AP Psych Final Study Guide

What is nature vs. nurture?

Nature vs. nurture is the debate on whether genetics or environment has a greater influence on human behavior and development.

What are sensations?

Sensations are the raw data of experience received through our senses, such as touch, taste, sight, sound, and smell.

How your brain interprets that information being provided.

Perception

A way of measuring or quantifying a variable.

Indicators

The science of behavior and mental processes.

What is psychology?

What is a Case Study? 

Research method involving in-depth analysis of a single subject, group, or event to understand complex phenomena in real-life contexts.

An early approach focused on the structure of the mind.

Structuralism

What is Functionalism? 

A psychological perspective that focuses on how mental processes help individuals adapt to their environment and achieve goals.

Who developed Functionalism? 

William James and influenced by Charles Darwin.

What is Naturalistic Observation? 

Observing behavior in a natural setting without intervention or manipulation by the researcher. Helps understand behavior in real-life contexts.

What is Random sampling?

A method where each member of a population has an equal chance of being selected for a study, ensuring representativeness.

What is Replication?

The process of copying and reproducing data to ensure consistency and reliability in research or experiments.

What is a survey?

A research method where data is collected from a sample of individuals to gather information on attitudes, behaviors, or characteristics.

What is Random Assignment?

A research method where participants are randomly assigned to different groups in order to minimize bias and ensure equal representation.

The variable being manipulated.

Independent Variable

What is the dependent variable?

The factor being measured or tested in an experiment. It is affected by the independent variable and changes in response to it.

What is experimental group vs. Control Group?

Experimental Group: Receives the treatment or intervention being studied. Control Group: Does not receive the treatment and is used as a comparison in an experiment.

A factor other than the factor being studied that might influence a study’s results.

Confounding variable

What is the Placebo Effect?

A phenomenon where a person experiences improvement in symptoms after receiving a fake treatment due to the belief that it is real.

What is a Single Blind Procedure?

Study design where participants are unaware of the treatment they are receiving, reducing bias in the results.

When neither the researcher or participants know who received the treatment.

Double blind procedure

What are descriptive statistics vs Inferential Statistics?

Numerical data used to measure and describe characteristics of groups vs infer from sample data the probability of something being true of a pop

What is the mean, median, and mode?

The mean is the average, the median is the middle most number, and the mode is the most occurring number.

What is Standard Deviation?

A quantity calculated to indicate the extent of deviation for a group as a whole.

When all subjects are given necessary information to decide to participate in the study, or not.

informed consent

When any data collected in the experiment should remain confidential.

confidentiality

What is debriefing?

a formal version of providing emotional and psychological support immediately following an event.

What does the American Psychological Association (APA) establish?

Local institution review boards - screen research proposals and safeguards participants well - being at each institution

What board reviews proposals for research?

Institutional Review Boards

Who was the pioneer of Freudian psychology?

Sigmund Freud

Who was the pioneer of Structuralism?

Wilhelm Wundt

Who was the pioneer of Humanism?

Francesco Petrarca and Carl Rogers

What is Humanism?

theories and ideas based on human emotional and basic needs, such as love and a sense of belonging.

What is cognitive psychology?

involves the study of internal mental processes

What is Classical Conditioning?

learned to anticipate and associate stimuli with events

Give an example of Classical Conditioning.

Ivan Pavlov with the bells and dogs.

What is Operant Conditioning?

Conditioning to a specific environment.

Give an example of Operant Conditioning.

A child may be told they will lose recess privileges if they talk out of turn in class

What is the weakness of Functionalism?

Failure to account for social change and individual agency.

What is the strength of Freudian Psychology?

The acknowledgment of the role of the unconscious.

What is the strength of Behaviorism?

The ability to clearly observe and measure behaviors.

What is the weakness of Humanism?

The fact that their concepts are too vague.

Who was famous for training animal and human behaviors through controlled stimuli and their consequences?

Ivan Pavlov

What psychological domain assesses and treats mental, emotional, and behavior disorders?

The mental and physical health domain.

What psychological domain describes how the brain activity circuits affect our behaviors or causes our emotions?

Affective neuroscience

What psychological domain is the study of all mental abilities associated with knowing, remembering, thinking, and communicating?

Cognition

What psychological domain is the study of changing abilities from birth to death; how do we progress from infancy to childhood then teen years then to adulthood? 

Lifespan Development

What psychological domain studies behavior by doing experiments and observation in humans and animals?

Experimental Psychology

What psychological domain seeks to encourage acceptance of someone’s past?

Social and Personality

What psychological domain studies the methods and influences on teaching and learning?

