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Check Out Our Tests and Quizzes Check Out Our Tests and Quizzes Check Out Our Tests and Quizzes By Daniel Scocco We already published a bunch of multiple choice tests and quizzes in the past. Some were published years ago, though, so we decided to compile a list with all of them. Make sure you havent missed any. Well be adding new ones in the near future, so stay tuned. Multiple Choice Tests Vocabulary Test 1 Spelling Test 1 Grammar Test 1 Vocabulary Test 2 Quizzes Quiz About Emphasis Quiz About the Comma Quiz About Parallel Construction Not only but also Quiz Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the General category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Direct and Indirect ObjectsWhat is the Difference Between Metaphor and Simile?Grammatical Case in English

Cognitive Psychology and knowledge representation & organization, Essay

Cognitive Psychology and knowledge representation & organization, language, problem solving, and creativity - Essay Example derstanding of the concept of cognitive psychology as a principle is anchored on methods that consist of its anchorage on matters that appear contentious. Nevertheless scholars have preferred to distinguish varieties of psychology so that the final body consists of two characteristics. One analysis is the way individuals act and demonstrate self control, together with the consequence of assuming distal forms like biological variations into some special consideration. These assumptions are considered on the assumption that knowledge comes from generative mechanisms; so that the consequence of these mechanisms for the consideration is considered in a variety of different situations. Furthermore, interventions and directions will be considered in this situation in connection to subjectively constructed phenomenological experiences. The three mentioned characteristics are the fundamental core features of cognitive reasoning. Conventional representation of cognitive psychological perspectives in matters of knowledge construction refers to mental systems of consideration of these features. These methods of of thinking is legitimate since in one way there are numerous authors who refuse to refer to themselves as psychological cognitive psychological thinkers. However, there exist considerable contrasts between different cognitive methods, for example between radical cognitive empiricists and social cognitive empirics. Thorough going cognitive psychologists which views realism in science as some kind of inadequate phenomena and then assumes an informational kindred to cognitive systems (Heppner & Kivlighan 2008) plays a very important role in cognitive psychology, even though it is naturalized as the prototype of all forms of perspectives. Radical cognitive thinkers like Maturana and Varela always questioned the possibility of total objectivity and hard truth for the reasons that only information which is dependable and serves to boost the system is processed. Truth

The birth & growth of anti-westernism sentiments in the Middle East Essay

The birth & growth of anti-westernism sentiments in the Middle East - Essay Example In terms of personal interaction at the university, both my supervisors have been outstanding in that they have reached out to help me in regards; by providing me bibliographical support as also their advice on the topic that I should take up as part of my research. I am indeed grateful to them for having stood by me after having understood the unexpected personal circumstances that I have had to go through. But as is well known; one needs to do a lot of groundwork in order to produce a clear road plan for taking up research activity, by attending seminars and conferences, and this is where I have been outraced. Due to my personal problems, I was unable to attend any of these that were held at the university, even though I very much wanted to go. Another major obstacle has been that I have not been able to move to Paris either, which was the prime reason to shift to a part-time status after having discussed the issue with my supervisors. This report aims to describe what I have been doing ever since then and also aims to outline my proposed plan for doing research. Due to the above-mentioned problems, I subsequently started to attend many seminars at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS). The following list describes the various seminars that I have attended so far at SOAS: During this period, I did not attend any research training courses as I had prior experience of having attended them during my MA studies. However, I am planning to attend some after March. As the above-mentioned list suggests, all the seminars primarily focus on the growing anti-western sentiments in the middle-eastern region. These seminars along with the recent incidents revolving around the middle -east (the 9/11 terror attacks-Osama Bin Laden along with America's intervention in Iraq & Afghanistan to be specific), have driven me to think that i must indeed search for the consequences as also the reasons for the occurrence of these events. I am now more than ever interested in finding the reason for the anti-western sentiments that have been the root cause of all terror attacks in the western hemisphere. I therefore, decided that I would conduct a study on the birth & growth of anti-westernism sentiments in the Middle East.According to Shireen T. Hunter (1998), the anti-western feeling was born from the Zionist wars between Israel & Egypt and the subsequent overthrow of the shah of Iran, which led to the birth of bitter relations between Ayatollah Khomenei's Iran & America in particular. Clashes between the west and the lesser prominent countries Islamic countries of the west like Syria & Lebanon have just added more fuel to the already raging fire of anti-western feelings. More recently, I feel that the interference of the west (The

