Small Myth Busters Paper Overview pick a myth/superstition, discuss ways to test your myth/superstition, and then you'll put your myth/superstition...

Small Myth Busters Paper

Overview

pick a myth/superstition, discuss ways to test your myth/superstition, and then you'll put your myth/superstition to the test.

This paper should be about 1.5 pgs long. You are welcome to use either single or double spacing (or something in between), and you may set your margins and font as you like, but please don't use font smaller than 10 pt.

Please proofread, spell check, and grammar check your work. If your spelling or grammar makes it hard for your instructor to understand you, you may lose points.

Begin by picking a myth or superstition to investigate. For this assignment, assume that your myth is plausible. Please do not pick a myth or superstition that requires people to eat or drink anything and please do not pick a myth that involves possible death or harm to participants (even if death or harm is unlikely) - it is just too easy to violate ethics unintentionally.

Part 1

Answer the following questions: What superstition did you pick? In the Constructing Psychology section, we discussed 5 ways to operationalize constructs: through observations of behavior, self-report, psychological tests, physiological measures, and tasks. You can read more about these in the last chapter of our Psychology's Identity book. Briefly explain how you could use 2 of these to evaluate your superstition. Explain what your construct would be in each case and how you would operationally define it. This part of the paper should be about 1/2 of a page long.

Part 2

Pick one of the ways to operationalize constructs you discussed above, collect some data (you might need a few helpful friends :-), and put the superstition to the test. If you choose to use physiological measures, please use pulse rate, eye blinks, or some other easily obtained measure that does not make your volunteer participants uncomfortable. If you choose to use self-report, you can either interview your friends or make your own brief survey. You are also welcome to use your own made up psychological test or another task (e.g., video game) that might make a good mock-test.

Report what you did. Answer the following questions: How many participants were involved? What did you do? You must explain any materials (surveys, tests, tasks, questions, etc.) you use.

What results would you expect if the myth/superstition is true? Do the results support the superstition? Explain. What could you change to improve your study? This part should be about 1 pg long.

Things to REMEMBER

You want to test to see if the actual myth/superstition is true. Please do not mistakenly test to see if people believe the myth/superstition is true. If people didn't believe in the myth/superstition, then it would not be a myth/superstition.

Understanding and applying the principles of ethics is part of this assignment. Participants' heath, happiness, and well-being must be the priority.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Students typically lose points because they:

• Do not operationalize constructs correctly
• Type about using an experiment or correlational study instead of one of the 5 ways to operationalize constructs we discussed in class
• Test people's beliefs in the myth rather than the actual myth
• Forget to cite sources
• Ignore instructions and test a superstition involving eating, drinking, death, or potential harm to participants (including stomach aches or headaches)
• Forget to answer all questions
• Forget to hand in and explain the materials they created (e.g., surveys)