1. What is the scientific method? How does it differ from common sense and other ways of viewing human behavior?

Wisdom of the mind is either scientific or folkloric. Scientific knowledge is considered any field of knowledge that deals with observed facts and the relationship among those facts. In order for the observations and conclusions of these facts to be respected as a science, there has to be a systematic way in which people study, collect, and analyze the data, known as the scientific method. A field of study qualifies as a science if it uses the scientific method. This method is the orderly, systematic procedures that researchers follow as they identify a research problem, design a study to investigate the problem, collect and analyze data, draw conclusions, and communicate their findings. The scientific experimentation must be able to be performed over by other researchers to verify the knowledge is true. This process is known as replication, where the study is repeated with different participants and preferably different investigators. Repeated observations and experiments lead scientists to update current theories and develop new ones. It is also important to recognize that personal and cultural beliefs can influence perceptions and interpretations, so there must be standard procedures and criteria to follow. Scientists can then develop theories to help them order and unify the related facts. Sometimes scientific data may go against our common sense. Common sense differs from the scientific method because it usually cannot be measured or proven as a fact. I believe common sense is the folkloric part of our minds. Common sense is still very important because it provides us with the home language in which we conceptualize the mind. In viewing ways of human behavior, common sense is guided by social and linguistic norms. We attribute our thoughts, beliefs, desires, and likes to others, but these things cannot be measured through the scientific method.

2. Explain the difference between bahvioral (nurture) and biological (nature) views of human nature.

After experiments of structuralism and functionalism were present, behaviorist, John B. Watson, took a new scientific approach to psychology, and founded a school of behavior. Behaviorists view human nature by observing and measuring an individual?s behavior and the conditions present before and after the behavior occurs, and then analyzing the outcome. Environmental factors play a key role in influencing behavior. Behavioral psychologists view how our culture, family, religion, and society nurtures people in different ways. Food and other things can even play roles in the way we are nurtured. With technological advances, biology took on a new role in psychology though. Biological (nature) views of human nature are continuing to be discovered and create much of a debate for psychologists. Biological psychologists look for connections between specific behaviors and biological factors, like genes and hormone levels, and the way in which the brain functions. Behavioral genetics use twin studies of identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins to determine the effects of environment and heredity on characteristics. For example, psychologists may study two pairs of identical and fraternal twins that were raised together to determine the effects of environment and heredity on their characteristics.

3. Explain how neurons and neurotransmitters affect human behavior?

Neurons and neurotransmitters affect human behavior because they relay messages and convey signals to the brain or spinal chord, and to the glands and muscles. A neuron is a specialized cell that conducts impulses through the nervous system and contains three major parts which include the cell body which carries out the metabolic functions; dendrites, the branch-like extensions of the cell that receive signals; and an axon, which is the slender, tail-like extension that transmits signals to the dendrites or cell body of other neurons and to muscles, glands, and other parts of the body. Neurotransmitters affect human behavior because they transmit the neurons to other neurons. A neurotransmitter is a chemical substance that is released into the synaptic cleft from the axon terminal of a sending neuron, crosses a synapse, and binds to appropriate receptor sites on the dendrites or cell body of a receiving neuron, influencing the cell either to fire or not to fire. Researchers have identified 75 or more chemical substances that are created in the brain, spinal chord, glands, and other parts of the body that may act as neurotransmitters. The most important is acetylcholine that plays a role learning new information. It causes the skeletal muscle fibers to contract, and keeps the heart from beating too fast. Another example of a neurotransmitter is dopamine which affects learning, attention, movement, and reinforcement. Norepinephrine affects eating, alertness, and sleep. Other familiar neurotransmitter is serotonin that regulates mood, sleep, impulsivity, aggression, and appetite. Endorphins reduce pain and the stress of vigorous exercise and produce feelings of pleasure and well-being.


