AP Psychology: All Terms

Psychology

the scientific study of behavior and mental processes

Behavior

anything an organism does (any action we can observe and record)

Mental Processes

the internal, subjective experiences we infer from behavior (sensations, perceptions, dreams, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings)

Empiricism

the view that knowledge comes from experience via the senses, and science flourishes through observation and experiment

Structuralism

an early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the mind

Functionalism

a school of psychology that focused on how mental and behavioral processes function (how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish)

Humanistic Psychology

historically significant perspective that emphasized the growth potential of healthy people; used personalized methods to study personality in hopes of fostering personal growth

Nature-nurture Issue

the longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors

Natural Selection

the principle that among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations

Levels of Analysis

the differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social-cultural, for analyzing any given phenomenon

Biopsychosocial Approach

an integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis

Neuroscience

how the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences

Evolutionary

how the natural selection of traits promotes the perpetuation of one's genes

Behavior Genetics

how much our genes and our environment influence our individual differences

Psychodynamic

how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts

Behavioral

how we learn observable responses

Cognitive

how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information

Social-Cultural

how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures

Basic Research

pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base

Applied Research

scientific study that aims to solve practical problems

Counseling Psychology

a branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living (often related to school, work, or marriage) and in achieving greater well being

Clinical Psychology

a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders

Psychiatry

a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy

Hindsight Bias

the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it (I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon)

Barnum Effect

tendency for people to accept very general/vague characterizations of themselves and take them to be accurate (ex: horoscopes)

Critical Thinking

thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. rather it examines assumptions, discerns hidden values evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions

Theory

an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events

Hypothesis

a testable prediction, often implied by a theory

Operational Defintion

a statement of the procedures (operations) used to define research variables. for example human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures

Replication

repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances

Case Study

an observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles

Survey

a technique for ascertaining thyself-reported attitudes or behaviors of people, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of them

False Consensus Effect

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors

Population

all the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for study

Random Sample

a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion

Naturalistic Observation

Observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation

Correlation

a measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other. the correlation coefficient is the mathematical relationship, ranging from -1 to 1

Scatterplot

a graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables. the slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship between the two variables. the amount of scatter suggests the strength of the correlation (little scatter indicates high correlation)

Illusory Correlation

the perceptions of a relationship when none exists

Experiment

a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more actors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental processes (the dependent variable). by random assignment of participants, the experimenter aims to control other relevant factors

Double-Blind Procedure

an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo (drug-evaluation studies)

Placebo

experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which is assumed to be an active agent

Experimental Condition

the condition of an experiment that exposes participants to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable

Control Condition

the condition of an experiment that contrast with he experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment

Random Assignment

assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to different groups

Independent Variable

the experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied

Dependent Variable

the outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable

Mode

the most frequently occurring scores in a distribution

Mean

the arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of the scores

Median

the middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it

Range

the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution

Standard Deviation

a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score

Statistical Significance

a statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance

Culture

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next

Buddha

pondered how sensations and perceptions combine to form ideas

Confucius

stressed the power of ideas and of an educate mind

Hebrew Scholars

anticipated today's psychology by linking mind and emotion to the body

Socrates and Plato

1) concluded that mind is separable from body and continues after the body dies
2) knowledge is innate

Aristotle

1) soul is not separable from the body
2) knowledge is not preexisting, grows from the experiences stored in our memories

Rene Descartes

1) agreed with Socrates and Plato (existence of innate ideas and the mind separate from the body and able to survive death)
2) proposed idea of nerves (how mind & body connected)

Francis Bacon

1) recognized that humans like to perceive patterns, even in random events
2) people see what they want to see (successes, not failures)

John Locke

1) argued that the mind at birth is a blank slate, "a white paper," on which experience writes

Wilhelm Wundt

1) established the first psychology laboratory at the University go Leipzig in Germany
2) considered father of psychology
3) first person to study psychology scientifically

Edward Bradford Titchener

student of Wundt and introduced structuralism (sought to discover the elements of the mind)x

William James

introduced functionalism and based his theories on evolutionary belief that thinking was developed because it was adaptive; most famous as educator

Mary Whiton Calkins

pioneering memory research and the American Psychological Association's first female president (denied doctorate)

Margaret Floy Washburn

first woman to receive a psychology PhD and synthesized animal behavior research in The Animal Mind

