Revision Questions

Lecture 1 Introduction

1. A recent research showed that people who saw pictures of money would feel more
confident than people who saw pictures of blank paper. What kind of research questions
would the following psychologists ask regarding such an effect?

a. Cognitive psychologist

Cognitive psychologists study the private, inner mental processes and how these
processes take place inside the human mind. A cognitive psychologist would ask how do
people distinguish and process the information about the different meaning and values
between money and blank paper.

b. Neuropsychologist

Neuropsychologists try to explain the underlying biological mechanisms of the mind and
human behaviors. A neuropsychologist may ask what neurotransmitters are secreted
when people saw pictures of money that lead to them being confident.

c. Behaviorist

Behaviorist studies the measurable, observable human behaviors. A behaviorist would

ask how is the learned association between pictures of money and the feeling of
confidence established by experiences.

2. In the above experiment, why was it better to blind the participants to the purpose
of the study?

Controls the effect os the participant’s expectations in answering their emotions or

attitudes towards the stimulus. By not knowing why they are asked the question and the
purpose of the experiment, the participants would more likely to give their response in a
unbiased way, unaffected by the expectations of the experiment. E.g. expected to feel
more confident when seeing money, so they act that way because of the expectation
instead of actually feeling so. – would give false positive results.

Prevent the placebo effect – feel before the substance/stimulus has had time to produce
the actual effects

Offset misleading effects.

3. Suggest a behavioral measure (operational definition) of “self-confidence”. Describe

one possible weakness of this measurement.

The first step of operationalization is to define the measured variable – self confidence as
the positive attitudes about oneself. It can be further broken down into trust in oneself’s

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 behavior, ability and judgements, and whether he/she thinks he will be successful in the
future.

Therefore, the behavioral measurement of self-confidence can be taken by counting up

the sum of each of the 4 sets of parameters (trust in behavior, trust in ability, trust in
judgement, and belief in successfulness).

Each parameter will be assessed by asking the participants of the experiment to rate
their attitudes of exteremely not confident – a bit unconfident – no attitude – somewhat
confident – very confident. – by setting up different situations. The total score will be
added up, and higher the score, higher self-confidence in that person.

One possible weakness in the survey design is self-reporting. The participants would feel
the need to be act socially acceptable and good (in this case, they may act more
confident or less confident than they actually are). The self-reporting nature of the survey
adds uncertainty in the result.

4. What is the problem of feeding humans in a giant Skinner box that maximizes their
productivity and well-being? Argue from the humanistic perspective.

The objective of the Skinner box is to shape or train a new behavior, one that is not likely
to occur naturally, in the participant. This process would include not only rewards but
also punishments. In order for the punishments to be effective, they may be harsh – in
the case of a mouse, the experimenter would electrically shock it. However, in the case of
a human participant, this is impossible because it is not ethical to produce any
irreversible harms to the participant. Furthermore, for the reward to be effective, the
reward is usually concerned with the survival of the participant. In the case of the mouse,
it is starved prior to the experiment for the food pellet to be attractive. However, for the
human participant, starvation is impossible and unethical.

The participant is also required to be encaged in a restricted place to avoid other

environmental stimuli. This is also not ethical since the participant is deprived of
personal freedom.

The Skinner box also requires extensive observations of the participant’s behaviors. This
can hardly be done confidently and privately, which are required for an ethical research
study. The participant is also deprived of self-esteem because his behaviors are under
observations all the time throughout the study.

Lecture 2 The evolving mind

1. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, argue whether a maternal

grandmother (mother’s mother) or a paternal grandfather (father’s father) would show
greater affection to their granddaughter.

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 You can verify your answer with this article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-
scientific-fundamentalist/200811/which-grandparent-are-you-closest.

2. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, explain why heterosexual men put

physical attractiveness as a top criterion in mate selection.

From an evolutionary psychology perspective, all behaviors are purposeful and serve an
adaptive function in the course of evolution – those that provide advantages in survival
and reproduction are passed on, and those that do not die off. During mating, men are
more liberal in their mating startegies because they bear less risks and costs during
reproduction. Their selective criteria is physical attractiveness in women because
youthful, fertile, and healthy women indicate that they are more likely to pass on the
healthy genes to their offsprings. As a result, the man’s own genes are more likely to
survive and propagated.

3. Describe 2 cliché behaviors in romantic dramas that illustrate the handicap

principle.

4. How can researchers determine the heritability of extroversion, a personality trait,

using twins data? Describe two different approaches in analyzing the data and state the
expected results.

One is to use correlational methods to study the phenotypical differences between

identical twins (100% genetically identical) that grow and live together and apart. If
extroversion is highly genetically determined, the correlation of differences between
identical twins living together and apart should be highly positive, since environmental
stimuli does not affect the trait – heritability is thus high. If extroversion is not
determined by genetics but rather by environmental stimuli (heritability is low), the
correlation is not positive – those that live together are more similar than living apart.