4. Why are Freud?s views of human behavior difficult, if not, impossible to verify scientifically?

Freud?s theory, psychoanalysis, focuses primarily on the unconscious, which cannot be verified scientifically because there is no way to apply the scientific method to his theory. Freud believed that people do not consciously control their thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Scientists cannot measure the unconscious, they can only listen to one person?s own account of what they think or feel. He proposed that there are three levels of awareness in consciousness: the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. Frued?s view is that you can trace the roots of psychological disorders to impulses and repressed memories in the unconscious. He also devised a three part system of personality, which is also impossible to verify because they do not exist in the physical. They are only concepts, or ways of looking at personality. The id is the unconscious part of the mind, which is present at birth, and contain our life and death instincts. This includes our sexual instincts and biological urges such as hunger and thirst. The id operates according to the pleasure principle, which tries to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and gain immediate gratification of its wishes. The ego is the second part to Freud?s personality theory, which is the logical, rational, and realistic part of our personality. Freud believed the ego evolved from the id. One function of the ego is to satisfy all of the id?s urges and demands, however, the ego operates on the conscious level and therefore acts on the reality principle. The last part of Frued?s three part personality system is the superego that consists of the conscience and the ego ideal. Frued believed this part is developed around age five or six, and is the moral component of the personality. Frued also proposed five psychosexual stages that affect our development. Frued?s theories are still influential in the world of psychology, but cannot be proven scientifically because we cannot observe or scientifically experiment with the unconscious.

5. How does insight affect learning? How do we learn by observing others?

Insight is defined as the sudden realization of the relationship between elements in a problem situation, which makes the solution apparent. This can affect learning because once the solution is learned, it can be transferred to new problems. We can also learn by observing others, known as modeling. Modeling is when we learn what behaviors lead to what outcomes by directly watching others experiences. This can be used as a learning tool or a form of treatment. The observational learner must watch the model carefully, thinking and attending to him/her, remember what the model did, see the usefulness in the model?s behavior, and be able to duplicate the behavior. This becomes a higher order of learning and is most effective in live situations. If an individual witnesses a certain behavior being punished or rewarded, this could affect his/her behavior in the future. For example, many children model their parent?s behavior. Habits, preferences, attitudes, religion, and patterns of thought can be modeled. We can also learn how to socialize and work from making observations of other people. Peers, schools, television, entertainment stars, and other sources can provide other models as well. Observing others can affect how we behave and what kind of person we want to be. We can learn from other people?s mistakes and successes

6. How does culture influence memory? How does the language we speak affect our imagery and thoughts?

Culture influences memory because the importance or usefulness of the information and the cultural motive may differ from culture to culture. This can affect the kinds and amounts of information we recall. For example, Sir Frederick Bartlett (1932) described the amazing ability of the Swazi people of Africa to remember slight differences in characteristics of their cows, but this is very normal in their culture considering tending cattle is what they depend on for their living. To better explain the influence of culture on memory, he tested the young Swazi men from Africa and young European men to recall a message consisting of 25 words. He found the Swazi had no better recall ability than the Europeans. This proves that culture influenced the Swazi people in recalling the differences in each cow. In classic research, cognitive psychologists have also found that people more easily remember stories set in their own cultures than those set in others. For example, you may remember a story better if there are things in the story that you can relate to because the cultural context relates to your own culture. The language we speak can also affect our imagery and thoughts because a person?s worldview is constructed primarily by using the words available in his or her own language. Every language is different and some may have more or less words that mean the same thing, so this may create bigger or smaller imaginations for people to function with. Words aslo continue to be added to dictionaries around the world adding to our vocabulary with which we use as a tool for thinking and imagery.

7. What is the nature verse nurture controversy regarding intelligence? How have scientists attempted to solve this problem?

