PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 491

SYSTEMATIC PSYCHOLOGY

Writing Assignments

For each assignment:

• See the syllabus for formatting and other requirements.

• Be sure to cite all the sources you use.

1. Psychology on Your Birth Date

You will write a three-page (minimum) paper describing an event that occurred in the history of psychology on your birth date. To get a list of events, go to http://www.cwu.edu/~warren/ today.html, select the month and date of your birth from the drop-down menus, and click on “Search!” (This historical data base is maintained by Warren Street, a professor of psychology at Central Washington University. To see a list of other history links, replace “today” in the URL with “home.”) Your paper is worth 20 points.

In your paper, do the following:

1. Pick one event that happened on your birth date and describe it fully (one page minimum).

2. Describe the events that led up to the event that happened on your birth date. That is, describe the historical context of the event (one page minimum).

3. Describe the consequences of the event that happened on your birth date. That is, describe some of the effects the event had on the development of psychology (one page minimum).

2. What Makes a Psychologist Eminent?

Steven Haggbloom and his colleagues recently published a list of “the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century” (Haggbloom, S. J. et al. [2002]. The 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century. Review of General Psychology, 6, 139-152). The top 25 are listed below.

Choose two psychologists from the list below and for each write a 1-page (minumum) biographical essay explaining why that person should be considered eminent. (I have the complete list if you want to see it to choose someone with a lower ranking.) Be sure to cite all the sources you use. Your essay for each psychologist is worth 10 points (20 points total).

3. Tracing the History of an Idea in Psychology

In this paper you will trace the historical development of a psychological concept (such as aggression, memory, language development, etc.) that you learned about in one of your Psychological Science classes. Your treatment of the historical development of the concept should begin no later than the year 1800, but the majority of your paper should focus on the 20th and 21st centuries. At a minimum your paper should address the following issues:

1. Philosophical background. What did philosophers have to say about the concept prior to the development of psychology as a science? (1 page minimum, 1.5 pages maximum)

2. Systems of psychology. Do one of the following:

a. Describe how your concept was treated by two of the historical schools of psychology: Structuralism, Functionalism, Gestalt, Behaviorism, Humanistic, or Psychoanalytic. (1 page minimum for each school)

b. Or, describe how your concept was treated by two psychologists who wrote about the topic prior to 1930. Early resources in psychology can be found at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca, a historical web site maintained by Christopher Green, a psychology professor at York University, Toronto, Canada. (1 page minimum for each psychologist)

c. Or, Describe how your concept was treated by one school and one psychologist writing prior to 1930. (1 page minimum for each)

3. Current status. How do psychologists currently treat the concept? At a minimum, address the following questions:

a. How has thinking about the concept changed from its philosophical roots to its current status? (1 page minimum)

b. How has research on the topic changed since 1900? (1 page minimum)

The paper is worth 40 points.

4. Continuing Questions in Psychology

Throughout its history psychology has a faced a number of recurring, and sometimes continuing, questions and issues. For this assignment you will reflect on your education as a psychology student and provide your answers to three such questions questions. In addressing the questions, explain your answers fully and support your positions with appropriate references from the professional psychological literature. Be sure to answer these questions from the perspective of psychology, not philosophy, religion, sociology, etc., unless you are comparing or contrasting the psychological perspective with one of the others.

From the lists below, address two questions from Set A and one question from Set B. Your answer to each question is worth 10 points (30 points total).

Question Set A (Answer two of these)

1.What is the basic nature of human beings? That is, are people basically good, basically bad, or do we start out as “blank slates” and become good or based solely on experience?

2. How are the mind and the body related?

3.Which is more important in causing people to behave the way they do, nature (e.g., genetic and/or biological factors) or nurture (i.e., experience)?

4. What is the role of rationality in human behavior? That is, do people make carefully considered, logical choices, or is human behavior primarily nonrational or even irrational?

5. How real is reality? That is, do the senses provide a direct, 100% accurate depiction of the world, or does the mind filter, interpret, and/or distort sensory data so that each person experiences his or her own unique version of reality?

Question Set B (Answer one of these)

6. Which is more important, applied, problem-focused psychology or basic, theory-focused psychology?

7. How should psychological research be conducted? Should it be “objective,” using traditional experimental and measurement approaches that establish a moat between the researcher and the research participants to prevent researcher biases from contaminating the data? Or should it be “subjective,” using techniques such as case studies and interviews to develop an empathic understanding of participants’ life experiences?

8. Are there some topics in psychology that researchers should not study? If not, why not? If so, what are some examples of what should not be studied and why should those topics be off-limits to researchers?

Last updated: July 30, 2002