very early on in the semester i had decided to do blog #5 about the social psychological variables involved in genocide, mainly due to intrigue from hearing small bits and pieces about the Rwandan genocide and also after watching Hotel Rwanda. so, after reading a little more these are some of the main variables (although there appear, as usual in psychology, about a thousand factors involved) that i have come up with so far...
* prejudice - scapegoat theory/realistic conflict theory
* aggression (displaced)
* obedience to authority
* conformity
* propaganda
* in/out groups
* confirmation bias
* blaming victim
* fundamental attribution error
* authoritarian leaders
* bystander effect
* 'groupthink'
* ............
* ............
so these are the ideas i plan to talk about in my first ever assessed blog! although at this stage i do find the idea of fitting all of the variables into 1500 words slightly daunting. plus there a innumerable other cultural, economical, political, situational, etc. factors that im not even daring to consider at this stage.
graham
ps. only 2 more weeks until "holidays"!!!!
Thursday, August 16, 2007
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2 comments:
Looks like a great plan graeme. Very tough fitting it into 1500 words. You could either include all the variables and give very breif examples or focus on the more important factors and give more in depth examples. I chose the former. Good luck!
Hi Graeme,
This is an excellent example for others about how a blog can be used to develop your ideas and blog draft.
And the earlier people put their thoughts out there, the more room there is for contributions from others.
Anyway, my suggestions:
- Great to see you've recognised the myriad of infuential variables. This a key realisation. In psychology we are often inclined to oversimplify.
- Make effective use of concept maps - this is designed to help you improve the understandability of your argument/ideas and to reduce overall wordcount.
- Make effective use of appendices for additional information to supplement your body text.
- Organise/prioritise the influences. Yes, there are a multitude of effects. But, if you had to whittle them by clustering them or organising them in some way (e.g., eight stages of genocide), what would you emphasise and why?
Hope this helps.
PS I reckon you'd learn plenty of practical social psychology as a concierge. I learnt a few things as a supermarket check-out guy once upon a time.
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