The nature verses nurture controversy regarding intelligence has to do whether or not intelligence is an inherited (nature) or a learned (nurture) characteristic. British researcher Sir Francis Galton coined this term when he initiated the debate whether intelligence is a product of genes inherited, or your environment surrounding you. After studying many prominent English families, he concluded that intelligence is inherited. Environmentalists disputed Galton?s claim and insisted that intelligence is the product of one?s environment. Today, most psychologists agree that both nature and nurture contribute to intelligence, but they continue to debate the relative contributions of these two factors. Twin studies support the view that intelligence is inherited because the correlation between identical twins reared apart and identical twins reared together is the closest. Thomas Bouchard along with other Minnesota researchers have studied about 60 pairs of fraternal twins and 80 pairs of identical twins who were reared apart. They found that intelligence was the most heritable trait, ranging from .60 to .70, depending on the particular type of twin study. The Minnesota Center for Twin and Adoption Research has assembled the Minnesota Twin Registry, which by 1998 included over 10,000 twin pairs. On the other hand, Plomin and others found the heritability estimate for general intelligence to be .52. Psychologists and researchers disputing Bouchard?s claim say that most separated identical twins are raised by adoptive parents that have been matched as closely as possible to the biological parents. This fact, critics say, could be the reason in similarity in the identical twins? IQ scores. Bouchard pointed out that children who are not related biologically but are raised in the same home are no more similar in intelligence once they reach adulthood than are complete strangers. Scientists also attempt to solve this problem with the adoption study method, to assess the relative effects of heredity and environment by studying children who were adopted very early in life.

8. What is temperament? Is temperament determined by nature or nurture, in your opinion? Cite the evidence for your opinion?

Temperament is a person?s behavioral style or characteristic way of responding to the environment. In my opinion, temperament is determined by nature and nurture, just as many elements of psychology are. I believe heredity (nature) has more of an influence on a person?s temperament because every baby is born with his/her own temperament. Each individual has his/her own special biological makeup which provides for different temperaments. The way parents raise their children can also have a major impact on the way their temperament develops. From the time a baby is born until around age ten or eleven is an important time in which a child?s environment can affect their personality and temperament. Young adolescence can also be affected by society and their peers. The music they listen to and the academic environment can affect their temperament. Girls have more of a tendency to be violent than in earlier years. I believe the explanation for this is definitely nurture because it is becoming more accepted in our culture for girls to fight. There is even a rap song titled ?Girl Fight.?

