1. To become acquainted with the subject matter of personality, motivation, and emotion. Studying personality, motivation, and emotion involves familiarity with many different

phenomena, theories, constructs, discoveries, and explanations, and this course will introduce each and help you understand them in some depth. By participating in class,

by reading the textbook, and by reading journal articles and books, you will gain an ever-increasing understanding of personality, motivational, and emotional phenomena.

2. To understand where personality, motivation, and emotion come from and how to facilitate them. From where does personality come? From where does motivation come?

From where do the emotions and emotional reactions come? How does one facilitate motivation and emotion? Can personality change? What conditions undermine motivation and emotion? With each passing week, you should become increasingly able to answer questions such as these, as your understanding grows from an introductory level to an ever-more sophisticated one.

3. To appreciate personality, motivation, and emotion study from a theoretical, empirical, and data-based perspective.

Personality, motivation, and emotion study offers theoretical explanations to its questions(e.g., Why did she do that?), explanations that have been validated through empirical

results (data-based research studies). In trying to answer a question such as, “How can teachers spark students’ clas sroom engagement?”, this course enables you to articulate a

theory-based answer, such as “Well, according to a trait approach to personality, …” This objective is for you to grow in your capacity to think theoretically about personality,

motivation, and emotional issues.

4. To appreciate personality, motivation, and emotion study from a practical, applied, and application-based perspective.

This course presents many practical concerns. Some concerns revolve around your own personality, motivation, and emotion, but most concerns revolve around the personality

development and motivational status of others (e.g., students, children, athletes, workers). Many personality, motivation, and emotional problems exist, and this course will grow

your capacity to solve practical problems and to design interventions to improve people’s lives. This objective is for you to grow in the capacity to think practically about

personality, motivation, and emotion issues.