Bay Ridge, a city with a population of about 125,000, experienced remarkable growth over a short time for two major reasons. First, several large industries were attracted to the area; with more jobs came more people. Second, due to a rezoning plan, several small townships were incorporated into Bay Ridge, which caused a sudden burgeoning in the city’s official population. As a consequence of this growth, the city needed to expand its police force. For many years, Bay Ridge had a relatively small force and used only a brief interview to select the officers. Recently, however, there had been several complaints about the city’s selection interview. Due to the complaints and the need to hire many more officers, the city council decided to abandon the old method of hiring. The city commissioned a work analysis for police officers and determined that three major factors contributed to success on the job. The next step was to develop selection measures to assess each of the three factors. The city council called a meeting with the city personnel director to get a progress report on the selection measures being proposed. Four city council members and Ron Davenport, the city personnel director, attended.

Davenport: I’m pleased to report to you that we have made substantial progress in our study. The work analysis revealed that the following factors determine success on the police force: physical agility, sensitivity to community relations, and practical judgment. We are fairly pleased with the tests developed to assess two of the factors, although one of them is causing us some problems.

Councilmember DeRosa: Would you kindly elaborate on what these factors mean?

Davenport: Certainly. Physical agility is important in being able to apprehend and possibly disarm a suspect. It is also important in being able to carry a wounded officer out of the line of hostile fire. Sensitivity to community relations involves knowledge of racial and ethnic problems in the city, plus an ability to work with the community in preventing crime. Practical judgment reflects knowing when it is advisable to pursue a criminal suspect and what methods of action to use in uncertain situations.

Councilmember Flory: How do you propose to measure physical agility?

Davenport: It looks as if we’ll go with some physical standard—being able to carry a 150-pound dummy 25 yards, or something similar. We might also use some height and weight requirements. We could have some problems with gender differences in that women are not as strong as men, but I think we can work it out.

Councilmember Reddinger: Are all of these tests going to be performance tests?

Davenport: No, that’s the only one so far. For the community relations factor, we’re going to use a situational interview. We’ll ask the candidates how they would go about dealing with some hypothetical but realistic problem, such as handling a domestic argument. The interviewers will grade their answers and give a total score.

Councilmember Hamilton: What will be a passing score in this interview?

Davenport: We haven’t determined that yet. We’re still trying to determine if this is the best way to measure the factor.

Councilmember Flory: How do you plan to measure practical judgment?

Davenport: That’s the problem case. We really haven’t figured out a good test of that yet.

Councilmember DeRosa: How about a test of general intelligence?

Davenport: It appears that practical judgment is related to intelligence, but it’s not the same thing. A person can be very intelligent in terms of verbal and numerical ability but not possess a great deal of practical judgment.

Councilmember Reddinger: Hasn’t some psychologist developed a test of practical judgment?

Davenport: Not that we know of. You also have to remember that the type of judgment a police officer has to demonstrate is not the same as the type of judgment, say, a banker has to show. I guess I’m saying there appear to be different kinds of practical judgment.

Councilmember Hamilton: Could you use some personality inventory to measure it?

Davenport: I don’t think so. I doubt that practical judgment is a personality trait. At least I’m not aware of any direct measures of it.

Councilmember Flory: How about using the interview again? A police officer has to demonstrate practical judgment in handling community relations. Can’t you just expand the interview a bit?

Davenport: That’s a possibility we’re considering. Another possibility is to put candidates in a test situation where they have to demonstrate their practical judgment. It could be a pretty expensive method, all things considered, but it may be the best way to go.

Councilmember DeRosa: I have a feeling, Mr. Davenport, that your success in measuring practical judgment will determine just how many good officers we get on the force.

Questions: 1. The city should validate whatever predictors it develops to select police officers. Describe how a criterion-related validity study would be used to assess the accuracy of the predictions.

2. Do you think biographical information might be useful in predicting one’s success as a police officer? If so, what types of items might be useful?

3. Describe a work sample or situational exercise that might measure practical judgment.

4. What might be a problem in using a physical ability test to select police officers?

5. The personnel department has asked you to assist in developing or selecting predictors of police officer performance. What advice would you give?

