Psychology 201: General Psychology

Tuesdays/Thursdays, 1:35-2:50

O’Boyle Hall, room 324

Spring 2004

Homework Assignment #1: Your assignment is to read and review one of the four articles below (you can choose which one). Each of these articles is taken from the journal Psychological Science, which provides brief reports about some of the best and most interesting new studies on a wide variety of topics in psychology.

Cohen, S., Doyle, W. J., Turner, R., Alper, C. M., Skoner, D. P. (2003). Sociability and susceptibility to the common cold.

Psychological Science, 14, 389-395.

Hejmadi, A., Davidson, R. J., Rozin, P. (2000). Exploring Hindu Indian emotion expressions: evidence for accurate

recognition by Americans and Indians. Psychological Science, 11, 183-187.

Nickerson, C., Schwarz, N., Diener, D., Kahneman, D. (2003). Zeroing in on the dark side of the American dream: a closer

look at the negative consequences of the goal for financial success. Psychological Science, 14, 531-536.

Rensink, R. A. (2004). Visual sensing without seeing. Psychological Science, 15, 27-32.

Your review should be 1.5 – 2 typed, double-spaced pages long. Here is how I would like you to structure your review:

At the top of your paper, begin by writing out the citation for the particular article you read. Make sure to write out this citation in APA style (see the handout I gave in class and also placed on the class website).
In the first paragraph, briefly describe the topic that the paper is designed to investigate. Also, describe the researchers’ particular research question or hypothesis, and tell me why they predicted a particular outcome (if the researchers state this in their introduction).
In the next paragraph, describe the methods that the researcher used. How many people were in the study? Did the researchers choose a particular group of people to answer their particular question? What did participants have to do as part of the study? Did the researchers use an experimental or a correlational design (if they used a correlational design, they should say so explicitly in the article. If not, it is fairly safe to assume that they used an experimental design)? What were the independent variables (sometimes there are more than one)? What were the dependent variables (sometimes there are more than one)?
In the next paragraph, describe what the researchers found. You do not need to relate every details of their findings, and DO NOT WORRY ABOUT THE PARTS THAT TALK ABOUT STATISTICS (JUST IGNORE THE NUMBERS, BUT PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT THE RESEARCHERS SAY ABOUT THE STATISTICS AND WHAT THEY MEAN IN RELATION TO THE STUDY’S GOALS). Rather, tell me about the most important results relating to their hypothesis or research question. What do these findings say about the researchers’ hypothesis?
Lastly, tell me what you think about the study. Do you agree or disagree with the researchers’ interpretations? You also can talk about any problems you might have identified in how the researchers designed their study. If the study relates to concepts we have talked about in class, you might want to discuss the results in relation to these concepts, as well. If you have any other thoughts about the studies that I have not specifically addressed in these questions, feel free to relate them, as well.