Finals Week Blog Prompt

This is the prompt for finals week. You must post by 1 am Friday, 5/15 to receive credit (comments will be accepted until 5 pm on Friday, 5/15). This prompt can only be used to replace a non-zero post from earlier in the semester. If you have a score of 9 or better on all 8 blog posts, you can earn up to 2 extra credit points for your post. Same criteria for the comments (score of 4.5 or better on all 8 comments).

Return to your introductory blog post where you described the 3 topics you were most and least excited about for this course, and the one question you wanted to be able to answer when it was over. Reflect on whether your predictions came true in terms of your favorite and least favorite questions, and try to answer the question you posed.

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Week 13 Student Blogging Spotlight: Topic – Social Psychology

Microphone stands in spotlight by kjeik, on Flickr
Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License   by  kjeik 

The main foci of the social psychology week were stereotypes and discrimination, obedience (no General Psychology course is complete without Stanley Milgrim!), and conformity. Students had the choice of examining their own implicit biases toward other groups via the Implicit Association Test or to break down the types of persuasion used in a set of commercials (see here for full prompts). Only one student chose the latter option by breaking down two Taco Bell commercials. The remainder opted to try the IAT and reflect on their results. Check out their posts and leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, Link 5, Link 6, Link 7

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Week 12 Student Blogging Spotlight: Topic – Stress

Microphone stands in spotlight by kjeik, on Flickr
Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License   by  kjeik 

The focus this week was stress: what is it and how can we cope with it? My students had the option for this week’s blog to either watch a TED Talk that might make them think a little differently about stress (Kelly McGonigal’s How to make stress your friend) or discuss their own coping strategies for stress (for full prompts see here). Most students chose the former, though five decided to talk about their coping strategies and how to improve them (read these to get some ideas and leave your own in the comments!).

TED Talk: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, Link 5, Link 6, Link 7, Link 8, Link 9
Stress Coping Strategies: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4Link 5

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Week 14 Blog Prompt: Topic – Mental Health

Option 1:

Your textbook lists 4 major types of psychotherapy (psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive-behavioral, and humanistic/existential). Rank these types of therapy according to how helpful you think they would be if you needed therapy and explain what it is about each one that you like/dislike. For your highest rated therapy, find additional information about it from a web source (include a link to the source and discuss its credibility).

Option 2:

There is a new campaign targeting increased awareness of mental health issues that has received a lot of support from First Lady Michelle Obama called Change Direction. Using the information provided on their website (http://www.changedirection.org) evaluate how effective you think the campaign will be in general. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the campaign? Will college students pay attention to this or not and why? If AC was going to do an awareness campaign to help students identify mental health issues in their friends and classmates, how should they go about doing it to give it the best chance of actually working?

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