The ethical dilemma of the physicians orders for the care of a child Essay

The ethical dilemma of the physicians orders for the care of a child vs the parents disapproval - Essay Example This paper discusses an ethical dilemma involving physicians’ order for childcare and parents disapproval citing the moral issues involved. The paper discusses two bioethical principles and relates them to the aforementioned case. The document closes with a discussion on a value of personal morality and relates it to the morality of the larger group and society. An unnamed woman in Canada gave birth to six babies and physicians warned of their ill health and recommended blood transfusion for them. Two of them died before physicians in the hospitals where they had been born convinced their parents of how urgently the babies needed blood transfusion. The parents refused physicians to carry out the intervention and went to court seeking to stop officials forcing their way with the said intervention. The court then ordered some social workers who had taken custody of some babies seeking to secure treatment for them to return them to their parents (Birchley, 2010). The ethical dilemma in the case involved the decision on whether to assume physician’s moral obligation to ensure health of patients, in this case the infants, or whether to respect moral requirement of parents’ autonomy regarding actions on their children’s lives. Legal aspects of human rights to autonomy further complicated the case as the law supported the parents’ opinion that was based on their religious beliefs. The parents refused their babies to receive blood transfusion because their faith was against it. They were followers of Jehovah’s Witness and they remained adamant that they would have allowed any other treatment intervention as long as it did not involve blood. Jehovah’s Witness believers have strongly rejected any medical treatment including surgery that involves blood loss or reception. These believers have been proposing to have machines that can help recycle patient’s own blood to eliminate the need for a blood tra nsfusion. The Canadian