9. Freud, Erikson, Kolberg, and Piaget described stages of human development. List the stages of each author.

Freud developed the psychosexual stages of development. The first stage is called the The Oral Stage, which is from birth to one year. During this stage the mouth is the primary source of an infant?s pleasure, which Freud considered to be an expression of infantile sexuality. Traits associated with problems at this stage include optimism, gullibility, dependency, pessimism, passivity, hostility, sarcasm, and aggression. The second stage, The Anal Stage, is where children derive sensual pleasure from expelling and withholding feces. Frued believed if parents where too harsh in their approach to toilet training children may rebel later on with excessive cleanliness, orderliness, stinginess, messiness, or destructiveness. The third stage Freud labeled as The Phallic Stage, where children learn they can derive pleasure from touching their genitals, therefore flirtatiousness, vanity, promiscuity, pride, and chastity are commom traits associated at this level around the ages three to five. Latency Period, Freud believed to occur around age five or six to puberty, is one of relative calm. The sex instinct is thought to be repressed and temporarily sublimated with school and other activities. During this stage children usually prefer same-sex friendships and playmates. The last stage is The Genital Stage, which is from puberty and on; the focus of sexual energy gradually shifts to the opposite sex for the majority of people, eventually resulting in the establishment of mature sexual relationships. Erikson?s theory of development includes the entire lifespan unlike other developmental theories. According to Erikson, there are eight psychological stages which include trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation, and ego integrity vs. despair. Kolberg believed, as did Piaget before him, that moral reasoning is closely related to cognitive development and that it involves different stages. He studied moral development by presenting a series of moral dilemmas. One of his best known scenarios involved a husband with a terminally ill wife. A medication was discovered by a druggist in their town, however he charged ten times what he paid for the small dose. The husband eventually stole the medication because he could not accumulate the funds to purchase it from the druggist and desperately wanted to save his wife. Kohlberg classified moral reasoning in three levels, with each level having two stages. The first level is the preconventional level, where moral reasoning is governed by the standards of others rather than the individual?s own internal standards of right and wrong; therefore, acts are judged as good or bad based on their physical consequences. This means ?right? is whatever avoids punishment. For example, adults obey speeding laws the government has set forth to avoid paying tickets. In stage two of this level, ?right? is whatever is rewarded, benefits of individual, or results in a favor being returned. For example, ?If you do something beneficial to me, I will do something beneficial for you.? The second level is the conventional level, in which the person has internalized the standards of others and judges right and wrong in terms of those standards. The first stage under this level is that of the morality of mutual relationships. For example, a child tries to please or help his parents or friends. The second stage revolves around the morality of the social system and conscience. For example, the ?right? thing to do is to respect authority to keep social order. The last level is the postconventional level, which involves weighing moral alternatives and realizing that laws may conflict with basic human rights. The first stage under this level is where a person believes that laws are created to protect people, but should be changed if they fail to do so. The last stage is the highest stage of the highest level of moral reasoning. Ethical decisions are based on universal principles, which emphasize respect for human life, justice, equality, and dignity for all people. This requires people to follow their conscience, even it results in a violation of the law.
Piaget described stages of human development in a series of universal stages. The sensorimotor stage is from birth to age two, in which infants can only gain an understanding of the world through their senses and motor activities. Children learn to respond to and manipulate objects in a goal-directed activity. The manipulations are physical at first, and then are transformed into ?mental actions?, where object performance is developed. This is the concept that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight. The second stage is the preoperational stage, from age two to age six. This is characterized by the development of schemes for symbolic representation. For example, children pretend objects such as food or toys are something else. This is an important stage for the child to develop because it advances their abilities to think beyond the first stage. This stage explains why children are so animated in the way they think and feel. They believe everyone sees what they see and feels what they feel. Piaget proposed that children have a difficulty with logic because of a flaw in their thinking called centration. This is a preoperational child?s tendency to focus on only one dimension of a stimulus. For example, my two year-old could not understand why she could not have her own drive up window at Sonic while we were in the car. In the third stage, the concrete operations stage, is during which a child acquires the concepts of reversibility and conversation and is able to attend to two or more dimensions of a stimulus at the same time. This stage usually forms within a child between the ages of six and twelve, depending on the child. The formal operations stage is Piaget?s final stage of cognitive development from ages eleven or twelve and beyond. This stage is characterized by the ability to apply logical thinking to abstract problems and hypothetical situations. Not all people will attain full formal operational thinking.

10. How have attitudes toward homosexuality changed in recent decades? What accounts for the change of attitudes?

The American Psychiatric Association considered homosexuality a disorder until 1973, but that has changed. The Association only views it as a disorder if the individual considers it as a problem. As a result of these changes, more gay and lesbians are admitting to being gay. One survey of the public?s view of homosexuality revealed that 45% of male respondents believed gays ?should stay in the closet?; but only 30% of female respondents expressed this same belief. Additionally, 34% of male respondents, compared with 42% of female respondents considered homosexuality an acceptable lifestyle. Although these percentages show negative attitudes toward homosexuality, most people are opposed to discrimination based on sexual orientation.



11. How do emotions protect us? How do emotions hurt us?

An emotion is defined as an identifiable feeling state involving three components: a physiological state of arousal, a cognitive appraisal of the situation or stimulus causing that internal body state, or an outward behavior expressing the state. Emotions can protect us in many different ways. For example, fear is an emotion that triggers us to act according to the situation. We can exhibit the fight or flight response according to our environment. If an animal is trying to attack us, fear can trigger your entire body including the nervous system, heart, and even product adrenalin to help you. They can also protect us by creating anger which is closely related to fear. Emotions protect infants that have not yet learned how to communicate to their care givers that they are hungry, sick, or enjoy certain stimulations. On the other hand, emotions can also hurt us. Emotions of sadness and depression are triggered when something bad happens like death or divorce. This hurts, but as humans we cannot prevent from experiencing emotions because information triggers different parts of our brains to respond in certain ways. Love is an emotion that can protect us from being lonely, but can hurt us if we rely on it and then lose it.

