AP Psychology Notes

Ethical Guidelines

  • Informed Consent: Participants must sign a document indicating they understand the study's components and potential risks, and agree to participate.
  • Informed Assent: A process through which minors agree to participate in clinical trials.
  • Protect from Harm: Participants should not be subjected to physical or psychological harm, with the level of acceptable harm no greater than what they'd normally encounter.
  • Confidentiality: Experimenters will not release participant information without consent.
  • Debriefing: Participants must be debriefed at the study's conclusion, especially if deception was used.

Research Types

  • Quantitative Research: Collects and analyzes numerical data.
  • Qualitative Research: Relies on observations and descriptions.
  • Likert Scales: Numerical scales to assess attitudes with labeled anchors on each extreme.

Research Personnel and Oversight

  • Institutional Review Board (IRB): A committee that reviews, approves, and monitors research involving human subjects.
  • Research Confederates: Individuals who participate in an experiment but are not the focus of the researcher's observation.

Measures of Central Tendency

  • Mean: The arithmetic average of a distribution, calculated by adding the scores and dividing by the number of scores.
  • Median: The middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it.
  • Mode: The most frequently occurring score in a distribution.
  • Percentile Rank: The percentage of scores in a distribution that fall below a particular score.
    • Example: A student with a percentile rank of 85 has outperformed 85% of all students.

Distribution Types

  • Skewed Distribution: A representation of scores that lack symmetry around their average value.
  • Bimodal Distribution: A data distribution with two peaks.

Measures of Variance

  • Range: The difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution.
  • Standard Deviation: A measure of how much scores vary around the mean score.

Normal Curve

  • The symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes.
  • Most scores near the average, with fewer scores near the extremes.

Statistical Significance

  • A measure of how likely the result of an experiment is due to the manipulation of the independent variable (IV) or due to chance.
  • Reported as a p-value.
  • The closer the p-value is to 0, the less likely the result is due to chance.
  • In psychology, a p-value of 0.05 or less is generally acceptable for results to be considered statistically significant.

Statistical Inference

  • Generalizes from a particular sample to an entire population.

Effect Size

  • A quantitative measurement of the strength of the relationship between two variables or the difference between groups.

The Scientific Attitude and Critical Thinking

  • Psychology: The scientific study of mind and behavior.
  • Critical Thinking: Thinking that examines assumptions, assesses the source, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions, rather than blindly accepting arguments and conclusions.

Psychological Perspectives

  • Behavioral: Focuses on how we learn observable responses.
    • Sample Question: How do we learn to fear particular objects or situations?
  • Biological: Focuses on how the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences, and how genes combine with the environment to influence individual differences.
    • Sample Question: How is blood chemistry linked with moods and motives?
  • Cognitive: Focuses on how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information.
    • Sample Question: How do we use information in remembering? Reasoning? Solving problems?
  • Evolutionary: Focuses on how the natural selection of traits has promoted the survival of genes.
    • Sample Question: How does evolution influence behavior tendencies?
  • Humanistic: Focuses on how we meet our needs for love and acceptance and achieve self-fulfillment.
    • Sample Question: How can we work toward fulfilling our potential?
  • Psychodynamic: Focuses on how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts.
    • Sample Question: How can someone's personality traits and disorders be explained by unfulfilled wishes and childhood traumas?
  • Social-cultural: Focuses on how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures.
    • Sample Question: How are we alike as members of one human family?

Need for Psychological Science

  • Cognitive biases (hindsight bias, overconfidence) and the tendency to perceive order in random events illustrate why science-based answers are more valid than those based on common sense.
  • Hindsight bias: The tendency to perceive past events as more predictable than they actually were.
  • Confirmation Bias: The tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.
  • Overconfidence: The tendency to be more confident than correct, overestimating the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

