Psychology Research Paper Topics You Should Avoid
Psychology is one of the most popular college major for one reason - the subject is fascinating. Due to the popularity of the major and the number of students who are taking different psychology courses, many psychology research paper topics have become overdone. Professors are tired of seeing the same topics and in many cases, the topics do not have substantial resources that back up the arguments that students try to make. If you have been tasked with writing a psychology research paper, then you should know about the topics to avoid. Here is a short list:
- Hypnosis: While a newly declared psychology major might find the idea of putting someone under his control utterly fascinating, psychology instructors have read enough research papers about hypnosis to last them through several lifetimes. Most psychology instructors do not understand the hype around hypnosis, probably because they tried to write a research paper about the topic and their research turned out to be futile.
- Eating disorders: Yes, these continue to happen. Yes, they are bad. No, do not write a research paper about them. There is plenty of research about eating disorders, but most of it is older research because nothing much has changed about what causes them, how they affect the body, and how to treat them. Unless you can find something completely new, choose another topic.
- Dreams: This is another difficult research paper to write. Not because the topic is so complex, but because there is very little proven research to find. Researchers are continually looking for ways to study dreams, but the unconscious mind proves to be difficult to work with on a nightly basis. This topic falls under the same requirements as eating disorders - unless you can find brand new research - choose a different topic.
- Schizophrenia: Overdone. Overdone. Overdone. There are so many other disorders, but people flock to schizophrenia. Unless you are going to conduct your own lab research on the disorder, move on to something else.
- Phobias: Like hypnosis, students pick this topic expecting to learn amazing things. And, like hypnosis, students are often disappointed in what they do not find. Yes, people are afraid of things, but you cannot write a research paper about a list of things that people are afraid of and for most people, they develop those fears in the same way. So, your phobias research paper will consist of a list of phobias and a short paragraph about how they develop and how to treat them. This does not sound like an “A” paper.