AP Psych Unit 1

Neuroscience/Biology Perspective

Medical Approach

Evolutionary perspective

Behavior is dictated by a drive to survive

Behavior Genetics perspective

Nature vs Nurture (how much do our genes vs environment affect us)

Psychodynamic/Psychoalaytic perspective

conflicts in our unconscious are the answer to most of our psychological questions. (things that have happened in the past) (like trauma)

Behavioral perspective

Observable responses/ what we actually do (does not focus on the mind)

Cognitive perspective

Thinking and memory- how we process, store, and use information

Social-culture/Social psychology perspective

How our environment and culture influences us. (Who and what were around make a difference)

Humanistic perspective

What makes people healthy/happy. (what makes you your best self and how to build off of that)

Stability vs. Change

How much change actually happens from situation to situation overtime

Rationality vs irrationality

are we bound for success or failure? Are we inherently good or bad? (Rationality- logical + uses reasoning) (irrationality- w/o logical reasoning)

Nature vs nurture

Are genes(nature) or environment(Nurture) the reason you are who you are, and do what you do.

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic motivation

Are we pushed to do things from the inside(intrinsic) or pulled from the outside (extrinsic)

Empiricism

knowledge must be found through experience and use of the senses. (example: a child learning that concrete is hard after touching it)

Wilhelm Wundt

Father of psychology

Introspection

Self-reflection (looking inward) technique to collect data

Behaviorism

(an older type of psychology) studying only observable behavior (not studying “inner”)

BioPsychoSocial approach

combo approach: biology, psychology, and social influences create who we are and what we do

BioPsychoSocial (Biological) approach

Mental and physical health

BioPsychoSocial (Psychological) approach

mood, personality, behavior

BioPsychoSocial (Social) approach

culture, socioeconomic, family

Scientific attitude

in science we must test and trust the result.

curiosity

the source of all research and science

skepticism

ask questions and don't just accept things, try to find answers.

Humility

accepting your findings(data) even if it is not what you support/want it to be

Critical thinking

Think and engage with ideas and info.

Hindsight Bias

mind will convince itself that it knows or knew something after it happens

common sense

comes from previous observed behavior (plays a role in science but must be tested)

confirmation bias

seeing/accepting info that only confirms your pov and ignoring contradictory info

Scientific method

how to apply the scientific attitude. (Theory, Hypothesis, Experiment, Replicate)

Theory

Broad statement/claim

Hypothesis

“if, then” sentence format

Experiment

testing your hypothesis and Theory

Replicate

do the experiment multiple times

Operational Definitions

clearly define variables (be specific)

Longitudinal research style

same people tested over time (more accurate but can take a long time)

Cohort effect

impact of shared experiences w/ ppl born in the same time period or location as you. (example: being born in the same generation)

Cross-sectional research style

different people (types and ages) are all studied at the same time (more efficient but not as accurate)

Case studies (research method)

study 1 or few subjects in great depth to learn something about the whole population.

Generalizability

how likely data can be generalized to a larger group

Surveys (research method)

little bits of information from many people

(surveys) target group

who you are trying to study

False consensus effect

we hang around people who agree w/ us so we overestimate how many people agree w us

Naturalistic observation (research method)

observing subjects in their natural environment

Correlation methods

measuring the relationship between variables (negative and positive)

correlation coefficient

the number representing the strength of the coefficient

Positive correlation

variables increase OR decrease together (.01-1.00) (example: Study more, test score is higher)

negative correlation

variables move in opposite direction(inverse relationship) (-.01 to -1.00) (example: the later you stay up, the less sleep you get)

Illusory correlation

Perceived correlations that don’t actually exist (example: staying up all night playing video games and getting an 100% on the test the next day)

Causation

being able to say something is absolutely caused by something else

Experimentation

(establishes causation) Assigning participants into groups, and manipulating a few factors and controlling the rest

double blind procedure

both the scientists and participants don’t know who is in which condition(experimental or control group)

operational definitions

making sure variables are clearly defined.

confounding variables

additional possible influences

Statistics

stats that simply describe data

distributions

lay data out in order

percentile rank

where you fall in a distribution (80th percentile= better than 80% of people)

mean

The average (add up and divide) can be skewed by outliers

Mode

The most common result

Median

The middle number in a distribution.

variation

how spread out/different the data is

range

distance from smallest point to largest point

standard deviation

measure of how different data points are from eachother

high standard deviation

data is spread out

low standard deviation

data is close together

Z-score

individual deviation from the mean

Positive Z-score

above average

Negative Z-score

below average

Inferential statistics

Should or should we not make assumptions based on statistical data. (based off reliability of data and significance.)

Statistical significance

The data is enough to mean something

Ethics

What is considered right and wrong to a certain field. (how studies are done, who they are done with, how the data is collected)

Informed consent

subjects agree to participate

Debriefing 

A check-in and filling them in after the study