If you look around, it is not difficult to identify two persons, Amy and Betty,
who are so different, and yet they are of the same sex and age.
Amy works in an iBank from 7:00am to 7:00pm on a daily basis,
whereas Betty does some part-time jobs on and off.
We can easily imagine them both being of similar intelligence
and educational background,
and having been exposed to similar cultural expectations and values.
If the initial social conditions were so similar,
then what could possibly account for two human lives coming out so differently?
Hi, I'm Michelle Yik, a professor in Division of Social Science at HKUST.
In my course on Psychology of Personal Growth, I'm going to be personal.
I customized the materials to give you an overview
on the factors affecting your personal growth and my personal growth.
In particular, I will emphasize personality and social psychology
factors that I found to be particularly useful in explaining my
and as well as your personal growth.
Over the years, I was fortunate to have met many psychologists working
in these two areas.
In my undergraduate study, I ran into Michael Bond,
a social and cross-cultural psychologist.
He dictated what I covered in the "Who am I?" lecture
as well as my focus on cross-cultural comparisons throughout the course.
In 1992, I attended a conference on culture and emotion
at the University of Oregon, where I met Lew Goldberg.
I never worked with him directly, although I completed a thesis project
on the lexical approach to personality in Chinese.
Needless to say, he dictated my bias introduced in the "What kind of person are you?" lecture.
In the same conference, I met my forever love in psychology - James Russell.
He ignited my journey in getting the hang of Chinese emotion.
You would definitely see James' coaching in the "Exploring your emotion"
and "Romantic love and culture" modules.
Michael Bond, Lew Goldberg, and James Russell
are the eyewitnesses of my personal growth.
By covering their work in this course, we together
will be witnessing your personal growth.