Perceived Social Support, Individual Mental Health, and Risky Health Behaviors
Do the entire project on my own.
Midterm Project
Journal Article Review
For this final assignment, you will work in a group of FOUR to evaluate a research article published in a leading peer-reviewed journal that addresses topics related to positive psychology.
STEP 1: Choosing an Article
The criteria for choosing an article to review are as follows:
a) It must be a substantial length empirical study (not a review or a theoretical paper).
b) It must be relatively recent - been published in the last 5-7 years.
c) It must be published in a reputable psychological journal (peer-reviewed).
d) The topic of the article must be directly related to something we have discussed in class.
i. Examples include psychological well-being, resilience, positive/negative affect, personal goals, spirituality, self-regulation/control, virtues…etc.
ii. Choose a topic that is interesting to your group.
e) Your article must be approved by myself or one of the TAs before proceeding with your project.
STEP 2: The Article Review Project
Once your article has been chosen and approved, your group is to complete the following assignment. Your assignment should be typed and in paragraph form. The group should share the writing equally and collaboratively. That is, you can each write different sections of the project, but you should be checking in with each other and making sure that each group member understands ALL aspects of the project and you should be critiquing each other’s writing as you go.
a) The Introduction – this section should be approximately 2 pages (double spaced, 12 point font)
i. Briefly describe the study – relevant variables, hypotheses, type of study (longitudinal, correlational etc.)
ii. Identify one main theory/concept that informed the hypotheses of the study.
i. Find TWO supporting articles that further explain this main theory and describe this theory in more detail. Describe how the theory informed the hypotheses in the article you are assessing. Use APA formatting to cite references in this section.
**Note: The Introduction is the ONLY section of the final project that you need to use APA citations in text.**
b) Methods – this section should be approximately 1 page
i. What did you learn from this section? Who were the subjects? How were the relevant variables assessed? How were data collected? Etc.
ii. Use your own words to describe the Methods. Avoid technical jargon unless you can then summarize what the jargon means. If you’re having trouble, please ask us to help you.
c) Results – this section should be approximately 1 page
i. What did the results of the study show? Were the main hypotheses supported or not supported?
ii. IMPORTANT: You are not going to understand much of the results section (unless you’ve taken advanced statistic courses). So, what I’m asking you to do is summarize what you can understand, use your own words, and use plain language. Avoid technical jargon. You DO NOT need to report specific numbers. Just speak generally about what was found.
d) Discussion – this section should be approximately 2 pages
i. How did the authors interpret the results? What limitations did the authors point to in their study?
ii. Identify TWO new future studies/research questions that can be explored based on this study. This is your chance to REACH for applications to this research. For example, if we learned something new about resilience…where can we apply that? Who can that help? What else do we need to understand?
iii. As always, avoid technical jargon, use your own words, and be clear in your language.
e) Reference Page – this is included as your last page of the project
i. Use APA style to list the references you used for the project (usually, this includes the article you are summarizing and the two articles you pulled for the Introduction section).
APA Style:
Use APA style for in-text citations (for the intro section of the assignment) and for a reference page. The page below is a good resource.
https://owl(dot)purdue(dot)edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
STEP 3: Turning in the Project
1. Only one group member needs to turn the project in on Canvas.
2. Upload your file with your completed analysis of your articles. Please include names of everyone in the group.
3. You will also need to upload a full PDF of the article you analyzed.
**Note: Plagiarism from ONE group member affects ALL group members.**
Journal Article Review
Name
Institution
Course Name
Professor's Name
Date
Introduction
Positive psychology is an abroad topic focusing on the need for individuals to change their negative perspectives and adopt a more optimistic view of life. In return, people would develop positivity within their thoughts and reflected on behavior, thus improving life quality. Positive psychology considers positive encouragement towards people to discover the strength of their characters and nurture them accordingly, unlike putting efforts only to correct the drawbacks. This paper focuses on evaluating and analyzing the relationship between perceived social support and individual mental health and risky health behaviors. It aims at determining the effects of psychological wellbeing on the health of an individual affected with predetermined social support. The study is based on the relation regulation theory, which states that recipients primarily control their actions, thoughts, and effect through social interaction.
The view that an individual's family and allies are likely to provide practical assistance whenever one is stressed has been associated severally with reduced depression and the good health of the concerned parties.
The research study hypothesis indicates that the recognized support is rational and the author illustrates two hypotheses:
The null hypothesis: the role of recognized social support is to solve the risky health behaviors on mental health.
Alternative hypothesis: social intermediaries vary as a result of social support contribution.
Different variables in the study include an independent variable like negative social support from friends, family, or other considerate people during the study. The dependent variable was depression, suicidal drive, and smoking, taking alcohol. The dependent variable would lead to poor mental health after an individual has developed risky health behaviors. If not taken care of, one may experience critical mental issues and end up being sent to a rehabilitation center.
The research is based on a cross-sectional study. According to the article, data was collected at one particular point in time, and it was observational. The central concept of the study is to inform the hypothesis of the study and help come up with results and resolutions. The main idea is that friends and family's social support on an individual form has got strong influence on their mental health. Some friends and family members could be negatively influential, leading to developing some behaviors like smoking and high alcohol consumption, leading to poor mental health.
The author argues that being satisfied in life and optimism attracted more support from the family, thus resulting in reduced alcohol drinking, smoking infrequently, and improvement in the individual's behavior. Therefore, the theory could be interpreted as associating perceived social support from family and friends with the positive changes in an individual's behavior, reducing the mental health risks resulting from risky health behaviors. Below are the two articles supporting the Relational Regulation Theory.
Article 1: School sport participation during adolescence and mental health in early adulthood.
This article looks into the association of sports activity with the improvement of mental health, thus intervening for social support and self-esteem in an individual, especially during adolescence. Overweight, drug abuse, physical inactivity, and poor social support contribute to low self-esteem, depression, and rampant suicidal thoughts. Ideally, physical activity, proper nutritional diet, and positive social support from family and friends help individuals' self-esteem, boost standard weight and reduce chances of mental health resulting from depression. Additionally, the article looks into detail the relationship effects of various substance abuse such as tobacco and the state of mental health of an individual as reflected in their behaviors.
Article two: Ordinary social interaction and the main effect between perceived support and affect.
This article supports the idea of Relationship Regulatory Theory, whereby the emotional health of an individual relies on their ongoing relationships. The main focus of this theory is personal relationship significance and the portrayed social interaction that promotes the wellbeing of an individual (Lakey et al., 2016). The relationship between consumption of different substances like tobacco is also tested to identify how much they affect health.
Method
The research was based in a local university where 2023 participants were selected for the analysis. Most of the occupants there are freshmen and Chinese. The sample was in a ratio of 1,057 women to 965 men and represented 52.3% and 47.7%, respectively (Lai & Ma, 2016). The questionnaire was used to ask questions, and participants were provided with 15 minutes to complete it. Factors measured during this research include suicidal ideas, intervened social support, and satisfaction of life substance abuse, depression, and hopelessness. Every aspect was tested separately for more clarity.
Depression was measured by determining the depressive symptoms associated with the situation. A scale of Multidimensional Scale of perce...