Motivation and Emotion Final Paper Project
Four Options
You have three options from which to choose a topic for your final paper. 1) Design a motivational intervention that improves the lives of others; 2) Apply the motivational concepts from Drive to analyze and improve employee motivation in a company; 3) Analyze the psychological and social needs of a character from a novel or movie; The paper must be no shorter than 7 pages and no longer than 9 pages, not including the References page. The final paper will be due the day of the final exam and must be submitted in hard copy and via turnitin.com prior to taking the final. No late papers will be accepted for any reason.
1. The goal in this course has been to increase your capacity to understand and explain human motivation and emotion. But now I would like you to think about the practicality of this knowledge, specifically in ways that improve people’s lives. One way to do this is design and implement an intervention to strengthen other people’s motivational and emotional resources. An intervention is a step-by-step plan of action to alter some existing condition. In the context of motivation and emotion study, an intervention is a step-by-step plan of action to enrich people’s motivational and emotional resources and, in doing so, promote life outcomes that people care deeply about, such as enhanced engagement, skill acquisition, performance, and well-being.
It is actually challenging to design a highly effective intervention without first having a solid theoretical framework to guide and inform its design. So, step 1 in designing a successful intervention is to double-check the depth and sophistication of one’s theoretical understanding of motivation and emotion. This means providing a solid foundation for your plan based on what the research suggests will be effective. Your intervention could address eating behavior, school performance, work performance, or any area of behavior that can be changed using the concepts we’ve discussed in this course. To help guide your thinking about how to change behavior, here are a few steps: First, attempt to diagnose why the person(s) is currently experiencing that particular motivational experience. You will not, of course, have access to the important details of his or her situation, but you can still generate a number of possible hypotheses. Second, once you have several hypotheses to work with, identify the key sources of the person’s motivation. What conditions could bring about a change in the person’s motivation? Third, apply your knowledge of motivation and emotion to generate a productive course of action to help each person generate the energy and direction needed to solve the motivational or emotional issue.
Your intervention plan should consist of 5 parts: 1) description of the problem behavior to be changed, 2) the theoretically relevant concepts and citations from research literature where applicable, 3) the specific things you will do to try and change the behavior based on the theoretical concepts citing the research literature where appropriate 4) description of how you will monitor the effectiveness of your intervention (How will you quantify the changes? If there is a change in behavior, how will you define what constitutes enough of a change to be a success?), 5) the limitations to your intervention (aspects of trying to change behavior that might not work in the real world) and how you might deal with them.
Your paper should incorporate at least two peer-reviewed empirical articles on motivation/emotion found in psychology journals to support your own argument(s). Your use of these articles in the paper should involve a short, but adequate summary of each article (e.g., the researcher’s hypothesis, study design, the independent and dependent variables used, and what the researcher found in relation to their hypothesis).
When referring to one of your research articles, be sure to summarize it properly: state the researcher’s hypothesis (“In a study to determine whether low glucose or high glucose drinks can influence prosocial decision-making….”), state how they studied it (“To test their prediction, they randomly assigned 40 college students to two groups: a sugary drink group and a sugar-free drink group. Then they had them respond to a series of questions about helping other people.”); and what they found (“In line with their prediction, participants who drank sugary drinks were, on average, more willing to help other people compared to participants who drank sugar free drinks, suggesting that blood glucose facilitates prosocial decisions.”)
While your paper must follow APA style citations and references, there is no need for an abstract. They’re appropriate if you’re submitting an article summarizing empirical research to a journal for publication, but that’s not the case here. However, if you simply want practice and feedback on writing abstracts, you are welcome to include one.
Some advice:
Avoid direct quotes from source materials in your paper. While quotations are the appropriate way of setting off information that comes from other authors, academic writing in psychology rarely uses quotations. Instead, translate the relevant ideas and findings into your own words. Being a mature scholar requires the ability to summarize and paraphrase the ideas of others in your own words and your paper should demonstrate that you have acquired this skill.
