The purpose of this assignment is to apply one or more of the concepts we have discussed to daily life, specifically a current event or issue in the news media that you find interesting. This assignment gives you the opportunity to analyze a current social, political, religious, environmental, or other type of issue from a social psychological perspective. Specifically, you will apply a social psychological theory or concept to a real-life current event. Depending on what theory/concept and current event you choose to do, you might have to read ahead in the textbook if we have not yet covered that theory/concept in class.
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Instructions:
- Select a current event — the event has to have occurred within the last year.
- Select a social psychological concept or theory that you think is related to your selected current event. The concept or theory can be something that we covered in class or in your textbook. You can use a concept or theory that we did not cover or have not yet covered in class; however, if you choose this option I suggest that you email me first to make sure that you properly understand the concept.
- Using the theory or concept you have selected, analyze the current event and explain why you think it occurred, why people reacted in the way that they did, etc.
While I expect that a portion of the paper will be devoted to describing the current event/issue, as well as to a general discussion of the social psychological concept/theory, the vast majority of the paper should consist of your analysis.
Some questions to consider when analyzing the current event and writing your paper:
How can the concept/theory that you selected be used to explain the current event/issue? How well does the theory explain the event?
Can specifics of the theory be used to explain specifics of the event?
These are just some of the questions you should consider when working on your analysis. There are many more that depend on your choice of theory and event.
I expect papers to be well-written, organized, and coherent. Your analyses should be in-depth and thorough. You can cite your book when discussing the theory/concept, and be sure to include all sources in the reference section. (Follow APA style guidelines for citations and the reference page.)
Formatting guidelines:
- Use APA style guidelines (i.e., typed, 12-pt Times New Roman font, double-spacing, and 1inch margins all around).
- Use APA style citations and reference page. See APA Style Citations section on next page for more information.
- Papers should be 3-4 full pages long (body only – title page and reference page not included in page count).
Submission guidelines:
- Please cite a printed article documenting the event/issue you have chosen [i.e., newspaper article, magazine article, printout from internet news source (like CNN.com or similar sites), etc.]. The source must be “official” (reviewed before published—no blogs!).
- Submit your paper to the appropriate link in Canvas by the due date and time.
- Finally, you must submit a hard copy of your paper to me on the due date, with the news article attached (face-to-face classes only)
General writing guidelines:
Assume that your reader is an educated person, familiar with psychology, but not with any of the specific theories or concepts you mention. Anytime you introduce something new (i.e., a theory, concept, methodology, measure), explain it in general terms. You can then give an example if you would like, but do not use an example as a substitute for a general explanation.
Your discussion of the current event and social psychological concept or theory should be relatively short. The majority of your paper should be spent analyzing the current event. To give you a bit of a guideline as to how long each part should be, your discussion of the current event should be about ½ a page, and your discussion of the concept or theory should be about 1 page. Your analyses should be 1-½ to 2 pages long.
APA Style Citations:
As you draw on material that you learned in class, make sure that you cite your sources appropriately. Follow these guidelines for citing:
- When you copy someone else (i.e., textbook, lecture, article, website) word for word, put quotation marks around the copied parts, and include the author last name(s), year of publication, and page number in parentheses. i.e., Social comparison theory is “the idea that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people” (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005, p. 155).
- Copying word for word and not citing correctly is plagiarism. Turnitin will catch this, trust me. Avoid this at all costs.
- Copying word for word and citing correctly is not as bad, but it doesn’t demonstrate an understanding of the concepts. Define and explain concepts using your own words to get full credit. It’s hard to paraphrase when you have the book or lecture notes in front of you. Read, make sure you understand, then put the material aside and come up with your own way of stating things. Check your sources to make sure you didn’t accidentally memorize the original wording. Check your definition to against what it says in the book to make sure that your explanation is accurate.
- When you put someone else’s ideas into your own words, simply include author last name(s) and year of publication in parentheses. For example: Social comparison theory states that people sometimes come to know themselves by evaluating their own characteristics and skills relative to those of others (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005).
Try to adopt an outside perspective when you review/edit your paper. Make sure that your ideas are arranged logically and that your sentences make sense. Reading out loud can help you catch grammatical errors. Remember that I can’t read minds – you could understand something perfectly, but if it makes no sense on paper, that’s all I have to go on.
Theories are like people, they don’t need a “the” at the beginning (e.g., according to cognitive dissonance theory…). But sometimes models do (e.g., according to the elaboration likelihood model…). Just see how the authors refer to it in the book.
Papers are accepted up to 3 days late but will be docked 10% per day. Below is the rubric which will be used.
Grading Rubric
APA Format __________(5) Appropriately Applied Concept______(15)
Source attached/cited ________(5)
Spelling/Grammar______(10) Content (organization/analysis)______(25)
Grade: ______/60