One of your requirements for the 380
discussion section is to keep a journal throughout the semester.
The purposes of this journal are:
* to stimulate thought about the material
during days when you are not in class
* to point out the relevance of social
psychology to everyday life
* to provide a starting point for
discussion section each week
You are required to write one journal
entry each week from 9/20 until 11/29, for a total of 11 entries by the
end of the term.
Guidelines
Every week before
discussion section meets, you should look at the list of topics.
For each week there is listed a general topic based on the readings from
the syllabus. Your assignment is to choose a specific aspect of that
general topic and to write about how it relates to a recent event in your
life. For example, Week #5 has the topic heading of attribution,
so you might decide to write about gender differences in attributional
style, the Fundamental Attribution Error, etc. Specific topic
suggestions for each week are listed to help you, but you are by no
means limited by them. You may select any process, phenomenon, theory,
or psychological tendency that is relevant to the general topic (attribution
in this case). The textbook and material covered in lecture will
be helpful in generating ideas for you to write about.
The body of each entry should
begin with a description of an event or interaction in your life in four
or five sentences. A page-long story about how you spent your weekend
is too long, and one line reading, "I went out with my friends" is insufficient.
You should pick a specific event or interaction and describe it in enough
detail so that your subsequent discussion will make sense to someone who
was not there. Next you should describe how the specific topic
you have chosen is relevant to this event. Sample
Entry 1 provides a good example of an interaction summary followed
by a discussion of its relevance to the Fundamental Attribution Error.
Your discussion should address some (but not necessarily all) of the following
questions:
* How can the psychological phenomenon
you have chosen be seen in this interaction?
* How does your current awareness
of this psychological phenomenon change the way you interpret what happened
during this event?
* If you (or others) had been aware
of social psychological research about this phenomenon during the event,
how might the outcome of the interaction have been changed?
* How will your learning about this
phenomenon influence your attitudes/behavior/perceptions in the future?
* What questions do you now have after
considering the event in light of psychological theory?
* What type of experiment(s) might
help address these issues?
You can also discuss an event
that seems to be inconsistent with the topic you have chosen to write about.
Sample Entry 2 provides a good example of
a discussion of a situation that seems like it could have led to the Fundamental
Attribution Error, but didnít. In such cases, you might also want
to consider the following questions:
* How was this interaction inconsistent
with the theory or phenomenon you have chosen?
* Why do you think the outcome of
this interaction seems to be inconsistent with the phenomenon you chose?
* What aspects of the situation, if
changed, would have resulted in a less surprising outcome?
* What type of experiment(s) might
help answer these questions?
Format
Each entry should have the last
6 digits of your Social Security number on it, as well as your section
number and the week number. The top of your entry should list the
general topic for the week and the specific phenomenon you have chosen.
Entries should be typed or written legibly, spellchecked, and absolutely
no more than one page each. One shorter paragraph summarizing the
event and one longer paragraph of discussion is a good model to follow.
Each entry should be on its own page, and you need to store the pages in
a folder or binder. Bring this binder with you to discussion section
every week.
Grading
Your journal will contribute
to your grade for section participation (10% of your total grade) in two
ways. First, you might be asked to share a journal entry with other
students in a small group, or you might be asked to choose an entry to
read aloud to the whole section. Second, your journals will be collected
near the end of the term on 11/29. At that point, journals with less
than 11 entries will be penalized a full grade (e.g., from A- to B-) for
each entry that is missing, and the late penalties outlined in the syllabus
will also apply to journals turned in after the end of section on 11/29.
Your complete journal will then be given a letter grade based on the following
criteria:
* how well you demonstrate comprehension
of the psychological concepts you discuss
* your ability to analyze theories
and phenomena by answering the questions on this handout (or other relevant
and interesting questions)
* the effort and creativity
used in relating personal events to what we are studying
NOTE: Your journals will also be collected on 9/27, when I will read your first two entries and return written comments and suggestions to you. They will not be graded at this point.
Final Remarks
* "Nothing relevant happened to me
this week" is not an excuse for not writing. You can always write
about something that happened to you previously or about something that
happened to someone you know. If all else fails, watch any TV sitcom
for a half-hour and youíre bound to find good material to write about.
My personal recommendation is Seinfeld.
* Try to write about events that you
are comfortable discussing. If asked to read an entry aloud, you
can always choose not to because it is personal, but sharing these events
with others is an important part of the assignment. And keep in mind
that you need to turn in all 11 entries at the end of the term to be graded,
so even though you use an ID# instead of your name, at least one person
(me) will be reading them at some point.
* You must keep your entries
in order in a folder or binder. Do not plan on stapling them together
at the last minute-- they need to be easily accessible during discussion
section.
* Make sure the topic you choose
is specific and interesting enough to be useful to you and to others.
Something like "this interaction is relevant because I made an attribution"
is not informative or very sophisticated. Writing "in this interaction
I made a self-serving attribution that allowed me to maintain high self-esteem"
conveys more information, deals with a more specific phenomenon, and is
more interesting to read.
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