In this assignment, you are going to be a sociological detective. Listed below are five common beliefs that have been questioned by many sociologists. You will pick one of the questionable claims listed below (or choose your own). Your job is to find one empirical research article that scientifically tests some aspect of your chosen claim, and to use that evidence to evaluate the claim's support (or lack thereof). Some suggested keywords to begin your search are provided (you likely will need to search for other terms, as well), along with a sample empirical research article addressing the claim. You may not use the articles below. Challenged sociological beliefs: 1. Video games cause violence Some Suggested Keywords: (“Video Games”) AND (“Violence”) Sample empirical research article addressing this topic:

In this assignment, you are going to be a sociological detective. Listed below are five common beliefs that have been questioned by many sociologists. You will pick one of the questionable claims listed below (or choose your own). Your job is to find one empirical research article that scientifically tests some aspect of your chosen claim, and to use that evidence to evaluate the claim's support (or lack thereof). Some suggested keywords to begin your search are provided (you likely will need to search for other terms, as well), along with a sample empirical research article addressing the claim. You may not use the articles below. Challenged sociological beliefs: 1. Video games cause violence Some Suggested Keywords: (“Video Games”) AND (“Violence”) Sample empirical research article addressing this topic: Flign, S., Smith, L, Rodriguez, T., Thornton, D., & Nixon, K. (1992). Video games, aggression and self-esteem: A survey. Social Behavior and Personality, 20(1), 39-45. doi:https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.1992.20.1.39 2. Americans are selfish. Some Suggested Keywords: (“Americans”), (“Selfish”) Sample empirical research article: Ahmed, S. M. (1979). Helping behavior as predicted by diffusion of responsibility, exchange theory, Horioka, C. (2014). Are Americans and Indians more altruistic than the Japanese and Chinese? Evidence from a new international survey of bequest plans. Review of Economics of the Household, 12(3), 411-437. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-014-9252-y 3. Women make less money than men. Some Suggested Keywords: (“women”), (“income” AND “inequality”) Sample empirical research article: Auster, E. (1989). Task characteristics as a bridge between macro- and microlevel research on salary inequality between men and women. Academy of Management, 14(2), 1-12. doi: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1989.4282082 Writing & Writing Guidelines Try to avoid sharing personal experiences and/or personal opinions. Paraphrase. DO NOT use quotes. Please be careful not to plagiarize. To receive credit for this paper, you must review the article in your own words. The paper should be 2-4 pages (not including title page and reference page) in length and should be typed. The entire paper should be double-spaced with 12-point font size. All margins should be one inch. Paper Outline Topic: Introduce the topic and explain the purpose of the paper (approx: ½ page) Identify which claim you are investigating. Explain why the topic is important and interesting. Summary: Summarize one empirical research article that you read (approx: 1 page) Briefly (no more than a few sentences) describe how you located your source. Selecting your article: BE SURE THAT YOU SELECT AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ARTICLE FROM SCHOLARLY JOURNALS. Empirical study articles present research conducted by the authors (i.e. not literature reviews or editorials). To ensure that you're selecting an empirical study article, check the abstract for references to participants, procedure, and results. If the abstract does not clearly indicate that this article is empirical search, you can check the text of the article for a “Methods” section. Evaluate the source Does the source appear credible/trustworthy (i.e. How was the research funded; What was the review process for publication)? Why or why not? (Note: You will need to read the entire article in order to do this – not just the abstract.) Describe what the researchers did in the study. State who was in the study (participants). Include the number of men, women, ages, ethnicities, etc. State how the participants were asked to be in the study (recruited) State what the participants were asked to do. In addition to naming the questionnaires or tasks, also explain what the questionnaires are measuring and what the tasks are. Describe them well enough so that the reader has an idea of what kinds of questions the participants answered or what kinds of tasks they completed. In what ways were the results consistent with the hypotheses/predictions? Any surprising findings? Do not worry about trying to understand the statistics; the author will explain the statistics in the "Discussion" section of the article. What did you perceive as being the strengths of the study? What were its limitations? Conclusion: Addressing the Claim (approx: .5 - 1 page) Draw a conclusion about your claim. Does the claim seem accurate or inaccurate? When was the article published? Would you expect the findings to still hold true? Why? Which groups of people does the article help you better understand? Does this article help you understand all people, or only certain subgroups (i.e. are there populations for whom you think you’d find different results than those found in the articles – generations, nationalities, race, etc.?). You’re NOT being ask who would be interested in this research, but to whom the findings apply. In Text Citation Below are examples of sentences and how they should be cited within the text. Citations include the author’s last name and the year of publication. One author: Cite the author’s last name and the year the article was published. Example: In a recent study of reaction times (Rogers, 2012)...or Rogers (2012) compared reaction times... Multiple authors: When a work has two authors, always cite both names every time the reference occurs in the text. Example: (Smith & Smith, 2009). When a work has three or more authors, cite all authors the first time the reference occurs (Wasserstein, Smith, & Jones, 2012). In subsequent citations include only the surname of the first author followed by et al. Example: (Wasserstein et al., 2012). Citation of a work discussed in another source: If a work is cited in your article, and you did not read the original work cited, you should use the following citation format: (Siedenberg, 2011 as cited in Coltheart, 2013)... Important: Any portion of your paper that contains information from the article needs to be cited. Since you will reference the article you read for this assignment multiple times, you will end up citing that article in your paper multiple times. If you are in doubt about whether you should cite it then cite it! Better to be safe than sorry. Reference Page (Last Page) Be sure that your reference is in APA format http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ and visit the “Research and Citation” section. The following APA format should be used for your reference page: Reference Geenen, N. Y. R., Hohelüchter, M., Langholf, V., & Walther, E. (2014). The beneficial effects of prosocial spending on happiness: Work hard, make money, and spend it on others? The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9(3), 204-208.