently supportive of the need for safety to be satisfied before love/belongingness. While most authors write that safety needs are classified with physiological needs as “basic needs” and love/belongingness and esteem needs as “psychological needs” (a higher level) (e.g., Poston, 2009), some authors claim that love/belongingness needs are at the same level as safety needs (e.g., Noltemeyer, Bush, Patton, & Bergen, 2012). Noltmeyer et al. contend that both safety and love/belongingness needs are “deficiency” needs, and when these are satisfied children can move on to “growth” needs, such as achieving at school. However, regression analyses revealed that scoring higher on safety items (including items about access to health care and dentists) was independently associated with higher scores on four reading and cognitive measures. The love/belongingness items did not correlate with the reading and cognitive measures on their own. This supplies support for the notion that the two needs are not at the same level. However, the order in which the two needs should be on Maslow’s hierarchy isn’t entirely clear from these results, and the results do not negate the idea that Bruce Banner/Hulk needed to sort out his safety needs in order to open himself up to higher level needs.

Oved (2017) goes so far as to say that the order in the hierarchy should be reversed; love needs must be fulfilled before people can satisfy their safety needs. The author’s argument is that intimate relationships help a person feel safe. Oved cites examples of individuals risking their own lives for the sake of their loved ones, thus putting safety as a lower priority. There is some empirical support for Oved’s theory. Lester (2013) looked at 51 university students’ scores on a survey designed to assess the importance of needs based on Maslow’s hierarchy (The Strong and Fiebert Inventory, 1987). While most of the needs scored in the order that Maslow hypothesized, love/belongingness was scored as lower in the hierarchy than safety needs.

The Hulk/Bruce Banner demonstrates the hierarchical aspects of Maslow’s theory as he seems to have only partially fulfilled his safety needs and focuses on these before love/belongingness. He does not feel safe within himself. He is afraid of what he is capable of and what he might do. He has demonstrated that when he is the Hulk he is out of control and causes chaos around him. While he appeared to be considering his love and belongingness needs in discussions with Natasha Romanoff about running away with her, he ultimately rebuffed Natasha Romanoff’s advances despite having feelings for her. He cannot even consider a relationship at this point. When she tries to express affection, he asks her, “Are you out of your mind?!”

Maslow says that when a need is partially satisfied, the individual can be working on the next higher up need (Feist, Feist, & Roberts, 2018). This may be the case for Bruce Banner/The Hulk. His safety needs may be partially satisfied in that he has some supportive people watching out for him, but he also has reason to fear the future. War and anarchy are not uncommon in his world. Furthermore, he continues to fear himself, as he does not seem to have the power to limit his anger episodes. Trust issues are apparent, as when Natasha asks him when he will trust her, he answers, “It’s not you I don’t trust.” His life certainly does not seem stable. Even Thor, near the end of the movie says about safety, “Safe is in short supply these days.” Maslow might say that Bruce Banner/The Hulk is not ready to enter into a relationship (love and belongingness need) because he still has needs for safety that remained unfulfilled.

Although the order of needs remains controversial, Maslow’s theory fits many real-life situations of humans at various ages, as well as that of Bruce Banner/The Hulk in the film The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Safety and love/belongingness needs are closely linked to one another, and future research is needed to tease out which is considered a higher-order need.

References [This should be a new page.]

Feist, J., Feist, G. J., & Roberts, T. A. (2018). Theories of personality (9th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lester, D. (2013). Measuring Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Psychological Reports: Mental & Physical Health, 113(1), 15–17.

Noltemeyer, A., Bush, K., Patton, J., & Bergen, D. (2012). The relationship among deficiency needs and growth needs: An empirical investigation of Maslow’s theory. Children and Youth Services Review, 34, 1862–1867.

Oved, O. (2017). Rethinking the place of love needs in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Society, 54, 537–538. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-017-0186-x

Poston, B. (2009). An exercise in personal exploration: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Surgical Technologist, 41(8), 346–355.

Taormina, R. J., & Gao, J. H. (2013). Maslow and the motivation hierarchy: Measuring satisfaction of the needs. The American Journal of Psychology, 126(2), 155–177.

^* With acknowledgements to

• Carlson, J. F. (1992). From metropolis to Never-Neverland: Analyzing fictional characters in a personality theory course. Teaching of Psychology, 19(3), 143–154.
• Keown-Gerard, J. (personal communication, 2017)
• Polyson, J. A. (1983). Student essays about TV characters: A tool for understanding personality theories. Teaching of Psychology, 10(2), 103–105.
• Svenningsen, L. (personal communication, 2017)
• Zolner, T. (personal communication, 2017)