Academic writing in psychology also avoids personal details about the author(s) of a study other than a simple citation of their name(s) and the year the study was published. Here is an example of what NOT to write: “A study done in 2010 by John T. Cacioppo, distinguished professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago, found that…” This is a style more characteristic of journalism or popular science writing, rather than academic APA- style writing. The conventional version would read: “A study by Cacioppo (2010) found that…” or “One study found that students given more feedback reported greater sadness after failing to complete a word puzzle than students given less feedback (Cacioppo, 2010).”
The last page of your paper will be the References page. It is titled “References” not “Works Cited.” You will lose a point on your paper if you title it “Works Cited”; that is MLA style, not APA style. You might find this online guide helpful for your citations and references. https:// owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/
Prior to submitting your paper, you will upload it to turnitin.com.
2. Imagine that you have been hired as a consultant to provide a plan to improve performance in a workplace (or other appropriate setting – ask Dr. Hunt if you are unsure). Assume that the business that has hired you has been using at least 4 of the kinds of incentives described here: https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/an-introduction-to-organizational-behavior-v1.1/s10-05- motivating-employees-through-p.html
Or, if you wish, you can interview a real business owner or manager to find out how they motivate performance in a real workplace. (If you do interview someone, it would be outstanding if you asked her/him why they use the motivational tactics they do as well as how they know whether the tactics are effective.) You will submit a 7-page double-spaced paper that applies the concept of “Motivation 3.0” from Daniel Pink’s Drive in a proposal that identifies the strengths and weaknesses in the current program and offers a new concrete strategy for improving worker motivation.
Your proposal should include the following four sections (each getting its own heading in your paper): 1) A concise description of the current program’s ways of establishing and maintaining motivation. Are incentives used? If so, which ones? How are they administered? What other ways (if any) are used to foster motivation? 2) Strengths and weaknesses. Provide an assessment of the motivational tactics currently used. Your assessment should rely upon information drawn from Daniel Pink’s Drive as well as information covered during class or found in empirical journal articles. In other words, based upon research, what are they doing right and what are they doing wrong? 3) Proposed plan. This section will describe a concrete strategy for enhancing the effective tactics that are currently used as well as introducing new tactics based on “Motivation 3.0.” You will find Pink’s “Toolkit” section in Drive to be useful for this part. Your discussion of “Motivation 3.0” should include a brief summary that explains the concept. In addition, your proposed plan should include some feedback mechanism that provides quantifiable information about the new plan’s effectiveness (e.g., measures of productivity, measures of employee satisfaction, etc.) 4) Limitations. This section should address the possible limitations in implementing your plan in the workplace. Are there limitations to how your plan would work? Would it only work for certain employees? If you find “Motivation 3.0” to be a poor solution to improving productivity, explain why based on either practical considerations, theoretical issues, or empirical findings that contradict its use.
Your position on Pink’s idea should incorporate two peer-reviewed empirical articles found in psychology journals to support your own argument(s). Your use of these articles in the paper should involve a short, but adequate summary of each article (e.g., the researcher’s hypothesis, study design, the independent and dependent variables used, and what the researcher found in relation to their hypothesis).
When referring to one of your research articles, be sure to summarize it properly: state the researcher’s hypothesis (“In a study to determine whether low glucose or high glucose drinks can influence prosocial decision-making….”), state how they studied it (“To test their prediction, they randomly assigned 40 college students to two groups: a sugary drink group and a sugar-free drink group. Then they had them respond to a series of questions about helping other people.”); and what they found (“In line with their prediction, participants who drank sugary drinks were, on average, more willing to help other people compared to participants who drank sugar free drinks, suggesting that blood glucose facilitates prosocial decisions.”)
While your paper must follow APA style citations and references, there is no need for an abstract. They’re appropriate if you’re submitting an article summarizing empirical research to a journal for publication, but that’s not the case here. However, if you simply want practice and feedback on writing abstracts, you are welcome to include one.
Some advice:
Avoid direct quotes from source materials in your paper. While quotations are the appropriate way of setting off information that comes from other authors, academic writing in psychology rarely uses quotations. Instead, translate the relevant ideas and findings into your own words. Being a mature scholar requires the ability to summarize and paraphrase the ideas of others in your own words and your paper should demonstrate that you have acquired this skill.
