Event Analysis Project

for Social Psychology (PSY 343)

The goal of this project is to help you learn to look at events through the “lens” of social psychology: to use social psychological principles to analyze what is happening in publicly reported events. Thus, please pick a real, fairly current event or series of events that has been or is currently being reported in the news media to analyze using a social psychological perspective. You may use a single event or a series of related events, and you should use three or four social psychological theories or concepts in your analysis.

Your group will turn in a 4 to 5 page paper DURING THE CLASS IN WHICH YOU MAKE YOUR PRESENTATION. However, the largest portion of your grade will be based on your presentation to the class.

The presentation should be 2—25 minutes long. Everyone in the group should be part of the presentation. In that presentation, you should include:

1. A description of the event, with enough detail to support your analysis. You may include photos or video clips in your presentation if it will help the class to understand what you are analyzing. Pick an interesting event that is complex enough to be interesting to analyze rather than totally obvious.

2. An analysis of the event, using three to four social psychological principles or theories. These principles or theories should be named, defined and explained to the class. Then you should explain exactly how these theories or principles can be used to explain the event you are analyzing. Your analysis should make sense: theories must be explained and applied correctly.

3. Reflections from your group about the extent to which using social psychological analysis prompted you to think differently about the event you analyzed.

4. Reflections from your group about the ways you think social psychological knowledge could be applied to help improve or change the situation or solve the problem you have analyzed. (Or, if you are analyzing an event that is very positive, how social psychological knowledge could help keep the positive outcomes in place and prevent the situation from deteriorating).

Your presentation should be interesting and though-provoking, and it should help the class to gain some new insights into a complicated event. By October 4 th your group should let me know your topic, and by our November 15 th class your group must turn in a one-page outline of what you plan to do.

Your group’s paper should include a brief description of the event to be analyzed, a brief list and explanation of the social psychological theories/concepts you are using to analyze it, and a description of how you applied these theories or concepts to the event. It should also include a list of references to the media from which you took your event, and to scholarly articles or books you consulted in applying theories and concepts.
Return to:   Group Project on Course Syllabus