AP Psychology ALL Terms

adaptation-level phenomenon

our tendency to form judgments (of sounds, of lights, of income) relative to a "neutral" level defined by our prior experience

free association

in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.

psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

preconscious

Information that is not conscious but is retrievable into conscious awareness

id

contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic reproductive and aggressive drives. The ___ operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.

Oedipus complex

according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

sublimation

in psychoanalytic theory, the defense mechanism by which people rechannel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities

projective test

a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes

collective unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

the most widely reserached and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes

subjective well-being

self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life. Used along with measures of objective well-being (for example, physical and economic indicators) to evaluate people's quality of life.

relative deprivation

the perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself

personality

an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

unconscious

according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware

ego

the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain

superego

the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations

psychosexual stages

the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones

Electra complex

counterpart to the Oedipus complex for females

identification

the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos

fixation

according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved

defense mechanisms

in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality

repression

in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness

regression

defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated (ie thumb sucking)

reaction formation

psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings. (ie changing "I hate him" to "I love him")

projection

defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others (ie changing "I don't trust him" to "He doesn't trust me" ... "The thief thinks everyone else is a thief")

rationalization

defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions

displacement

psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet. (ie kicking the dog)

Rorschach inkblot test

the most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots

trait

a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.

personality inventory

a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits.

psychology

the science of behavior and mental processes

nature-nurture issue

the long-standing controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors

natural selection

the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations

neuroscience

the perspective of psychological science that deals with how the body and brain create emotions, memories, and sensory experiences

evolutionary

the perspective of psychological science that deals with how nature selects traits that promote the perpetuation of one's genes

behavior genetics

the perspective of psychological science that deals with how much our genes, and our environment, influence our individual differences

psychodynamic

the perspective of psychological science that deals with how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts

behavioral

the perspective of psychological science that deals with how we learn observable responses

cognitive

the perspective of psychological science that deals with how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information

social-cultural

the perspective of psychological science that deals with how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures

basic research

pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base

applied research

scientific study that aims to solve practical problems

clinical psychology

a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders

psychiatry

a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders, practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy

hindsight bias (I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon)

the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it

critical thinking

thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions

theory

an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes and predicts observations

hypothesis

a testable prediction, often implied by a theory

operational definition

a statement of the procedures (operations) used to define research variables. For example, intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures

replication

repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding generalizes to other participants and circumstances

case study

an observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles

survey

a technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of them

false consensus effect

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors

population

all the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study

random sample

a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion

naturalistic observation

observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation

correlation coefficient

a statistical measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other

scatterplot

a graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables. The slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship between the two variables. The amount of scatter suggests the strength of correlation (little scatter indicates high correlation).

illusory correlation

the perception of a relationship where none exists

experiment

a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). By random assignment of participants the experimenter controls other relevant factors)

placebo

an inert substance or condition that may be administered instead of a presumed active agent, such as a drug, to see if it triggers the effects believed to characterize the active agent

double-blind procedure

an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo. Commonly used in drug-evaluation studies.

placebo effect

any effect on behavior caused by a placebo

experimental condition

the condition of an experiment that exposes participants to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable

control condition

the condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluation the effect of the treatment

random assignment

assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups

independent variable

the experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect if being studied

dependent variable

the experimental factor--in psychology, the behavior or mental process--that is being measured; the variable that may change in response to the manipulations of the independent variable

mode

the most frequently occurring score in a distribution

mean

the arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores

median

the middle score in a distribution; the scores are above it and half are below it

range

the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution

standard deviation

a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score

statistical significance

a statistical criterion for rejecting the assumption of no differences in a particular study

culture

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next

Biological psychology

concerned with links between biology and behavior

Neuron

building blocks of the nervous system

Dendrite

Branches designed to receive/send/and transport information

Axon

transports messages to different muscles/glands in the body

Action potential

a neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon. The action potential is generated by the movement of positively charged atoms in and out of channels in the axon's membrane.

Myelin sheath

a layer of fatty tissue segmentally encasing the fibers of many neurons; enables vastly greater transmission speed of neural impulses as the impulse hops from one node to the next

Threshold

the level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse

Synapse

the junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. The tiny gap at this junction is called the synaptic gap or cleft

Neurotransmitters

chemical messengers that traverse the synaptic gaps between neurons. When released by the sending neuron, neurotransmitters travel across the synapse and bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron, thereby influencing whether it will generate a neural impulse

Acetylcholine

a neurotransmitter that, among its functions, triggers muscle contraction

Endorphins

"morphine within" - natural, opiatelike neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure.

Nervous system

the body's speedy, electrochemical communication system, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous systems.

Central nervous system (CNS)

the brain and spinal cord

Peripheral nervous system (PNS)

The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body

Nerves

Neural "cables" containing many axons. These bundled axons, which are part of the peripheral nervous system, connect the central nervous system with muscles, glands, and sense organs

Sensory neurons

neurons that carry incoming information from the sense receptors to the central nervous system

Interneurons

central nervous system neurons that intervene between the sensory inputs and motor outputs

Motor neurons

The neurons that carry outgoing information from the central nervous system to the muscles and glands

Somatic nervous system

the division of the peripheral nervous sytem that controls the body's skeletal muscles.

Autonomic nervous system

the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs (such as the heart). Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms.

Sympathetic nervous system

The division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations

Parasympathetic nervous system

The division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy

Reflex

a simple, automatic, inborn response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee-jerk response

Neural networks

interconnected neural cells. With experience, networks can learn, as feedback strengthens or inhibits connections that produce certain results. Computer stimulations of neural networks show analogous learning.