Want to change your personality?

The paper assignment has two major parts:
(a) to address an applied challenge, that is, some challenge faced in the “real world,” outside of university departments of psychology, by
(b) making use of information in a scientific paper that presents some scientific evidence that can be used to address the challenge.
In this document is a list of applied challenges and associated scientific papers from which to choose. You should choose one of these as the topic for your paper. If you choose a topic that is NOT on this list you will not earn credit for this assignment.
Once you choose a topic, your assignment is:
(1) to describe the theory and research presented in the scientific paper that is listed for your topic
(2) to explain how that theory and research addresses the applied challenge, in other words, to explain how the psychological science (the theory and research in the paper) might help to solve the problem faced by the person with the applied challenge.
The paper you write should be 3.5 – 4 pages in length, double-spaced. That would be the length in font size 12, 1-inch-margins; this would equate to about 1100 words of writing. In these 3.5-4 pages, you should be accomplishing the two asks above: (1) describe the theory and research presented in the scientific paper you read (answer questions such as: what is the main idea of the paper? What are the main research findings supporting this idea? What methods did the researcher use to support their findings?), and (2) explain how that theory and research can be applied to the applied problem (explain what the person facing the applied challenge might do differently if they knew about the theory and research in the paper). You should spend about an equal amount of space on each of the two tasks; your paper should have about 1.5-2 pages describing the theory and research that is presented in the relevant scientific paper, and about 1.5-2 pages explaining how the scientific information might be used to solve the applied problem.

Notes on writing style: For this paper, you should have little or no direct quotes from the paper. Unlike a writing style in the humanities (e.g., an English class in which you are writing about a work of fiction), here in the social sciences there is rarely any need at all to quote directly, word-for-word, from a paper you are reading. The text in your paper should be text written entirely by you.
Notes on plagiarism: Anytime you are using someone else’s words you need to give the author credit by citing them. Otherwise, this is plagiarism. By citing the author, you are adding credibility to your argument and avoiding plagiarism. An example of an in-text citation looks like this: where you first list the ideas of an author followed with an in-line citation: Psychology is the scientific study of person, the mind, and the brain (Cervone, 2014).

Topic: Want to change your personality?
Imagine that you are in a discussion with two friends. One of them says that they
don’t like something about their personality: “I wish I was more extraverted – more outgoing and sociable than I am now.” The other one says “I’d like to change my personality, but I’d like to be more conscientious – more reliable, on-time for things, with better self-discipline. Your friends discuss this, and conclude that even if it’s possible to change one’s personality, they don’t have the time and money to do it. “We need something quick and cheap, like an app – maybe some kind of digital coaching. But even if that exists, it probably doesn’t even work.” What would you tell your friends (in light of this relevant scientific paper)?
Relevant scientific paper:
Allemand, M., & Flückiger, C. (2022). Personality change through digital-coaching
interventions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 31(1), 41–48. https://doi. org/10.1177/09637214211067782

Last Completed Projects