Assignments
PSY 240: Social Psychology
Note: All written assignments can be submitted electronically via e-mail to me at jfmueller@noctrl.edu.
Project Solution and Rationale (200 points)
To give you the opportunity to reflect upon and apply course concepts to a real-world context, your group will create a set of strategies for increasing proper recycling among North Central College students. Each group will turn in a paper that 1) describes your solution and 2) provides a rationale for your solution based on social psychology research.
In the solution portion of your paper (100 points) you will describe in detail the specfic strategies your group is recommending. For each strategy reference course concepts that the strategy is built upon. For example, you could simply say, "Based on the idea of attitude inoculation, we recommend...." (As described below, in the second portion of the paper you will provide more detailed rationale for why that strategy makes sense in terms of course concepts.) As described in the rubric for the solution portion, I will be looking for a clear, well organized, detailed description of feasible strategies that are consistent with social psychological research.
For the rationale portion of the paper (100 points) you will explain in detail how each of your strategies are supported by social psychological research. Your strategies shoudl be based upon concepts from a variety of topics within social psychology. As described in the rubric for the rationale portion, I will be looking for a clear, well organized, explanation of how the strategies connect to the research. More specifically, your explanation should use a variety of concepts accurately to support your recommendations.
For the solution portion of your paper, which is worth 100 points, only one paper is needed from the entire group. Each group member will receive the same grade on the solution portion. For the rationale portion, each group of four will divide into two pairs. Each pair will write the rationale portion of the paper. 85% of each student's grade on the rationale portion will the the grade your pair received. 15% of your grade will be the grade the other pair received on its paper.
Project Conclusion (50 points)
In the last few weeks of the semester we will attempt to implement some of the strategies that were created in the Project Solutions. Each group will write a brief paper summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of the implementaiton of those strategies in terms of social psychology research. Specifically, answer the following questions: 1) How effective were your strategies? Use whatever data is available to support your response. 2) In terms of course concepts, why do you believe your strategies were effective or ineffective? 3) What might be one thing you would do differently or add next time to improve your recommendations? Use course concepts to support this suggestion.
Project Reflections (90 points)
Throughout the problem solving process of generating a solution I will ask you to reflect upon your performance as a group member and other related questions. Typically, you will be asked to answer questions such as 1) What did you contribute to your group's effort since your last reflection? 2) What is an aspect or two of your performance within the group that could be improved upon? 3) What is a strategy you could employ to address the area of improvement you identified? The first of seven reflections will not be graded; however, you will have 10 points deducted from your overall grade if you do not complete it. The remaining six reflections are worth 15 points each.
Journal (60 points)
What should you write about in your journal? Social psychology deals with a number of phenomena that occur frequently in your life and around you. The more you look for these phenomena the more you will see them and see how they affect your life. Moreover, the more you identify them the better understanding you will have of the concepts we are discussing in class or that are mentioned in the text. Thus, the primary focus of your journal should be identifying examples of the phenomena we discuss in class. Additionally, I would like you to reflect upon some of these observations. For example, what does it say about how you (or people) interact with others? What does it suggest about our motives? How does it relate to other observations you have made, either in the journal or prior to it? Do you see patterns emerging? Can you see more than one concept in a single example?
Because of the nature of the journal, I will not require it to be as well organized a presentation as your other writing assignments. Rather, a stream of consciousness may be more appropriate. Some of you may record observations as they occur. Others may take brief notes along the way and reflect on them after a couple of days. Although I will not evaluate the overall organization of the paragraphs, I will look within each paragraph for good writing skills. Because it may take a while to get a feel for what to write about and some weeks you may just make more observations, unevenness in quantity is understandable. On the first day the journal is due you will hand in everything you have written in your journal during the semester so far. I will return those pages as soon as possible. The journal does not have to be typed, but must be neat and legible. Write or type on only one side of the paper. I will not assign a grade to the journal until it is complete, but I will give you plenty of feedback along the way. On the average, you should write one page a week (approximately 200 words) for a total of 15 pages for the semester (approximately 3000 words). There is not a specific number of journal entries you need to complete, just a number of pages/words. The journal will be worth 60 points.