Assignment Detail

Assignment ID: FG133285579

1. Let’s return to the story about Oprah Winfrey. A child born to teenage parents, experienced extreme poverty, lived with several family members with different expectations, is raped and molested repeatedly, turned to drugs and promiscuous behavior, learned to read early, academically successful, became the first African American news anchor, and finally, she is a media-mogul and billionaire. Ms. Winfrey is not defined by her past; she is known for “both her intelligence and her empathy” (Module 7.6). In a minimum of two paragraphs, with no less than five sentences in each paragraph, consider whether nature and/or nurture or differences and/or similarities (from module 1.3) best explain Ms. Winfrey’s experiences from poverty and pain to riches and compassion. Explain why this story is significant to the study of intelligence by psychologists and what questions they are trying to answer.

2. When you are cut off in traffic, do you call the other person an “idiot?” When others do not do things the same as yourself, do you ask if they have “common sense?” Do you look at someone of a different race or religion and assume they are “stupid and unintelligent?” Are we then behavioralists as we assess other people by our observations? Are we creating a “concept?” And do others share our understanding of these “concepts?”In a minimum of two paragraphs, with no less than five sentences in each paragraph, define cognition, language, and concepts. And then, while considering how cognition and language can be used to create and communicate concepts, what is one example of a concept you might share with others, and another example of a concept you might not? What explains these differences in conceptions that vary between individuals? Finally, is intelligence a “concept?” Why or why not?