AP Psychology Last Minute Review

olfactory

of or relating to smell

retroactive interference

when a person has difficulty recalling old information because of newly learned information

proactive interference

difficulty in learning new information because of existing information

agoraphobia

irrational fear of being in public places

cognitive dissonance

people often have two conflicting cognitions which produce a state of tension or discomfort

absolute threshold

the smallest intensity of a stimulus that has to be present for the stimulus to be detected

Gestalt theory

the mind tends to perceive unified wholes and patterns rather than bits and pieces that make up those wholes and patterns

continuous variable

a way of organizing distributions which can have any range of values in between differing values

method of loci

a person visualizes items they're trying to learn in different spatial locations (associating things)

Piaget Cognitive Development

-Sensorimotor (0-2 years): object permanence

-Preoperational (2-7): language, egocentrism

-Concrete operational (7-11): begin to perform mental operations, conservation

-Formal operational (12-on): logical and hypothetical reasoning

Erikson Social Development

-Trust vs. Mistrust (1st year of life)

-Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (1-3): sense of control over bodily functions

-Initiative vs. Guilt (3-6): child's entry into a broader social world outside the home

-Industry vs. Inferiority (6-12): gain a sense of accomplishment and pride for their work

-Identity vs. Role Confusion (adolescence)

-Intimacy vs. Isolation (early adulthood)

-Generativity vs. Stagnation (middle adulthood): the struggle to be productive in both and career and home

-Integrity vs. Despair (old age): the struggle to come to terms with one's life

Kohlberg's Moral Development

-Preconventional morality: based on avoiding punishment and receiving awards

-Conventional morality (10-16): internalizing of society's rules and morals

-Postconventional morality: societal rules are still important, but an internal set of values has developed that may generate occasional conflict with societal values

egocentrism

seeing the world from only one's point of view

destruction of ventromedial hypothalamus

causes us to overeat

frontal lobe

responsible for higher-level thought and reasoning: working memory, solving problems, making plans, forming judgments

parietal lobe

handles somatosensory information

depolarization

a change in the difference between the electric charge on the inside and the outside of the cell membrane

transduction

transforming cell stimulation into neural impulses

reliability

consistent results

validity

the extent to which a test measures/predicts what it's supposed to

Freud's psychosexual stages

-oral (0-18 months)

-anal (18-36 months)

-phallic (3-6 years)

-latency (6-puberty)

-genital (puberty on)

empirically derived test

a test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups

reciprocal determinism

the interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and the environment

normative social influence

influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval/avoid disapproval

informational social influence

influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality

Titchener

structuralism, introspection

Plato

nature, ideas are inborn

Aristotle

stresses biology (nature)

Descartes

believed that some ideas are innate

Locke

blank slate

hindsight bias

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

cerebellum

helps coordinate muscles, movement, and balance, and implicit memories

cerebral cortex

the body's ultimate control and processing center

psychoactive drug

a drug that alters perception and mood

habituation

decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation

fluid intelligence

our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease with age

subliminal

below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness

fovea

visual acuity

nociceptors

sensory receptors whose signals are interpreted by the brain as pain

hippocampus

explicit memories

antipsychotic drugs

Thorazine

antianxiety drugs

Xanax, Valium, Ativan

antidepressants

Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft

mood stabilizers

lithium, depakote

Theory X

extrinsic