I am needing a 2-page journal written based on my first project. It will need to be in APA format and contain at least two citations. I will provide the rubric, a copy of my first project, and a sample of how the journal should be. 

SCS 100 Project 1 Comparison Template

Complete this template by replacing the bracketed text with the relevant information.

Overview
Your second longer-term assignment in this course is to complete an observation journal, where you will use the previous information collected in your
comparison template to apply social scientific observations to help you to develop a question about the ads that a social scientist might ask. The work you do on
this observation journal will directly support your work on your third course project, the final reflection, which is due later in the course.

This observation journal assignment will assess the following course outcome, which you focused on throughout Modules Three and Four:

 Develop questions about fundamental aspects of human behavior that inform personal assumptions, beliefs, and values using evidence from the social
sciences

Prompt
Your second course project is an observation journal. You have already gathered your advertisements and completed your compa rison template to determine
the social science approaches that are relevant to your ads. For this assignment, you will use that information to write an observation journal that will ask you to
draw conclusions from the ads and, eventually, devise a social science question that you might like to investigate. The critical elements of this assessment will be
evaluated in your observation journal.

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed and will be graded using the rubric at the end of this document:

I. Explain why you chose these advertisements for social scientific and personal study. For instance, what aspects of them intrigued you and made you
curious?

II. Explain the assumptions and observations about human interactions and behaviors you made about the advertisements. These are some questions you
might want to consider in your explanation:

a. Who do you believe the audiences for the ads might be?
b. What messages do you think the ads are sending?
c. What do you think the nature of the relationship is between or among the people in the ads?
d. What relationship(s) do you see between or among the people and the product or service being advertised?
e. How effective are the ads in influencing your own consumer decisions?

III. Identify topics in this course that are relevant to the human behaviors in your advertisements and explain how they are relevant. This is your social
science evidence for your observations. For instance, what ideas and people have you studied so far that apply to your observ ations?

IV. Taking all of your observations and objective conclusions about human behavior in your advertisements into account, assume the role of a social
scientist. What question would you ask about the advertisements that you, as a social scientist, could seek to answer? What observations and objective
conclusions led you to this question?

Supporting Work and Resources
The observation journal is due in Module Four. There are three opportunities to work directly on different elements of the observation journal.

1. In Module Two, you submitted your comparison template. You will use this to create your observation journal.
2. In Module Three, you participated in a discussion using the ads you chose in support of your summative work. You can use your answers from this

discussion when completing your observation journal.
3. In Module Four, you will work to finalize your observation journal and submit it to your instructor for grading. This module also includes an Observation

Journal Checklist document that you can use to ensure you have met all the requirements of this project. You can also review the Observation Journal
Exemplar for guidance in how to complete this assignment. Your instructor is available to provide guidance and answer any questions you may have as
you work to finalize your observation journal.

Rubric
Guidelines for Submission: This submission will contain your completed observation journal. Submit your observation journal as a Microsoft Word document.

Critical Elements Exemplary (100%) Proficient (85%) Needs Improvement (55%) Not Evident (0%) Value

Chose Meets “Proficient” criteria, and
details demonstrate insight
into the connection between
the social scientific and the
personal

Explains why advertisements
were chosen for s ocial
scientific and personal study

Explains why advertisements
were chosen, but social
scientific and personal
connections are overly
generalized

Does not explain why
advertisements were chosen

23.75

Assumptions and
Observations

Meets “Proficient” criteria, and
details demonstrate a mature
awareness of human
interactions and behaviors

Explains the assumptions and
observations about human
interactions and behaviors
made about the ads

Explains the assumptions and
observations about human
interactions and behaviors
made about the ads, but is
overly generalized

Does not explain the
assumptions and observations
about human interactions and
behaviors made about the ads

23.7

5

Topics Meets “Proficient” criteria, and
connection between topics and
ads shows a strong grasp of the
social science evidence

Explains how topics from the
course are relevant to the
human behaviors in the ads

Explains how topics from the
course are relevant to the
human behaviors in the ads,
but is overly generalized or h as
inaccuracies

Does not explain how topics
from the course are relevant to
the human behaviors in the
ads

23.75

Question Meets “Proficient” criteria, and
connections between question,
observations, and conclusions
demonstrate i nsight into social
scientific study

Poses a question a social
scientist could seek to answer,
supported by observations and
conclusions about human
behavior i n the ads

