AP Psychology Theories, Phenomenons, Laws and Bias

anything useful for EBQ

Drive-Reduction theory

A psychological need that creates an aroused state that motivates someone to satisfy it and restore balance or homeostasis.

Incentive theory

arousal theory

Piaget's theory of cognitive development

children progress through distinct stages of intellectual growth as they develop their ability to think, understand, and reason. Sensorimotor stage →Preoperational stage →Concrete operational stage →Formal operational stage. 

Social-Learning Theory

Bandura’s theory that behavior is learned through observation and imitation of others, influenced by environmental and cognitive factors; reciprocal determinism

Signal-Detection Theory

Our awareness of stimulus depends on intensity of stimulus and our psychological state. Explains how individuals make decisions about the presence or absence of a signal in the presence of background noise or uncertainty (detecting an emergency vehicle's siren in the background noise of a busy city street)

Gender Schema Theory

Children learn from culture what it means to be fe/male and adjust behaviors accordingly

Young-Helmholz Trichoromatic Theory

Retina has 3 color receptors(red green blue) which can produce any color

Opponent Process Theory

Frequency Theory

Place Theory

Gate-control Theory

Just-World Phenomenon

James-Lange theory

Cannon-Bard theory

emotional responses occur simultaneously with physiological reactions. suggests that emotions and bodily responses are independent but happen at the same time. (think about a canon of emotions shooting)

Attribution theory

Singer-Schater Two-factor theory

Cognitive-Dissonance theory

mental discomfort arising from holding conflicting beliefs or attitudes, motivating them to reduce the discomfort by changing their thoughts and actions

Scapegoat theory

Social-Exchange theory

Weber’s Law

Bystander Effect

Hindsight bias

Confirmation bias

Experimenter bias

Trait Theory

study, define, and track one’s traits over their life time, they don’t care about the why, just what they are

Self-serving bias

a readiness to perceive oneself favorably, saying all accomplishments are them and taking little responsibility for failures (blaming on external factors)

Natural Selection

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory

Activation-synthesis theory

Consolidation theory

Self-Actualization Theory

Theory of Mind

ability to understand and attribute mental states like beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions to other people (ex. you see someone look through purse, and assume they’re looking for smth)

Yerkes-Dodson Law

there’s a relationship between arousal and performance. There teh arousal, higher the performance (ex. you crave cake, then after eating a lot you don't crave anymore)

Weber’s Law

social desirability bias

tendency for individuals to respond in a way that they believe is viewed favorably by others, even if it misrepresents their own thoughts (ex. ppl said they’d vote for Kamala Harris even tho they didn’t”

sampling bias

when a research sample does not accurately represent the population from which it is drawn, leading to skewed nongeneralizable results.

spotlight affect

tendency to overestimate how much others notice, or judge our appearance and behavior in social situations. Leads to increased self consciousness and social anxiety

self-serving bias

tendency ti attribute our success to internal, personal factors and our failures to external situational factors to maintain positive sel-esteem and good image

halo effect

cognitive bias where a positive or negative impression of a trait or characteristic influences the perception of other unrelated traits (seeing a random fine guy on the street and assuming their smart)

just-word fallacy

cognitive bias that people get what they deserve and the world is fair. But in reality there's always external factors too

cultural bias

tendency to make assumptions about the behavior of another culture based on their their own cultural norms- leads to misinterpretation and misunderstanding

sunk-cost fallacy

phenomenon when a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy/course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be better

altruism

belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.

proofreaders illusion

tendency to overlook errors in one's own writing due to familiarity with the content (rereading essay and not notice grammar errors)

cocktail party effect

individual can focus on a single conversation in a noisy environment, such as a party, while ignoring other conversations or sounds

stroop effect

a phenomenon demonstrating the interference of conflicting information in a task (green)

apparent movement

when we perceive motion, even if nothing is actually moving (multiplying image creates running effect)

phi-phenomenon

occurs when lights blink on and off in sequence, creating the illusion of movement

Accomodation

when we change a Schema to incorporate new info

Assimilation

when we fit new info into existing schemas

mental set

a tendency to approach problems using a strategy that has worked in the past, potentially limiting creativity.

schema

a cognitive framework that helps organize and interpret information.

repetition priming

occurs when exposed to specific stimulus increases the likelihood of responding with related concepts or stimuli.

semantic priming

exposure to a word or concept facilitates the retrieval of related words or concepts, enhancing recognition and recall.

framing

the way information is presented, which can influence decision-making and judgments. (buying hand sanitizer that resists 99.99% germs, not mentioning 0.01%)

gambler’s fallacy

the belief that past random events affect the probability of future outcomes in gambling situations

episodic buffer

a component of working memory that integrates information from different sources, linking new experiences with long-term memory.

testing effect

the phenomenon where retrieving information from memory enhances long-term retention of that information

serial position effect

tendency to recall items from a list depending on their position, typically characterized by better recall for items at the beginning (primacy effect) and end (recency effect) of the list.

forgetting curve

information is forgotten over time, with rapid initial loss followed by a slower rate of forgetting.

spacing effect

information is better retained when study sessions are spaced out over time rather than crammed into a single sessions

Law of Effect

states behaviors followed by positive outcomes are likely to be repeated, while those followed by negative outcomes are less likely to recur.

Tip of the tongue phenomenon

a situation where a person is unable to retrieve a word or fact but feels that retrieval is approaching

Misinformation effect

the phenomenon where post-event information alters a person's memory of the original event

Context-Dependent memory

type of memory retrieval where the recall of information is improved when in the same context or environment as when the information was originally learned

Flynn effect

the observed rise in IQ scores over time across generations.

McGurk Effect

an error in perception that occurs when we misperceive sounds because the audio and visual parts of the speech are mismatched.

self-fulfilling prophecy

an expectation that causes you to act in ways that make that expectation come true.

Reciprocity norm

an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them

feel-good, do-good phenomenon

people's tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood

adaptation-level phenomenon

tendency to form judgments (of sounds, of lights, of income) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience ( After getting a raise, you're initially excited, but quickly get used to the new income and start wanting more.)

Availability Heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind, we presume such events are common. (even though <10% of sharks attack humans, many people will view them as danguerous.)

Representative Heuristic

Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information (ppl thinking doofensmirtz was a pharmacist bc he wore a lab coat, even tho he clearly wasn’t)

Anchoring Bias

cognitive bias that causes us to rely too heavily on the first piece of information we are given about a topic. (person is trying to sell a LV bag to woman who says it too expensive, so he shows a MK bag which is less expensive but still is)

Actor-Observer Bias:

tendency to attribute one's own actions to external causes while attributing other people's behaviors to internal causes.(you fall asleep in class because you were busy last night. but if someone else does, you assume they’re lazy)

Fundamental Attribution Error

tendency for observers, when analyzing others' behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.(person is late to school bc u think they’re unreliable, when rlly their bus came late)

Groupthink