Use the CSU Online Library to find an academic journal article that applies social psychology to stress and/or health outcomes. In researching articles, choose one that will help you complete the assignment. Be sure that the article interests you and that it presents opportunity for improving stress and/or health outcomes. Then write a paper addressing the following prompts concerning the article you selected.
Part I: Article Summary
a. Explain why you picked the article you selected for this assignment. Include a description of how and why the article’s focus captured your interest.
b. Describe the previous research related to your article. Usually, this information will be under the “Introduction” section or be in the paragraphs before the “Method” section. Here you need to summarize the information, such as introductory descriptions of previous, related research and the authors’ ideas about why the article’s study needs to be conducted. Be sure to identify how the main topic can be connected to social psychological concepts. Do not discuss the article’s study design just yet.
c. Describe the participants of the research article you read. In your description, include demographic information (e.g., age, gender, race, ethnicity, employment status, college status, or geographic location). You should also include whether the participants were compensated for their participation or not. You must address each of these components to the extent that they are included in the method section of your article.
d. Explain the research methodology utilized in the article. You will include whether the article’s study used surveys or inventories, individual or group interviews, case studies, laboratory tasks, or naturalistic observations. If your study was an experiment and/or utilized special machinery, you will also provide detailed explanation of how it was constructed and what it measured.
e. Summarize the findings of the article. You can find this information in the results section. Some information might display findings in tables and charts, but these should not be replicated in your essay. Be thorough and concise when describing the findings in a narrative format.
f. Summarize what your article’s authors said in the discussion and/or conclusion sections. This information might be found under discussion and conclusion headings, or it might be in paragraphs near the end of the article with no distinguishing heading. A discussion section is usually interpretations of findings (i.e., what do they mean), and a conclusion section is generally focused on author ideas about why the findings occurred. There could be overlaps. If your article has both sections, you will summarize them both.
Part II: Application and Extension
a. Describe three different theories, concepts, or principles that were covered in your selected article and in the course textbook. The information can be from any chapter in the textbook, but you must reflect influence of the social environment and only one can be directly stress and/or health related. The other two need to come from previous units. Additionally, these three should be distinct, and they must be described in clear and succinct statements with accompanying explanations of how they relate specifically to the article.
b. Explain one way that your article has real-world application through stress, health, and positive psychology concepts. To have real-world impact means that a study’s findings are used to make a difference, not that they can be related to phenomena that exist in the real world. You will need to provide specifics about what might be done with the findings.
c. Describe one way that positive psychology concepts could be used to improve the stress and/or health issues in your article. Your answer should emphasize how to enhance one’s subjective well-being using aspects of the PERMA approach.
d. Explain something related to your selected article’s focus that the researchers did not cover in their study and that you would like to learn more about. Your answer should not be a critique of the article, but a way to extend it. Be sure to describe what you want to learn more about, why you are interested in it, and how it relates to the article’s focus.