Attribution Theorists And Biased Judgements

Attribution Theorists And Biased Judgements Social psychologists have studied attribution theories for several decades, and their research has produced many interesting insights. The process of assigning a cause to ones own behaviour, or that of others can be defined as attribution (Hogg, 2005). Considering that attribution is complex, many theories have been constructed to demonstrate its performance. This essay will examine the evidence that biased laypersons judgements of others are inevitable by, first of all, focusing on explaining three classic theories of attribution, then paying particular attention to biases in attribution in order to fully answer the question under investigation. Attribution theory is concerned with how individuals make sense of their environment and how this affects their cognition and behavior (x). There exist three classic views on attribution that continue to be especially influential. The first of these classic theories is Fritz Heiders (1958) theory of naive psychology where the layperson is viewed as a naive scientist who links observable behaviour to unobservable causes. Also Heider made a significant distinction between internal (dispositional) and external (situational) attributions. It was also underlined that individuals look for causes of others behaviours in order to find out their motives and give some sense of control in their lives (Hewstone, 1990). Related to Heiders theory is Jones and Davis (1965) theory of correspondent inference which is concerned with how people use information about others behaviour and its effects in order to find out their underlying dispositions and personality traits. Of particular interest is beha viour that is freely chosen, produces non-common effects (effects produced by a particular cause that could not be produced by any other apparent cause), and is low in social desirability. The last and the best known theory of attribution is Kelleys (1967) covariation model where Kelley believes that people act like scientists when they try to discover the causes of behaviour. People are interested whether others behaviour stems from internal (motives, traits) or external (social, physical world) causes, or both of them at the same time. In order to answer this question, individuals focus on three types of information that can be defined as consistence, distinctiveness and consensus (Baron, Branscombe, Byrne, 2006). Heider (1958), Davis and Jones (1965) together with Kelley (1967) have acknowledged that attribution is subject to many potential sources of bias. It has been noted that a bias occurs if the social perceiver systematically distorts (overestimates or underestimates) a procedure that is known to be correct (Fiske and Taylor, 1984). People constantly use cognitive shortcuts that are called heuristics in order to make attributions. Apart from being not always objectively correct, biases in attribution are entirely satisfactory and adaptive characteristics of everyday social perception (Ross, 1977). In terms of studying how people interpret their social worlds, social psychologists have identified 3 general biases that often affect peoples attributions and explanations. One of the most important of these biases is the fundamental attribution error, that is the tendency to explain others actions as stemming from dispositional causes even when situational causes are at present. Social psychologists have conducted numerous studies to find out the reasons that determine the occurrence of these biases (Robins et al, 1996), though the issue is still to some extent uncertain. One possibility is that when people observe another persons behaviour, they tend to focus on his or her actions and the situational behaviour tends to fade away in the background. Another explanation is that people notice such situational causes but give them insufficient weight in their attributions. An experiment conducted by Amabile, Ross and Steinmetz (2000) illustrates fundamental attribution error. In this experiment they set up a quiz show design in which they randomly assigned participants to one of two roles. First was a questioner whose task it was to prepare difficult questions for a contestant, and second was a contestant whose task it was to answer the questions prepared by the questioner. An observer watched the quiz show and then estimated the questioners and the contestants general knowledge. They found that observers thought that the questioners were far more knowledgeable than the contestants. However, everyone was assigned to conditions randomly, so it was highly unlikely that one group was more clever than the other. The most interesting thing is that observers did know that participants were randomly assigned to their roles, yet they failed to consider the impact of that knowledge in making their judgement. Fundamental attribution error is not limited only to quiz shows, its implications are far more encompassing. For example, peoples common reaction to convicted criminals are that they are terrible human beings and that is why they committed a crime. However, there can be many factors other than personal characteristics that explain why a person commits a crime. These include lack of job opportunities, the lack of positive role models in the family and neighborhood, growing up in a dysfunctional family and many others (Aronson, 2003). In addition to this, Nisbett and Ross (1980) argued that the english language allows easy description of action and actor in the same terms but it gets more complicated when using the same terms in order to describe the situation. For example, it is possible to talk about honest and generous person or honest and generous action but not a honest and generous situation. This demonstrates