At-Home Writing Assignments

PSY 100 At-Home Writing Assignments—Fall 2007

During the semester you must complete three of the five at-home writing assignments. These papers require you to use information presented in this course in an applied and personal manner. There is one at-home writing assignment per unit of the course and each one needs to be submitted onlineon the same day as the exam for that section.

Papers should be typed in Times New Roman 12-point font. Papers should be double spaced and uploaded into RamCT by the start of the class period that they are due. Late papers will not be accepted and internet problems are not an excuse for failing to meet the deadline. Each of the three papers you choose to complete will be worth 50 points and should not exceed 4-5 pages. Reminder: Plagiarism is a form of cheating and will be treated as such. Writing assignments containing large amounts of published material without proper citations or writing assignments containing large amounts of material from other student papers will be considered plagiarized and the student(s) will lose all 150 at-home writing points. Determination of plagiarism is at the instructor’s discretion.

Writing Assignment #1: Due Wednesday September 5th, 2007

Research methodology is essential to everything that a psychologist does. The only way to truly understand human behavior and mental processes is to study it empirically. Scientists often rely on triangulation (the use of multiple methods to test the same phenomenon) or replication (repeating a test multiple times to improve confidence in the finding) to explore the process they are interested in. By using these techniques, psychologists are often able to advance understanding of a phenomenon that sparked their initial curiosity. Your job is to practice being a research psychologist in order to better understand what most psychologists do.

First, you should pick a behavior or mental process that sparks your curiosity. This can be something you notice yourself doing, an annoying quality of a younger sibling, an aspect of romantic interests that confuses, or any other human process that you’ve experienced. Examples are endless so try not to get caught up in “finding something” or “knowing what to study.”

With your topic in mind, design two separate research projects that will shed more light on that area of human behavior. These projects should each use different methodologies (triangulation) when trying to explore your topic of interest. You will also need to explain: 1) which methods you chose; 2) how you will sample and from what population; 3) the advantages and limitations of the data you would be able to collect because of your chosen methodology; and 4) why you chose those methods and samples.

Be sure to be descriptive in your writing and be careful to not omit necessary information. Think seriously about your topic and try to imagine yourself doing these research projects. By acting like a researcher, you can in many ways become a researcher. Much of what psychologists do involves planning and imagining research before it takes place in order to foresee limitations and results. Good luck.

Writing Assignment #2: Due Wednesday September 26th, 2007

Sensation and Perception are essential to normal human functioning. Without the constant interaction between body and mind, much of our world becomes confusing, incoherent, or even non-existent. In fact, several commonly occurring disabilities are nothing more than a problem involving sensation, perception, or communication between the two. For example, several learning disabilities are the result of our brains grouping information incorrectly, ignoring specific stimuli, or having trouble integrating two or more sensations. By knowing more about both sensation and perception, psychologists can better understand what may be happening with some types of disabilities or limitations. Your job is to demonstrate your understanding of sensation and perception processes by discussing how the same limitation can occur because of different causes.

First, chose two human sensory disabilities or malfunctions that are interesting to you or that you have personal experience with. This could be anything including the bizarre (phantom limbs, auditory hallucinations, etc), the commonly occurring (deafness, autism, etc.), or the incredibly rare (prosopagnosia, loss of vestibular sense, etc.). Once again, the possibilities are staggering so do not rely on my examples for your topic.

With each of your malfunctions in mind, describe the behavioral and mental outcomes that accompany each of those disabilities. Imagine and describe what your daily routine would look like. Also, explain at least two different potential causes for the disability. For example, blindness could be either sensation based or perception based so you would explain how both of those could occur and where the problem would be. If necessary, explain how the different causes would relate to different behaviors, mental processes, or perceptions. Finally, explain how those types of sensation or perception problems could be fixed (assuming the technology exists).

Be sure to be descriptive in your writing and be careful to not omit necessary information. Think seriously about your topic and try to imagine yourself experiencing these difficulties. After completing the first section, conclude by answering these questions: 1) if you had to lose one of your six senses, which would you choose? 2) Why would you choose that one? 3) Which of your six senses are you least willing to lose? 4) Why is that one so important to you?

Writing Assignment #3: Due Friday October 19th, 2007

Mental illness is an issue that impacts the life of every person on this campus in some way or another. Some students have been diagnosed themselves while others have friends or family who have at least one of the wide variety of disorders that have been categorized. Everyone knows someone with these types of problems, and 1 out of 6 will experience mental illness firsthand during their lifetime. At the same time, very strong criticisms and a wealth of valid research has questioned the diagnosis, treatment, and even existence of some forms of ‘mental illness.’ Your job is to examine two separate cases involving potential mental illness and try to determine if the behaviors and mental processes are indeed atypical, unjustified, maladaptive, and/or disturbing. For this assignment, you should not justify or condemn behavior based on personal affiliations, religious views, moral opinion, or a desire to be politically correct. Your assessment and recommendations should be based on objective, rational, and empirical arguments grounded in psychology.

