AP Psychology Unit 2B Vocab (copy)

Module 2.2a - Thinking, Problem Solving, Judgments, and Decision Making: Concepts and Creativity

Cognition

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Metacognition

“beyond cognition”.. cognition about our cognition; keeping track of and evaluating our mental processes.

Concept

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Prototype

a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a crow).

assimilate

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.

accommodate

(1) in sensation and perception, the process by which the eye’s lens changes shape to focus images of near or far objects on the retina. (2) in developmental psychology, adapting our current schemas (understandings) to incorporate new information.

Creativity

the ability to produce new novel and valuable ideas.

Fermat’s last theorem

dreamed up by seventeenth-century mischievous genius Pierre de Fermat, baffled mathmeticians for hundreds of years before eventually being proved. (great example of creativity)

aptitude

ability to learn

convergent thinking 

narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution. (SAT tests this)

divergent thinking

expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions.

Functional fixedness

occurs when our prior experiences inhibit our ability to find creative solutions. Bricklayers may only see a brick as part of a home rather than as a possible doorstop.

Components of Creativity 

Robert Sternberg and his colleagues believe creativity has five components

Expertise

well-developed knowledge — furnishes the ideas, images, and phrases we use as mental building blocks.

Imaginative Thinking Skills

provide the ability to see things in novel ways, to recognize patterns, and to make connections. Having mastered a problem’s basic elements, we can redefine or explore it in a new way.

A Venturesome Personality

seeks new experiences, tolerates ambiguity and risk, and perseveres in overcoming obstacles.

Intrinsic Motivation

is the quality of being driven more by interest, satisfaction, and challenge than by external pressures Creative people focus less on extrinsic motivators — meeting deadlines, impressing people, or making money — than on the pleasure and stimulation of the work itself.

A Creative Environment

sparks, supports, and refines creative ideas. A study of the careers of 2026 prominent scientists and inventors revealed that the most eminent were mentored, challenged, and supported by their colleagues. Creativity-fostering environments support innovation, team building, and communication, also minimize anxiety and foster contemplation.

How to Develop Creativity

Develop your Expertise

Ask yourself what you care about and most enjoy. Follow your passion by broadening your knowledge base and becoming an expert at something.

Allow time for incubation

Think hard on a problem, but then set it aside and come back to it later. Periods of inattention to a problem (“sleeping on it”) allow for automatic processing to form associations

Set aside time for the mind to roam freely

Creativity springs from “defocused attention”. So, detach from attention-grabbing TV shows, social media, and video gaming. Jog, go for a long walk, or meditate. Serenity seeds spontaneity.

Experience other cultures and ways of thinking

Viewing life from a different perspective sometimes sets the creative juices flowing. Students who spend time in other cultures learn how to blend new norms with those from their home culture, which increases creativity (Godart et al., 2015; Lu et al., 2018). Even getting out of your neighborhood or embracing intercultural friendships fosters flexible thinking (Kim et al., 2013; Ritter et al., 2012).

Module 2.2b - Thinking, Problem Solving, Judgments, and Decision Making: Solving Problems and Making Decisions

executive functions

cognitive skills that work together, enabling us to generate, organize, plan, and implement goal-directed behavior.

algorithms

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier — but also more error-prone — use of heuristics.

heuristics

a simple thinking strategy — a mental shortcut — that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than an algorithm.

insight

a sudden realization of a problem’s solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

Confirmation bias

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Fixation

in cognition, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving.

Mental set

a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

intuition

an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

representativeness heuristics

judging the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information. (mental shortcut)

availability heuristics

judging the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common. (mental shortcut)

gambler’s fallacy

If people observe random events happening repeatedly (flipping a coin and having it land on heads eight times in a row), they may unconsciously use the representativeness heuristic when judging the likelihood of future events (assuming the coin will surely land on tails the next time).

overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident than correct — to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

planning fallacy

overestimating our future leisure time and income; ex. Students and others often expect to finish assignments ahead of schedule

sunk-cost fallacy

where we stick to our original plan because we’ve invested our time, even when switching to a new approach could save us time

belief perseverance

the persistence of one’s initial conceptions even after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

motivated reasoning

the process of using evidence to draw conclusions, rather than conclusions to assess the evidence (incorrect way of thinking)

Framing

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

nudge

framing choices in a way that encourages people to make beneficial decisions.

