Literature Review (Core Assessment)

Introduction
Social psychology is a broad, empirically-based discipline that studies a vast range of topics and issues. The Core Assessment for this course is to research and write a literature review on a social psychology topic using proper APA style. The following tasks will be part of the Core Assessment project:

1. Identify a topic relevant to social psychology and formulate a research question
2. Research your topic and select six articles
3. Summarize your articles.
4. Write the Literature Review

What is a Literature Review
The purpose of a literature review is to present an integrated synthesis of the understanding and research findings related to a central concept (e.g., your research question). A literature review is NOT just a descriptive list of research conducted on the topic or a regurgitation of summaries of research studies presented without explaining their connection to each other and how they help answer the overall research question. A literature review brings together in a systematic way the relevant issues, findings, conclusion, and interpretations drawn from a series of research studies related to a topic to present an overview of the current scientific view.

For example, a literature review supporting the research question "Does the presence of other people affect a person's performance?" would cite the historical studies that first examined this issue such as Triplett's study of how the speed of a cyclist was impacted by whether a person competed against others or just against the clock, follow-on studies that looked at the same concept and first received confirming results then contradictory results. The literature review isn't just rattling off the findings of each study but covering the key findings and relating them as part of an overall narrative to the developing scientific view on the research question by discussing findings of relevant studies that reinforce or contradict a particular viewpoint. Next in this example of whether a person's performance is affected by being in the presence of others, the literature review would cite studies that examined and tried to make sense of the contradictory information, explain the Zajonc solution, cite the studies that confirmed this interpretation, and then bring in the findings of studies that show the significance and relevance of this finding to understanding human behavior in relation to this research question. Finally the literature review would explore unresolved issues or areas that require further research.

For this assignment you're not doing an exhaustive literature review but finding six relevant and meaningful studies that address your research question. A good study will contain a thorough literature review that follows this same process to describe the background and purpose of the research question addressed in the study so look for that in each of the six studies you choose and that will give you additional helpful information to use in your literature review. It will also give you examples of an effective flow for your topic and how to synthesize findings from different studies.

The number of research questions is endless, but a few examples to which this process can be applied would include:

"Does human perception have a built in bias to reinforce already held beliefs and perspectives?" would examine the development and findings on confirmation bias.

"How does the presence of others affect helping behavior?" would look at studies that examine the bystander effect and the different factors that come into play to influence how a person responds.

"What situational factors affect helping behavior" could examine how the bystander effect, time pressure, location, mood, etc influence a person's response. This research question might be too broad to cover adequately with six studies so narrowing the question as I did in the previous example would be easier.

"How does self-esteem affect performance?" would first examine studies that define and explain what self-esteem is, how it relates to self-concept, its influence on performance, etc.

"How does a female being seen as "beautiful" affect her self-esteem and perception of her abilities?" would present studies that examined the benefits and disadvantages of beauty on a person's self-perception, how others respond to her, and how she filters and interprets those responses.

"Do video games increase aggressive behavior?" would define aggression, cite studies that support or contradict the hypothesis, strengths and weaknesses of the studies, and further issues that need to be studied.

A literature review must do these things:

1. Be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question you are developing
2. Synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
3. Identify trends or findings
4. Identify areas of controversy in the literature
5. Formulate questions that need further research

 

 

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