Psychology of Men and Masculinities

This final paper involves
• choosing a topic related to the psychology of men and masculinities that we haven’t gone over yet in this class,
• finding at least five articles or chapters related to the topic (with at least three of them being peer-reviewed empirical studies and all coming from legitimate sources), and
• writing about the topic you chose in a paper that is at least five double-spaced pages (not including the required APA Style References page).
If you have difficulty finding enough sources related to a particular topic, then you may use a related topic as well, as long as you can make a logical connection between the two in your paper (athletics and body image, for example). You must upload your sources along with your paper. It’s perfectly okay to write about subject matter we’ve covered earlier in the course if it’s directly relevant to your topic(s). For example, you may write about depression and/or suicide among veterans.
Your paper should adhere to the following format as much as possible:
• Define the topic, if necessary and relevant.
• Write about the problem(s) associated with your topic, as well as its scope (this usually involves referring to statistics related to the problem, but not always).
• Write about factors that contribute to the problem.
• Summarize the empirical studies you found and compare and contrast them.
• Discuss any themes among your sources.
• Discuss takeaways from or conclusions about the research literature related to your topic.
• Finally, discuss implications of the scholarly work and things that can be done to potentially alleviate the problem.
Possible Topics
• counseling men from diverse groups
• the experiences of men from various ethnic or cultural groups
• masculinity and…
o …military or veteran issues
o …intimate partner violence (IPV) and/or sexual assault
o …road rage
o …athletics
o …hazing
o …body image/muscularity/eating pathology
o …relationships/dating/communication
o …bullying/cyberbullying
o …gangs
o …the media (music videos, etc.)/pop culture/social media
o …homophobia
o …sexual minority issues (including transgender and gender nonconforming issues)
Again, you may combine a few of the above topics if you can logically connect them via your sources. This list is not exhaustive; feel free to use a relevant, acceptable topic that is not on it.
Points will be deducted for being overly sparse, for not clearly or accurately conveying information, and for leaving out certain parts (not including enough articles, etc.). More points will be given for an organized essay that fully responds to all aspects of each component listed below. For each component, points are broken down as follows:
• Component 1 (six points):
o two points for overtly stating the policy question/issue that you chose
o two points for how you will review the literature and arrive at recommendations
o two points for overtly stating the audience for the policy report
• Component 2 (30 points):
o Review at least six articles (five points per review, with peer-reviewed journal articles given higher value).
• Component 3 (eight points):
o Overtly provide your recommendations based on the literature review from Component 2. Recommendations must make sense based on the review.
• Component 4 (six points):
o Upload a copy of each article