Psylutions -- Dr. Snyder's Blog
Proposal
Your proposal is the first component of your individual research project in the course (subsequent components are the poster and term paper). All three component will, barring a change in topic at some point, be on the same topic. Of course, it is expected that the specific focus of your project will develop, expand, and/or shift somewhat as you progress through proposal to poster to term paper.
You are free to pick your own project topic. The only requirement is that whatever topic you pick it is predominantly based within the area of learning and behavioural psychology principles/theories as applied/seen/demonstrated in advertising/marketing. As we've discussed in class, there are multiple ways to approach the study of advertising psychology. However, Psyco 486 is an advanced topics course in the learning and behavioural psychology stream; as such, the focus of your project needs to reflect this.
I suggest that you pick a topic that is actually interesting to you. Generally speaking, the more interested people are in a task the easier it is for them to actually maintain the motivation to complete it.
Don't feel that you need to limit your topic to areas of learning or behaviour that we have covered in the course. For example, by the time the proposal is due (14 October) we'll probably just be finishing up the classical conditioning component of the course; we won't cover issues of habituation, operant conditioning, choice behaviour, etc. until later. This doesn't mean that you should limit yourself to topics related to classical conditioning. Pick something that you find interesting. If you're having problems remembering details of the various types of learning or behavioural systems I'd suggest taking a quick peak at your old Psyco 381 textbook to refresh the material in your mind.
Once you've decided on a particular topic you need to start doing some searching about to find appropriate research materials. Two good library databases are PsycInfo and Web of Science, although their are others. Keep in mind, not all of your material has to be from the advertising psychology field. If your topic is dealing with the role of affect changing purchasing behaviour you might use research articles that examine the effects of positive and negative emotion states on rats' operant lever-pressing response. Alternatively, you might find a really nice sociology paper that you think you can tie into your topic. Make a good connection between the articles you've found and the topic you're covering and you should be fine.
So, here's the actual requirements for the Proposal. Students must provide one or two paragraphs describing their research topic (i.e., the proposal). In addition, an annotated reference list of at least 5 journal articles is required. That is, the appropriate APA references for the 5 articles selected, along with a brief (i.e., abstract length) explanation (note: not a summation of the article) of the relevance for each article to the proposed research topic. Include a cover page with your name and ID number, staple the whole thing together, and turn it in.
In terms of formatting, you must use 1 inch margins throughout and double space (i.e., 22 or 23 lines per page) your proposal.
Grading: The proposal will be graded out of 10 points. Breakdown: 2 points for grammar, sentence structure, writing elements, etc.; 3 points for the proposal topic (clarity and focus, appropriateness to course topic, feasibility for space constraints of term paper); 5 points for the annotated references (APA formatting, actually using journal articles, appropriateness of articles to topic, etc.).