AP Psych vocab

Habit Loop

A neurological pattern involving a cue, routine, and reward that drives behavior.

Retrieval

The process of accessing and bringing into consciousness information stored in memory.

Algorithm

A systematic, step-by-step procedure used to solve problems or make decisions.

Stimulus

Any event or situation that evokes a response from an organism.

Recall Heuristic

A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind when evaluating a specific topic.

Chameleon Effect

The tendency to mimic the behavior of others in social situations.

Recognition

The ability to identify previously encountered information or stimuli.

Representativeness Heuristic

A cognitive bias where people judge the probability of an event based on how much it resembles a typical case.

Growth Mindset / Fixed Mindset

A growth mindset believes abilities can be developed; a fixed mindset believes abilities are static.

Relearning

The process of learning information again that was previously learned but forgotten.

Availability Heuristic

A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind when evaluating a specific situation.

Distanced self talk

Speaking to oneself in a detached manner to facilitate emotional distance from a problem.

Retrieval Cues

Stimuli that help in the recovery of stored information.

Mental Set

A tendency to approach situations in a certain way because that method worked in the past.

Ironic process theory

The phenomenon when attempting not to think about something results in thinking about it more.

Priming

The activation of certain associations in memory just before carrying out an action or task.

Conformity

The act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms.

Encoding Specificity Principle

The idea that retrieval is most effective when the conditions at the time of encoding match the conditions at retrieval.

Holt Cold Empathy Gap

The difficulty in understanding others' feelings, especially when in a different emotional state.

Context-Dependent Memory

The phenomenon where the recall of information is improved when the context present at encoding is also present at retrieval.

Framing

The way information is presented can significantly affect decision-making.

Nudge

A subtle prompt that encourages a particular behavior without restricting choice.

Subjective Well Being

An individual's self-assessment of their life satisfaction and feelings.

Mood-Congruent Memory

The tendency to recall memories that are consistent with one's current mood.

Gambler's Fallacy

The belief that previous events can affect the probability of future independent events.

Impact bias

The tendency to overestimate the emotional impact of future events.

Self Compassion

Extending compassion to oneself in instances of pain or failure.

State-Dependent Memory

The phenomenon where people perform better on tests if their physical or emotional state at retrieval matches their state at encoding.

Testing Effect

The enhanced ability to remember information as a result of retrieving it during testing.

Sunk-Cost Fallacy

The tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made.

Gratitude

A feeling of thankfulness and appreciation.

Meta Cognition

Awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes.

Functional Fixedness

The inability to see a new use for an object, leading to a limitation in problem-solving.

Mindfulness

The practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of complete awareness of one's thoughts, emotions, and experiences.

Interleaving

A learning technique that involves mixing different subjects or topics while studying.

Insight

The sudden realization of the solution to a problem.

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information that confirms one's preexisting beliefs.

Hedonic adaptation

The observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events.

The Forgetting Curve

A graphical representation of how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it.

Fixation

The inability to see a problem from a new perspective.

Flow

A mental state of complete immersion in an activity.

Encoding Failure

The inability to store information in long-term memory.

Intuition

The ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

Psychological Immune System

The mental mechanisms that help people recover from emotional distress.

Proactive Interference

The tendency for previously learned information to interfere with the retrieval of new information.

Overconfidence

An excessive belief in one's own abilities or judgments.

Social Comparison

The process of comparing oneself to other people to evaluate one's own abilities, achievements, or characteristics.

Retroactive Interference

The tendency for newer information to interfere with the retrieval of older information.

Belief Perseverance

The cognitive phenomenon where people hold on to their beliefs even when confronted with contrary evidence.

Feel Good Do Good

The phenomenon where people who feel good are more likely to help others.

Emotional Contagion

The tendency for emotions to spread from one person to another.

Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon

The sensation of knowing a target word but being unable to retrieve it from memory.

Ego

The part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity.

Language

A system of symbols and rules for combining those symbols to create meaningful communication.

Social Benchmark

Standards used to assess individuals in a social context.

Repression

The unconscious exclusion of painful impulses, desires, or fears from awareness.

Phonemes

The basic units of sound in a language.

Morphemes

The smallest units of meaning in a language.

Social Proof

A psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect correct behavior.

Reconsolidation

The process by which retrieved memories are reconsolidated and stored again.

Semantics

The study of meaning in language.

Self report

A method of gathering data about individuals' perceptual states or behaviors through their own accounts.

Misinformation Effect

When a person's recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate due to post-event information.

Naturalistic Observation

A research method where behavior is observed in its natural environment without manipulation.

Source Amnesia

The inability to remember where or how a piece of information was acquired.

Grammar

The system of rules that governs the structure and use of language.

Syntax

The arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language.

Experiment

A research method that involves manipulating variables to determine cause-and-effect relationships.

Deja Vu

The feeling of having experienced a present situation before.

Universal Grammar (UG)

The theory that suggests the ability to learn grammar is hard-wired into the brain.

Statistical Analysis

A collection of methods for planning, collecting, organizing, analyzing, and interpreting data.

Constructive Memory

The process of remembering that may lead to the creation of false memories.

Critical thinking

The objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.

Memory Consolidation

The process by which recent memories are transformed into a more permanent state.

Cooing

The earliest stage of language development in infants, characterized by vowel-like sounds.

Hindsight bias

The tendency to see events as having been predictable after they have already occurred.

Babbling

The stage of language development where infants make repeated syllable sounds.

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to search for and interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.

Imagination Inflation

The phenomenon where imagining an event increases confidence that it had actually occurred.

One-Word Stage

The early stage of language acquisition where children use single words to communicate.

Overconfidence

A cognitive bias characterized by an overestimation of one's abilities or knowledge.

Two-Word Stage

The stage in language acquisition where children begin to use two-word combinations.

Telegraphic Speech

A form of communication consisting of simple two-word sentences that convey a complete thought.

Peer reviewers

Experts who evaluate and provide feedback on the quality of research before it is published.

Overgeneralization

The tendency to apply a grammatical rule too broadly, often seen in language development.

Falsifiable

The property of a statement or claim that allows it to be proven false by evidence.

Wernicke's Area

A region of the brain responsible for language comprehension.

Operational Definition

A clear and precise statement of the procedures used to define research variables.

Linguistic Determinism

The theory that language shapes and limits human thought.

Replication

The process of repeating a study to see if the findings can be reproduced.

Linguistic Relativity

The hypothesis that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview.

Case Study

An in-depth analysis of an individual or group, often used in psychological research.

Descriptive Statistics

Statistical methods that summarize and describe the features of a dataset.

Meta-Analysis

A statistical technique for combining the findings from independent studies.

Histogram

A graphical representation of the distribution of numerical data.

Survey

A research method used to gather information about individuals' opinions, behaviors, or characteristics.

Measure of Central Tendency

A number that represents the center of a data set, typically the mean, median, or mode.

Social desirability bias

The tendency of respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others.

Mode

The value that appears most frequently in a data set.

Self-report bias

The tendency for individuals to respond inaccurately or falsely to questions, impacting the validity of data.