Intuition is?

born of experience, usually adaptive, huge

Module 2.8a - Intelligence and Achievement: Theories of Intelligence

intelligence

the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

past intelligence definition

defined as whatever intelligence tests measure, which has tended to be school smarts.

general intelligence

according to Spearman and others, underlies all mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.

factor analysis

a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person’s total score.

primary mental abilities

word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial ability, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and memory

fluid intelligence (Gf)

our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease with age, especially during late adulthood.

crytallized intelligence (Gc)

our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory

the theory that our intelligence is based on g as well as specific abilities, bridged by Gf and Gc.

relatively independent intelligences

refers to the theory that intelligence is not a single, general ability, but rather a collection of distinct, independent intelligences. identifies eight different types of intelligence, which can operate independently of one another. (a person can excel in one area while being average or weak in another)

existential intelligence

a ninth possible intelligence, defined as the ability “to ponder large questions about life, death, existence.”

savant syndrome

a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.

Sternberg’s Three Intelligences

Analytical (academic problem-solving) intelligence

is assessed by intelligence tests, which present well-defined problems having a single right answer. Such tests predict school grades reasonably well and vocational success more modestly

Creative intelligence 

demonstrated in innovative smarts: the ability to adapt to new situations and generate novel ideas.

Practical Intelligence

required for everyday tasks that may be poorly defined and may have multiple solutions.

emotional intelligence

the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.

Four aspects of emotional intelligence

Perceiving emotions (recognizing them in faces, music, and stories, and identifying our own emotions).

Understanding emotions (predicting them and how they may change and blend).

Managing emotions (knowing how to express them in varied situations, and how to handle others’ emotions).

Using emotions to facilitate adaptive or creative thinking.

Module 2.8b - Intelligence and Achievement: Assessing Intelligence

intelligence test

a method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

achievement tests

a test designed to assess what a person has learned, reflect what you have learned (ex. AP exam)

aptitude tests

a test designed to predict a person’s future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn. (ex. college entrance exam)

collectivism

cultures emphasize the collective welfare of the family, community, and society

individualism

cultures focus on promoting individual opportunit

eugenics

the discriminatory nineteenth- and twentieth-century movement that proposed measuring human traits and encouraging only those deemed “fit” to reproduce

mental age

a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the level of performance typically associated with children of a certain chronological age. Thus, a child who does as well as an average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8.

Stanford-Binet

the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet’s original intelligence test.

intelligence quotient (IQ)

defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca × 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100.

Wechsler Adult intelligence Scale (WAIS)

the WAIS and its companion versions for children are the most widely used intelligence tests; they contain verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests.

Components of WAIS

Similarities (commonalities between two objects), Vocab (name/define objects), Block Design (visual abstract processing), Letter-number sequencing (answering questions based on a sequence)

psychometric

the scientific study of the measurement of human abilities, attitudes, and traits.

standardization

defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group.

normal curve

a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean (about 68 percent fall within one standard deviation of it) and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes. (Also called a normal distribution.)

Flynn effect

the rise in intelligence test performance over time and across cultures.

reliability

the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternative forms of the test, or on retesting.

validity

the extent to which a test or experiment measures or predicts what it is supposed to. (See also predictive validity.)

content validity

the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest.

construct validity

how much a test measures a concept or trait.

predictive validity

the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior. (Also called criterion-related validity.)

Module 2.8c Intelligence and Achievement - Stability of, and Influences on, Intelligence

cohort

a group of people sharing a common characteristic, such as from a given time period.

Intelligence ?

facilitates more education, encourages healthy living, a “well-wired body”, can be influenced by prenatal/early life illness

Heritability

portion of variation among individuals in a group that we can attribute to genes

polygenetic

traits involving the interaction of many genes

growth mindset

a focus on learning and growing rather than viewing abilities as fixed

fixed mindset

the view that intelligence, abilities, and talents are unchangeable, even with effort.

Module 2.8d Intelligence and Achievement - Group Differences and the Question of Bias

stereotype threat

a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.

stereotype lift

If you are confident that your group or “type” does well on a task, being exposed to situations that create stereotype threat in outgroup members may actually improve your performance