First, watch video # that tells the story of a young girl with a “transgender issue” and answer the following questions: 1) Is this girl suffering from a mental illness? 2) What makes you come to that conclusion? 3) If we assume that she does have a mental illness, is hormone replacement therapy or a sex change operation a valid treatment for her disorder? 4) Once again assuming she has a disorder, what other treatments would you recommend for this type of problem? Why? 5) Is “less than an hour” long enough for the psychologist to determine if she is fit for the hormone treatments? Why or why not? 6) Do you see any other factors that could be potentially confounding, skewing, or motivating the outcome of this situation that should be taken into account? What are they?

Your second case is one that you provide from popular culture. It could be an actor, super villain, pop star, video game hero, or news anchor. All that matters is that the person in question has been labeled as “crazy” by someone else (this does not have to be a mental health professional). Give a brief background of relevant behavior and mental process and then answer the following questions: 1) Is that person suffering from a mental illness? 2) What makes you come to that conclusion? 3) If we assume that s/he does have a disorder, what are the best types of treatments for the disorder? Why? 4) Do you see any other factors that could be potentially confounding, skewing, or motivating the labeling of that individual as mentally ill? What are they? 5) Is the accuser and everyone else for that matter, falling victim to any of the cognitive biases we have discussed in this class (hindsight, confirmation, false consensus, etc.)?

Be sure to be descriptive in your writing and be careful to not omit necessary information. Think seriously about your cases and assessment; try to imagine yourself doing this with real people’s lives. By examining the quirks of human behavior we can better understand both function and malfunction and the similarities that exist between the two. Good luck.

Writing Assignment #4: Due Wednesday November 7th, 2007

Human memory is an amazing area of psychological science. The normal human brain processes billions of pieces of information daily and filters things quite effectively. We have separate memory parts that allow us to use information for a short time without committing it long term or that enable us to store information for a lifetime and access it at will. We can store more information than every computer on the planet combined. With such powerful systems also come large mistakes, errors, or problems. In fact, every memory contains some component of fiction; some memories are entirely false. Your job is to evaluate the truthfulness of your own memories.

First, chose one memory from your lifetime; it should be either your earliest childhood memory or some type of flashbulb memory (car accident, first kiss, natural disaster, etc.). Every person has an earliest memory (although the age differs dramatically) and everyone has experienced some form of major life event that left a flashbulb image on their brain so doing this should not be difficult.

With your memory in mind, briefly describe the moment and what you remember of it. Pay particular attention to who was there, what was going on, what the room looked like, the exact words that were said, etc. Use your imagination to help you visualize the scene; relive the experience several times if necessary to improve your description of the moment. Try to use your own memory to retrieve that time period rather than deferring to relatives or friends that were also present.

After you have a very solid memory and description of the event written down, critically analyze the memory for aspects that don’t make sense or that could be the result of false memory or misinformation. For example, do you remember watching a cartoon that didn’t start until years later or do you visualize the scene from a perspective that is different from your actual location during the moment (i.e., 3rd person perspective)? After you have a list of questionable details, ask a friend or relative that was also present to recount the moment. Does their memory differ from yours? Can they confirm or refute any portions of your memory (especially those that made the list of questionable details)? Conclude by discussing how much of the memory you think was false and why you think that.

Writing Assignment #5: Due Friday November 30th, 2007

Fall break is an excellent opportunity for most students to go visit family, take an extended vacation, or just get some much needed distance from their roommates. Many of you were forcibly removed from the residence halls while others picked up extra hours at work. Regardless of what you did, your normal routine likely changed and you probably had experiences that were less common from everyday life. Your job is to relate material you’ve learned in this course to events that took place during fall break.

First, describe one or more events that took place in your life during fall break. This could be a ski trip with friends, a huge family gathering for Thanksgiving, a traumatic fight with your significant other, or a hectic double shift at work. Examples are only limited by the length of your vacation so finding something to talk about shouldn’t be difficult.

With the event(s) in mind, discuss at least seven psychological principles or phenomenon that relate to your fall break experience. This could be anything from motivation to eat lots of food to sensory adaptation for your nephew’s constant sniffing. Briefly explain how each principle is demonstrated in that situation and include discussion of any other related topics that may also be playing a role. Your discussion should be thorough rather than just a passing mention of each principle. The goal is for you to demonstrate understanding and the ability to use “psychologist glasses,” not to simply show the ability to list vocabulary terms and loosely relate them to ambiguous situations.

