Welcome to the course guide for PSY420: Health Psychology with Dr. Norwood. In this library session, you will learn how to find peer-reviewed research articles, and how to search for articles in library databases, and how to integrate evidence from these articles into your assignment.
This is your major assignment for this course and it will be graded in sections. In this course, we are discussing the intersection of biological, psychological, and social/cultural factors on overall health/wellness. Thus, this project will provide you with an opportunity to focus on promoting improved health/wellness in one facet of your wellbeing. We will discuss additional details of the project in class and I will give you plenty of examples/ideas to choose from, although you are also welcome to come up with your own idea. For this project, I want you to think about health promotion/health improvement differently than you have in the past – if most of your prior health goals have centered on a particular facet of nutrition, try something different for this project. Additionally, this project will be centered on health promotion – something you want to gain/improve rather than stop (although improving or making gains may involve a reduction of particular behaviors). You will maintain a weekly journal for your project and you are required to write a detailed entry on your health promotion project at least once per week. This project will be grounded in empirical science and you will use existing psychological/health literature as a rationale for your chosen health promotion behavior.
Example health behaviors to change/improve (this is just a small selection of ideas!!):
