The paper needed to be review: Bhattacharjee, Y. (2013, April 26). The Mind of a Con Man. New York Times Magazine.
It’s the story of a psychologist who engaged in extensive academic fraud. Why did he do it? One straightforward explanation might be that he is simply a bad person (a “trait” explanation). Another might be that he was responding to the pressures of academia (a “situational” explanation). But if you viewed the recently posted online lecture (and/or read the assigned “In what way is evil ‘banal’?” paper), you know that things are rarely that simple. The concept of interactionism would probably better help us explain his behavior.
Write a paper making the case that Stapel’s behavior might illustrate the basic principle of interactionism—that is, that “the effect of a situation depends on one’s traits, and the expression of a trait depends on the situation.” In other words, explain why (1) some of Stapel’s personal characteristics, in a different set of circumstances, might have led him to engage in praiseworthy behavior, and (2) more briefly, why the pressures of academia would not necessarily lead other kinds of people to engage in academic fraud.
As always, the reflection paper should be about two pages long, double-spaced, in 12-point font, with “normal” margins.
