Psychological Disorders Essay
Psychological Disorders Essay
The main objective of this assignment is that you demonstrate understanding of the psychological disorders in this course by being able to accurately identify the discrepancies between actual disorders and media portrayals.
Assignment 7.b: Psychological Disorders Field Assignment
The purpose of this assignment is for you to extend your knowledge in the course to the real-world to understand how media portrayals of mental illness may differ from the actual psychological disorders you are learning in this course. The main objective of this assignment is that you demonstrate understanding of the psychological disorders in this course by being able to accurately identify the discrepancies between actual disorders and media portrayals. There is often a large difference between the actual progression of mental disorders and how they are portrayed in the media.
For this assignment, I would like you to investigate the difference between the textbook versions of disorders and the media-popular versions of these disorders. Each of you should collect 2 examples of reports of real life behavior from newspapers, magazines, books, television and radio news stations that appear to be caused by psychological disorders. You are not looking for fictional characters in literature, tv shows, or movies, but rather TWO real persons who are being reported on by the news.
For each example:
Note the symptoms identified.
Check whether an official diagnosis is reported in the media piece.
Discuss what impression of abnormal behavior is created by the report.
Discuss whether that impression is consistent with the description of the disorder presented in the textbook.
When submitting the assignment, please include links to the media examples (or attach scans of printed material). You must provide links or scans of your research.
Grading will be based on appropriateness of examples (relevance, number), accuracy of description and interpretation of media source, and quality of application of media source to actual psychological disorder (e.g., did they capture all of the key differences, did they accurately portray the actual disorder, etc.). APA format required. You should write at least two paragraphs on each person/case discussed.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument
