Personality and Social Psychology
PART1- Due Thursday
Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:
It is important to look back over what we have learned about synthesize what we have gathered. Take a look back at what you have processed. What are three concepts you think you will use in the future, and how will you use that information to improve your work?
PART2- SEE ATTACHMENT
PART3- Research Proposal
Develop an original research study proposal and describe it in detail in a 10-12 page (APA style) paper. Include at least 10 scholarly references in your proposal. Use the following outline as a guide when writing your paper. Be sure to include detailed information on all of the topics listed below and use headings to organize your thoughts.
1. Statement of the problem: Introduce the reader to the problem to be studied. Provide sufficient background information such that the reader has a grasp of the situation and its importance.
2. Review of the literature: Provide the reader with a review of most relevant literature, beginning with general information, and narrowing the focus to the specific issues under consideration in the study.
3. Purpose of the study: Identify why the study that you are proposing is needed.
4. Hypotheses or research questions: List them as simple statements. Make sure they are measurable.
5. Definition of terms: Operationally define terms the average reader may not know, or that have a specific meaning in your study.
6. Assumptions: Identify issues you assume to be true in order for your study to be valid.
7. Research methods and procedures
a. Population: Describe the population sample to be studied
b. Procedure: Discuss how the study will be carried out.
c. Instruments: Describe the specific measurements (instruments) to be used to test each hypothesis (research question).
d. Data Analysis: Describe the procedures you intend to use to analyze the data produced from your instruments, and how that would answer the hypotheses (research questions).
a. Discussion: Since you are only proposing (not conducting) a research study, you will not have results; however, you can discuss potential outcomes. Review your hypothesis and discuss how this study will address it. For example, if the results allow you to reject the null hypothesis, what are the implications? What would happen if you fail to reject the null hypothesis? Discuss the implications of your proposed study, the limitations of your study, and future research ideas and directions.
b. Since you are only proposing (not conducting) a research study, you will not have results; however, you can discuss potential outcomes. Review your hypothesis and discuss how this study will address it. For example, if the results allow you to reject the null hypothesis, what are the implications? What would happen if you fail to reject the null hypothesis? Discuss the implications of your proposed study, the limitations of your study, and future research ideas and directions.
8. Implications: Provide a brief summary of your proposal and a powerful statement as to how your study would advance the field.
9. References: Include at least 10 scholarly sources in your Reference section. Be sure to use APA style throughout your paper.
REFERENCE
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Discuss the issues created by generalizing research results to other populations, including potential problems using college students as research participants.
- Discuss issues to consider regarding generalization of research results to other cultures and ethnic groups.
- Describe the potential problem of generalizing to other experimenters and suggest possible solutions.
- Discuss the importance of replications, distinguishing between exact replications and conceptual replications.
- Distinguish between narrative literature reviews and meta-analyses.
Page 292IN THIS CHAPTER, WE WILL CONSIDER THE ISSUE OF GENERALIZATION OF RESEARCH FINDINGS. When a single study is conducted with a particular sample and procedure, can the results then be generalized to other populations of research participants, or to other ways of manipulating or measuring the variables? Recall from Chapter 4 that internal validity refers to the ability to infer that there is a causal relationship between variables. External validity is the extent to which findings may be generalized.
GENERALIZING TO OTHER POPULATIONS
Even though a researcher may randomly assign participants to experimental conditions, rarely are participants randomly selected from the general population. As we noted in Chapters 7 and 9, the individuals who participate in psychological research are usually selected because they are available, and the most available population consists of college students—or more specifically, first- and second-year students enrolled in the introductory psychology course to satisfy a general education requirement. They may also be from a particular college or university, may be volunteers, or may be mostly males or mostly females. So, are our research findings limited to these types of subjects, or can we generalize our findings to a more general population? After considering these issues, we will examine the larger issue of culture and how research findings can be generalized to different cultural groups.
College Students
Smart (1966) found that college students were studied in over 70% of the articles published between 1962 and 1964 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology and the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. Sears (1986) reported similar percentages in 1980 and 1985 in a variety of social psychology journals; Arnett (2008) found that 67% of the articles in the 2007 volume of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology used college student samples. The potential problem is that such studies use a highly restricted population. Sears points out that most of the students are first-year students and sophomores taking the introductory psychology class. They therefore tend to be young and to possess the characteristics of emerging adults: a sense of self-identity that is still developing, social and political attitudes that are in a state of flux, a high need for peer approval, and unstable peer relationships. They are intelligent with high cognitive abilities. Thus, what we know about “people in general” may actually be limited to a highly select and unusual group. Indeed, Peterson (2001) found that students, as a group, are more homogenous than nonstudent samples. That is, students are more similar to each other than adults are similar to other adults in the general population.
