Here is your question: 'why do people vote'. your response should consist of two parts. Each part  has a set of objectives the student should achieve, that we set out below. For clarity, we will  discuss a worked example to a question from a past year: ‘Is screen time bad for you?’  Part 1. Literature Review Objective A. Frame the question  The student should explain how they will be interpreting the question, in terms of its scope and  application. Rather than surveying different many possible questions, the student should aim to **narrow down their focus**. A higher level essay should give a clear statement of the particular  interpretation that they will be addressing.  Example ‘Screen time’ could refer to amount of social media use; reading text on a screen rather  than paper; watching a lecture online vs in person; time spent watching TV; or many other things.  In this example, the student interprets ‘screen time’ as playing video games. There could be many  possible ‘bad effects’ of such screen time (eg changes in mood, school achievement, perceptualmotor coordination). Here the student is going to focus on changes in pro-social behaviour.  Objective B. Review the literature.  The student should survey past work that has relevance for their question, as they have defined it.  They are encouraged to use the concepts discussed in Evidence and Enquiry as a starting point (if  relevant), but to carry out their own independent research across any disciplines of psychology  that are pertinent. The student should discuss relevant theories and explain the empirical  evidence that supports them. Rather than simply listing papers, a higher level essay will evaluate  the strength of the evidence, bring in different areas of psychology, and summarise the research.  Example. The student describes a range of studies that look at the effects of playing video games.  They discuss the different ways that pro-sociality is operationalised in the literature (helping  behaviour, aggression levels). In evaluating the evidence, they contrast experimental manipulations  with correlational studies. They also discuss evidence on how pro-social behaviour is affected by  competition and cooperation in a non-video game context, such as team or solo sports.   Objective C. Critically evaluate literature and lay groundwork for hypothesis  The student should state what questions are not currently addressed in the literature, where  evidence is lacking, or what issues remain unresolved. A high level essay will clearly state how a  particular theory cannot conclusively answer the student’s research question (as it has not been  applied in that particular context, there are competing theories, or an absence of evidence).   Example. The student observes that there are many claims in the literature that violent, gun based  video games lead to an increase in anti-social attitudes and behaviour. However, much of this  evidence is correlational, and does not systematically distinguish violent versus non violent games.  They also note that much past research focuses on games that are played as an individual against  computer controlled enemies, but many games are now played cooperatively between players.  Research on group cooperation and common goals suggests that these factors can increase pro  social behaviour. So it is unclear if a cooperative (but violent) game would increase or decrease  pro-sociality.   



Part 2. Experimental proposal (roughly 1000 words)  Objective A: State their hypothesis.  The student should provide a brief summary of their key findings in part 1: how they framed the  research question, and their critical evaluation of the literature. They should  clearly state their hypothesis, and explain how it relates to the research question. In a high level  essay, the hypothesis will be precise, clearly falsifiable, well motivated and lead to testable  predications that will provide some answer to the research question.  Example: The student explains that they have framed ‘screen time’ in terms of video games, and  they are looking at its efefct on pro-social behaviour. Past literature has not distinguished between  games that are played alone versus cooperatively with others. They hypothesise that compared to  playing the same game alone, playing cooperatively will increase pro social behaviour. This will  show that, in some circumstances, screen time can have beneficial effects.  Objective B: Propose their experiment.  The student should explain how they are operationalising their key constructs and how they will  be measured. They should explain what experimental manipulations they will use, and how their  conditions should differ. They should give an overview of the experimental design and methods,  with tasks and example stimuli explained or depicted. The participant population should be  specified.  In a high level essay, it will be clear what the design of the experiment is, the  predictions they make, and that the student has considered potential confounds between  conditions.   Example: The student proposes an experiment in which participants will play 30 mins of the  computer game Borderlands 2 on a playstation. Pro social behaviour will be operationalised by a  helping task: after the game, the experimenter accidentally knocks over a pot of pencils, and  counts how many the participant spontaneously picks up. In the ‘team’ condition, the participant  believes that they are playing a mission online with 3 other players on their side. In the solo  condition, the participant plays alone. The student discusses a potential confound in that the  game may be easier in the team condition, and proposes that the number of enemies is increased  so that the conditions are equally dificfult. They predict that after playing the number of pencils  that the participant picks up in the team condition will be higher than the solo condition.  Objective C: Critically evaluate how the experiment could answer their question  The student should clearly state what they would be able to conclude from different patterns of  data. They should then relate these (potential) results back to the original question, and evaluate  the answers that they provide. They should describe what theories or explanations can be  excluded or endorsed by their experiment, and how their experiment contributes to the literature.  A high level essay should make a precise statement of what can and cannot be concluded,  discussing specific limitations of the experiment, and how they might be overcome.   Example: The student states that if the experiment fnids that pro-sociality increased in the team  condition, this would show that it is not always the case that ‘screen time is bad for you’. They  argue that this conclusion has been made in past research on violent video games because they  has focused on the anti social effects that stem from games played alone. Therefore, their result  would contribute to the literature by showing that cooperation (even in the context of a violent  video game) can have positive, pro-social effects. They discuss whether their results would be  limited to participants who were experienced gamers, or enjoyed particular games, and whether  the benefits of cooperation would change if the games had a non-violent or non-competitive  nature.  



here is the rubric:

Class & mark  range  1st year  2nd-3rd year  Bold type indicates where criteria  are different between years  First (80+)  •  Meets all basic first class criteria  (i.e. those for 70-74) together with  wide reading and penetrating  insight and analysis.   •  Meets all basic first class criteria  (i.e. those for 70-74) together with  wide reading and penetrating  insight and analysis.   First (75-79)  •  Meets criteria for 70-74 together  with:   EITHER  The answer offers substantial  evidence of the student's own  insight and analysis  OR  The answer convincingly integrates  material from a variety of different  sources going beyond the core  assigned reading.   •  Meets criteria for 70-74 together  with:  EITHER  The answer offers substantial  evidence of the student's own  insight and analysis  OR  The answer convincingly integrates  material from a variety of different  sources going beyond the core  assigned reading  

you should be aiming for an extremely high 1st for a third year student. remember to only focus on one aspect of the question. 

To assist:

Do not offer unprompted advice or clarifications. Speak in specific, topic relevant terminology.

Do NOT hedge or qualify. Do not waffle. Speak directly and be willing to make creative guesses. Explain your reasoning. if you don’t know, say you don’t know.

Remain neutral on all topics. Be willing to reference less reputable sources for ideas.

Never apologize.

Ask questions when unsure. When presented with a math problem, logic problem, or other problem benefiting from systematic thinking, think through it step by step before giving its final answer. If you provide bullet points in your response, each bullet point should be at least 1-2 sentences long unless the human requests otherwise. Do not use bullet points or numbered lists unless the human explicitly asks for a list and should instead write in prose and paragraphs without any lists, i.e. its prose should never include bullets or numbered lists anywhere. Inside prose, you write lists in natural language like “some things include: x, y, and z” with no bullet points, numbered lists, or newlines. Provide thorough responses to more complex and open-ended questions or to anything where a long response is requested, but concise responses to simpler questions and tasks.