EMA Part 2
For this
part of the EMA you should write an essay with the title below.
Title: ‘In
psychology, studying personal experience should be more important than
measuring traits and abilities.’ Critically evaluate this statement, drawing on
evidence from social psychology and the psychology of individual differences.
You must
draw on evidence from Weeks 7 and 11 of the module. In addition, you should
draw on and discuss at least two academic journal articles or equivalent
primary source material not referred to in the DE300 module materials. These
need to be highlighted in the reference list for the EMA markers.
The word
limit for this essay is 2000 words, excluding the reference list but including
in-text citations.
The
question requires you to critically evaluate the statement that, in psychology,
‘studying personal experience should be more important than measuring traits
and abilities’, drawing on material from Week 7 and Week 11 of the module. As
with Part 1 of the EMA, you are being asked to carry out a critical evaluation,
which means you need to consider both sides of the argument. So, try to ensure
your essay does not only consider the argument that studying personal
experience should be more important than measuring traits and abilities or vice
versa. Instead, there should be a balanced argument presented in a
well-evidenced and coherently argued manner.
To address
this essay question, it will be useful to start by revisiting Week 7 of the
module. This week is directly relevant for this essay title, as it discusses
how and why psychologists go about measuring and assessing things like
personality or creativity. In fact, the whole domain of psychology of individual
differences is preoccupied with ways in which individuals differ from each
other in terms of abilities and traits. Furthermore, you may find the Week 7
online material on creativity helpful for this essay.
The
question also asks you to consider evidence from Week 11. Chapter 8 examines
phenomenology as an approach that allows the exploration of subjective
experience. As you read this material in preparation for the assignment, try to
think of the phenomenological studies, methods and theories from the
perspective of the question: what is it that researchers are interested in and
how does this differ from the psychology of individual differences? Your work
on TMA 04 Part 1 may help with this preparation too. Think about some of the
topics covered in the chapter (love, grief, and so on) and how someone
designing a survey, or a scale, would approach them (you may even want to look
for some relevant studies and cite them in your essay). This is an important
issue to address as you develop an argument about the relative contribution of
the two domains. Whatever material or examples you decide to draw upon, it is
important that you substantiate your arguments with theory and empirical
evidence from the relevant chapters and include at least two external sources.
Also, remember that you must always focus on the question and evaluate the
theories, methods and studies you discuss.
It is up to
you to decide how you structure your essay; however, keep in mind that you are
expected to integrate the material from Weeks 7 and 11, and draw on evidence
from across the two psychological domains (i.e. social psychology and the
psychology of individual differences). To write a coherent essay, avoid
presenting two sets of unrelated studies and/or theories from the two domains.
Rather, develop your argument by synthesising across the
content of Weeks 7 and 11 of the module. It could be useful to consider, for
example, how the different psychological domains treat differences between
people, and how they go about investigating them. By considering such
questions, you will be able to make links and formulate broader arguments
across the domains, and therefore craft an essay that reads as a coherent
whole. There are different ways you could integrate and critically evaluate the
material from Weeks 7 and 11, and there is not one right way. Whatever you do,
it is important to keep your essay focused on addressing the essay question and
to focus more on critical evaluation than on description.
Finally,
please remember that for this essay you are expected to conduct research of
your own into relevant material beyond the module resources and to include two
primary sources not referred to in the DE300 materials. You will need to do
some systematic searching for relevant source materials that support the
arguments you make, and your choices should be well-integrated into the points
in your essay – the purpose is to support your argument effectively, not just
to satisfy a marking requirement. Remember how important it is to evaluate the
source, nature and reliability of all the material that you find through
searching. The primary sources you should draw on are likely to be psychology
journal articles, though they could be chapters from academic psychology books
– not textbooks. You could also consider more recent works by the authors
mentioned in the DE300 textbook.
To help the
marker to identify the new material, please highlight the two sources in the
reference list at the end of your essay.