psy100at-homewritingassignments—fall2007.docVIP

PSY 100 At-Home Writing Assignments—Fall 2007 During the semester you must complete three of the five at-home writing assignments. These papers require you to use information presented in this course in an applied and personal manner. There is one at-home writing assignment per unit of the course and each one needs to be submitted online on the same day as the exam for that section. Papers should be typed in Times New Roman 12-point font. Papers should be double spaced and uploaded into RamCT by the start of the class period that they are due. Late papers will not be accepted and internet problems are not an excuse for failing to meet the deadline. Each of the three papers you choose to complete will be worth 50 points and should not exceed 4-5 pages. Reminder: Plagiarism is a form of cheating and will be treated as such. Writing assignments containing large amounts of published material without proper citations or writing assignments containing large amounts of material from other student papers will be considered plagiarized and the student(s) will lose all 150 at-home writing points. Determination of plagiarism is at the instructor’s discretion. Writing Assignment #1: Due Wednesday September 5th, 2007 Research methodology is essential to everything that a psychologist does. The only way to truly understand human behavior and mental processes is to study it empirically. Scientists often rely on triangulation (the use of multiple methods to test the same phenomenon) or replication (repeating a test multiple times to improve confidence in the finding) to explore the process they are interested in. By using these techniques, psychologists are often able to advance understanding of a phenomenon that sparked their initial curiosity. Your job is to practice being a research psychologist in order to better understand what most psychologists do. First, you should pick a behavior or mental process that sparks your curiosity. This can be something you notice yoursel