Social Psychology: Psychological Study
Consists of a 2,000 word written research report, which must be handed in for comments and marking. You must submit a full report plus appendices as an electronic copy of the report via turnitin by Wednesday, 18.3.20, deadline is 12pm (noon). Your assignment may not be marked unless your submission has been received.
For this assignment, we are asking you to carry out a social psychological study, which you will have to write up as a report. You are asked to investigate a research question that is based on a social psychological theory. To ease data collection, the data you are collecting should be material that can be accessed via the internet (e.g. news sites, online newspapers & magazines, advertisements, blogs, discussion forums, social media etc.; but excl. images, video or sound! – if in doubt, please consult the module leader). In order to address your research question, you are asked to use a widely used social psychological methodology (i.e. content analysis) including a narrative account of themes. You will need to apply social psychological theory to ground your research question and interpret your results. Similarly, the selection or sampling of your data should be in line with your research question and hypothesis.
The theory you will be asked to apply is the Stereotype Content Model (SCM; Fiske et al., 2002). You will be asked to make a choice comparing two group stereotypes within one of the following three areas:
- Mental Health
- European countries
- Criminal groups
You need to ensure that you follow all general requirements of this type of report. Briefly:
Title
Abstract, brief summary of your whole project
Introduction: you should review the relevant literature leading up to your research question and hypothesis; Ensure that your research question is grounded in social psychological theory and reflected in a testable hypothesis;
Method: describe your methodology (e.g. brief description of material, procedure etc).Your methodology (i.e. content analysis) should be clear and replicable;
Results: Your statistical analysis (i.e. chi-square) should test your hypothesis; report the analyses that was carried out and the findings obtained:
- Frequency of themes via 2×2 chi-square and
- Narrative account of themes via thematic analysis
Discussion: interpret your results; relate back to the relevant literature that appears in your introduction; come to a conclusion as to how the results from your study fit with the literature and how they answer the research question; evaluate the study and methodology, as well as discuss study limitations and so on
References as appropriate
Appendix e.g. annotated material (e.g. coding manual, completed coding schedule, data formatted with line numbers)
Please ensure that your data collection is in line with the Ethics Guidelines for Internet-mediated Research
If you are not using one of the weblinks proposed by the teaching team, you must complete the attached ethical approval form
ethical approval form – Alternative Formats
Whatever theory you may select, please remember to provide a good rationale for your research, ethical issues and other appropriate conventions. This document aims to guide you in your work but is not exhaustive. Finally, the team is particularly interested in how you engage as social psychologists and develop a piece of research. Your methodology here is a tool rather than the end goal.