Wilton Petroleum Company was a wholesale distributor of a major brand of gasoline. Gasoline was shipped on barges from the refinery to the company. The company then delivered the gasoline to retail gas stations for sale to motorists. Each gasoline tanker truck was a huge, 18-wheel vehicle that held 9,000 gallons of gasoline. The gasoline that was pumped out of the truck into underground holding tanks at the gas stations was monitored precisely. The company knew exactly how many gallons of gasoline were pumped into the holding tanks at each gas station, and it knew exactly how many gallons were pumped out of each tanker truck. A meter on the tanker truck recorded the amount of gasoline that left the truck. A 20-foot hose extending from the truck permitted the driver to fill the tanks at each gas station. Every day each driver recorded the total volume of gasoline delivered. The total volume pumped out of the truck had to equal the total volume of gasoline deposited in the holding tanks. Any discrepancy was regarded as evidence of theft of the gasoline by the drivers. Based on years of experience the company knew there was a slight flaw in the system used to monitor the flow of gasoline out of the tanker. The meter recorded the flow of gasoline out of the tanker; however, about three gallons of gasoline in the 20-foot hose was always unrecorded. That was the gasoline that had flowed out of the truck but did not enter the holding tanks. One truck driver, Lew Taylor, believed he knew a way to “beat the system” and steal gasoline for his personal use. After making all his scheduled deliveries for the day, he extended the full length of the hose on the ground and let gravity drain out the 3 gallons of gasoline in the hose. The pump and the meter were not turned on, so there was no record of any gasoline leaving the tank. Company officials knew that Taylor was siphoning the gasoline based on the very small but repeated shortage in his records compared with those of other drivers. The value of the stolen gasoline each day was only about $9, but the cumulative value of the losses was considerable. Michael Morris, operations manager of the company, knew Taylor was stealing the gasoline but couldn’t prove it. Taylor had found a loophole in the monitoring system and had found a way to steal gasoline. Morris decided to lay a trap for Taylor. Morris “planted” a company hand tool (a hammer) on a chair at the entrance to the room where the drivers changed their clothes after work. Morris had a small hole drilled in the wall to observe the chair. He thought that if Taylor stole the gasoline, he might be tempted to steal the hammer. The trap worked: Taylor was spied placing the company tool under his jacket as he walked out the door. On a signal from Morris, security officers approached Taylor and asked about the hammer. Taylor produced the hammer, was led by the security officers to Morris’s office, and was immediately fired. Although Taylor had stolen hundreds of dollars worth of gasoline from his employer, he was terminated for the theft of a hammer worth about $10.

Questions:

1. If Taylor had a perfect attendance record, made all his deliveries on time, had effective interpersonal skills, and in all other ways was a conscientious employee, would you still have fired Taylor for committing theft if you had been Morris? Why or why not?

2. Do you think Taylor “got what was coming to him” in this case, or was he “set up” by Morris and thus was a victim of entrapment?

3. What do you think of the ethics of companies that spy on their employees with peepholes and cameras to detect theft? Why do you feel as you do?

4. What effect might Taylor’s dismissal by Wilton Petroleum have on other employees of the company?

5. Have you ever “taken” a paperclip, pencil, or sheet of paper home with you from your place of work? If so, do you consider it to be a case of theft on your part? Why or why not, and what’s the difference between “theft” of a paperclip versus a hammer?

Left Brain vs. Right Brain

(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

The follow from http://www.funderstanding.com/brain/right-brain-vs-left-brain/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Explains the basics of of right brain vs. left brain in terms of which skills use which hemisphere of the brain.

http://funderstanding.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/left-brain-right-brain.png

Some feel that humans prefer one side of the brain or the other. Here are some reports to gather more information:

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/study-right-brain-left-brain-theory-is-a-myth/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/12/02/248089436/the-truth-about-the-left-brain-right-brain-relationship (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

What do you believe? Do you tend to learn best when using creativity (right-brained) or logic (left-brained)?

Click on a link below and test yourself: http://www.intelliscript.net/test_area/questionnaire/questionnaire.cgi (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. http://testyourself.psychtests.com/testid/3178 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

In your post, discuss your results and your opinion about dominant brain hemispheres in your posts. Give examples of which hemisphere is dominant in you.

What impact do you think this has on learning?

  What role does culture or genetics play when we consider individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds?
•   How does this correlate with lower IQ scores, lower achievement scores, higher risk of high school drop-out, and the lower likelihood of success?

Have you ever found yourself in a heated debate over a memory dispute with a friend or family member where both you and the other person swear that their details of a memory are accurate? This week we are going to take a closer look at this phenomenon. After reading about memory in your textbook, discuss the following points:

Describe the processes of memory consolidation, recall, and reconsolidation.

Based on your understanding of these processes, what happens to older memories that are recalled and then reconsolidated multiple times?

In the above scenario, why do both people feel so strongly that their version of the event being recalled is the correct version?

If the memory of the event being recalled is 20 years old, can either person be 100% accurate in the recall of the details? Why or why not?

Explain in five paragraphs how and why modern Caribbean Families are still defined by the history of  Plantation Slavery.

Before you write your paper, conduct this simple experiment on classical conditioning.

