Social Psychology Analysis of Current Social Issues: Steps to Choose a Topic

Summary

You will select a topic related to a current social issue that you are interested in it and write a 7-8 pages paper using concepts, theories and models you have learned in class, supplemented by your outside research. You will analyze the issue that you have chosen as your topic from the social psychology point of view.

The purpose of this assignment is to develop your analytical skills and the ability to think critically. By demonstrating and exploring a particular subject like a social psychologist researcher, you will convince the reader that you can present a logical flow of thoughts. Your paper should reveal that you have researched your topic and read extensively about it, and you have a good knowledge of the topic. Any information and any claim in your paper must be backed by scientific evidence and published social psychology research.

The most important and probably the most challenging part of this assignment is to choose a good topic. The purpose of this part of the assignment is to have you think about your social world and apply the theories and concepts that you have learned in this course to your social environment. You need at least two weeks to think and work on your topic and to read as many related articles and curate a good topic. If you don't start early, you will have lots of problems in choosing a good topic

The first step in choosing a topic is to remember the definition of "social psychology." Social psychology is the scientific study of how and why individuals behave, think, and feel as they do in social situations.

The most common mistake of the students in choosing a topic is to choose something that is, in fact, about sociology, politics, history or clinical psychology rather than social psychology. You are expected to write a paper about how INDIVIDUALS behave or think in certain ways in certain social situations.

Like a social psychologist, you are going to explore the underlying social psychology forces that resulted in the existence of the social issue that you are talking about. Analyzing it and explaining how and why it is affecting people and what are the contributing factors. Therefore only describing a social issue without analysis, describing the behaviour of a large group of people, describing historical, social or political problems, describing the mental suffering of certain people, etc. without delving into why and how individuals behave in that certain way in such situations, is not enough. This would not be social psychology, but it would be sociology, or politics or history or clinical psychology.

Goal

Now choose a broad topic that interests you generally. (Think about your own experiences, your social concerns, what bothers you in the today society and you want to know more about it, what social behaviour, social situation or social concept is not quite right in your opinion, skim the textbook, search and read some articles, find some social psychology journals and browse the article topics, etc.) Remember that social situations are not necessarily only about the grand scheme or the society at large. For example, you may have noticed that recently a lot of jaywalking is happening in your neighbourhood, and you may be interested in writing your paper about this specific topic. To explain from a social psychology view that why people in your neighbourhood are jaywalking all the time and what can be done about it. (do not choose this particular topic, this is just an example).

Read the related part in the book to gain some more information about this topic and then narrow down your topic.

Most likely, your topic would still be very broad and vague, but now that you have narrowed down your topic to a more specific issue, you can really start to think about what you want to know and what you want to write about, giving your topic some more detail and context.

Now you should use google scholar to search for this topic and find a few related articles and get some ideas. Read the abstract of those articles to find new ideas. Remember that it is very important to choose a very detailed and narrow topic. Don't choose a topic that can actually be the name of a whole study field or a whole chapter in a book. You are not expected to discuss and solve the problems of the society in your paper, focus on one specific thing that is happening in a particular situation, place, environment, time, people, etc.

As an analogy, if you were Sherlock Holmes, you were not going to solve the problem of "crime" but only one crime in specific (robbery, for example). And not all the robberies, but only "armed robbery," and not all the armed robberies, but only the arm robbery of banks, and not all the bank robberies, but only the bank robbery of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and not all the bank robberies of the Royal Bank of Scotland, but only one robbery case with certain conditions. Then you are going to explain why and how it happened, focusing on explaining that how and why robbers, guards, customers, etc. behaved in certain ways in that special situation, using social psychology theories and concepts. For you in this case, it is not important that what are the systematic problems of the British society that lead to this robbery, it is not important if the security policies of the British banks are defective or not, it is not very important that historical or political conditions of the society lead some people to poverty and some disadvantaged people may be encouraged to commit crimes, etc. What is important is that why those specific individuals behaved as they did in that specific robbery case.

The bottom line in choosing a topic is: First, it should be related to social psychology, and you should be able to discuss and analyze your topic using social psychology concepts and theories. Second, it must be detailed and specific

Your paper will ultimately answer the following questions regarding your chosen topic:

- What is the social issue you've chosen? Where is it happening? When is it happening? To whom it applies?

- Why is it important to you? (this could be justified by explaining the negative effects and consequences of that issue)

- What are the reasons the issue exists? (from individuals' point of view, and not the general historical, sociological, political, etc. point of view)

- What are the solutions and suggestions? (use research-backed solutions and not your personal opinion)