PSY 310 ITESM Forensic Psychology and Social Media Effects Paper

Submit two potential research topics/questions for your PSY 310 Final Paper with 2 paragraphs per proposal. That is, you’ll be asked to submit 2 paragraphs on the first topic, 2 paragraphs on the second topic.

• Paragraph 1 – Define the subfield of psychology and describe the phenomenon/topic (i.e., why is this interesting and/or important?).
• Paragraph 2 – Begin identifying research questions related to the topic and generate specific ideas of how to test them.(i.e., what do you want to test and how!)

ONE TOPIC MUST BE “DOES SOCIAL MEDIA HAVE AN NEGATIVE EFFECT ON BODY IMAGE?”. YOU MAY CHOOSE THE SECOND TOPIC.

Please note:

Your research questions should be: (1) Concrete (measurable, not philosophical), (2) Realistic (within the bounds of what research can do), and (3) Ethical.

Examplefor One Potential Topic (submit TWO of these [4 paragraphs total]):

The subfields of psychology that I plan to pursue are Clinical and Developmental Psychology. My primary interests are in protective factors that affect the onset of mental disorders, specifically depression. Depression is a leading cause of disability in the US, affecting more than 60 million Americans, about 19% of the US population. Therefore, it is important to study factors that may prevent an individual from developing depression. Identifying these protective factors will be important for developing prevention and intervention efforts that will decrease the risk of an individual developing depression.

Research substantiates that early life adversity is one of the most powerful prognostic features in developing depression later in life. Social buffering theorysuggests that close others can protect individuals in the face of stress by preventing elevated and prolonged stress responses, which has been in both animal and human research. Building upon previous literature, my goal is to investigate how sensitive parenting may affect the development of depression in adulthood. I plan to recruit individuals who are currently depressed who will report their parents’ level of sensitivity during childhood.

PART 2

Please annotate two references you have found related to your topic of interest.

The entry for each source should contain the following information:

1. The full citationof the article, book, etc. in APA format.
2. A single sentence that includes an active verb (such as “asserts,” argues,” “suggests,” “implies,” “claims,” etc.), and a clause containing the major assertion/finding of the work.
3. A description of how the authors develop and/or support the thesis (e.g., the authors conducted a survey, experiment, literature review, etc.).
4. Potentially relevant details such as the demographics of the participants (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, biological sex, etc.), the number of participants, recruiting procedures (e.g., recruited from the community via flyers, from the university subject pool, etc.), inclusion/exclusion criteria, and so on.
5. A list of the variables that have been measured and/or manipulated with a brief summary of how each of these variables has been operationalized(defined; e.g depression was defined as participants’ score on the Beck Depression Inventory, student success was defined as GPA for the Fall 2020 semester, etc.).
6. A statement about how this material can be useful to your research question.