General Psychology
1. We identified a number of core tensions in psychology. So where does the following statement fall? What core tension is it exemplifying? Explain. “The fact that all normal children acquire essentially comparable grammars of great complexity with remarkable rapidity suggests that human beings are somehow specially designed to do this, with data-handling or “hypothesis formulating” ability of unknown character and complexity.”
2. “Relieving the states that make life miserable [e.g., mental illness] has made building the states that make life worth living less of a priority. But people want more than just to correct their weaknesses. They want lives imbued with meaning, and not just to fidget until they die…. [Indeed], there is not a shred of evidence that strength and virtue are derived from negative motivation.” Please elaborate on the meaning of this statement for psychology?
3. What is tacit knowledge? What does it suggest about the nature and kinds of human intelligence? Explain with an example.
4. Night terrors occur in Stage 3/4 of nightly sleep, but nightmares occur during REM sleep. What does that tell us about fundamental aspects of sleep? Explain.
5. What are some of the functions of the cerebrum?
6. How does the neodissociation theory explain the phenomenon of hypnosis? Explain.
7. Sensation, perception, and cognition. What’s the difference? explain with examples.
8. What does the serial position effect tell us about the nature of human memory? Explain with examples.
9. What are the fundamental differences between convergent and divergent thinking? Please explain using examples.
10. Howard Gardner believes that human intelligence is made up of many different forms of intellect whereas Robert Sternberg theorizes that it is made up of three major factors: mental components, experience, and context. Compare and contrast these recent theories of human intellectual functioning. How are they both similar and yet different? Please use examples.
