San Bernardino Valley College Psychology Questions

This paper is a 20 page observational paper.You are to choice a behavior and observe 40 subjects-20 women/20 Men or 20 boys/20 girls.You can not talk to these people-just observe their behavior .Format as follows.

You will have a cover page-this page does not count as a page

Title of your paper-the behavior that you observed

Psy111

Your name

Professors name

****Include the headings****

1^st – INTRODUCTION (1- 1 ½ pages)– the behavior (e.g. Road Rage)-why this behavior is important to you/the community/to society. (1- 1-1/2)

– HYPOTHESIS– e.g.”Men will display more road rage then women” – part of the introduction

2^nd – PRIOR RESEARCH– (2-3 pages) in this section you will describe and cite at least two studies that have looked at the behavior that you are observing and write in your words what they said.Make sure that you cite correctly-at the beginning or end of the paragraph-(Rathus,2011) or more than one author-( Bee et al,2008). (2-3 pages)

3^rd – METHOD–We will be observing and evaluating two variables-gender and ethnicity(guess the ethnicity) – 40 subjects .How/Where– going to be a passenger in a car traveling on freeways (1 page)

OPERATIONAL DEFINITION-I am defining road rage as cursing at a person.inappropiate gestures,Popping caps in peoples’ asses -running them off the road.

CONTROLS-here you are just going to list other variables which you feel also effected your observations-e.g. time of day/day of week,their age,driving alone/with other people,freeway they are on day/night,what happened before you saw them,their personality dynamics

5^th – OBSERVATIONS (2-3 pages)

#1 subject 1 – gender then ethnicity(guess) – how they look, what they were wearing and what were they doing. (e.g. Asian-pacific woman driving a pearl colored Mercedes going 120 MPH backwards while shooting two 9 mms sideways like bad boys while talking on the phone and combing her hair).

#2 subject 2 – e.g. African American man driving 30 MPH in the fast lane singing/yelling out his window.

#3

*

*
*

#40

6^th – ANALYSIS– (1 page) two variables

Gender-Men – ( e.g. out of the 20 men observed 18 showed road rage)

Women-10 showed road rage —-

Men showed the highest road rage

Ethnicity-20 men-9 AA.6 Hispanics,5 caucasians

20 women-1 asian Pacific,10 hispanics and 9 African -Americans

Men-18 showed road rage-8 AA -what was the highest ethnicity that showed road rage

• HYPOTHESIS-proven

Put both variables together – GENDER+ETHNICITY=MEN +AA

7^th – Total of 5 pages of tables/charts bar graphs-represent your analysis-important-numbers-not% and make sure that you label each graph. – One graph per page

8^th – SUMMARY (1-2 pags)

your findings

compare your findings to prior research

talk about your feelings/experiences

Make recommendations for further research-not how to solve the problems but for further study e.g. larger sample ,different freeways, time of day/week, alone/with other people age, type of car

REFERENCE PAGE–(1page) a separate page-the 20th page-alphabetical order

proper format-last name first, then first etc. 3 references taken from your prior research section

if you only cited two cites then use our textbook as your third reference