Cognitive Theory

For the final project in this course, you will marshal the knowledge you have built to accomplish the core goal of all psychologists—to explain human behavior. You will select a current or historical event and use theory and research from the field of social cognition and perception to explain, from your perspective, why the event occurred. You will also suggest, again drawing from social cognitive theory and research, how this event could have turned out differently had it occurred in a different culture. Although you will not have been exposed to the material in the entire course by the time you begin working on the project, you should feel free to utilize theory and research covered in any portion of the course readings, or elsewhere within the field of social cognition, in achieving the project objectives. The project will be completed in three steps: a topic proposal, a detailed outline and tentative annotated bibliography, and a final paper. The project is divided into two milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules Three and Five. The final research paper will be submitted in Module Seven. This assessment will assess your mastery with respect to the following course outcomes: ? PSY-326-01 Evaluate contemporary research in social cognition and perception for its contributions to and importance for analyzing human behavior ? PSY-326-02 Analyze the impact of cognitive theory and methodology on socialpsychology ? PSY-326-03 Assess the impact of the social environment (with a focus on both functionality and shortcomings) on basic cognitive processes, perceptual processes, and behavior ? PSY-326-04 Apply the automatic versus controlled model of social cognition to the analysis and evaluation of human behavior ? PSY-326-05 Assess the role of culture as one component of the social environment for its impact on basic cognitive and perceptual processes Prompt Your paper will address two major questions: 1. How does the literature in social cognition and perception help explain a real-world event? 2. Based on the literature, how could this event have happened differently had it occurred in a different culture?