CONTENT REQUIREMENTS: SKILL DEVELOPMENT AND COURSE CONTENT. In each of the 2 parts of your submission, you must do the following: Correctly use APA formatting to format your work and to cite and reference the information included.
TOPIC REQUIREMENT.
The two parts of your assignment submission are independent of each other and must be on different topics. Select any 2 of the following topics to write about. Part 1 will be about your first chosen topic (e.g., conformity). Part 2 will be focused on an entirely different topic from the below list (e.g., confirmation bias). Pick topics you’ve enjoyed and/or want to spend more time understanding—you need to use the course readings carefully and completely to develop your thinking and support your writing). Here are your possible topics:
• Confirmation bias
• Bias blind spot – this one’s tough for some students to fully grasp, but if you’re confident in your understanding, I’ve seen some outstanding papers on this topic in the past.
• Delayed decision-making – this is a strategy to surmount mental shortcomings, so it’s okay and may be useful to also integrate a mental shortcoming into your paper (e.g., processes related to type 1 thinking, naïve realism, confirmation bias, desirability bias, etc).
• Consider the opposite or consider an alternative – this is a strategy to surmount mental shortcomings, so it’s okay and may be useful to also integrate a mental shortcoming into your paper (e.g., processes related to type 1 thinking, naïve realism, confirmation bias,desirability bias, etc).
• Conformity – for this topic, you must effectively use both normative and information social influence in your writing.
• Social facilitation vs. social interference – if you select this concept, you need to consider the complexities of how these concepts relate to boosting vs. inhibiting performance.
• Foot in the door (persuading using “commitment and consistency”) OR Door in the face – persuasion unit (it’s probably better to select one or the other rather than writing about both foot in the door and door in the face to write about, but that decision is up to you).
• The five-factor model of personality – generally, the best approach for this one is to effectively describe the idea of the full 5-factor model, but then to narrow things to spend most of you time with a more specific focus on one factor and possibly some of its facets.
CONTENT REQUIREMENTS: SKILL DEVELOPMENT AND COURSE CONTENT
In each of the 2 parts of your submission, you must do the following:
• Correctly use APA formatting to format your work and to cite and reference the information included. It’s your responsibility to do the work needed to understand how to use APA correctly (see http://seneca.libguides.com/apa).
• Demonstrate a clear, complete, and accurate understanding of the selected course concept and other course content you decide to integrate. To do so, it helps for your paper to have a sensible flow, beginning with a brief but clear description of what your paper is about. You may then define and develop the central concept(s) using the course readings as your only source or your starting place.
Think about how the text conveys the meaning of the concept or topic and try to do so in a similar way. For example, are there any definitions, terms, or ideas used in the reading to explain your chosen topic? Seek to do something similar.
Similarly, is there a research study or example noted in the text (or that you discovered yourself) that could help you to clarify or flesh out the concept for your reader? Make maximum use of the course content and other resources—never base your paper largely on your own ideas without building those ideas upon the course content! No quotations.
To demonstrate good understanding, papers should be clearly written, with coherently structured sentences, strong grammar, and word choice that conveys your intended meaning. If your writing is unclear, it will be difficult for me to see that you “get it” and it would be hard for a novice reader to learn from your work.
Imagine writing for your best friend or your uncle, supposing of course that the chosen person has no experience with the psychology—what would you need to say so that they understand all concepts?
3. Demonstrate your ability to use the selected course material by applying it to the real world with one appropriate and thorough application. Specifically, your paper must apply the selected concept to either (a) a context or event from your life history or (b) an example anecdote from the news, pop culture, or social media. (e.g., are there events from your life history that capture the essence of confirmation bias). To do this well, select only one application to develop fully. Do not briefly touch on several examples.
*Note that there are different ways to integrate requirements 2 and 3 into your work; however, the simplest and most straightforward way to approach it is to use the first half of the piece (give or take) to describe the concept and the second half (give or take) to develop the application. Students who are comfortable with a more advanced approach might instead weave the concepts and a running example throughout the the writing. You can be creative but work within your limits as a writer.