Gen
Psych Fall 2005 – Dr. Young (Draft
due 10/20) Final Paper Due 11/15
Personality
Paper Assignment – 100pts 5-7 pgs; double-spaced; 12 point
font; stapled
As
we have learned in class, Freud says that all people go through the
psycho-sexual stages of development. Further, Freud says that personalities are
shaped by people’s experiences in these stages and by the balance of their
id,ego, and super-ego. {In fact, knowing what you now know about Freud, you
might start to wonder about the childhood experiences of some of the adults you
know, and how those experiences made them the people they are today!}
The
idea of relating childhood experiences to adult personality from a Freudian
perspective is the basis for this paper - I am asking you to take an adult
movie character and to create a childhood for that character using the Freudian
concepts we have discussed in class.
Specifically,
I would like you to choose one of the characters listed on page 3 and do the
following:
1)
Write an introduction in which you provide an overview of Freudian Personality
Theory and establish what character you will be doing the paper on. Be sure to define the key Freudian concepts
in this introductory section.
2)
Describe the movie character’s id, ego, and super-ego using evidence from
the movie. Be sure to discuss the relative balance of these three
concepts (in other words, be sure to discuss which of the three has the
strongest impact on the character’s personality/behavior using supporting
evidence from the movie)
3)
Once you have established what the adult movie character is like, take me
through the second stage (ANAL STAGE) AND the third stage (PHALLIC STAGE) of
Freud’s Psycho-Sexual Stages of Development for this character.
You will need to describe each stage briefly, and
then describe a key experience (or experiences) from his childhood that sheds
light on his adult character. YOU ARE MAKING UP THE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES –
this is where you get to be creative in this paper!!!
So, you are creating a fictional childhood for your
character, but the point of this is to
connect some behavior that you see in the character
as an adult to what he went through
during that stage of development
The key to doing this section of the paper
successfully is to connect explicitly your made-up childhood of the
character to the adult behavior you see from the character in the film using
Freudian concepts.
NOTE:
When writing about the Phallic stage, be sure to cover the Oedipal Complex & be sure to relate
the character’s childhood relationship with his mother to his adult romantic
relationships as seen in the movie
4)
Provide a conclusion discussing your thoughts about Freud’s theory as a whole
and how it relates to movie characters in general
5)
Finally, have a post-script of 150-200 words (no more-no less) reflecting on your
current personality and how it ties in with your childhood
Once you have finished your first draft, you
should read through it and ask yourself these questions
How clear is your writing?
How well have you used evidence from the
movie to support your claims?
How well have you explained Freud’s theory?
Have you clearly linked my fictional
childhood experiences to the adult character from the movie?
How provocative is your conclusion?
Have you eliminated grammatical and major
style errors?
Note: I HATE stupid
grammatical errors. Especially the
following huge pet peeves:
* Do not use “their” when you are referring
to one person.
I hate sentences such as, “In this scene
everybody had their sunglasses on”. OR, “A person needs to have their coffee
each morning.” It should be, “In this
scene everybody had his/her sunglasses on” and “A person needs to have his/her
coffee each morning”
Do
not use “me and I” inappropriately!
I hate it when someone says something like,
“Based upon the research he did with Dr. Young and I....”
It should be “....with Dr. Young and me...”
* Do not have paragraphs that go on for a
whole page!
* Do not use Contractions (for example use
“do not” rather than “don’t”)!
* Do not use the word “you” unless YOU arte
talking directly about me – which you should not be doing in this paper. INSTEAD, use the word “one”.
* Do not use the word “there’s” when you are
dealing with the plural.
I hate the expression, “There’s things I
need to do”. OR, “There’s only two days left until Christmas” It should be,
“There’re (or better yet “there are”) things I need to do” and “There’re (or
better yet “there are”) only two days left until Christmas).
Several
Movies that I can think of off the top of my head take us through a character’s
childhood so we get a better sense of what he/she is like as an adult. Some examples include:
Forrest
Gump
Boyz
N the Hood
The
Truman Show
Mystic
River
Sleepers
etc……
What
I want you to do for this paper is to choose one of the characters from the
following list and create your own childhood for that character using Freud’s
concepts.
Please
Choose one of the following characters:
MOVIE CHARACTER
Grading of
Personality/Freud Paper
_______/10 Overall Writing
Grammar, paragraph structure, complete sentences, transition between paragraphs, etc
- BE SURE THAT YOU HAVE PROOFREAD YOUR PAPER and that you have
avoided all of my grammatical pet peeves!!!!
_______/30 Introductory section:
Freudian Overview
Description of character’s ID/EGO/SUPEREGO balance as an adult with supporting
evidence from the movie
_______/15 Your description of the stage and your description of childhood experiences that relate to the
adult personality
_______/5 Connection of childhood description to adult character
_______/20 Your description of the stage; your description of the 6 year old version of your character going
through the Oedipal Complex; your description of how the child’s relationship with his mom relates to the adult romantic relationships of the character
_______/5 Connection of childhood description to adult character
_______/ 5 Conclusion
_______/ 10 Post-script: 150-200 words (no more-no less) reflecting on your current personality and how it
ties in with your childhood
TOTAL:
_______/100