(a) to address an applied
challenge, that is, some challenge faced in the “real world,” outside of
university departments of psychology, by
(b) making use of information in a scientific
paper that presents some psychological science that can be used to address
the challenge.
Below, you will find a list of
paper topics. You should choose one as
your topic. Each topic contains two
parts: (a) an applied challenge, and (b)
a scientific paper relevant to that challenge.
Once you choose a topic, your assignment is to:
(1)
describe the theory and research presented in the scientific paper listed
for your topic
(2) explain how that theory and
research addresses the applied challenge, in other words, to explain how
the psychological science (the theory and research in the paper) might help to
solve the problem faced by the person with the applied challenge.
The paper you write should be 3.5 –
4 pages in length. That is font size 12,
1-inch-margins, and 3.5 – 4 pages of actual text that you yourself write. (This would total roughly 1000 words of
writing.) In these 3.5-4 pages, you
should be accomplishing the two asks above:
(1) describe the theory and research presented in the scientific paper
you read (answer questions such as: what is the main idea of the paper? What
are the main research findings supporting this idea?), and (2) explain how that
theory and research can be applied to the applied problem (explain what the
person facing the applied challenge might do differently if they knew about the
theory and research in the paper). You
should probably spend about an equal amount of space on each of the two tasks;
your paper thus would have about 1.5-2 pages describing the theory and research
that is presented in the relevant scientific paper, and about 1.5-2 pages
explaining how the scientific information might be used to solve the applied
problem. In these 3.5-4 pages, then, you should be accomplishing the two asks
above: (1) describe the theory and
research presented in the scientific paper you read (answer questions such as:
what is the main idea of the paper? What are the main research findings
supporting this idea?), and (2) explain how that theory and research can be
applied to the applied problem (what would the person facing the applied
challenge do differently if they knew about the theory and research in the
paper?). You should probably spend about
an equally amount of time on each of the two topics. So your paper should have about 1.5-2 pages
describing the theory and research that is presented in the relevant scientific
paper, and about 1.5-2 pages explaining how this scientific information might
be used to solve the problem faced by the person with the applied challenge.
The topic I will be doing is “Motivation and Self-Control.” The one and only source (+page number) is provided below.
Motivation and Self-Control
Imagine that you
are an academic counselor here at UIC. A
student comes into your office and says “I’m plenty smart, Mr/Ms. Counselor,
but I’ve got no self-control, and there’s nothing I can do about it. During the semester, I never know exactly
what to do to study, and I can’t keep track of how I’m doing, and I forget to
do stuff – sometimes I totally forget to study for exams. There isn’t anything to do to change this, is
there.”
Is there anything to do? Might you have any tips on how the study can
improve his or her self-control?
Relevant Scientific Paper
Inzlicht, M.,
Legault, L., & Teper, R. (2014).
Exploring the mechanisms of self-control improvement. Current Directions in Psychological
Science, 23, 302-307.
