Instruction from class syllabus:
Thesis Paper
Each student will prepare a major course paper (thesis) that brings the relationship between psychology and religious faith to bear on material (an issue or issues) from your study of psychology. The paper should be viewed as an opportunity to seek deeper understanding of an issue by bringing together insights and questions from psychology and religious faith (for most of you this paper can focus on your own Christian faith commitments). Try to develop possible paper topics early in the semester so that you can begin reading articles that are interesting and relevant to your topic. The paper should be 12-15 pages (not including cover page and references). It should demonstrate both careful research and an attempt to respond to the topic in a critical and creative manner. It will be evaluated on the basis of the following:
1) Careful research and utilization of existing evidence regarding your topic. At least one body of evidence should be psychological (e.g., empirical research, developed theoretical explanations, interpretive case analyses) and one body theological or Christian philosophical (e.g., scriptural interpretation, developed theological explanations, philosophical critical analyses, faith community narratives)
2) The organization and strength of your argument of a thesis (a clear major conclusion). This thesis should be clearly stated in an abstract, the introduction, and again in the conclusion of the paper
3) Connection to issues considered throughout the course, specifically to different models of relationship between psychology and religion. As you construct your argument, identify how your approach fits within the models of integration considered throughout the course, or why it doesn’t approximate any of them
4) Form of writing. You should employ APA style, particularly as it applies to what the APA Publication Manual stipulates for a “Review Paper” as opposed to a “Research Paper” that reports the results of empirical investigations. The primary issue here is conforming to a clearly specified professional writing style, good grammar, sentence and paragraph construction, clear paper organization, etc.
The thesis paper will be developed throughout the semester. There will be 4 “milestones”:
• A paper proposal, which includes a summary of the topic area, a tentative major thesis, and a list of some potential sources.
• A fully developed outline of the paper and an annotated bibliography
• Peer review
• The final thesis paper.
Example topics for thesis papers:
• How psychology and religious (Christian) faith interact in understanding an issue of current concern (aggression, addiction, gender development, etc.). Or, how do psychology and religious understandings relate in giving guidance on some professional, family, or church practice (e.g., How might a Christian understanding of children influence school psychology or a Christian understanding of work influence industrial/organizational psychology?)?
• You may focus a paper on critically analyzing how some psychologists have explained issues of religious faith. For example:
o A critical analysis of evolutionary psychology’s explanation of aspects of religious belief
o A psychological and theological evaluation of current psychological theories of morality
• You may argue that psychological research makes new contributions to understanding aspects of Christian belief. For example:
o Neuroscience and our experience of “self”: Implications for the doctrine of the soul.
o Psychology of child development: Implications for nurturing faith in preschoolers
• You may develop ways that religious (Christian) beliefs and practices can influence an area of psychology. For example:
o How Christian faith and community can be employed in treating adolescent eating disorders.
o A biblical idea of forgiveness and its place in an effective cognitive-behavioral therapy.
o The implications of Christian belief in human agency for experimental methods and research.
• Or you may bring theological and psychological understandings together as they relate to some common idea. For example:
o Comparisons between understandings of “human freedom” in a specific psychology and a specific theology complement or conflict.
o Psychological understandings of forgiveness compared and integrated with theological understandings of forgiveness.
o Can a psychology of human personality be built around the theological idea that humans are created in the image of God?
I attached my thesis proposal below with the topic I am interested in. And an outline with my sources. Some feedback I got from my professor for the Bibliography outline was to find more theological/philosophical as I move forward with the paper. so please help me out with finding theological sources as well.
The thesis paper example and thesis rubric also attached below.
Also, I need to make connection of how my thesis paper can connect back to the different models of integration between psychology and religion. I also attached the models of integration guide we talked in class below.
Please try your best to make sure the paper is free of grammatical errors and sentences syntax. Please ask if have any question.
