Term Project
Psychology 360
Hal S. Bertilson, Ph.D.
August 28, 2006

Purpose. The application paper is designed to be an opportunity for students to experience cross-cultural theories of particular interest to themselves. The research involved in conducting the term project can have a vivid impact on one's thinking.
Options. Option 1 is a six-page paper reporting an interview with someone from a different culture. Option 2 is a six-page research paper.
Option 1 An Interview
Conduct an interview with one or more people from a different culture.
  1. The paper will summarize the results of the interviews and relate theories learned in this course to the interview responses.
  2. You may include interview questions and responses, although including interview questions and responses is not necessary.
  3. The paper should be at least six pages double-spaced in addition to a cover page and references.
  4. Papers are due on November 28. Students will share their findings in oral reports during the last few class periods of the semester.
  5. Cover page--A cover page will be included. The students name, course number, and course name will be in the upper right hand corner. This convention makes it easy to sort, record, and return student papers. The cover page will also include the date and title of the paper.
  6. Citations/References--The student must differentiate between the ideas of other authors and ideas of the student. Use the author-year citation method followed by a references list to acknowledge contributions of others. See notes under application paper below for more details on references.
Option 2 Application Paper
Stages of the assignment.
  1. Students are encouraged to write a preliminary draft and submit it for comments. The draft will not be graded. It is an opportunity to confirm that your paper fits the assignment and to receive suggestions from your professor. The draft is not required, but is strongly recommended.
  2. The final draft of the paper will be graded to the specifications described in this set of instructions. The due date is November 28. Students will share their findings in oral reports during the last few class periods of the semester.
Evaluation. Papers must include the following elements and will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
  1. Reason for student's interest--The intent of the paper is for the student to write about a topic that has particular interest to the student. The student will describe his/her reason for interest in the topic.
  2. Theory--The student will show how the topic chosen illustrates several theories of cross-cultural psychology. Be sure to define the throies and describe why this topic illustrates these theories.
  3. Topic--Topics may be any concepts or theories discussed in your textbooks. Examples of topics include, but are not limited to:
    Facial expressions
Cross-cultural gender inequities
Stereotyped thinking
Aggression
Display rules about emotions
Cross-cultural treatment of disease		 Biculturalism
Pace of life
Magical thinking
Prejudice
Conformity
Language differences
  4. Length--Papers will be a minimum of six double-spaced pages in addition to the cover page and reference list.
  5. Definitions--Use definitions from psychology textbooks and journals. Do not use definitions from dictionaries. Such definitions were not written in operational terms nor were they written in support of psychological theories.
  6. Effectiveness of Writing Style--The paper will be graded on two criteria: (a) The degree to which the paper meets the requirements listed in this set of instructions and (b) The effectiveness of the writing style (clarity, logic, organization, readability, grammar, spelling, etc.)
  7. Nonsexist language--Masculine words such as "man" and "he" create images of men to the exclusion of women. When masculine words are used with the intention to denote people in general, both female and male, stereotypes and prejudices are reinforced. Accordingly, APA prohibits the use of sexist language.
  8. Tone--Strive for a straight-forward, interesting writing style. Avoid a flippant style (e.g., "Here's what Thorndike says.")
  9. Cover page--A cover page will be included. The students name, course number, and course name will be in the upper right hand corner. This convention makes it easy to sort, record, and return student papers. The cover page will also include the date and title of the paper.
  10. Citations/References--The student must differentiate between the ideas of other authors and ideas of the student. Use the author-year citation method followed by a references list to acknowledge contributions of others. Every resource cited in your paper must be included in the references list. The convention in psychology is to acknowledge all resources used from your references. That may mean several author-year citations in a paragraph. Unless a paragraph is solely the student's ideas, it will have at least one citation. See example at the end of this document.
  11. References--There must be at least four references. One reference must be your textbook. Two other references must be another book or a journal article. The Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology is a particularly useful resource. It is available in the Jim Dan Hill Library. Issues older than ten years are available from basement storage in the Jim Dan Hill Library. In addition to these references, students may use other books, journals, personal communications, and web pages. References include only those resources cited in your paper. Those resources you read, but did not cite, are not included in the reference list. See the examples at the end of this document.
  12. Author-year citations in the body of the paper--Citations in the body of the paper generally are in the form of author surname and year (e.g., Nahbenayash, 1989). When the citation is a direct quote it is in the form of author surname, year, and page number (e.g., Bearheart, 1995, pp. 28-29).
