Little's Lovely Lecture
A shy man, dressed in a simple suit, hands folded in each other, stands in the middle of an empty stage and demands the audiences attention. Dr. Brian Little begins in the same regard as a teacher would lecture a class by explaining the basic acronym that personality psychology is based on: OCEAN. Openness, Contentiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Ever person has these traits, or their antonyms, to a certain degree. Psychologist use these to get a basic idea of how a person traits naturally gravitate. Little expands this idea to the most common traits: introversion and extroversion. Extroverts need more stimulation. They seek out eye contact, smaller personal bubbles, and use black and white language. Introverts, on the other hand, seek less stimulation, taking time to themselves, enjoy personal space, and often use more complex, flowery language. During his speech, he pulls in somewhat random facts on personality as well as giving personal experiences of certain traits directly define through co-workers and students. After this, his tone lowers, and he being to bring the focus to the main purpose of this whole demonstration. Little centers on the idea of "personal projects" which are moments when people consciously act against their natural, maybe destructive, natures to become better for a situation, forming their own individual personality around personal experience, leading to his purpose.
As stated before, Little stands center stage, nothing else surrounding him. The auditorium shown looks as though it seats 2,000 or more audience members. Little gives this lecture titled "Who are you really? The puzzle of personality" at Ted2016, however, the website does not say in which venue he performed. There are no added theatrics, such as lighting, sound or even a visual aid accompanied by his lecture. From the Ted's website as of August 29th, 2018, the recording of Little's speech has 5,851,162 views. Considering Little does not address his online audience, there is a considerable difference between the seating in an auditorium and the population with access to the Internet.
The crowd present at the Ted Talk filled the large auditorium about three quarters of the way. Little is a seasoned teacher, and he is able to keep focused and relay his message to the audience. Due to this fact, he gives this fifteen minute speech exactly like a shorten lecture talking only to the audience. Little does not reference the online watchers at all, which is only natural for his past. This lecture is focused towards the average person, and he targets people who find consider his or her self as ordinary. Like stated previously, he covers basic psychology of personality ideas most personality-seeking, conscious people probably already know. Further into the talk, Little gives hope to the "normal", stating a call for a similar yet unique experience in every existing person.
The purpose of Little's lecture is almost hidden from the audience until eleven minutes into the talk, which is what Ted Talks do best. He explains slightly earlier on through many personal and academic resources that he want to teach the audience basic foundations of personality psychology and how it relates to a person's life. During the last four minutes of the video, Little digs deeper and ask, "Is that all we are? Are we just a bunch of traits? No were not. Remember, you are like some other people and like no other person." Little emphasizes that you are more than just a list of descriptive words. He explains that it's these personal projects, intentional self-work, that make other people love us, maybe even desirable.
Dr. Brian Little has quite the reputation in the worlds most recognized colleges. He taught at McGill, Oxford, and Harvard, and currently teaches at Cambridge University. When he was a professor at Harvard, he was voted "favorite teacher" for three consecutive years. Little's personal website gives an extensive amount of information about his take on personality psychology, his published book about the topic, other media, this particular Ted talk, and more research.
By choosing this Ted talk, I hoped to avoid objective/idealistic topics, like "what does success look like." I searched for topics of which I had prior knowledge, so I was not confused when professor Little mentioned OCEAN. I connected with Little's teaching style and stories, and liked his personality. Personally, I enjoyed Dr. Little's take on what a Ted Talk should be, but in order for the message to be clearer, a more thesis-centered talk would have provided the audience more quantitative learning. I did further research about the three natures he mentioned in order to get background information before writing about his lecture. Little's thesis gave me a slightly different idea of personality theory than I had heard before. I would ask Dr. Little what inspired him to view personality this way and why he switches colleges so often. I think Dr. Little did what every great teacher does: convincing the student he is a good teacher. Dr. Little mostly accomplished that for me with his personality and straight-forward teaching. The content sometimes strayed from the intended purpose, which most professors do, depending on the audience, and I found his style of delivery matched his teaching. I would recommend this talk to anyone looking for another perspective on the study of personality, especially something fresh. However, I do not think this lecture would deserve anything from the Ted rating system, unless it included this:
As stated before, Little stands center stage, nothing else surrounding him. The auditorium shown looks as though it seats 2,000 or more audience members. Little gives this lecture titled "Who are you really? The puzzle of personality" at Ted2016, however, the website does not say in which venue he performed. There are no added theatrics, such as lighting, sound or even a visual aid accompanied by his lecture. From the Ted's website as of August 29th, 2018, the recording of Little's speech has 5,851,162 views. Considering Little does not address his online audience, there is a considerable difference between the seating in an auditorium and the population with access to the Internet.
The crowd present at the Ted Talk filled the large auditorium about three quarters of the way. Little is a seasoned teacher, and he is able to keep focused and relay his message to the audience. Due to this fact, he gives this fifteen minute speech exactly like a shorten lecture talking only to the audience. Little does not reference the online watchers at all, which is only natural for his past. This lecture is focused towards the average person, and he targets people who find consider his or her self as ordinary. Like stated previously, he covers basic psychology of personality ideas most personality-seeking, conscious people probably already know. Further into the talk, Little gives hope to the "normal", stating a call for a similar yet unique experience in every existing person.
The purpose of Little's lecture is almost hidden from the audience until eleven minutes into the talk, which is what Ted Talks do best. He explains slightly earlier on through many personal and academic resources that he want to teach the audience basic foundations of personality psychology and how it relates to a person's life. During the last four minutes of the video, Little digs deeper and ask, "Is that all we are? Are we just a bunch of traits? No were not. Remember, you are like some other people and like no other person." Little emphasizes that you are more than just a list of descriptive words. He explains that it's these personal projects, intentional self-work, that make other people love us, maybe even desirable.
Dr. Brian Little has quite the reputation in the worlds most recognized colleges. He taught at McGill, Oxford, and Harvard, and currently teaches at Cambridge University. When he was a professor at Harvard, he was voted "favorite teacher" for three consecutive years. Little's personal website gives an extensive amount of information about his take on personality psychology, his published book about the topic, other media, this particular Ted talk, and more research.
By choosing this Ted talk, I hoped to avoid objective/idealistic topics, like "what does success look like." I searched for topics of which I had prior knowledge, so I was not confused when professor Little mentioned OCEAN. I connected with Little's teaching style and stories, and liked his personality. Personally, I enjoyed Dr. Little's take on what a Ted Talk should be, but in order for the message to be clearer, a more thesis-centered talk would have provided the audience more quantitative learning. I did further research about the three natures he mentioned in order to get background information before writing about his lecture. Little's thesis gave me a slightly different idea of personality theory than I had heard before. I would ask Dr. Little what inspired him to view personality this way and why he switches colleges so often. I think Dr. Little did what every great teacher does: convincing the student he is a good teacher. Dr. Little mostly accomplished that for me with his personality and straight-forward teaching. The content sometimes strayed from the intended purpose, which most professors do, depending on the audience, and I found his style of delivery matched his teaching. I would recommend this talk to anyone looking for another perspective on the study of personality, especially something fresh. However, I do not think this lecture would deserve anything from the Ted rating system, unless it included this:
Comments
Post a Comment