175201 Social Psychology
Assignment 2: Two Short Essays (Part I)
This assignment involves writing two short essays.
Due date: Friday 19 September by 11:59pm
Assignment length: 500 words each (excluding references)
Assignment task/instructions:
Submit both essays in one word document. State each essay question followed by your essay. The essays are based on Chapters 3, 6 and 7 of the textbook.
Please select TWO of the questions below. The essay questions/topics are as follows:
1. Outline and discuss the reasons for the development of indigenous psychologies
2. Discuss the importance of place for understanding social psychological issues
3. Why is migration an important topic for social psychologists?
4. Why is the concept of the 'interconnected self' important for understanding social psychological issues?
Here you can learn more about essay writing.
General guidelines
It is important to remember there are no 'right' or 'wrong' responses to your assignments. By this we mean you can address the response to each question in whichever way you like. What we are looking for is how you articulate your response, how you support that response using appropriate literature, and importantly that you actually answer the question asked. So, be sure to do enough research to give a compelling argument, while also remembering to adhere to the word limits for each assignment.
In general, the organisation of your assignments should comprise the following:
Title: Use your essay question or statement as the title. In the first part of your assignment.
Introduction: introduce the topic to the reader with a broad opening statement and establish some background. You also identify the relevant ideas that you will present in the body of the essay. An example from a journal article illustrates a possibility of how to end an introduction and signpost what will follow:
"Our paper begins with a review of the living wage concept and definition. We then present an outline of our review methodology. The findings section focuses on presenting the topics and disciplines covered in living wage research over the past 20 years and the contexts in which this research has occurred. We identify three clear contributions of a psychological lens to living wage studies, through adding a person-centric perspective, a more inclusive definition, and clearer operationalization through improved measurement. We outline how these can be further leveraged in future studies." (Searle & McWha-Hermann, 2020, p. 2)
Body of the essay: select the most relevant and appropriate material related to your question. The key point here is to be selective (due to the word limit), to tease out from a larger body of literature the most relevant ideas / arguments, and to explore these further. We expect you to draw on relevant scholarly literature (journal articles, books, book chapters) to support key assertions in your essay and to draw on theoretical aspect(s) of the relevant chapter of the textbook. You can also include different points of view where appropriate.
Conclusion: briefly recap what you have covered and highlight the most important points before writing a concluding statement.
See below for the making rubric for this assignment, and we strongly recommend you read the marking criteria before you start writing your essay.