Week 6 – Interactive Assignment

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Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses.

Rethinking Psychopathology

Prior to beginning work on this interactive assignment, review your instructor’s initial forum post, and watch The Nature of the Mind–Part One: The Roots of Psychological Disorder. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. It is recommended that you read Chapters 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, and 10 in Positive Psychology: Theory, Research and Applications, Please note that the video selected for this week is dense and may be difficult to understand upon first viewing. You are encouraged to watch the video more than once over the course of several days to better understand the conversation in more depth.

As a scholarly member of the psychological community, you will be expected to engage in philosophical conversations on the nature of psychopathology and changes in the mind. This interactive assignment is an opportunity to have a philosophical conversation with your instructor and classmates on positive psychology and the nature of psychological suffering.

For your posts in this forum, you will follow the instructions provided to you in the instructor guidance for this week. As a class, you will judge and comment on the use of diagnostic manuals and handbooks including how they may limit our understanding of psychopathology.

Guided Response: The goal of this discussion is to have a single, dynamic, and respectful conversation about positive psychology and the nature of psychological suffering, not a series of 20 to 30 separate conversations. This means that every post should be in response to another student’s post, creating one long thread. Only start a new discussion thread if you want to address an entirely different theme or question(s) within the discussion subject area. Additionally, only post after first carefully reviewing your colleagues’ posts within the thread.

Review several of your colleagues’ posts. Post at least twice by 11:59 p.m. on Day 7 of the week. You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful interactive discourse in this forum.

Each of your responses to your peers should include a summary of the thoughts presented by your colleague as well as your evaluation of your colleague’s comments in a manner that contributes to the further understanding of the various phenomena under consideration.

Simple agree and/or disagree statements are insufficient to be counted as a response. When presenting your opinion, be certain to cite relevant references which support your claims. Do not repeat what your classmates have already stated, and do not ignore them if they ask you questions. Any questions asked of you must be answered, including questions from your instructor. Try to keep the conversation moving forward by presenting options, insights, alternative ideas on and/or interpretations of the topics and research.

Continue to monitor the discussion forum until 5:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time (MST) on Day 7 of the week and be sure to answer any questions your colleagues pose to you.

Carefully review the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate this Discussion

Find an online article (news, magazine, journal, etc.) on any subject  that interests you that uses statistics to make its conclusion. Share a  link in this thread.

Now answer these questions about that article:

• What is the premise and conclusion of the argument based on statistics?
• Determine whether or not the argument uses any deceptive statistics.
• Give your opinion on whether or not the argument has persuaded you. Explain why or why not.
• Determine the primary ways in which statistics or authority are  used in your current position in developing persuasive arguments and  provide examples here.