The other method is to analyze the concordance rate. The experiment uses both
identical and fraternal twins.

Lecture 3 Biological Psychology

1. Describe how split-brain experiments help researchers conclude that the left brain
is specialized in language processing.

In the split-brain operation, the corpus callosum and other connections between the 2
hemispheres of the cerebral cortex are cut, so there are no communications between
the 2 hemispheres. The visual information of one eye is processed by the visual cortex of
the opposite hemisphere. By presenting images or objects to the patient’s right eye, the
patient can tell the name of the object. However, by presenting images to his left eye, the
patient cannot say. This shows that the left brain is specialized in language processing, or

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 language is lateralized in the left hemisphere. The visual information from the right eye is
processed by the left hemisphere,

Since connections between the 2 hemispheres are broken, visual information processed
by the right hemisphere is not communicated to the left. As a result, the patient cannot
say what he sees with the left eye.

2. Draw the side view of the left hemisphere of a human brain. Identify the four lobes
and briefly describe their major functions.

Frontal lobe contains the primary motor cortex, which is responsible for voluntary
movements; Broca’s area which is responsible for the formation of speech; prefrontal
cortex which is involved in decision-making, planning of behaviors, judgement and
attention. The prefrontal cortex also contains the orbitofrontal cortex, which is
responsible for emotional responses.

Occipital lobe contains the primary visual cortex, which processes the visual information
from the opposite half of the body. It performs basic visual processing.

Temporal lobe contains the primary auditory cortex, which processes auditory
information. It also contains the Wernicke’s area, which is the language center. It also
processes visual information in the recognition of objects and faces.

Parietal lobe contains the primary somatosensory cortex. It also processes visual
information in the movement of objects.

Lecture 4 Sensation and Perception

1. Why is it easier to see dim stars when you pay attention to the peripheral area, but
not the center, of your visual field?

This is because the rod cells, one of the specialized visual receptors on the retina that
transduce visual stimuli into action potentials, are found on the peripheral areas of the
retina. Rods are specialized in seeing dim objects, since they are very sensitive to light
stimuli. As a result, by seeing using the peripheral areas of the eyes, it is easier to see
dim stars.

2. How do humans achieve depth perception with monocular and binocular cues?

Monocular cues provide a sense of depth in 2D images, and only require one eye. It uses
strategies like relative size – with the knowledge that 2 objects are of similar shapes, the
bigger one is nearer, and the smaller one is farther away; occlusion – the blocking of the
further object by the nearer object; linear perspective – when linear lines appear to
converge in a distance, a sense of depth is created.

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 Binocular cues provide a sense of depth using both eyes. It uses retinal disparity, that is,
the disparity between the iamges the 2 eyes have about the same object. When the
retinal disparity is larger, the object is closer to the observer. The brain receives the two
images and determine depth by comparing the disparity.

3. Illustrate 4 Gestalt principles with drawings.

Lecture 5 Basic Learning Processes

1. Describe one example of classical conditioning and one example of negative

punishment. With the two examples, explain the fundamental differences between the
two associative learning processes.

Classical conditioning – form new associations between two stimuli that occur
sequentially in time.

Negative punishment – reduces the frequency of a specific behavior by removing

desirable outcomes.

Differences: classical conditioning involves involuntary innate reflexes, while operant

conditioning involve voluntary behaviors.

2. John loves gambling but hates his job, even though he makes more money through
his stable monthly income. Explain the behavioral difference by referring to the reward
schedules of the two behaviors.

The reward schedule for gambling is the variable ratio enforcement, when the required
number of behaviors is not fixed but fluctuate around an average for each reinforcement
to occur. Since John cannot predict the next occcurance of the desirable reinforcement
(winning money), he is motivated to respond in a constant and high rate without breaks.

The reward schedule for his job is the fixed interval or ratio reinforcement (depending on
the job itself, some pay for the fixed amount of work he does, some pay him in a fixed
range of time, like monthly payment), where it requires his working behavrior to occur
for a fixed number of times/time interval for the reinforcement to occur.

Fixed ratio – the response rate is constant, however, there are breaks after each
reinforcement, as he is not motivated to continue working since the reinforcement is
constant and anticipated.

Fixed interval – the response rate after each reinforcement is low and only increases at
the end of each interval.

3. John Watson said that he could train any healthy infants to any type of specialist he
desired. Explain his claim from a behaviorist perspective. How would a behavioral
geneticist argue against this?

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 Behaviorist using operant conditioning – shape by successive approximation. Reward
desirable behaviros and punishing undesribale behaviors –

Behavior genetist – study the strength of genetic influence on particular behaviors – the
hereditability of behavrios are not 1/0 the interaction between genetics and the
envrioment – both affect the behavior – not absolute

Genetics – inherent predisposition cannot be altered with conditioning training – not

violate inborn

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