You will need a bell (a set of keys works too, a hand-held mirror, and a room that becomes completely dark when the light is turned off. Hold the bell while standing in the room near the light switch. Once in position, ring the bell and then immediately turn off the light. Wait in total darkness for 15 seconds, then turn the light on. Wait another 15 seconds with the light on, then ring the bell and immediately turn the light off again, waiting another 15 seconds in the dark.

Repeat this procedure 20 to 30 times, making sure that in each case the bell is rung immediately before the light is turned off. Now, with the light on, watch your eyes closely in the mirror and then ring the bell. Your pupils should dilate slightly even without a change in light!

Cover the following items in your paper:

Share your experience with this experiment.

Identify the neutral stimulus (NS), the unconditioned stimulus (US), the unconditioned response (UR), the conditioned stimulus (CS), and the conditioned response (CR). (You must identify these five elements to receive full credit.)

Identify two to three real-life examples of classical conditioning that you are aware of in your life.

This paper should be one page.

Critical Thinking of Current Affairs

Collapse

Select a major current national or international news event. Apply your sociological imagination and your critical thinking skills, using the six rules of critical thinking described in Chapter 1, to explain the event. Thoroughly discuss several reasons why this event is occurring (or had occurred). In your response, be sure to demonstrate your ability to become a "critical consumer" of this information by looking beyond common sense and critiquing the information available to you.

How could you define operationally and measure the variables if Hypothesis: H0: p=0 (there is no linear relationship between playing video games and aggression). H1: p not equal to 0 (there is linear relationship between playing video games and aggression)?

Three Sociological Paradigms

Collapse

Let’s assume that a “welfare stigma” exists in American society. Many people have a perception that welfare recipients are “lazy” and that they “steal” the tax money. People also believe that welfare recipients make babies to stay on welfare instead of working. In fact, most welfare recipients are children, the elderly, the sick, the mentally and physically handicapped or young mothers with few skills. Explain why this “welfare stigma” exists by using TWO of the three sociological paradigms, structural functionalism, social conflict paradigm, and symbolic interactionism.

How Social Darwinism play a role in the debate over the annexation of the Philippines?

do an essay is open ended related to your major (atleast on page)

Apply two sociology concepts to a topic related to your major

Provide two examples

my major is Bussiness Managment and Marketing

Demonstrate your understanding of the NINE forms of nonverbal communication by taking a photo to represent each. Do not use photos found online. Get creative and use your imagination; ask friends or family to help stage scenes, take candid shots, use Lego figures, etc. The possibilities are endless. Start looking at the world around you through the lens of these forms of nonverbal messages. Insert each photo into your word document and discuss in depth how each relates to the specific type of nonverbal communication.
1. KINESICS

2. HAPTICS

3. PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

4. ARTIFACTS

5. ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

6. PROXEMICS

7. CHRONEMICS

8. PARALANGUAGE

9. SILENCE

RESPONSE:
a. What did you learn about nonverbal communication as a result of this activity?

“Several versions of the FFQ exist, but they all use a similar technique: Ask people how often they eat particular foods and what serving size they usually consume. But it’s not always easy to remember everything you ate, even what you ate yesterday. People are prone to underreport what they consume, and they may not fess up to eating certain foods or may miscalculate their serving sizes.”

“When I tried keeping a seven-day food diary, I discovered … it’s surprisingly difficult to capture a record that reflects normal eating patterns when you collect only a few days’ worth of data. It so happened that I was traveling to a conference during my diary week, so I ate packaged snacks and restaurant meals far different from the foods I usually eat from my garden at home. My diary showed that before dinner one day, I’d eaten only a doughnut and two snack packs of potato chips. And what did I have for dinner? I can tell you that it was a delicious Indonesian seafood curry, but I couldn’t possibly begin to list all its ingredients.”

When asked to report their behavior, people may not have access to the information (forget or never knew it) or they may deliberately lie. Fill in the following blanks with either 'no access' or 'lie'

          1) “it’s not always easy to remember everything you ate”

                 A) no access

                 B) lie

           2) “People are prone to underreport what they consume”

                 A) no access

                 B) lie

         3) “they may not fess up to eating certain foods”

                 A) no access

                 B) lie

   4) "may miscalculate their serving sizes."

                 A) no access

                 B) lie

           5) “I can tell you that it was a delicious Indonesian seafood curry, but I couldn’t possibly begin to list all its ingredients.”

                 A) no access

                 B) lie

Summarize developmental milestones: fine and gross motor skills, cognitive skills, and language skills that are typically expected to develop (at age 5-8 months, 9-12 months, 13-18 months, 19-24 months, and from 2-6 years of age). Include a description of Piaget’s stages of development during this period of life – skills and ages at which skills develop.