This for a cognitive psychology class you need this book Goldstein, E. B. (2015). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (4 th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning

Student’s Name

Dr. Viktoria Tidikis

PSY 260.4

16 April 2014

Cog. Journal Chapter 12

As human beings we are innately built to solve problems in a number of different ways. Our ability to do so determines if we will be able to function in everyday like, and to what extent we do so. If someone is unable to solve problems they will be unable to interact efficiently with their environment. Yet, you can still fall short of proper problem solving, even if your cognitive abilities are up to par. What can happen is that you experience obstacles that keep you from being able to solve a problem. These obstacles are known as fixations, which is, “people’s tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution” (Goldstein, p. 329). This problem-solving obstacle brings to mind a specific time when my mom suffered from fixation.

We’d just finished rearranging our living room when my mother decided we needed a new bookshelf to fill in some empty space. She went out and bought a bookshelf, determined to build it by herself. After an hour I could hear my mother becoming more and more frustrated with her task at hand. I came out into the living room to find my mom with the mostly built bookshelf before her. All she had left to do was nail on the prosthetic backing that’d keep the books from falling off the back of the bookshelf, but she was stuck. She explained to me that she wouldn’t be able to finish the bookshelf because she had a screwdriver and not a hammer, and would thus be unable to nail on the backing. My mother was suffering from functional fixedness, which is when you restrict, “the use of an object to its familiar functions” (Goldstein, p. 329). My mother’s idea of a screwdriver kept her from realizing that she could use the handled end of the screwdriver as a makeshift hammer to nail in the backing.

I eventually helped my mother out by telling her to use the screwdriver in place of a hammer. It was fascinating to see how our mental sets can affect the way we’re going to perceive something, based on our own experiences (Goldstein, p. 330). Its amazing to see how our own minds can set us up for failure and confusion.

References

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3rd Ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning