Undergraduate students benefit from a class exercise that examines the relationship between body builds and personality characteristics. Procedures were designed to allow students to confront biases about their own friends and acquaintances in the context of Sheldon's somatotypes (Sheldon and Stevens, 1940; Sheldon, Stevens and Tucker, 1942). Class discussion about this demonstration can incorporate a broad range of topic areas, including stereotyping, the history of personality theory, personality assessment techniques, the importance of research control and the limitations of correlational research.
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