that linguistic factors have an important role in making attributions. People are certainly unaware of this phenomena beca use this is the way they have been taught from childhood and is something that happens without conscious thought. An equally common bias in social judgement is the actor-observer effect, in other words, the self-other effect that is really an extension of the fundamental attribution error. The actor-observer effect refers to the tendency for people to attribute others behaviour to dispositional factors and their own behaviour to situational factors (Jones Nisbett, 1972). For example, in general, students tend to explain their poor performance in exams in terms of the difficulty of the test items whereas they tend to explain others poor performance in terms of their ability and personality. There exist several explanations for actor-observer effect. Firstly, according to Jones et al (1972), the informational factors are very important as the actors have access to a much wider range of information about the factors leading to their own actions. For example, behaviour that can be expressed in a party. Secondly, actors and observers have different perspectives. The actors attention is usually focus ed on the environment. On the other hand, the observers attention is usually focused on the actor and his or her behaviour rather than the background, which is why the observer may be unaware of why the actor behaved like this. Evidence for this explanation comes from Storms (1972) experiment where he had two subjects engaged in a conversation while two observers watched it, and were instructed to monitor the behaviours of one or the other actors. Results showed that the actors were more likely to explain their behaviour in terms of the situation and the observers in terms of personality dispositions. However, this was not the only thing they found. Storm (1972) also demonstrated that when the participants were shown a video tape of their conversation from the same angle as they saw it, actor-observer bias had occurred. On the contrary, when the video tape was shown from the reverse angle, the actors saw themselves from the observers point of view and tended to attribute their behav iour in terms of dispositional factors. This is a clear example of how biases are inevitable in everyday life. In order to avoid biases, one has to see others point of view but that is not an easy task to accomplish. One more bias can be identified in relation to attributions for success and failure. The self-serving bias refers to a tendency for people to attribute internally and take credit for their successes, the self-enhancing bias, or attribute externally and deny the responsibility for their failures, the self-protecting bias. For instance, gamblers perceive their successes as based on their skill and their failures as unlucky chances (Gilovich, 1983). Kingdom (1967) provided an example of self-serving bias from the political world. He interviewed American politicians five months after the general election and asked them to describe the factors that led to their victories or defeats. Results indicated that the politicians tended to attribute successes to internal factors such as hard work, personality and reputation. On the other hand, they tended to attribute their failures to external factors, for example, lack of money, the familiar name of their opponent and state trends. It is importa nt to understand the reasons why people engage in biases. Miller and Ross (1979) suggested that the self-enhancing bias could be explained in relation to the cognition model. People in general expect to succeed rather than fail and, therefore, are more likely to make self-attributions for expected than unexpected outcomes. For example, couples estimate their contribution to housework differently. Individuals are more likely to keep track of every job they do at home such as dusting or washing the dishes but when it comes to estimating the partners contribution, not all of their work is successfully remembered. This effect could be due to differential attention and memory (Aronson, 2003). However, the cognitive perspective alone cannot explain all the examples of self-serving biases. Another explanation for self-serving biases is that people are motivated to engage themselves in attributions in order to protect their self-esteem (Greenberg, 1982). It is evident from the experiments o f Weary (1999) that self-serving bias increases when the person is highly involved in that particular behaviour and when other people are watching. Self-serving bias occurs when an individuals self is threatened or when that individual has an opportunity to achieve and maintain a positive image of the self. To conclude, people do make judgements very quickly based on minimal information. As it has been demonstrated above, the reasons humans make biases seem varied and complex and different research reflects this (Storm, 1972; Ross et al, 1979; Kingdom, 1967; Amabile et al, 2000; Jones et al, 1972). Every day people try to justify themselves and their behaviour with the help of biases such as fundamental attribution error, actor-observer effect and self-serving bias. By using heuristics, individuals interpret and distort the meaning of their actions and the world around them, and make attributions that are very adaptive but not always correct. The situations people find themselves in, the cues they face and frustrations they may experience, also all appear to have the ability to inflame an aggressive response. Attribution is an important part of human existence and, although much has been achieved to aid the understanding of this behaviour, it is for now still reasonable to conclude that attribution is indeed an inevitable and inescapable part of our lives.

