Essays will address social psychological influences on one of the following disorders:
• Eating disorders
• Disorders of trauma and stress
• Substance use and addictive disorders
• Personality disorders
• Dissociative and somatoform disorders
• Sexual disorders
• Childhood disorders
• Autistic spectrum disorder
For example, you may examine eating disorders (e.g., focusing on anorexia) from a
social psychological perspective, focusing on the ways that the presenting symptoms,
diagnosis, prevalence, etiology, and treatment of this disorder are influenced by one of
the following: culture, self-esteem, social identity, social networks (offline), social
technology, close relationships, stigma, cisheteropatriarchy, or racism. Please be
specific at each stage, preferably focusing on one subtype if the class of disorders you
choose is comprised of different subtypes (e.g., focus on anorexia or bulimia; choose a
McMaster University, Social Psychology Program, SOCPSY 3A03
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subtype of sexual or personality disorder).
Part of your essay should be devoted to briefly reviewing the presenting symptoms,
DSM-5 diagnostic criteria, prevalence, etiology, and treatment of the disorder you
choose, but please keep this review to a minimum – no more than one page. Your
essay should focus on social psychological influences on the mental disorder and
should not exceed 1,800 words (excluding the title page and references). There are no
rules about how many references you should include, but as a loose guideline, aim for
at least 10. These references should be primarily journal articles (e.g., empirical papers,
reviews, meta-analyses). Do not include the title of any published articles in the body of
your essay as this will deplete your word count unnecessarily. Your essay should be
written in APA style