Educational psychology

What psychological domain studies how expression of emotions vary across cultural and situational contexts?

Socio-cognitive psychology

What psychological studies the use of psychological concepts and methods to select employees, boost morale, design products, and better business functioning?

Industrial and organizational psychology

What psychological domain studies how unconscious drive and conflicts influence behavior?

Psychodynamic psychology

What psychological domain can be applied to any field as it is a form of measurement?

Psychometrics

What psychological domain deals with investigating and logging persistent traits and consistent characteristics of people across time?

Personality

What psychological domain has professionals who help people to cope with crises and/or help people adjust to life transitions?

Clinical psychology

What is contemporary psychology?

Studying the interactions of physiological (biological) and cognitive processes

What are Gestalt principles?

Our drive to group things into larger parts, and see in sequence or as a whole

What are protection groups? s categories and numerical values?

Various institutions and entities set and determine protocol for psychological experiments

What are scatter plots?

A graph cluster of two variables, w/ slope suggesting relationship (positive, negative, or none)

What is a hypothesis?

A testable prediction related to a theory (confirmed or unconfirmed by experiment)

What are theories?

Explanations that organize observations and predict outcomes (an overarching idea)

How does the endocrine system send signals and responses?

Slowly through the bloodstream

What causes lingering feelings and moods?

Adrenaline surges

Which glands are above the kidney and release adrenaline in fight or flight situations?

Adrenal Glands

Which organ is below the lungs and releases insulin?

Pancreas

Which organ is located in the neck and controls metabolism?

Thyroid

Which gland is considered the master gland that releases growth and other hormones that can severely impact your behavior?

Pituitary Gland

Which organs release testosterone and estrogen?

The testes and ovaries

What are the 5 main dream theories about why we dream?

Meant to satisfy our wishes, aid the filing away of memories, develop and preserve neural pathways, make sense of neural static, play a role in reflecting on cognitive development.

Which nervous system is most information sent to the brain through?

Central Nervous System

Which nervous information sends most sensory information to the brain?

Spinal cord

Which nervous system is uncontrollable and controls things like the beating of the heart, digesting of food, and moving of organs?

Autonomic nervous system

Which nervous system causes you to panic and enter fight or flight?

Sympathetic nervous system

Which nervous system slows your heart rate, lowers blood sugar and calms you down after fight or flight?

Parasympathetic nervous system

What are the 5 parts that make up a neuron?

Dendrites, Soma, Axon, Terminal buttons, Synapse

What is the term for chemicals in drugs that can bind and activate the receptors in synapses?

Agonist

What are the destroying of brain cells and tissue known as?

Lesions

What are the stages of sleep?

Waking beta, waking alpha, non-REM 1, non-REM 2, non-REM 3, REM

What are the functions of the frontal lobe?

creativity, problem - solving, abstract thinking, and personality

What are the functions of the temporal lobe?

helps you use your senses to understand and respond to the world around you

What are the functions of the parietal lobe?

receiving and processing sensory input such as touch, pressure, heat, cold, and pain.

What are the functions of the occipital lobe?

eyesight

What are the functions of the cerebellum?

muscle control, including balance and movement

What is the term for substances that change perceptions and moods?

Psychoactive drugs

What is the continued craving and use of substances despite significant disruption or physical risk?

Substance use disorder

When does addiction occur?

when bodies chemically adapt to these drugs, and require greater amounts each time to achieve an altered state or in some cases, just to feel normal and devoid pain

What is the severe distress and discomfort after drug use has been halted?

withdrawal

What  are the three primary types of drugs?

alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates

What is the name for drugs that are essentially tranquilizers?

barbiturates

What type of drug is the most addicting?

Opiates

What is the type of drug that excites neural function and speeds up the body called?

Stimulants

What is the type of drug that distorts perception and evokes sensory images in the absence of sensory input?

Hallucinogens

What is Vision?

pulses of electromagnetic energy (light) are received through the cornea, then the pupil, the the lens which focuses the light on the retina (the light - sensitive inner surface of the eye)

What are Feature receptors?

They relay information on shape, edges, angles, etc, to the other parts of the brain and allow us to recognize familiar faces and shapes from various angles, colors, etc.

What is Perceptual constancy?

The recognition of things from different angles and colors.

What is Parallel processing?

The simultaneous perception of speed, distance, texture, color, etc

What is Transduction?

The brain merely receiving light energy and converting it to neurochemical energy to be interpreted by our brains.

What is Sensation?

A physical feeling or perception resulting from something that happens to or comes into contact with the body

What is Perception?

the state of being or process of becoming aware of something through the senses