Describe and evaluate one social psychological theory of aggression?

Review of essay

Rating: 3 star(s)

Response to the question

The student provides some good background information into deindividualisation, drawing upon comparisons (e.g. you are what you eat) and famous psychologists (Le Bon and Zimbardo) to reinforce these ideas – it would be nice however if these examples and theories from other psychologists were referenced to both demonstrate further knowledge and avoid plagiarism. Although the student does provide the necessary description of Zimbardo’s prison study, it is clear that they have only learnt the basics – to get higher marks more detailed description could be included (e.g. length of study, where were participants recruited from, how they were assigned to each group, particular tasks involved, etc). The findings provided for Zimbardo’s study are also far too brief, much more detail should be given here (e.g. mention the situation got so bad that the study was ended early). Similar issues arise for the description of Diener et al’s study – again the student could bulk this out by providing further information such as dates, and providing numbers in the findings (e.g. how many stole when alone vs. in a group).

Level of analysis

Although the layout of this piece of work is slightly different than a usual essay, this may simply of been a specific requirement of the assignment, thus, despite being in bullet points this analysis given is of a fairly high standard. The student successfully evaluates each study used to assess deindividuation (discussing both negative and positive points –which is crucial, since critical analysis should not be taken to mean just limitations!). Furthermore, the writer provides an overall analysis of the topic discussed which brings their ideas together.

Quality of writing

As mentioned, the structure is very different to usual, and so much of the writing is in short bullet points. This immediately gives the effect of a lower standard of grammatical and structural level, however as mentioned this may have been how they were instructed to write it. In general, however, when writing essays bullet points should not be used, and paragraphs with full sentences should be followed – with a clear introduction (to set the scene) and conclusion (to synthesize all the discussion points). Unfortunately there are some spelling and grammar mistakes in this piece of work which bring the level of work down a bit (e.g. “This is because when I a crowd the norm for the crowd could be good”). Always ensure you proof-read your work to avoid unnecessary mistakes like this.