Essay/Worksheet
Part I
Visit the website of The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, an organization dedicated to altruistic pursuits.
Review the information, literature, and downloadable documents.
Design your own assignment in which you implement five acts of kindness (pro-social behavior). Use your discretion, common sense, and modesty at all times. Do not put yourself in an environment of potential danger or harm.
Write a paper of 500-750 words, in which you:
- Describe your implementation of kindness: what did you do, how did you approach the idea, where did you implement it and to whom?
- Describe the reactions you perceived from others and yourself.
- Describe what you learned about prosocial behavior from this exercise. Compare the actual application of the behavior relative to this topic material.
- If you are a faith-based person, explain how your faith helped you implement your helping behavior. If you are not a faith-based person, explain what philosophy, belief system, or values you connected to helping behavior.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide
Part II
PSY-362 Social Psychology and Cultural Applications
Stanford Prison Experiment
Directions: Answer each of the questions below with a minimum of 200-words. Use scholarly research to support your answers. Include APA in-text citations in your answers where necessary and list your reference at the end of the document.
1. Do you think that kids from an urban working-class environment would have broken down emotionally in the same way as did the middle-class prisoners? Why? What do you suppose the outcome would have been if women were used a prisoners and guards instead of men? Explain.
2. While the Stanford Prison experiment is considered unethical, what usefulness has come from the experimental outcomes? Was it right to trade the suffering experienced by participants for the knowledge gained by the research? Explain how the experiment and consequently the suffering has added to current research in the field of social psychology.
3. Knowing what this research says about the power of prison situations to have a corrosive effect on human nature, what recommendations would you make about changing the correctional system in your country?
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
- Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
- Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
- One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
- I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
- Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
- In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
- Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
- Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
- Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
- Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
- I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
- I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
- As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
- It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
- For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
- Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
- Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
- Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
- The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
- Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
- If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
- I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
- As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
- Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
- Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
- Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