Poses a question a social
scientist could seek to answer,
but lacks support from
observations and conclusion
about human behavior i n the
ads or i s overly generalized

Does not pose a question a
social scientist could seek to
answer

23.75

http://snhu-media.snhu.edu/files/course_repository/undergraduate/scs/scs100/Theme2/scs100_theme2_observation_journal_exemplar

Critical Elements Exemplary (100%) Proficient (85%) Needs Improvement (55%) Not Evident (0%) Value

Articulation of
Response

Submission is free of errors
related to citations, grammar,
spelling, syntax, and
organization and is presented
in a professional and easy-to-
read format

Submission has no major
errors related to citations,
grammar, spelling, syntax, or
organization

Submission has major errors
related to citations, grammar,
spelling, syntax, or
organization that negatively
impact readability and
articulation of main ideas

Submission has critical errors
related to citations, grammar,
spelling, syntax, or
organization that prevent
understanding of ideas

5

Total 100%

SCS 100 Project 2 Observation Journal Guidelines and Rubric
Overview
Prompt
Supporting Work and Resources
Rubric

Article Choice

I chose the advertisements that I did because I was interested in how they related gender to food.
Each advertisement is marketing a certain food: gelato, candy bars, or ice cream. Each
advertisement depicts either females alone or females in specific gender roles. I was also
intrigued by the advertisements because I am female and I enjoy eating chocolate. When I have
had a hard day I enjoy coming home and indulging in dessert to comfort myself. Some of the
advertisements portray women as having a desire for sweets, which made me question my own
tendency to desire sweet foods after a hard day at work.

Assumptions and Observations

Audience. Each advertisement has a specific audience to which it appeals. Each
advertisement depicts mostly white actors and actresses. The intended audience of these
advertisements are people who use food as reward. The audience for these advertisements would
most likely be people from a westernized civilization who have excess food to use for pleasure
or reward. For example, people who live in countries where there is not easy access to plentiful
amounts of food would not have the same relationship to food as the people depicted in these
advertisements. There are other aspects of the advertisements that make me think the intended
audience is white and westernized. For example, the marriage in the Milky Way advertisement
appears to be a traditional Christian wedding, based on the presence of a priest and the
decoration of the church. The Freddo Ice Cream advertisement depicts children, all of them
white, and represents a democracy in which people are elected to government positions.
The Celebration advertisement is also showing individuals—all of whom are also white—who
again are using food as a way of celebrating. Finally, the Antonio Federici advertisement is
depicting a white nun being sinful by eating chocolate, which again seems to be portraying a
relationship between indulgence and food. I believe the relationship of food as indulgence is a
more westernized and privileged notion. Based on my observations, I believe the intended
audience for most of these advertisements are middle-class, white women.

Message. The message the advertisements are sending all seem to be about the
relationship between people and food. For the Federici advertisement, the message is that
women use rich, sweet food for indulgence and as a “guilty pleasure.” The advertisement even
seems to relate the indulgence of this sweet food with sin by showing a nun who is pregnant.
The Freddo Ice Cream advertisement is also showing a relationship between food and people. In
this advertisement, I observed that the girls are the ones serving food, while the boy is the one
running for office. This advertisement seems to portray a stereotype of women serving men. It
also is showing a relationship between women being the ones to handle the serving and maybe
even the preparation of food. The Celebration advertisement’s message again appears to show a
relationship between women celebrating with food. The ad even shows the girls celebrating
other’s misfortune, thereby seeming to portray females as selfish. The Milky Way
advertisement also depicts a woman as being selfish by indulging in chocolate, which makes her
late for her own wedding. A common message is showing gender stereotypes as they relate to
women and food.

Relationship between people. I believe that in most of these advertisements, the most
important relationship depicted between people is the relationship between sinful females and
others. For example, in the Antonio Federici advertisement, one thinks of an innocent nun who
has sinned. Females are supposed to be innocent and this advertisement taps into the hidden

desires of females. I believe these advertisements also show women as weak compared to their
desires; for example, the women in the Celebration advertisement care only about winning and
do not care about their injured competitor. Although the Freddo Ice Cream advertisement
depicts a different type of gender stereotype, it is still important. The Freddo advertisement
shows females serving males and acting in less important or secondary roles. The relationship
between genders is the most important relationship I observe in these advertisements.

