Social Psychology
(Research question)
Ernest and Sally have both failed the midsemester exam (in a course that is not social psychology). Later, at the student bar, Sally says mournfully that she just is no good at this course and orders another drink. Ernest declares that the exam was poorly worded and failed to adequately test his knowledge of the course and also orders another drink. Drawing critically on the literature on attributional biases, explain the differences in Ernest and Sally?s responses.
Your research paper needs to:
1-convey the knowledge and ideas that have been established regarding the social psychological theory/phenomenon central to the research questions
2-describe, summarise, and integrate existing theory and research
3-highlight strengths and weaknesses of the current theory and research
4-draw conclusions regarding the current status of theory and research
(Researching your assignment)
(Aronson et al). Your reading here will provide you with some general background relevant to your chosen research question. In addition, it will provide you with some starting references that you will be able to follow up in your literature search.
However, there are a number of important points to recognise in carrying out this assignment.
*You will not be able to find an answer to your chosen question in one textbook or research article. Rather, you will have to research the topic and build an answer based upon your reading. Further, since most textbooks will provide a similar level of general description relating to your topic, your response will naturally draw more upon papers and articles in research journals, rather than texts. Psycinfo is a good data base to commence your search.
*when you believe that you have developed a good feel for the research, and you have located sufficient bits of evidence to build a case, you need to draw the bits together so that they make a coherent and persuasive argument.
*In presenting your argument, it should have an introduction, a middle/body, and a summary/conclusion.
*The introduction should seek to locate the reader in the topic area, giving a brief overview of the breadth of the topic, and the sorts of issues that have been of importance to researchers. You should then focus on your selected research topic, specifying the particular issues/sub-topics that you intend to address, and in what order.
*The summary/conclusion section of your assignment should draw together the points that you have made in order to provide your definitive response to the topic, at least to the extent that is allowed by the research literature. You can also specify any limitations that might have occurred to you relating to the theories, research findings, and the research methods that are currently relevant to the topic area. In addition, it is valuable to be able to point out where there are gaps in the literature that require further research. (Note: some of these issues, such as limitations and gaps in the literature might have been mentioned in the middle/body of the assignment ? if so, only a brief mention is required in the summary/conclusion)
*Since your response will draw heavily upon the existing theoretical and research literature, it is expected that you will cite your source material, as appropriate. The rule is that you provide a reference(s) in the text when you paraphrase material from a book or research article. In addition, you are required to place particular sentences and paragraphs that you have extracted from a source(s) within quotation marks, together with the reference and page numbers in the text. It is expected that you will mostly paraphrase arguments and research findings from books and research articles, rather than quote exact sentences and words. Quotations are used only when it is especially important to link a particular claim or argument to a particular author and/or you are simply unable to better express a claim or point by paraphrasing. Note that we expect that your assignment will be peppered with citations since you will largely be drawing upon the work of other people. Since it is their work, it is appropriate that they should be given credit for it. Indeed, claims that you make that are unsupported will raise question marks.
*All of the references that you cite are to be included in your Reference List. This list is to be compiled according to the rules specified by APA 6th Edition. Note that your Reference List should only contain the references that you have cited in your assignment.
*Your completed assignment must have the following features
*Minimum 25-30 check-able references, with doi?s.