AP Psychology Unit 0 Test Study Guide Flashcards

Comprehensive review flashcards covering scientific attitudes, study techniques, research methods, biases, sampling strategies, and research designs from the Unit 0 AP Psychology study guide.

What is an Internal Locus of Control?

The attitude or belief that you are in charge of the outcome of your actions.

What is Self-Efficacy?

The belief that you are capable of success.

What is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in the context of studying?

A negative belief that if you think you will fail, you will fail because you do not give your best effort.

What is Metacognition?

The process of working to figure out what you do and do not know by constantly testing yourself and working on areas of need.

What is Active Recall?

A study approach based on testing your knowledge rather than passive recognition, relying on test review rather than study review.

What is Distributed Practice?

Practicing a little bit at a time spaced over multiple days instead of cramming all at once, which is more effective for long-term memory.

What is Interleaving?

Switching between topics within a study session and studying ideas in a different order when reviewing them.

What is Elaborative Rehearsal?

Assigning meaning to what you are studying so that the material actually makes sense to you for long-term memory.

What is Overconfidence?

A cognitive bias demonstrated when a person is sure their candidate will win because they believe most reasonable people think like themselves.

What is Critical Thinking?

An attitude or practice where a person questions a source's credibility and looks for evidence to support claims when reading psychological findings.

What is Psychology?

The scientific study of how humans think, feel, and act, and the connections between the human mind and behavior.

What is Hindsight Bias?

The tendency to believe, after an outcome has occurred, that one foresaw it, such as exclaiming "I knew they were going to lose all along" after a team loses.

What is an Illusory Correlation?

Perceiving a relationship between two variables when none actually exists, such as believing a new moon brings bad luck despite data showing no relationship.

What is Quantitative Data?

Data consisting of numerical values, such as responses to Likert scale style questions rated from 1 to 5.

What is Qualitative Data?

Non-numerical, descriptive data, such as responses to open-ended questions where participants elaborate on thoughts in their own words.

What is a Theory?

An evidence-based explanation of people's behaviors and mental processes, such as the idea of Self-Determination explaining motivation.

What is a Hypothesis?

A testable prediction derived from a theory, such as predicting that students perceiving greater autonomy, competence, and relatedness will have higher motivation and well-being.

What does Falsifiable mean?

The characteristic of a hypothesis or theory being able to be disproven by collected evidence.

What is an Operational Definition?

A clear, specific statement of how researchers measure or manipulate a variable, such as measuring academic well-being using a specific set of survey responses.

What is Validity?

The extent to which a test or instrument accurately measures what it intends to measure, verified by comparing it to an established survey testing the same construct.

What is Social Desirability Bias?

The tendency of research participants to inflate or modify their survey responses to present themselves in a favorable light or match what they think researchers want to see.

What is Self-Report Bias?

Errors introduced when participants provide inaccurate self-reported data, such as making random guesses about past studying behavior due to poor memory.

What is Reliability?

The consistency of a measure over time, tested by administering a similar survey weeks later to check if participants give consistent responses.

What is Peer Review?

The process in which experts in a field evaluate a proposal or study before it is published in a journal.

What is Replication?

Repeating a research study, often with different participants in different settings or countries, to see if the original findings extend to other circumstances.

What is a Population?

The entire group of individuals that researchers want their findings to apply to, such as all college students in the US.

What is a Sample?

A subset of the population selected to participate in a study, such as 400 students selected from a university.

What is a Convenience Sample?

A sample selected because of easy accessibility to the researchers, such as using students from the researchers' own Psych 101 classes.

What is Sampling Bias?

A flawed sampling process that produces an unrepresentative sample, such as choosing participants who differ systematically in age or characteristics from the target population.

What is a Representative Sample?

A sample that accurately reflects the key characteristics of the larger population being studied.

What is a Random Sample?

A sampling method where every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected, such as using a random number generator to choose participants.

What is Generalizability?

The extent to which research findings from a sample can be applied or generalized to the broader target population.

What is Random Assignment?

Assigning participants to experimental and control conditions randomly (e.g., using a random number generator), which helps establish causality.

What is the difference in purpose between Random Assignment and Random Sampling?

Random sampling is used to select participants from a population to ensure representativeness, while random assignment is used to divide selected participants into experimental groups to establish causality.

What is a Correlational Study?

A research design that measures the strength and direction of a relationship between two variables without manipulating them, such as surveying social media hours and self-esteem.

What is a Case Study?

An in-depth, long-term investigation of a single individual or unique situation, gathering detailed history, cognitive tests, and interviews to gain insights into rare conditions.

What is a Naturalistic Observation?

A research method involving observing and recording spontaneous behavior of subjects in naturally occurring environments without intervention, such as video-recording preschool play areas.

What is a Meta-Analysis?

A statistical technique that combines and analyzes data from multiple individual published studies on the same topic to draw a comprehensive conclusion.

What is an Experiment?

A research method where researchers manipulate one or more independent variables and randomly assign participants to conditions to determine cause-and-effect relationships.