Outline:

The purpose of this assignment is to encourage your engagement with critical thinking by having you apply social psychology concepts to real world experiences, events, phenomenon, etc., and provide 3 examples related to the concepts and theories overviewed in the textbook modules.

This is an optional assignment and you can accumulate up to 10% of your final grade in this course.

Topic Selection:
• choose 3 concepts/theories from the book (chapters that we have studied) and find one

real world example for each of those concepts/theories. Choosing Examples:

• Before selecting an example of a chosen concept/theory, closely read the related chapter. Making sure you understand the social psychology concepts/theories presented in the chapter will make endeavours to pick applicable examples of those concepts/theories easier and more successful.
• The examples you choose can be anything you believe to be relevant: accidents, events, famous experiments, personal experiences; they can be contemporary or historical, and from anywhere in the world. Examples also can be from your own experiences. Examples can be found throughout the textbook and from the lectures in the class but you may not use examples that have already been mentioned in the textbook or in the class. Any example that is already mentioned in the book or in a lecture will receive no mark.
• Examples can come from memory, the internet, or any other accessible resources. Unless the example comes from personal experience it is important you cite your sources.
• To find an example, first, you need to understand the concepts of that chapter as well as you can. Then you may review your memory for examples that you can apply

those concepts to them; you can search the internet and use any resources that you can. But it is very important to cite the source of your information. (unless it is the personal experience).

Content:

• For each example, you should include two written segments: story and analysis.

1. Storytelling: Describe the example you have chosen. It should be clearly explained; including what happened, when, where, what were the consequences, etc. 2. Analysis: Explain the situation in the context of the related concept/theory. You may use more than one theory/concept to explain and analyze each example.

For Instance:

Consider that I have chosen self-handicapping as one of my theories. There are many examples that I can find. I remember that during the 2016 Rio Olympics a Dutch gymnast, Yuri van Gelder, was caught drinking and partying the night before his competition and the Netherlands Olympic Committee subsequently sent him home.

This is a good example of self-handicapping, so I search the internet and find as detailed of an account as I can, gleaned from multiple sources, and write a concise summary. This summary could be a paragraph or more but because I am aware of the seriousness of plagiarism in the university, I am sure to use my own words and properly cite any source that I have used. (My sources could be scientific articles, articles on different websites and journals, books, etc.) In this paragraph, I only explain the details of this athlete’s behaviour and what happened and anything related that I can find. Like a story.

This would be the first part of my example, that we call it storytelling. In the story-telling, you only and only will write about the example itself, without any explanation of its relation to the selected concepts or any scientific analysis. Just simply tell the story, report what happened.

• Reminder: You cannot use an example that is already mentioned in the book or on the class.

Next, I write an analysis of self-handicapping in the context of Yuri van Gelder’s behaviour. I have already done my research, closely read the related chapter, and I know exactly what self- handicapping is. I need only explain why Yuri van Gelder’s behaviour is considered an example of self-handicapping and why this happened. I will use all the information to analyze that event and explain why Yuri van Gelder behaved like that. This would be the second part of my example.

I will do the same for one or two more concepts in the module (I will find a related example and write the story, and then I will analyze it and explain why it happened using that concept). I will be careful not to use an example that is already mentioned in the book

Please note that you don’t need to write about the theories and concepts of the module separately. For example, you should not explain what is self handicapping, it’s already written in the book, I don’t want you to copy what is already written in the book in your paper. You are going to use those concepts to explain your example, not writing about the concepts and theories themselves. You must start with your example, just the example itself. Then you will continue analyzing your example using the theories and concepts in the module. Do not summarize the module in your paper. Just explain your example using what you have learnt. If you have found two examples, and you have written two paragraphs for each of them, (one paragraph storytelling and one paragraph analyzing) but you feel that it is not enough yet, do not try to fill up your paper with unrelated things, like summarizing the module or summarizing that concept from the book. Instead, find another example. There is no extra mark for filling up the paper with paraphrasing and rewriting what is already written in the book. Everything that you write must be directly related to your example and only to explain that example.

Evaluation:
You will be graded on the quality of your storytelling section and how well you related

your examples to the selected social psychology concepts/theories from the module. Your

analytical skills to apply the concepts and theories of the course to real-world examples is the main objective of this assignment.

• Your paper should be 2-4 pages, Times New Roman, font size 12, double-spaced
• Title page and the reference page are separate, and you must include references following the APA format: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/a… uide/general_format.html Handing in the paper: Save your paper in word format (docx) and upload it in the related dropbox folder on the Brightspace. Please do not upload any other format. Name your file as this: First name Last name
  Don’t forget to write your name on the first page of your paper (in the title page) Do not send your paper via email please, it will not be accepted.