The paper assignment is:
(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.
This memo contains 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.
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.
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 probably spend about an equal amount of space on each of the two tasks; your paper thus would 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 discussing 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:
Stuck with Low Self-Esteem?
Suppose you have a friend who complains of low self-esteem. The individual often feels like a failure, and says the he or she doesn’t have much to be proud of. Furthermore, the person says to you “and this is never going to change; I’ll have low self-esteem forever.” You, being a nice person, say “No, it can change; you’ll probably feel better about yourself eventually.” Your friend then says “I don’t believe you; what do you know?”
What do you know? Is there any scientific evidence that would support your argument (“No, it can change; you’ll probably feel better about yourself eventually.”) What would you say to your friend, in light of this scientific evidence?
No outside resource except the relevant scientific paper and no direct quote:
Orth, U., & Robins, R. W. (2014). The development of self-esteem. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23, 381-387.