  13. Quotations. Quotations sometimes add richness to your paper. They can capture the thinking and style of the author. Avoid, however, quoting long passages throughout your paper. Such passages detract from the readability of the paper. Papers should reflect your thoughts.
  14. Use of your textbook. When writing your paper be sure to include all the relevant information on the topic included in your textbook. For some topics your textbook describes several competing explanations. Be sure to acknowledge each of these competing theories.
  15. Data base--Psycinfo is the electronic data base most often used in psychology. You may access it through the UW-Superior homepage (http://www.uwsuper.edu). Select the following choices:
a. Jim Dan Hill Library
b. Alphabetic list of indexes with annotations
c. Under Indexes and Data Bases select |P|
d. Find Psycinfo and choose it. You will find a thesaurus, key words, author listings, title listings, and Boolean logic capabilities
Laura Jacobs, the Information Literacy Librarian, is available to answer your questions.
  16. Other sources of information--A good place to look for important studies is the reference section of a current textbook or serial (e.g., Annual Review of Psychology). You can use the UW-Superior automated catalog (sail.uwsuper.edu) to sort through their repository of books and serials. Some journals, such as Psychological Bulletin, specialize in literature reviews. The last issue of each volume contains an index. Recent years are kept in the stack on the main floor of the Jim Dan Hill Library. Older issues are kept in remote storage in the basement. A reference librarian will be happy to assist you in accessing to these resources.
Examples of citations in the reference list:
  Journal articles
    Bertilson, H. S. (1986). Change seeking and shock choices. Journal of Research in Personality, 20, 363-371.
    Bertilson, H. S., Bartz, A. E., & Zimmerman, A. D. (1979). Treatment program for borderline hypertension among college students: Relaxation, finger temperature biofeedback, and generalization. Psychological Reports, 44, 107-114.
  Books
    Ferguson, E. D. (2000). Motivation: A biosocial and cognitive integration of motivation and emotion. New York: Oxford University Press..
  Chapter in an edited book
    Bertilson, H. S. (1991). Aggression. In W. Jones, B. A. Winstead, & V. Derlega (Eds.), Personality: Contemporary Theory and Research (pp. 457-480). Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Citing a Web site
To cite an entire Web site (but not a specific document on the site), it's sufficient to give the address of site in the text. For example,
  Kidspsych is a wonderful interactive Web site for children (http://www.kidspsych.org).
No reference entry is needed.
For further information regarding APA guidelines for electronic reference formats see http://www.apa.org/journals/webref.html
Example of narrative with reference list--The following illustrates the use of the author-year citation system in the narrative with a reference list. It includes an excerpt from Bertilson (1990, p. 600).
One conclusion is that minimally aggressive strategies (passive and withdrawal) were effective in reducing the aggression of both highly aggressive and randomly selected, attack-instigated subjects. The terms passive and withdrawal strategies capture the methodology in those studies. But I believe there are theoretical advantages for identifying those strategies collectively, under one label, as the mollification strategy--using minimal force in an aggressive interchange will prevent or reduce an opponent's attack. Support for the mollification theory has been obtained in a series of studies (Bertilson, Wonderlich, & Blum, 1983, 1984; Dengerink & Bertilson, 1974; Pisano & Taylor, 1971) with both average and aggressive individuals. The Bertilson et al. (1983) study suggested that its effectiveness depends, at least in part, on communication of willingness of the subject to de-escalate the aggressive interchange.

References
Bertilson, H. S. (1990). Can aggression be justified in order to study aggression? American Behavioral Scientist, 33, 594-607.
Bertilson, H. S., Wonderlich, S. A., & Blum, M. W. (1983). Withdrawal, matching, withdrawal-matching, and variable-matching strategies in reducing attack-instigated aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 9, 1-11.
Bertilson, H. S., Wonderlich, S. A., & Blum, M. W. (1984). Withdrawal and matching strategies in reducing attack-instigated aggression. Psychological Reports, 55, 823-828.
Dengerink, H. A., & Bertilson, H. S. (1974). The reduction of attack-instigated aggression. Journal of Research in Personality, 8, 254-262.
Pisano, R., & Taylor, S. P. (1971). Reduction of physical aggression: The effects of four strategies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 19, 237-242.