psychological science essays

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There are 6 final essays for this class. They need to be a page long each with citiations from the textbook which I have attached.

 

 

1. Choose one person from the following list whom you feel played an important rolein the history of psychology: Freud, Pavlov, Skinner, Maslow, or Piaget. Describewhat that person did, the approximate time that this person lived, what makes theircontribution important, and criticisms of their work or theoretical position. (3 points)

2. You are an experimental psychologist interested in finding out how effective a newmedication might work for treating depression. Describe a study you might conduct toreach some conclusions on this matter. Be sure to define and provide examples of thefollowing terms and concepts, demonstrating your understanding of each: hypothesis,independent variable, dependent variable, random assignment of participants, ethicalguidelines. (4 points)

3. When your best friend hears that you are taking a psychology course, she assertsthat psychology is simply common sense. Explain why your awareness of both the limits of everyday reasoning and the methods of psychological research would leadyou to disagree with your friend’s assertion. (2 points)

4. Imagine that you were involved in a legal case in which an eyewitness claimed thehe has seen a person commit a crime. Based on your knowledge about memory andcognition, discuss some of the problems of eye-witness accounts. (2 points)

5. David’s history teacher asked him why so many German people complied withHitler’s orders to systematically slaughter millions of innocent Jews. David suggestedthat the atrocities were committed because the Germans had become unusually cruel,sadistic people with abnormal and twisted personalities. Use your knowledge of thefundamental attribution error and Milgram’s research on obedience to highlight theweaknesses of David’s explanation. (2 points)

6. Choose a behavior that you would like to modify or change using the principles ofoperant conditioning. Be sure to use and explain the following terms: operantconditioning, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, schedulesof reinforcement, shaping and extinction. (2 points)