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TRENT UNIVERSITY DURHAM

Department of Psychology
PSYC 1020H-A 2016FA OSH Introduction to Psychology I: Experimental & Biological Bases of Behaviour
Laboratory Assignment #2
NAME:_____________________________________________________

The purpose of this assignment is for you to gain experience in locating, reading and summarizing research papers that
form part of the introductory section of a lab report / journal manuscript.
Before beginning the lab: Read the instructions on page 4.

1. Find and print the article below. The easiest means of finding the article is by using the Trent
library on-line e-resources (Go to the Trent library main page & then navigate to e-journals).

Francis, L. J. (1999). Happiness is a thing called stable extraversion: A further examination of


the relationship between the Oxford Happiness Inventory and Eysencks dimensional model of
personality and gender. Personality and Individual Differences, 26(1), 5 - 11.

Once you have obtained this article, read it carefully, think about the article and then condense its
contents, using your own words, to no more than 450 words. Use complete sentences &
paragraphs to answer each of the following questions in this review. DO NOT INCLUDE THE
DESCRIPTORS BELOW (e.g., the authors reasons for conducting the study were....) so do
not include the questions provided below in the write-up this will decrease the mark.

Note that you do NOT have to provide answers to the questions below as well as
a summary. The idea is that you use the questions to generate the summary.

The summary of the article should include your responses to the items below.

QUOTING FROM THE ARTICLE OR USING POINT FORM OR TOO CLOSELY PARAPHRASING
WILL RESULT IN AN AUTOMATIC ZERO (0) FOR THE REVIEW.

Please identify the:

(a) Authors reason(s) for conducting study;


While they may be similar
these are different.
(b) hypotheses;

(c) research methodology used;

(d) sample tested (participant variables / demographics);

(e) method / procedure followed;

(f) identify & define the variables used in the study;

(g) operational definitions used; [see a definition for this term and examples on page 5]

PSYC 1020HA OSH DUE DATE: 17 NOVEMBER 2016 1


(h) main findings;

(i) conclusions of the article;

(j) benefits / limitation(s) of study.

This may require two or three attempts at shortening your reviewits a process that is perfected with lots of experience.
You are trying to communicate information with a beginning, middle and end. If in doubt: Show what you have written to
someone who will give you an honest appraisal of your writing and/or see someone in the Academic Skills Centre.
You do not have to use APA format for this article summary.

2.

There is a belief that anxiety influences test performance. Indeed, anxious people are thought to have
greater hyperactivity, tenseness, irritability, seriousness and a loss of ability to laugh at themselves.

Design a study you might conduct to determine if this anxiety hypothesis is supported or not. Structure your response to
conform to the way that results are usually reported and/or communicated to the scientific community (i.e., introduction,
method, results, discussion).

The APA Manual (2010) will be invaluable in helping you shape and complete your (imaged) journal report.

In addition, two handouts (available on Blackboard in the lab folder) will help guide you through the various sections of a
laboratory/journal article write-up: (1) How to read and write research reports from Elmes, D.G., Kantowitz, B.H. &
Roediger III, H.L (2015). Experimental Psychology (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. (2) Exploring the literature in
psychology from Elmes, D.G., Kantowitz, B.H. & Roediger III, H.L (2012). Research methods in psychology (9th ed.).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Also, read the section in your Weiten & McCaan text on finding and reading journal articles (pages 71-73).

Be sure to define:
(i) Your hypothesis and your purpose; REMEMBER: YOU ARE NOT GOING TO
COLLECT ANY ACTUAL DATA!
(ii) Your independent and dependent variables
(iii) Describe your participants; THIS IS A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT ONLY!

(iv) Materials that you would use;


(v) Your method / procedure;
(vi) In general terms, describe the statistics you would use to analyze your results;
(vii) State how you might interpret the results of your study;
(viii) Discuss any weakness of your design, citing possible confounding variables (extraneous
variables).
Continued
What are the implications, if any, of your study?
PSYC 1020HA OSH DUE DATE: 17 NOVEMBER 2016 2
3. Your task is to go to the library (or by using on-line resources) and find one (1) research article
from a psychology journal on the topic of stress and memory or anxiety and memory. One or
both of these key words should be included in the article title.
Photocopy / print out the abstract. Hand in the abstract.
If you are not sure what an abstract is: Look at your text (pages 72-73) as well as the APA manual
(pages 25 / 41).

Do not hand in abstracts or articles from popular journals (e.g., Newsweek, Psychology Today)
or from other disciplines (such as psychiatry).

The goal is for you to become familiar with findings and looking at peer-reviewed, empirical articles
published in psychology.

For your search, you should use PSYCINFO (an on-line service for searching and finding articles in
psychology) that is accessed through the Trent University Library (using TOPCAT). If you encounter
difficulties, talk with the Trent Oshawa librarians.
In addition, you might want to use a search engine (such as Google or Google Scholar) and initiate a
search, using the keywords such as stress and health or stress and disease. Also try
www.psywww.com.

You may also want to simply browse through some of the psychology journals in the library and check
the Table of Contents for anything on how stress influences or affects health.

PLEASE NOTE THAT JUST BECAUSE YOU FOUND AN ARTICLE THROUGH PSYCINFO DOES NOT
MEAN IT IS FROM A PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL PSYCINFO PROVIDES RESULTS FROM A
NUMBER OF DATABASES BOTH INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF PSYCHOLOGY.

Please ensure that you provide all the relevant


bibliographic information (author(s) name(s), year of
publication, article title, journal title, journal volume,
pages).
If not, then a grade of zero will be awarded.

DUE DATE:17 November 2016


(@ the beginning of class)

PSYC 1020HA OSH DUE DATE: 17 NOVEMBER 2016 3


General notes:

1. Make sure to put your name & student ID on your lab (and on every page).

2. You may use a cover sheet if you wish.

3. Remember to hand-write ALL your answers [excluding question 3] (a penalty will apply if you do not).

4. Write legibly ---- (HAND PRINT if necessary).

5. Answer all parts of all the questions.

6. Number the pages of you lab.

7. Double-space your lab (a penalty will apply if you do not).

8. Make at least one backup copy of your lab (photocopy / scanned copy).

9. Staple the lab (staplers are available in the library).

10. No need for binders or covers.

11. Do not use quotes. Quoting from any source will result in an automatic zero (0) for the lab assignment.

12. Do not copy other students work [copying work from others and/or plagiarizing from any source will

result in a grade of zero as well as other sanctions. See the syllabus for details.

PSYC 1020HA OSH DUE DATE: 17 NOVEMBER 2016 4


[Gravetter, F.J. & Forzano, L.B. (2012). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (4th ed.).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.]

PSYC 1020HA OSH DUE DATE: 17 NOVEMBER 2016 5

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