Academic writing in psychology also avoids personal details about the author(s) of a study other than a simple citation of their name(s) and the year the study was published. Here is an example of what NOT to write: “A study done in 2010 by John T. Cacioppo, distinguished professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago, found that…” This is a style more characteristic of journalism or popular science writing, rather than academic APA- style writing. The conventional version would read: “A study by Cacioppo (2010) found that…” or “One study found that students given more feedback reported greater sadness after failing to complete a word puzzle than students given less feedback (Cacioppo, 2010).”
The last page of your paper will be the References page. It is titled “References” not “Works Cited.” You will lose a point on your paper if you title it “Works Cited”; that is MLA style, not APA style. You might find this online guide helpful for your citations and references. https:// owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/
Prior to submitting your paper, you will upload it to turnitin.com.
3. Analyze the psychological and social needs of a character from a book or a movie. For this assignment, you will submit a 7-page double-spaced paper that applies the course concepts to a literary or cinematic work. You should structure your paper in 4 parts: 1) Synopsis of the movie, describing the plot and the main characters that are directly relevant to your analysis (i.e., don’t pad the paper with descriptions of peripheral characters – just give enough description to understand the role the person plays in the analyzed character’s life and only when relevant); 2) Explanation of the psychological and social needs with references and citations of the research literature and class materials; 3) Explanation of the observable features that allow you assess the character’s motivations (this section should make reference to expressions of motivation we discussed at the beginning of the course – effort, persistence, latency, choice, probability of response, facial expressions, and bodily gestures); 4) Analysis of the main character’s actions, expressed emotions and thoughts (as revealed by voice or inner dialogue as often occurs in written works). This fourth section should explain the character’s energy, direction, and persistence in her/his actions by appeal to the concepts used in our course. A solid paper will convey how the satisfaction or frustration of the various needs provides insight into the meaning of the literary or cinematic work under examination. This section may also critique the plausibility of the work you are analyzing if you find that the characters’ behaviors are at odds with what we know about motivation and emotion. [Side note: You might be surprised by how much more you can appreciate works of art when viewed through the lens of motivation.]
Your analysis should incorporate two peer-reviewed empirical articles on motivation or emotion found in psychology journals to support your own argument(s). Your use of these articles in the paper should involve a short, but adequate summary of each article (e.g., the researcher’s hypothesis, study design, the independent and dependent variables used, and what the researcher found in relation to their hypothesis).
When referring to one of your research articles, be sure to summarize it properly: state the researcher’s hypothesis (“In a study to determine whether low glucose or high glucose drinks can influence prosocial decision-making….”), state how they studied it (“To test their prediction, they randomly assigned 40 college students to two groups: a sugary drink group and a sugar-free drink group. Then they had them respond to a series of questions about helping other people.”); and what they found (“In line with their prediction, participants who drank sugary drinks were, on average, more willing to help other people compared to participants who drank sugar free drinks, suggesting that blood glucose facilitates prosocial decisions.”)
While your paper must follow APA style citations and references, there is no need for an abstract. They’re appropriate if you’re submitting an article summarizing empirical research to a journal for publication, but that’s not the case here. However, if you simply want practice and feedback on writing abstracts, you are welcome to include one.
Some advice:
Avoid direct quotes from source materials in your paper. While quotations are the appropriate way of setting off information that comes from other authors, academic writing in psychology rarely uses quotations. Instead, translate the relevant ideas and findings into your own words.
Being a mature scholar requires the ability to summarize and paraphrase the ideas of others in your own words and your paper should demonstrate that you have acquired this skill.
Academic writing in psychology also avoids personal details about the author(s) of a study other than a simple citation of their name(s) and the year the study was published. Here is an example of what NOT to write: “A study done in 2010 by John T. Cacioppo, distinguished professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago, found that…” This is a style more characteristic of journalism or popular science writing, rather than academic APA- style writing. The conventional version would read: “A study by Cacioppo (2010) found that…” or “One study found that students given more feedback reported greater sadness after failing to complete a word puzzle than students given less feedback (Cacioppo, 2010).”
The last page of your paper will be the References page. It is titled “References” not “Works Cited.” You will lose a point on your paper if you title it “Works Cited”; that is MLA style, not APA style. You might find this online guide helpful for your citations and references. https:// owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/
Prior to submitting your paper, you will upload it to turnitin.com.
