How does psychology understand a person?
Why are you the person you are? Can people really be sorted into types? How much of personality comes from biology, family, culture, and experience—and how much can change?
Professor Wang Fang introduces the major questions and theories of personality psychology. The course begins with traits, from the Big Five and dark personalities to the limits of tests such as MBTI. It then examines the origins of personality in the brain, evolution, genes, attachment, parenting, culture, and social ecology.
From identity to growth
Later lessons explore Freud, Adler, Jung, Fromm, Maslow, Rogers, Kelly, and Dweck. They connect the unconscious, anxiety, inferiority, self-actualization, happiness, meaning, and growth mindset with practical questions about work, relationships, identity, and well-being.
Personality is neither a horoscope nor a fixed verdict. It is a scientific way to ask who we are, how we became ourselves, and where we still have room to grow.
