Posted: December 4th, 2013

Reproductive Value in Relation to Memory: Analyzing Memory Recall Words

he Evolutionary Psychology Research Proposal Project

This project will comprise a fully-fleshed out research proposal in the form of an academically-written research article, without the results section.

So, specifically, it will include the following sections
•    Introduction and Literature Review
•    Explicitly stated hypothesis (or hypotheses)
•    Methods section, clearly defining the: 
                o    Participants
                o    Research Tools
                o    Procedures
•    Discussion section: You will assume that you find statistically significant results. Explain what the implications of your findings are, as well as the limitations of those findings.

The grading for this project will use a difficulty/quality sliding scale: 

A study that relies on existing mid-level evolutionary theories, but novel hypotheses are considered moderate difficulty, and the grading on the quality o the rest of the work will be set at a higher level. However, take the more challenging approach and formulate a new mid-level theory, as well as the subsequent hypothesis (hypotheses), that higher level of creativity will be accounted for in the overall grade of the project.


So, here is a key bit of advice about literature reviews: 

An academic paper is a story about your dependent variable. Everything should be oriented toward that one important point. Why is a particular article important to include in your paper? Well, ask yourself “What does it tell me about my dependent variable?” and then report that. Too often, students put too much irrelevant information in their literature reviews, or go into great detail about the methods and all sorts of nuance in a particular study. Before you do that, ask yourself “What does any of this have to do with our dependent variable?”

(And yes, I’m repeating myself because it is an easy thing to forget. I’m using a tried and true method referred to “drumming it into your head.”).

Avoid saying things like “James and Nadin found that…”  Why? Because what do James and Nadin have to do with your dependent variable? Nothing. And hence, we the readers
don’t particularly care (although we do want to know where to find that information if we should so desire, hence the citation and reference). The relevant results are what is important, and the focus of the literature review should be on that.
Click here for more on this paper>>>>
If you find that you have multiple articles that make the same point about your dependent variable, then combine the multiple sources together, and provide a multiple citation (e.g., “Black, Strunk, & Li, 2007; James & Nadin, 2008”).

The hypothesis our group has chosen to proven/ support is the following: Optimistic narrative increases an individual’s reproductive value; whereas the recall of pessimistic, meaningful narratives decreases one’s reproductive value.

Our hypothesis will analyze that words are remembered best when they have been processed for their reproductive value in an optimistic context than when processed in a pessimistic negative context.  

The professor will grade this project as a midterm (20%). 

We need to use at least 10 articles to support the hypothesis. And the literature review will be based off one article among the rest that I think best supports my hypothesis. I have already chosen which article that would be. It is titled 
Extensions of the Survival Advantage in Memory:Examining the Role of Ancestral Context and Implied Social Isolation. The other 9 articles must be incorporated in the Literature Review. It may also (optionally) be used to support defining the hypothesis in the Hypothesis Section and can also be used in the Discussion Section. I will upload the other 4 sources to be used. So, you only need to find 5 more sources, and that will make 10. I have already written an Abstract Section. I wrote it below here because it may give you a better idea about where I was going with my hypothesis.  

Any questions? Please ask.

Abstract:
Examples from everyday life provide evidence that experiences and events tied with strong, ample emotions are best remembered, compared to experiences that lack any emotional depth. When the memories are viewed as emotionally (positively) charged, people feel more confident, accurate in their memory recall. This literature review examines one approach of the effects of target survival words on memory recall, suggesting trigger words related to survival are best retained. As evolutionist Charles Darwin suggested in his theory of natural selection, all species seemed “designed” to serve particular functions linked with survival and reproduction (Buss 8). Therefore, this paper investigates the depth and comparison of processing positive words and negative words in the social context of a narrative to gain female sexual access. This examination points out how optimistic words, compared to pessimistic words, cue sexual behaviors and functions to evoke a high state of arousal (i.e., boosting a male’s attractiveness) in women towards a potential male mating partner, preferably leading to a reproductive outcome.
Click here for more on this paper>>>>