Sigmund Freud

famed personality theorist and therapist whose controversial ideas influenced humanity's self-understanding

John B Watson and Rosalie Rayner

championed psychology as the science of behavior and demonstrated conditioned responses on a bay who became famous as "Little Albert"

B.F. Skinner

a leading behaviorist, who rejected introspection and studied how consequences shaped behavior

Carl Roberts and Abraham Maslow

emphasized the importance of current environmental influences on our growth potential, and the importance of meeting out needs for love and acceptance (humanistic psychology)

Charles Darwin

argued that natural selection shapes behavior as well as bodies

Hawthorne Effect

when control group may experiences changes because they know they're in an experiment

Animal Research

1) clear scientific purpose
2) treated in a humane way
3) animals acquired legally
4) low amount of suffering
5) needs to answer specific question

Human Research

1) no coercion, must be voluntary
2) informed consent
3) anonymity
4) no significant risk
5) must debrief

Phrenology

D: a popular but ill fated theory that claimed bumps on the skull could reveal our mental abilities and our character traits
-invented in early 1800s by Franz Gall
-helped to focus attention on idea that various brain regions have particular functions

Biological Psychology

D: a branch of psychology concerned with the links between biology and behavoir

Neurons

D: a nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system
-all consists of a cell body and its branching fibers (dendrites, axon, myelin sheath)

Cell Body (soma)

D: the cell's life supporting center (organelles)

Dendrite

D: the bushy, branching extension of a neuron that receives messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body ("listen")

Axon

D: the extension of a neuron, ending in branching terminal fibers, through which messages are passed to other neurons or to muscles or glands ("speak")

Terminal Branches of Axon

D: form junctions with other cells

Myelin Sheath

D: a layer of fatty tissue segmentally encasing the fibers of many neurons; enables vastly greater transmission speed of neural impulses as the impulse hops from one node to the next

Action Potential

D: a neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon; generated by the movement of positively charged atoms in and out of channels in the axon's membrane

Resting Potential

D: when the fluid interior of a resting axon is negative (anions) and the fluid exterior is positive (cations)
-inside negative, outside positive

Selectively Permeable

D: when a membrane is selective in what it allows in
-axon's surface selectively permeable (resting axon blocks out Na+)

Depolarization

D: loss of difference in charge between the inside and outside of membrane
-when cations flood a part of the axon after the firing of an action potential, causes next part of axon to open

Refractory Period

D: "rest period" of a neuron when Na+ pumped back outside

Excitatory/Inhibitory Signals

D: determine if action potential will occur
-most signals excitory

Threshold

D: the level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse
-if excitatory - inhibitory > threshold, ---> action potential

All-or-None Reponse

D: neuron's reaction all or none; either fire or they don't
-increasing stimulus above the threshold will not increase the action potential's intensity, strength, or speed
-a strong stimulus will cause more neurons to fire, and to fire more often

Synpase

D: the junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron; tiny gap at this junction call synaptic gap or cleft

Neurotransmitters

D: chemical messengers that traverse the synaptic gaps between neurons; when released by the sending neuron, neurotransmitters travel across the synapse and bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron, thereby influencing whether that neuron will generate a neural impulse

Reuptake

D: process by which excess neurotransmitters are reabsorbed by the sending neuron

Acetylcholine (ACh)

F: Enables muscle action, learning, and memory
Too Little: With Alzheimer's diseases, ACh-producing neurons deteriorate
-is the NTM at every junction between a motor neuron and skeletal muscle; when released, muscle contracts and when blocked, muscles cannot contract

Dopamine

F: Influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion
Too Much: Excess dopamine receptor activity linked to schizophrenia
Too Little: Starved of dopamine, the brain produces the tremors and decreased mobility of Parkinson's disease

Serotonin

F: Affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal
Too Little: Undersupply linked to depression
-Prozac and some other antidepressant drugs raise serotonin levels

Nonepinephrine

F: Helps control alertness and arousal
Too Little: Undersupply can depress mood

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)

F: A major inhibitory neurotransmitter
Too Little: Undersupply linked to seizures, tremors, and insomnia

Glutamate

F: A major excitatory neurotransmitter, involved in memory
Too Much: Oversupply can overstimulate brain, producing migraines or seizures
-why a lot of people avoid MSG (monosodium glutamate) in food