In addition to entertaining us, movies offer detailed portrayals of human social behavior. Your task in this assignment is to analyze — from a social-psychological perspective — the behaviors and events depicted in one of the films listed below. You are not being asked to critique the film in terms of its value as a work of art or as entertainment. Rather, you should think carefully about the human actions and events portrayed in the film. Then, to make sense of this material, apply what you’ve learned this semester regarding the factors that predict and explain human social behavior. This assignment is comprehensive: Use any/all concepts encountered in this course that relate to the issues, interactions, and behaviors portrayed.

Written responses should be at least 4 full pages. Submit via Blackboard by the deadline.

Your paper should be in APA style, and you will see from the grading rubrics that I will deduct points for those deviating from APA style. For some help in determining APA style, see:

• Degelman & Harris’ APA Style Essentials• An excellent APA crib sheet from my alma mater, Georgia Southern University.• A nice FAQ from Purdue for how to cite odd materials (e.g. lecture notes).• The official APA Style website from the APA. It mostly wants to sell you products.• Psych Web’s excellent list of internet APA style resources

Always, always, without fail, keep a copy of your paper.

Choose a movie to watch (the following are recommended, but not required). Please choose a movie that is new to you.

You may not choose Zootopia or Edward Scissorhands.

• Experimenter (2015)• The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)• Hidden Figures (2016)• Sing Street (2016)• TiMER (2009)• North Country (2005)• That Thing You Do (1996)• Get Out (2017)• According to Greta (2009)• Edward Scissorhands (1990)• Swimfan (2002)• The Big Sick (2017)

Find and discuss three or more social psychology concepts present in the movie. For each concept that you identify:

• Briefly describe the relevant scene (you may assume that your reader has seen the film)• Provide detailed examples from dialogue or a situationto show how the concept is present

• Describe in detail the social-psychological principle you believe is relevant. Your job here is to demonstrate that you understand the principle or theory, and that you can describe it in your own words. An occasional quote from your text or another source is fine, but for the most part, you should be conveying your knowledge without the aid of others’ words. You don’t need to do library research for this – using your text or your lecture notes as resources is fine – but remember the rules about avoiding plagiarism! It’s best if you are specific about the principles you discuss. For example, don’t just indicate that your scene illustrates helping, or conformity, or persuasion, or aggression. Instead, indicate what specific theory, or principle or aspect of helping/conformity/persuasion/aggression, etc. that your scene illustrates.• Elaborate on how the selected scene illustrates the principle you have identified. It’s also ok to write about how a scene might fails to follow predictions derived from the social-psychological principle or theory. Where possible, make reference to how your scene maps onto specific research findings (for example, describe how the scene is similar to or different from relevant experiments you’ve read or heard about). It’s very important that you do more than simply say something like “this scene illustrates conformity.” You must be specific on precisely how and in what form the scene illustrates conformity, or how it fails to support what you learned about conformity in the class.• Be sure to include a short Introduction to orient the reader, as well as a short Discussion to tie things together.

urnitin, 2012).  Review Instructor Guidance and Announcements.  Part of scientific research includes conveying knowledge (about theory, research, etc.) to others.  In this activity, you will practice using your own academic voice (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. and applying in-text citations (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..

1. Review the following passage from your textbook, followed by a rewritten summary:

ORIGINAL AUTHOR’S THOUGHTS
Social psychologists use the scientific method—a hypothesis, or testable prediction, is developed and then tested using observational, correlational, or experimental methods.  These different methods answer different kinds of questions.  Observational methods answer questions relating to what is happening.  Correlational methods look at relationships between variables, enabling prediction.  Correlation, however, does not allow us to determine causation.  With the experimental method, researchers manipulate one variable, the independent variable, and measure the effect of that manipulation through assessment of the dependent variable.  At times, once one knows the results of a research study, those results may seem obvious, but people tend to fall short when truly predicting results beforehand.  This sense that “you knew it all along” is called the hindsight bias.  In research, attention is paid to potential ethical issues.  Researchers have their research plans checked by an institutional review board, and participants provide informed consent and are debriefed at the end of the participation.

Reference

Feenstra, J. (2013). Introduction to social psychology [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

REWRITE BY SOMEONE WANTING TO WRITE ABOUT THE ARTICLE AND ITS FINDINGS
Social psychologists use the scientific method—a hypothesis, or testable prediction, is developed and then tested using observational, correlational, or experimental methods (Feenstra, 2013).  Different methods answer different kinds of questions.  Observational methods answer questions about what is happening.  Correlation enables prediction by looking at relationships between variables.  Correlation, however, does not determine causation.  With the experimental method, researchers manipulate the independent variable and measure the effect of that manipulation on the dependent variable.  Occasionally, one might correctly predict results and feel as though he or she “knew it all along” (hindsight bias), but this is rare.  In research, attention is directed to possible ethical issues.  An institutional review board will check the plans of a researcher, and participants will provide informed consent and will be debriefed following participation in studies.

1. Review the rewritten passage.
2. Locate and identify the errors, based on The Plagiarism Spectrum: Tagging 10 Types of Unoriginal Work (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. (Turnitin, 2012), that exist in the rewrite.

• Are there any sentences that are correctly paraphrased?
• Why could this rewrite be considered plagiarism (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.?

1. Rewrite the passage appropriately using appropriate methods for summarizing (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. and paraphrasing (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. information (without using quotes.).  In other words, demonstrate how could you share the information successfully, using your own academic voice (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., within a paper you might be writing.
2. Explain what it means to paraphrase and why this is an important practice for all individuals participating in academic writing.

• What are some additional features of academic writing that should be considered as you write papers within your program?
• What methods/strategies can you use to assure that you are successfully using your own academic voice rather than someone else’s?
• What are some potential consequences for failing to consider the importance of academic voice (e.g., consequences in one’s academic journey/success, ability to communicate with others successfully)?