Focus questions - Chapter 1

Question 1

FOCUS 1

How will you use the focus questions (such as this one) in the text’s margins as a guide to reading this book?

Answer 1

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 2

FOCUS 2

What was Descartes’ version of dualism? How did it help pave the way for a science of psychology?

Answer 2

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 3

FOCUS 3

What reasons can you think of for why Descartes’ theory, despite its intuitive appeal, was unsuitable for a complete psychology?

Answer 3

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 4

FOCUS 4

How did Hobbes’s materialism help lay the groundwork for a science of psychology?

Answer 4

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 5

FOCUS 5

How did the nineteenth-century understanding of the nervous system inspire a theory of behavior called reflexology?

Answer 5

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 6

FOCUS 6

How did discoveries of localization of function in the brain help establish the idea that the mind can be studied scientifically?

Answer 6

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 7

FOCUS 7

How would you explain the origin of complex ideas and thoughts according to British empiricism? What role did the law of association by contiguity play in this philosophy?

Answer 7

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 8

FOCUS 8

How would you describe the influence that empiricist philosophy has had on psychology?

Answer 8

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 9

FOCUS 9

Why is the ability to learn dependent on inborn knowledge? In Kant’s nativist philosophy, what is the distinction between a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge?

Answer 9

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 10

FOCUS 10

How did Darwin’s theory of natural selection offer a scientific foundation for explaining behavior by describing its functions? How did it provide a basis for understanding the origin of a priori knowledge?

Answer 10

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 11

FOCUS 11

How can you use the reviews at the end of each major section to guide your thought and review before going on to the next section?

Answer 11

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 12

FOCUS 12

How do neural, physiological, genetic, and evolutionary explanations differ from one another? How would you apply these explanations toward an understanding of jealousy?

Answer 12

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 13

FOCUS 13

How do learning and cognitive explanations differ? How would you apply each of them toward an understanding of jealousy?

Answer 13

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 14

FOCUS 14

How do social and cultural explanations differ? How would you apply each of them toward an understanding of jealousy?

Answer 14

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 15

FOCUS 15

What constitutes a developmental explanation? How would you apply a developmental explanation toward an understanding of jealousy?

Answer 15

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 16

FOCUS 16

What are some research specialties in psychology that are not defined primarily by the level of analysis employed?

Answer 16

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 17

FOCUS 17

What are the three main divisions of academic studies? How does psychology link them together?

Answer 17

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 18

FOCUS 18

Why is it often more difficult to read a textbook for a course than to read nonfiction that you have chosen on your own?

Answer 18

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 19

FOCUS 19

How can you use the focus questions to make your reading of this textbook more thought-provoking and effective?

Answer 19

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 20

FOCUS 20

How can you use the section and subsection headings, and the section review charts, to preview and review each major idea or argument? Why is the hierarchical organization of these study tools useful?

Answer 20

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 21

FOCUS 21

What purposes are served by the numbered figures and unnumbered illustrations, the terms that are set in boldface italics, the Glossary, the Thinking Critically About…, Reflections and Connections, and Find Out More sections, the reference citations and Name Index, and the Subject Index in this book?

Answer 21

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 22

Thinking Critically About The Study of Psychology

Why might a knowledge of the history of philosophical thought about human behavior benefit an understanding of modern psychology?

Answer 22

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 23

Thinking Critically About The Study of Psychology

What, if anything, connects the various areas of psychology together? Is it reasonable to think of psychology as a single discipline or does it make more sense to view it as a collection of different scientific disciplines?

Answer 23

Weet ik nog niet.

Question 24

Thinking Critically About The Study of Psychology

The biologist E. O. Wilson referred to consilience as “the intrinsic unity of knowledge . . . the linkage of the sciences and humanities.” How might psychology fit into Wilson’s scheme for the integration of knowledge from physics to the humanities?

Answer 24

Weet ik nog niet.