12. Define abnormal behavior. Give examples and explain how those behaviors are abnormal in a clinical sense.

Human behavior lies along a continuum ranging from well adjusted to maladaptive. Abnormal behavior is sometimes difficult to determine because no one person is alike, so you cannot judge somebody?s behavior off one particular scale. You have to examine each case carefully so you do not misdiagnose and lead them in the wrong direction. First, one must consider if the behavior is strange within the person?s own culture because people are different depending on the part of the world they were raised in or cultural traditions that were passed down. Next it is important to question whether the behavior causes personal distress. Some people feel sad, anxious, agitated, excited, frightened, or even terrified by delusions and hallucinations without a life experience causing those emotions. Another good way to determine the difference between normal and abnormal behavior is to consider if the behavior leads to healthy or impaired functioning. For example if the behavior causes physical or mental harm, or interferes with their performance in the workplace. Also the person must not pose a danger to themselves or others. It also must be clear whether the person is legally responsible for his or her acts.




13. What are the essential features of successful psychological therapy? How do clients? expectations regarding therapy and their therapist affect the outcome of therapy?

There is no one particular therapeutic approach proven to be more superior than others, however specific therapies have been proven to be most effective for treating particular disorders. It is important for a client to choose a therapist with the type of training best suited to his/her problem. Many different types of mental health professionals exist from psychiatrists to licensed chemical dependency counselors. A successful psychologist should be able to first diagnose the source of the problem, then a goal can be established. Depending on the severity, the therapist and client can then chose a method to help the patient with their problem. Some various types of therapy include psychoanalysis, person-centered therapy, inter-personal therapy, family and couple therapies, behavior therapy, cognitive therapy, and biological therapies.

14. In regard to the Milgram studies of obedience and authority, how can someone who questions authority and acts independently based on their conscience affect the behavior of others?

Regarding Milgram?s study of obedience and authority, the presence of another person refusing to go along gave many of the participants the courage to defy authority. Another example of someone questioning authority based on their own conscience and it affecting the behavior of others is with children. Many times children will follow the examples set by their peers even if they know it is bad. It is almost like a domino effect. Often times in school, adolescents will try and get away with certain things if they see their peers getting away with it also. Food fights often escalate because of this factor, too.

15. What are the traits of an effective leader? How do effective leaders manage cultural diversity in the workplace?

Effective leadership can be defined as the ability to get people to do what the leader needs them to do. Three types of leaders are charismatic, transactional, and transformational. Charismatic leaders rely on their charisma or personality to coerce people. They are usually very passionate about what they do or believe in and are able to convince followers to share their passion. Transactional leaders motivate by setting goals and convincing individuals to accomplish these routine, agreed-on goals. On the other hand, transformational leaders encourage followers to achieve excellence in the accomplishment of routine goals and to pursue goals that go beyond the status quo. They also are usually charismatic and inspirational. Intellectual stimulation attracts people because they are rational problem solvers. They focus their attention on data and logic rather than emotion. The last dimension is called individualized consideration, where individual expression and personal growth are encouraged. Good transformational leaders try to combine the qualities of transactional and transformational to create an efficient managing system.
One factor that has led to increased cultural diversity in the workplace is globalization, the process through which workers all over the world have been brought into frequent contact with one another resulting from advances in transportation and communications technology. For example, it is not out of the ordinary for employees to communicate daily with people from foreign countries by phone or via internet. The increase in immigration also contributes to increased cultural diversity. Many people are moving to Europe and North America for job opportunities. The jobs they are seeking can range from unskilled labor to professional high-tech positions. Effective leaders manage cultural diversity by acknowledging what types of cultural diversity exist in their work environment and try to avoid ethnocentrism by approaching work from all cultural backgrounds.