PSY 257 Tracks And Topics For The Final Project ✓ Solved

PSY 257 Tracks and Topics for the Final Proj. For the fin

PSY 257 Tracks and Topics for the Final Project: You must choose one of two tracks in the study of social psychology. Your track determines the literature you review, the research gap you identify, and the study you design for your final project. Choose your track and topic thoughtfully, as you will not be able to switch later.

Track One: Developmental and Mental Health Disorders That Influence Social Thinking.

  • Developmental: Emotion Discourse, Social Cognition, and Social Skills in Children With and Without Developmental Delays
  • Facial Feedback and Social Input: Effects on Laughter and Enjoyment in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders
  • College Students’ Perceptions of Peers With Autism Spectrum Disorder
  • Mental Health: Lessons From Social Psychology on Discrediting Psychiatric Stigma
  • If Only I Didn’t Embarrass Myself in Front of the Class!: Social Anxiety and Upward Counterfactual Thinking
  • Effects of Perinatal Mental Disorders on the Fetus and Child

Track Two: Environmental Factors

Track Two topic and related articles:

  • Media: Thinking of Others: Effects of Implicit and Explicit Media Cues on Climate of Opinion Perceptions
  • Thinking Through Moving Media
  • Cognition Research; Researchers From Pontifical University Detail New Studies and Findings in the Area of Cognition Research (Socio-Spatial Intelligence: Social Media and Spatial Cognition for Territorial Behavioral Analysis)

Note: In this document, you are provided with three articles for each topic, but you will need to find two additional articles to use for your final project.

Paper For Above Instructions

Choosing a track for the PSY 257 final project is not merely a logistical step; it frames the entire scholarly journey from literature review to study design. A deliberate choice helps ensure coherence across the final deliverable and fosters a clear research trajectory. Theory and empirical work in social psychology emphasize that domain-specific tracks guide how researchers conceptualize problems, identify gaps, and select methods that most appropriately address the research questions. For Track One, which centers on developmental and mental health disorders that shape social thinking, I will articulate a plan that integrates developmental trajectories with psychiatric stigma reduction and social cognitive processes. The goal is to synthesize the three developmental articles with two additional sources to craft a research gap and a study design that advances understanding of how early developmental factors and mental health considerations influence social thinking across contexts and ages. This approach aligns with social-information-processing models (Crick & Dodge, 1994) by tracing how information processing in social encounters may differ for individuals with developmental delays or autism spectrum disorders, and it leverages insights from stigma research (Corrigan & Watson, 2002; Pescosolido et al., 2010) to consider how social perceptions and stereotypes may interact with social cognition and emotion regulation. Evidence from counterfactual thinking and emotion regulation further informs how youths and adults reflect on social interactions and how those reflections influence future behavior and self-concept (Roese, 1994; Bandura, 1997; Deci & Ryan, 2000). Integrating these threads provides a cohesive framework to examine both typical and atypical social thinking in developmental and mental health contexts, while also addressing potential intervention points that reduce stigma and improve social functioning (Beck, 1967; Festinger, 1957).

Track One: Developmental and Mental Health Disorders That Influence Social Thinking offers a rich empirical ground for literature review and study design. Developmental topics like emotion discourse and social cognition in children with developmental delays or autism spectrum disorders require careful consideration of measurement tools that capture emotion expression, social responsiveness, and peer interaction. A proposed literature synthesis would examine how emotion discourse predicts social skills development and how facial feedback may influence social enjoyment and engagement in children with autism spectrum disorders. The developmental literature commonly demonstrates that emotion understanding and social information processing are linked to peer relations and pro-social behavior, with implications for intervention (Crick & Dodge, 1994). The three articles listed in the Track One developmental section provide concrete empirical anchors and a basis for cross-study comparison. The mental health portion raises questions about stigma, self-perception, and the impact of social anxiety on upward counterfactual thinking, all of which shape social cognition and behavior in group contexts (Corrigan & Watson, 2002; Pescosolido et al., 2010). Counterfactual thinking can modulate motivation and social performance, connecting personal reflection with social outcomes (Roese, 1994).\n

Proposed research questions and hypotheses. First, a literature synthesis will examine whether early emotion discourse and social-cognition abilities predict later social skills in children with developmental delays and autism spectrum disorders, controlling for cognitive level and language ability. Hypothesis: Higher quality emotion discourse and stronger social-cognition skills in early childhood will predict better social skills in middle childhood across developmental groups, with autism-spectrum-related groups showing differential trajectories due to social input processing. Second, we will investigate how exposure to stigma-related information and self-perceived stigma relate to social anxiety and upward counterfactual thinking in adolescents and young adults. Hypothesis: Higher perceived stigma will correlate with greater social anxiety and a greater tendency to engage in upward counterfactual thinking following social failures, which may in turn influence subsequent social performance. Third, we will examine whether perinatal mental health factors have cascading effects on children’s social development, mediated by parenting stress and parent-child interactions. Hypothesis: Exposure to perinatal mental health challenges is associated with trajectories of social cognition and social skills in offspring, mediated by parenting quality and caregiver mental health.

Methodologically, the project could be designed as a mixed-methods longitudinal study with a multi-cohort sample. The developmental component would recruit children with developmental delays, autism spectrum disorders, and typically developing peers, followed across multiple time points from early childhood through middle childhood. Measures would include standardized assessments of emotion discourse (e.g., coded parent-child interactions), social cognition (theory of mind tasks, false-belief assessments), and social skills (teacher and parent-report scales such as the Social Skills Improvement System). A parallel mental health module would assess perceived stigma, social anxiety (using validated scales like the Social Anxiety Scale for Children or similar adult measures, depending on age), and counterfactual thinking using established instruments. The perinatal mental health dimension would involve caregiver reports of perinatal mental health history, maternal stress, and observed parent-child interactions to model downstream social development in offspring. The analysis would integrate growth curve modeling for developmental trajectories, mediation analyses for stigma and social anxiety pathways, and moderation analyses to explore differential effects by diagnostic group and sex. Incorporating qualitative interviews with families would enrich the interpretation of quantitative findings and help identify nuanced mechanisms through which social thinking evolves in these contexts (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Festinger, 1957).\n

In sum, Track One provides a structured lens to review literature, identify gaps, and design a study that advances understanding of how developmental factors, mental health considerations, and social perception processes interact to shape social thinking. The proposed approach is grounded in established social-psychology and development literatures, and it offers a clear path toward a rigorous final project that integrates three core areas—developmental processes, mental health stigma, and counterfactual thinking—into a coherent empirical program (Roese, 1994; Corrigan & Watson, 2002; Pescosolido et al., 2010; Crick & Dodge, 1994; Bandura, 1997; Deci & Ryan, 2000).\n

References

  • Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review of social-information-processing mechanisms in children's social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 74-101.
  • Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (1998). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1464-1480.
  • Roese, N. J. (1994). The possible worlds of counterfactual thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(5), 839-845.
  • Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
  • Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY: W. H. Freeman.
  • Corrigan, P. W., & Watson, A. C. (2002). The paradox of self-stigma. Psychiatric Services, 53(10), 1069-1070.
  • Pescosolido, B. A., Martin, J. K., Long, J. S., & Olafsdottir, H. (2010). “A disease like any other”? Public views of mental illness. American Journal of Public Health, 100(4), 614-618.
  • Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The" Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.
  • Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211(4481), 453-458.
  • Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. New York, NY: International Universities Press.

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