undergrad thesis topic

[chaos]

I'd like to do something involving schizophrenia for my undergrad thesis, but since my subject pool consists of undergraduate social science majors, I am hard pressed to think of what I can do. All I can come up with is something about whether media affects perception of schizophrenia (i.e. have them read a rather pejorative, negative article about notorious murderers with schizophrenia, a positive article about artists or something with schizophrenia, and a fact-based scientific article about schizophrenia and then have them answer questions regarding their attitudes towards schizophrenia (i.e. would you be comfortable having a roommate with schizophrenia, would you ever date someone with schizophrenia, do you think people with schizophrenia are dangerous, et cetera) and see whether there is any difference in the attitudes of the different groups. The problem with this is it's kind of...boring. So if you have any ideas what kind of direction I might want to head in, or if it's even possible to come up with a clever thesis about schizophrenia given what I have to work with, please share your opinion...thanks!

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[joetro]

What are the resources in your area; can you recruit from the local community? Is there a University medical school or mental health center? Can you apply for funding from your college/University to run subjects, like through an Undergraduate Research Grant or something like that?

 

[Psyclops]

You could do something on schizophrenia and considered it a spectrum as opposed to categegorical. So, what I mean is, you could give the kids a measure that taps the construct of schizotypy and see if those who evidence higher levels of this disorder also show higher or lower "fill in the blank". Take a look at this article to see what I'm talking about: Tsakanikos E. & Reed, P. (2005) "Dimensional appraoches to psychopathology of schizophrenia: shift learning and report of psychotic -like experiences in college student." Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experiemntal Psychiatry, 36, 300-312