Does anyone have an original topic for a college level term paper for my psychology class?

Question

I am having trouble coming up with an original idea for my term paper. The topic needs to be on the "borderline" of scientific psychology. I would appreciate any suggestions.

Answer 1

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Real or Imagined?

Answer 2

How about generational influences upon the development of depression and/or depressive symptoms. Do people become more depressed when the people around them are labeled 'depressive', thus establishing a social correlation between the psychological 'I' and the social 'we', or does an increase in recognition of people who are depressed simaltaneously strengthen the psychological 'I' while 'offsetting' any normalcy as implied by the social 'we'?

How about a paper on the theory of what a clinical label does psychologically: does it 'help' the patient (since they now know that what they are feeling is known, and can be treated,) does it hurt the patient (unlike a broken bone, what value does a diagnosis of 'manic-depressive' or 'schizophrenic' have for someone who isn't medically inclined, whose diagnosis is more 'theoretical' than anything) or does it create complications of its own that prolong the illness?

Or how about the effectiveness of treatment of sexual deviancy, and why it does/does not work (can a person who is 'drowning' in their deviancy truly be expected to 'help themselves' as most therapy teaches?)

Answer 3

How about how does having a parent with Borderline Personality Disorder affect the psychological development of that parent's children?

Answer 4

Write a paper about "sensation seeking" and its relation to alcohol abuse/dependency. You could include people such as Zuckerman (the DEFINITE king of Sensation seeking) and write about the Sensation Seeking Scale and the AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) and tie them into each other. I wrote a similar paper and it was actually quite fun to learn about sensation seeking. The hypothesis was people that score high on the sensation seeking scale will score higher on the AUDIT. Granted mine used data...but it can be done with just journal research.

Answer 5

Since I just answered a question about it, I'd suggest researching the correlation of left-handedness and depression or creativity. The topic has psychological components as well as neuropsychological components, and as far as I know, it isn't highly researched.

Answer 6

Here's one I'd like to see when you get finished writing about it:

Stanford Universtiy had/has done research in parapsychology. Out of their research came a CIA program designed to teach 'remote viewing' (clairvoyance). Many years later, after $20,000,000 were spent, the program was scraped.

Your mission, if you decide to accept it is to investigate this program and determine its success which led the government to allocate funds that allowed it to survive as long as it did.

Earf!

Answer 7

With all due respect, this is all pretty dumb subject matter, in my humble opinion, and this might be partly why you're struggling to come up with something original.