The purpose of this assignment is to have you learn about scientific research on the topic of humor and to think deeply about how such research is done.  This course is a social science general education course, which means that the content must cover the “theoretical constructs based on empirical observation  to explain human behavior and society in social and/or physical environments.”  The course is full of descriptions of research studies that meet this requirement. 

In this assignment, you will have the opportunity to read an entire research article and reflect on the implications of the results.  It is okay if you do not understand every little detail in the article.  I have posted a link in this module that has tips for reading psychology journal articles.

There are multiple articles posted on Canvas in the module for article summary/reflection.  Select one of the articles for this assignment. Read the article you select and try to find the important details of the studys purpose, methodology (participants, procedure, measures), results, and conclusions.  Then, reflect on what comes to mind for you.

There are two parts to the writing assignment.

Part I.  Provide a summary of one of the articles provided on canvas (in the module with this assignment).  Provide details of the studys purpose, methodology (participants, procedure, measures), results, and conclusions.  Your summary should be at least 750 words. 

Part II.  Provide your reflection. Why did you pick the article that you did rather than one of the others?  Then, please provide your general thoughts after reading and summarizing the article that you selected.  What was the most surprising element in the article for you personally? What would be a good direction for future research (i.e., does this study raise one or more new questions that could be the focus of follow up studies)?  Your reaction/reflection should be an additional 250 words. 

Parts I and II can be saved within the same word document and uploaded to Canvas.  There is NO particular formatting that you should follow. Indent paragraphs and use good grammar, sentence structure, spelling, and punctuation.  (APA style does NOT need to be used).

Failure to meet the minimum word count for each of the two parts will result in a grade of 0 points, since it will be a failure to follow instructions.

If you have trouble getting Canvas to accept your submission, try a different web browser.