Be sure to be descriptive in your writing and be careful to not omit necessary information. Think seriously about your event and try to dissect every aspect in terms of psychological processes. By studying a specific situation it often becomes clear that psychology is the study of everything in all places. The field applies to all that humanity does and can explain a lot of what we experience in everyday life. Good luck.

At-Home Writing Assignments

People are interested in many different topics ranging from aggression to politics to religion and many more (as illustrated by our in class discussions). During our talk about the history of psychology we identified a key change in thought that shifted us from philosophers to psychologists. By applying this concept we can see that some topics lend themselves more readily to being a psychological science than others. Identify a topic of interest to you and write a paper that answers the following.
What is the topic of interest?
Why are you interested in this topic?
Approximately how long has this topic interested humans?
Using the same key point that was emphasized during the history of psychology discussion, determine if your topic of interest is suitable for psychological investigation.
What is it about your topic that makes it suitable or not suitable for psychological investigation?
How do you think a researcher would go about investigating this topic in a psychological investigation?
Based on what you can find in the textbook has this topic been investigated by psychologists?
Explain why you think it has already been investigated (or not been investigated by psychologists).

During our discussion about research methods we identified numerous procedures used by psychologists. Select a topic of personal interest to you and explain how you could use 3 different methods (survey, case study, naturalistic observation, experiment, archival, etc), to investigate this topic (1 must be an experiment).
The following are general and apply to any method you might select, thus they need only be answered one time.
What is your research question?
What is the Independent Variable?
What is the Dependent Variable?
Experiment – for the experiment portion answer the following
What does an experiment tell you about the relationship of your variables that no other procedure can tell you?
Why is this important?
Describe a procedure for how you would employ a double blind procedure
Describe a procedure for how you would employ random assignment
For each of the other 2 methods you selected answer the following
What is a key characteristic of this method?
What is a strength of this method?
What is a weakness of this method?
Why is this method practical or impractical for your research question?
Describe how you would employ this method to investigate your topic?
During our discussions about social psychology we emphasized that it impacts everyone at all times. Find an article from a local print news media source (Collegian, Rocky Mountain Times, Denver Post, etc.) and answer the following.
The following are general and need only be answered one time.
Where did you find your article? Example: Denver Post, August 2 page A3
Briefly, using no more than a quarter of the page, summarize the article.
Identify 3 principles from social psychology that could apply to the article and answer the following for each of the principles.
What is the name of the principle you have identified?
What does this principle mean or how does it work?
Explain how this principle applies to what occurred in the article.
How might this principle be guarded against to prevent what happened in the article; or how might this principle be used more often to replicate what happened in the article?
Give an example of how this principle has affected your own life.

Do something you enjoy. Watch a movie, read a book, go skiing, enjoy a strange dream, take a cooking class, whatever you want to do. Then answer the following.
Briefly describe what you did.
Identify (name) 5 principles or things from Sensation & Perception or Consciousness that we talked about in class or the book talks about.
For each principle describe what it is and how it works.
For each principle explain how it applies to what you did.

You will use principles we discussed during the operant conditioning segment to condition a friend (roommate, sibling, etc.) to engage in a behavior of your choosing, then extinguish the behavior. The behavior must not cause them harm or embarrassment. For example you could condition your friend to hold out their hand (expecting gum) every time you reach into a certain pocket.
For the the assignment answer the following.
What was the operant behavior?
Describe the conditioning procedure (including # of trials) you used on your friend.
Identify (name) the reinforcer and schedule you used.
What is a strength of this reinforcement schedule?
Describe the procedure (including # of trials) you used to extinguish the behavior?
It can be argued that operant conditioning could be used to change the behavior of a politician without them being aware you changed their behavior. Is this feasible? Why or why not? What would be necessary for this to work?

Classical conditioning may be used to make someone afraid of an object (as demonstrated by Watson and Little Baby Albert). Identify something you are afraid of and imagine that you learned this fear because of classical conditioning. Answer the following.
What did you identify as being afraid of and how long have you had this fear?
Using your example identify (name) what the CR, UCR, NS, CS, and UCS are. Do not simply write out CR = conditioned response, NS = neutral stimulus. Using your example tell me what each of these is – maybe in your example the neutral stimuli is a butter knife.
Assuming a classical conditioning explanation, describe the procedure by which you may have learned this fear.
Explain why we can be taught some things more easily than others (hint – biophobia).
According to your answer just above should your example be something that can be easily learned to fear?
How might you use learning principles to overcome a fear (need not be only classical conditioning)?
How likely is it that you actually learned this fear through classical conditioning? How do you know?

In 1.5 – 3 typed double spaced pages tell me what your favorite topic was that we covered in class, what you learned about it, and how you have or will apply what you learned to your life.

Homework #2