Dance brazil :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Dance Brazil Dance Brazil performs with flexibility and power, which is evident throughout its entirety. Whether the company is lying on the floor or leaping through the air, they command their space. However, throughout the production they also incorporate one important factor, their culture. In the introduction of the show, the dancers demonstrate their religious ways by presenting the sign of the cross to the people. Throughout the scene, the costumes that were being worn were all directly related to the colors of various gods. Throughout one scene, the dancers become possessed, one man loses control of his emotions, and lands into another man’s arms. One could possible interpret that this man is landing into the arms of god. The following scene featured a woman dressed in blue. I appreciated the way their movements resembled water that recedes after the tide; movements that matched the full and vibrant sound of the band. I also valued the bleak positioning, woman facing forward, man facing away, with their backs against each other. The man repeatedly placed his hand on the woman, only to have her definitively push him away. This control at the beginning contrasted with a kind of compliance at the end, as the woman was carried off on the back of the man. The music pulled their bodies. They were elegant yet powerful at the same time. They had a superior blend of a partnership ,they danced like a partnership without it being a partnership dance.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Overall, I took pleasure in the production â€Å"Dance Brazil†. My first thoughts were negative, I did not expect this dance to be as exciting and interesting as it truly was.

All Adoption Records Should be Open to Adopted People over Eighteen Years Old

The issues of having adoption documents open for access by the adopted people who are over eighteen years has caused a lot of heated debate in America. There has been a revolution in the adoption scene as some of the states have legalized the opening of previously sealed adoption documents.There are raging debates due to the controversy which is brought by opening and sealing the adoption records. The right of the birth parent to privacy is weighed against the fundamental right of the adopted adult to know and the right to equality. This paper seeks to bring out the reasons as to why these previously sealed documents should be open for adopted adults.There are more than six million adoptees in the United States of America. Currently, only six states in America offer the open inspection of adoption records. These are Tennessee, Hawaii, Delaware, Alabama, Kansas and Alaska (Mabry & Kelly, 357).In most of the other states, the original birth certificate and the adoption documents are no t accessible to anyone without a court order. Alabama allows the opening of these documents only after consent while Oregon and Tennessee also require consent from the court. In Tennessee, the adult adoptee is forbidden for establishing contact.Some states recommend the use of specific search and consent protocols which require the agency to locate either member of the adoption triad enquire whether they would allow their identity to be revealed to the other member (Mabry & Kelly, 359).The adoption triad refers to the adopted adult, the adopted parents and the birth parents.   Opening adoption documents or records refers to making a variety of previously confidential and sealed information available to a member of the adoption triad.These adoption records can be either the original unammended birth certificate, the court records from the adoption and other confidential information including the adoption agencys’ documents which may reveal the identity of any of the members of the triad (Mabry & Kelly, 369).After an adoptive placement is finalized, the original documents and documents proceeding from these cases are closed.Most adopted adults are in favor of the opening of the adoption documents primarily to ease their search for their birth parents or eliminate the need for a search. They argue that keeping these documents sealed from adopted adults, impairs with their emotional status and denies them of their right to know the identity of their parents like every other person.Adoption documents were initially sealed in order to protect any members of the adoption triad from the prevailing attitudes of the time. There was a lot of social stigma arising from illegitimacy and infertility. People were also stigmatized based on their wealth or other features in their families.The courts felt that the exposure of the triad especially the child to these attitudes would hinder their potential. Sealing adoption documents allowed the adopted child to grow up w ithout these additional pressures from the society (Mabry & Kelly, 436).The main reason as to why the adoption documents were sealed was to protect the adoption triad from social stigma associated with illegitimacy and infertility.The changing times have eliminated this stigma as millions of people nowadays choose not to get married, to become single parents or even get married and choose not to have any children. Any stigma associated with either of these has been eroded over time.The opening of adoption records only for adopted adults over the age of eighteen years ensures that they are already emotionally and mentally developed and the chances of their birth parents affecting their development is minimized.Adoption documents allow the adopted adult to find out of any genetic conditions which they may have inherited from their birth parents. The knowledge of any genetic predisposition to life threatening medical conditions allows the adopted adult to seek help early.This also allo ws early detection of any medical conditions and could potentially save lives (Siegel, 17). In cases where the adopted adults also intend on having their own children, it is necessary for them to know of any possibilities of passing on genetic conditions to their children and make informed decisions based on these facts.Adopted adults may also require organ transplants. The most successful organ transplants are from genetically identical individuals since there are less chances of rejection. For the adopted adult, this implies that they have to contact their birth parents and any other siblings they may have for potential donors.The adult who is adopted at childhood has the fundamental right to know the identity of his parents (Mabry & Kelly, 508). These unanswered questions bring a lifetime of confusion and loss of identity.The contract between both sets of parents is entered on behalf of the adopted child. Once the child reaches eighteen years, they are legally capable of making m ost legal decisions and they should be treated as adults who have the right to decide whether they require information regarding the birth parents.In cases where they choose to have access, the information should be availed readily (Siegel, 17). The United States of America is founded on the tenet of equality for all its citizens. Opening adoption documents ensures that adopted people are given equal right to know their parents, similar to their non adopted counterparts (Blanton & Deschner, 534).The adopted individuals should be given the same right as everyone else.   This in turn brings peace of mind and the adopted adults can move on with their lives.There are many people who feel that the opening of these previously closed documents should be prohibited and adult adoptees should not be given information regarding their birth parents. Those who oppose the opening of these documents insist that the birth parents may not want contact from the children (DuPrau, 28).The supporters of opening adoption records insist that the opening of these documents does not necessarily imply intent of contact. In many cases the adult adoptee is simply curious or is intent on identifying any genetic medical conditions of the birth parents (Blanton & Deschner, 530 .The issue of people preferring abortion to adoption due to the ramifications of the children later looking for them has also been debated. The supporters of open documents maintain that the two issues are unrelated and the rates of abortion have not increased in states that have allowed open adoption documents (Cocozzell, 36).There is no need for the birth parent to feel insecure because most states specify no contact unless it is permitted. The birth parents have no biding parental responsibilities on the adopted adult and the only thing they seek is information on their identity and possible their medical condition. In some instances birth parents who gave up their children for adoption are also interested in mak ing contact and are relieved when the adopted adults contact them (Cocozzell, 36).There are also arguments that insist that the identification of birth parents is a threat to the relationship of the adopted individual with their adoptive parents. While it may be true for an adopted child, for an adult adoptee, the identification of the birth parents is not a threat to their relationship with the adoptive parents (DuPrau, 18).In conclusion, all adoption documents should be open to all adopted people over the age of eighteen years. This allows equality to all people and gives the adopted adults peace of mind regarding any questions they may have concerning their identity as well as any potential genetic conditions which, they may have inherited from their birth parents.REFERENCESBlanton L. & Deschner Jeanne, â€Å"Biological Mothers' Grief: The Post adoptive Experience in Open vs. Confidential Adoption,† Child Welfare 59 (1990): 525-535.Cocozzelli Carmello, â€Å"Predicting th e Decision of Biological Mothers to Retain or Relinquish Their Babies for Adoption: Implications for Open Placement,† Child Welfare 68 (1999): 33-44.DuPrau Jeanne. Adoption: the facts, feelings, and issues of a double heritage. Michigan: University of Michigan, 2007. 16-99.