September 27, 2002

A Psychology Professor Asks His Students to Analyze Themselves

Most psychology courses on personality focus on the theories of long-departed scientists, like Freud and Jung. Others concentrate on more-contemporary scholarship. In "The Psychology of Personality" at the University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale, Stephen J. Dollinger asks his students look within themselves.

"I want my class to be relevant to my students, and experiential," says Mr. Dollinger, who has taught the 200-student class since the 1980s (once during a sabbatical year