Relationship with product. In each of the advertisements, the relationship that I chose
to focus on is the relationship between women and food. The Freddo Ice Cream advertisement
shows females in the traditional secondary role of serving and preparing food, while the male is
in the primary role of running for office. The other three advertisements all portray women as
being selfish and indulgent when they engage in eating sweet food. The relationship is that a
woman cannot help herself and indulges in the guilty pleasure of a sweet food.

Effectiveness. For me, the least effective advertisement is the Celebration advertisement,
because it depicts females acting in an obviously selfish way by showing them celebrating when
their competitor is injured. The Milky Way advertisement also shows a woman acting selfishly,
but the ad does it in a less obvious way; the consequence of her selfish behavior is not
celebrating another person getting hurt, but that people have to wait for her wedding. Therefore,
the Milky Way advertisement is more effective than the Celebration advertisement. I also believe
the obviousness of the message impacts the effectiveness of the Antonio Federici advertis ement,
because if the nun were not pregnant, the message of indulging and being sinful would be less
obvious, and would therefore be more effective for me. Finally, the Freddo Ice Cream
advertisement very obviously depicts stereotypical gender roles; for me, it is hard to look past
that and focus on the product. Overall, the advertisements that make a less obvious attempt at
getting their message across seem to be the most effective.

Social Science Evidence

To back up my observations about the relationship between women and food, which in these
advertisements I observed to represent gender stereotypes of women in servile roles and as being
weak and unable to resist their desires, I looked for evidence within the course so far. My interest
in the portrayal of the women in these advertisements seems to fit both within the psychological
and sociological fields. In Theme 1, we learned that gender stereotypes can be examined through
the idea of the “social construction” of these topics, meaning that society creates and reinforces
the category of gender. In Theme 1, we learned that psychology is the study of the mind and
behavior (American Psychological Association, n.d.) and even though gender roles may be
socially constructed, the behavior of engaging in those gender roles is very interesting to me.

We learned about perception in Theme 2. Perception plays a big role in these advertisements
because it helps to explain why we perceive what we do from these advertisements. The halo
effect is described as “a bias in which our overall impression of a person (a figurative halo) colors
our judgments of that person’s character” (Baumann Foundation, 2013). The halo effect comes
into play in multiple advertisements. For example, in the Antonio Federici advertisement, we see
a nun who has sinned and we start to make assumptions about all the other choices in her life. We
also do this with the Celebration and Milky Way advertisements. The depiction of females
choosing to indulge within the advertisements leaves the audience making assumptions about the
females’ overall weaknesses and tendency to give into their desires. Confirmation bias can also be
used to describe why we perceive what we do from these advertisements. Confirmation bias is
described as seeking and/or interpreting evidence in a way that is congruent with one’s existing
beliefs or expectations (Nickerson, 1998). Gender stereotypes already exist; therefore, we are

The Theme 1 overview describes one of the big questions in psychology as “What motivates
individuals to act in certain ways?” I used this question, along with the evidence about cognitive
biases, to help inform my own question about gender stereotypes. I am also using my own
experiences because in my household I do more of the cleaning, while my husband does the lawn
work. These behaviors fit into stereotypical gender roles of women doing more of the cleaning
and cooking and men doing more of the yard work. Although my experience is different than the
gender stereotypes portrayed in the advertisements, these behaviors still fit into the theme of
gender stereotypes. I created a question a social scientist might ask using both the information
from the course and my own experiences. Based on this information, my social science question
is: How do cognitive biases influence our behaviors to adhere to gender stereotypes?

more likely to interpret the advertisements in line with the gender stereotypes with which we are
familiar. According to confirmation bias, we see the Freddo Ice Cream advertisement as
confirming societal gender stereotypes that women are secondary to men. Even though these
cognitive biases happen automatically, we learned in Theme 2 that they influence our opinions
and emotions about situations.

Question

References

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Definition of psychology. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/about/

The Baumann Foundation. (2013). The halo effect: Why angels and devils walk the earth. Retrieved from

http://www.beinghuman.org/article/halo-effect

Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General

Psychology, 2(2), 175–220.

http://www.beinghuman.org/article/halo-effect

http://www.apa.org/about

SCS 100 Project 2 Observation Journal Exemplar
Article Choice
Assumptions and Observations
Social Science Evidence
Question