Psych 456/556 - Attitudes and Social Behavior

Paper 2

First draft due Friday, 2/16/01

Final draft due Friday, 2/23/01

Pick one of the options below -

Option 1: Help the U of O admissions office recruit a big incoming class for Fall 2001. Specifically, your job is to persuade students who might be considering other schools (e.g., OSU, UC-Berkeley, University of Colorado at Boulder, Lewis and Clark, etc.) to come here, using persuasion techniques discussed in the readings and class. Keep in mind that your strategies should reflect what you have learned in this course. That is to say, you should NOT devote your paper to strategies that sound intuitively good, but that are not supported by research. You must explain why the techniques you chose will work, and back them up with research findings. Creativity will be smiled upon; innovative techniques that are not currently being utilized will also be rewarded, especially if they could actually be implemented.

Option 2: Pick a group that you think is stereotyped. Please note you may NOT use any of the following as your group: men, women, any racial group, any ethnic group, homosexuals, Jews or Catholics. Describe how the group is perceived and treated and how these perceptions and behaviors are consistent with research conducted in the area of stereotyping and prejudice. Discuss stereotyping and prejudice against this group in terms of research explanations that have been suggested for why stereotypes form and prejudice exists. (If you cannot think of ways that the research you have read applies to the group you choose, this paper option is probably not a good one for you.)

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No additional reading other than what was assigned in class is necessary for either paper (although you are, of course, always welcome to read more!). Once again, if you are citing a study that Aronson has cited in The Social Animal, you should use the "as cited in" format (e.g., "Eagly, Wood, & Chaiken, 1978, as cited in Aronson, 1999"). Remember, to get these references you will almost definitely have to check the endnotes for each chapter located at the end of the book. If you are citing a study you read in the reading packet, you may cite it as if you read the original (e.g., "Han & Shavitt, 1994). If you are citing a general statement by Aronson which he does not back up with a specific reference, you may simply cite Aronson (e.g., "Aronson, 1999"). If you are using references not found in the texts, you must include a list of references at the end of your paper.

Do not put your name on your paper. Instead, identify yourself with the class ID number you were assigned in class.