Psychology dissertation?!?

Question

I'm trying to come up with a good topic for my psychology dissertation but im having trouble. I want to do it relating to social psychology. Does anyone have any good ideas on what I could do please! Thanks x

Answer 1

You could replicate an asch type study into conformity and see if it is more prevalent in certain ethnic groups, ages, careers, SES status.

Alternatively you could look at social communication development the effect of role modeling in this and see whether there is an effect of gender, SES or culture. You could look at Bandura, Baron Cohen (male/female brain). You could also incorporate Vygotsky, Piaget and Bruner with regards to social learning theory. You wouldn't struggle to find literature in this field wither but little has been done in this area outside of research into Autism and Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

I'm doing my Doctorate in Psychology so may be able to help

Hope this helps and let me know how you go

A note to Fretting Not:- the clue was in the word 'TYPE', and done correctly there would be no ethical issues. In addition, you would have to run the project title through the ethical committee at the Uni who would advise on any alterations if ness. Are you sure you are not confusing the Asch's 'Line' study with Zimbardo's prison guards or Migram's study into obedience. If so then i agree these both have HUGE ethical implications Finally the terms 'middle class' and 'working class' are too subjective to be used in a study this would have to be termed as socioeconomic status.

Answer 2

Hello,

(ANS) Heres a subject I find particularly interesting, as the pace of change increases in the areana of work, as stress levels increase. It seems to me that business's provide less & less actual human contact. They distance themselves from their customers, the bigger the company the more inhuman the customer service.

For example if you have a genuine query or a problem and need to contact the organisation, what you get is a phone number which inhumanly routes your call via computer to a call centre (probably not even in the same country or even the same continent) and then you get presented with a menu system of push buttons, before you get put through. If your exceptionally lucky your call is put through to a human being. If not you get aweful music & a que and again after a long wait the call might be answered or cut off.

What interests me is "human contact" in the work place, work place relationships, how people really communicate with each other. Verging on intimacy in the working relationship?

**I believe that in many work places the stress & pressures & time limits & goals set by managers (i.e. performance related pay or pressures to earn commission fee's etc) leed many workers to feel very disconnected from each other & this leads to yet more illness, poor productivity, more time off work, unhappiness due to stress.

**In what ways could we improve the emotional relationships in a working context so human contact with each other is improved so that people are happier with themselves & the people they work with. If relationships were improved IMO productivity would be improved too and stress levels lowered. But its just my opinion its not proven but I'd be most interested to see any social research into this topic.

Dont know if thats of any use or interest?

Good luck though IR

Answer 3

What about doing it on agression. Maybe you could have a look at aggression between different groups of people (i.e. working class, middle class) or what about aggression levels between boys from say, one school (a school with a bad reputation/inner city school) and boys from another school (a school with a good repuation/grammer school). That could be something interesting. You would have to get a start early on though if you chose something involving children as you would need to get clearance.

A note to Daisy C- you say you are a doctorate student, yet you are advising this person to do a study based on the Asch studies!! Did you not learn anything from your undergraduate days?? As you may recall, the study carried out by Asch, by todays standards, would not be given permisson to be carried out due to the serious ethical issues!!

Answer 4

I would do something on interference tasks on memory/attention.
1] You could investigate the effects of carrying on a personal conversation while trying to write notes from an academic text book, or
2] you could devise a way of finding out the effects of mobile phone use on some kind of procedural skill.
Some people are not convinced that using a mobile phone while driving is dangerous. Convincing evidence could have useful applications.

Answer 5

Keeping it simple but relevant is a good start.

As an ex-college tutor, we see so many different versions of the same topic matter.

For impressive marks, I sought:

1) Orginality
2) Depth
3) Thought provoking
4) Challenging/Controversial scope
5) Conflicting sectors/differentiating
6) Clear fundamental understanding
(not neccessarily in this order)

SUGGESTIONS:

How about Spiritual Emergence?
or
Society Expectancy Vs Reality?

Answer 6

How about state dependent learning theory as applied in a group setting? Are people likely to learn better in a group or individually. Explore Social Facillitation.

Answer 7

You can go to http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/index.html and search there. Also you can order custom research. Hope it will help

Answer 8

Why do people spend hours on yahoo answers? (ok just me then)

Answer 9

Why do people conform?