Psychology 120 by Darryl Halim

When tests find IQ differences between groups of children from different cultures, it does not always necessarily that the children who score lower are inherently less intelligent. There are a lot of things to consider. It is difficult to construct tests that are reliable and valid. In this particular case, it is hard to construct a generalized tests with no cultural bias. Test-maker tried to incorporate knowledge and skills common to many different cultures. But these efforts were disappointing. One reason was that cultures differ in the problem-solving strategies they emphasize (Serpell, 1994). This means that the problem-solving for each cultures is different and will also affect on how well they will do the particular IQ tests. The other thing to look at is stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is a insecurity that caused by burden of doubt about their abilities and how they think they will performs in the test. This threat occurs when people believe that if they do not do well,...

The evidence shows that punishment such as fines, long prison terms, yelling and spanking are not the good ways to get id of undesirable behavior. Although sometimes punishment is effective, there are many reasons on why punishment may fails. The key for punishment to work is the consistency of the punishment. For example, a study of one of the criminal records from the past suggest that punishment can deter some young criminals from repeating their offences. After a few of given arrest, punishment did reduced rates of subsequent arrest. In addition, the type of punishment really made no difference.  There is many reasons of why punishment might fail. People often administer punishment inappropriately or mindlessly. For instance, when we angry at someone for doing a mistake, we often blindly rage at them or shout things we don't mean. This situation could lead to another reason which is the recipient of this harsh punishment often responds with anxiety, fear or rage. These negat...

Not necessarily, the effect of subliminal message is really complex. There is two key things on how a subliminal tape can change our behavior or improve our life. Before jumping into that, I feel like I need to define my terms clearly here that subliminal influence and subconscious influence is a different terms. Subliminal influence are existing below the absolute threshold while subconscious influence existing above the absolute threshold of consciousness or the other term is called supraliminal. For example, music in subliminal influence is when the music that is too quiet to be consciously heard meanwhile in subconscious influence is when the music can be heard even though we don't consciously notice it. One of the two key things for subliminal tape to work is that it will depend on the person's motivation. The person's motivation is the important ingredient for a subliminal persuasion to be succeeded. To begin with, you need to have motivation and will to change your...

There is a lot to considers on how the qualities of the user might account to the reactions of alcohol to a person rather than the drug effects itself. People often assume that the effect of a drug like alcohol are always the same, but that is not necessarily the case. They also depend on a person's individual factor, experience with the drug, environmental setting and their mental set. Individual factors is how our physical conditions of our body reacts to the alcohol itself. For example, our body weight will determine on how much alcohol intake we can drink until we blackout.  Experience with the drug refers to the number of times a person has taken it. The effect of the drug will be different with someone who drink an alcohol drink for the first time and someone who drink it regularly. Some person who drink for the first time might feel "mellow out" while the other person who drink regularly might have different effect. Environmental setting is when, where and who...

Brain scans such as EEG, PET and fMRI did provide us with fabulous windows on the brain, but it does not necessarily mean that we can interpret the result as is. Each of the brain scans type have their own weaknesses. For example, EEG is not very precise because it reflects the activities of so many cells at once (115). In the case for this "doodling centre" I personally do not think that we can classify the area of the brain as "doodling centre". We cannot oversimplify the brain function by what it does process specifically. Since brain is really complex organ, interpreting brain scans is going to be super complicated. Since brain is structured by billions of neurons. First, let's say that the area that active is motor cortex. This motor cortex also have many other function rather than just doodling. For example, moving other parts of body. We have to take the other part of the brain into account. I believe there is some part of the brain that is functioni...

Based on my knowledge and understanding, "some trait is highly heritable" mean that some trait can be more attributable to the genetic factors rather than environment factors. For example, let's say that IQ is highly heritable, this statement says that the difference in intelligence can be more accounted to the genetics factors. In the flute case, I think you should not stop practicing. Just because someone tells you that musical ability is heritable, does not mean that it is 100% affected by the genetic factors only. Even highly heritable traits like musical ability can be modified by the environment. In this case, the environment such as practicing can help you improve your musical ability.