This week you must complete your final project.

This week you must complete your final project.. Please be careful to:

1. Follow the project description requirements carefully. The purpose of this paper is to apply theory to real life situations. Make sure that you have a clear theory from the area of Social Psychology to discuss. You must cut and paste (or link) actual abstracts from research publications on the theories you are applying. You will need five abstracts for this assignment.

2. Be sure you correctly cite your sources – both in text and in a references section following your paper. Check for proper APA formatting (for your references and in text citations). Remember the plagiarism tutorial you took at the beginning of this class.

3. Be sure to proof read your paper to check for spelling and grammatical errors. The more clearly you can communicate your point, the better your grade.

4. Make sure that the paper is 12 point font and double-spaced. I don’t have a length requirement, but the body of the paper will likely need to be 6-8 pages long to cover all of the required elements (not counting the abstracts).

5. You may attach your abstracts separately if that is helpful. Please submit academic abstracts that are published as part of a peer review journal article. Let me know if you have any questions about this.

The following is taken directly from the project description section of your syllabus. You must carefully include all of the following sections in your paper:

Title page: On your title page, in addition to your name, e-mail address, course title and number, and title of your observation, name the site of the observation.

Goals: In this section, list two to three goals for your observation. You might want to view social behaviors between genders; examine social behaviors among ethnic/racial groups; or determine age related social behaviors in a group. Useful terms include investigate, discover, reveal, (one page).

Research question: For this observation, you must have a specific question or set of questions that you are trying to answer. You might explore, for example, whether participants in your setting have any characteristic behaviors that are observable. In this section, state the question you are trying to answer. Your question must be detailed and specific. For example, are there distinguishable behaviors that lead a man to ask a woman to dance in a bar setting?; What are the specific behaviors of people who are paying attention in church?; Do older people influence the behavior of younger people?

Populations: Are there specific typologies that can be formed based on the social behaviors observed? For example, “Cautious Carl” is the driver who has both hands on the wheel, drives no faster than the speed limit, and maintains a serious look on his face. “Smiling Samantha” is the woman who talks to all the people she passes in the supermarket aisle.

Abstracts: Locate five abstracts from social psychological literature relating to your observation. Attach the abstracts to your paper and explain how the research helps form the research question for your observation.

Introduction (the setting): In this section, discuss the setting in which your observation will occur. Include sufficient detail so that it is clear how the setting might have affected behaviors discussed throughout the paper.

Observational sessions: In this section, detail the behaviors that occurred during your observation. You should have between 1 to 3 sessions in your setting.

Results: In this section, state the results you observed related to your research question. Also, explain why you drew the conclusions you drew based on the behaviors. Include theories from social psychology that point to these results. Discuss the influence of your own experiences on your observation results.

References: In this section, list the references you quoted in your paper. Add a bibliography of books, articles, and Web sites that you recommend regarding your observation.

Please let me know if you have any questions along the way.

The final paper must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document (as an attachment) in your assignment

In addition to your final project, you have your 7^th and final discussion entry this week. Please continue to follow all of the requirements for discussion: Be complete, cite your sources, reply to two classmates.