The Scientific Method

  • Theories advance psychological science.
  • Psychologists use case studies, naturalistic observations, and surveys to observe and describe behavior, and random sampling is important.
  • Peer review: An evaluation process where scholars or researchers assess each other's work before publication.
  • Hypothesis: A testable prediction, often implied by a theory.
  • Falsifiable: The inherent possibility to prove a statement, hypothesis, or theory to be false.
  • Operational Definition: The definition of a concept in terms of the actual procedures used by the researcher to measure it.
  • Replication: Repeating the essence of a research study to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances.
  • Survey: Obtaining self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a group through questioning a random sample.
  • Social desirability bias: A type of response bias in which people answer questions in a way they believe will be viewed favorably by others.
  • Self-report bias: A methodological problem when researchers rely on asking people to describe their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.
  • Population: All individuals who can potentially participate in the study.
  • Random Sample: A sample that fairly represents a population.
  • Sample: A smaller group selected from a larger population.
  • Sampling Bias: A flawed sampling process that produces an unrepresentative sample.
  • Convenience Sampling: Selecting a sample based on availability or proximity to the researcher.
  • Representative Sample: A sample with characteristics similar to those in the population.

Types of Research

  • Case Study: Studying one person or group in-depth.
  • Naturalistic Observation: Observing and recording behavior in natural situations without manipulation.
  • Meta-Analysis: Analyzing the results of many studies that have measured the same variables.
  • Experiment: Measures to which two factors vary together and how well one factor can predict the other.
  • Correlation: Measures to which two factors vary together and how well one factor can predict the other.

Correlation

  • Correlations can be positive or negative.
  • Experimental Methodology: Manipulating one variable (independent variable) to determine its effect on another variable (dependent variable).
  • Non-Experimental Methodology: Research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable.
  • Correlation coefficient: A number (symbolized by rr) between -1 and +1 representing the strength and direction of the correlation.
  • Illusory Correlation: The perception of a relationship where none exists.
  • Scatter Plot: Graphs used to plot scores and show correlation.
  • Directionality Problem: Unclear which variable is causing the other.
  • Third Variable Problem: A confounding variable that causes two other variables to appear causally related when they are not.
  • Regression Toward the Mean: The tendency for extreme scores to become more moderate when retested.

Experimentation

  • Experimental Group: Receives the variable being tested.
  • Control Group: Does not receive the treatment.
  • Independent variable (IV): The variable that is manipulated, cause.
  • Dependent variable (DV): The variable that is measured, effect.
  • Perfect negative correlation: −1.00-1.00
  • Perfect positive correlation: +1.00+1.00
  • Random assignment: Ensures all members of the sample have an equal chance of being placed into either group
  • Single Blind: The subjects do not know which group they belong to.
  • Double blind: Neither the subjects nor the researchers know which group they belong to.
  • Placebo effect: A real response to an action or substance based solely on expectations.
  • Confounding Variable: A factor other than the independent variable that might produce an effect.
  • Experimenter Bias: The unconscious tendency for researchers to treat members of the experimental and control groups differently to increase the chance of confirming their hypothesis.

Heredity and Environment

  • Heredity: The passing on of characteristics genetically from one generation to another.
  • Environment: All external conditions affecting the life and development of an organism.
  • Nature: Influenced by genetic inheritance and biological factors.
  • Nurture: Influence of external factors after conception.
  • Genetic Predisposition: An increased chance of developing a disease based on genetic variants.
  • Evolutionary Psychology: The study of the mental adaptations of humans to a changing environment.
  • Natural Selection: Certain behaviors and genes best for survival.
  • Identical twins: Develop from a single fertilized egg, genetically identical.
  • Fraternal twins: Develop from separate fertilized eggs, no closer than siblings.
  • Eugenics: The study of how to arrange reproduction to increase desirable heritable characteristics.
  • Twin studies: Conducted on identical or fraternal twins to reveal environmental and genetic influences.
  • Adoption studies: Compare adopted children with adoptive and biological parents.
  • Family studies: Examine the relationship between genetics and mental disorders.

Overview of the Nervous System

  • Nervous System: The body's electrochemical communications network.
  • Central Nervous System: The brain and spinal cord.
  • Peripheral Nervous System: All components except the brain and spinal cord.
  • Somatic Nervous System: Controls voluntary movements.
  • Autonomic Nervous System: Regulates bodily processes.
  • Sympathetic nervous System: Excites the body for action, fight or flight.
  • Parasympathetic Nervous System: Restores the body's energy, rest and digest.
  • Nerves: Bundles of fibers that transmit impulses.
  • Spinal Reflex Arc: Neural pathway for rapid, automatic responses.

The Neuron and Neural Firing

  • Neurons: Individual nerve cells.
  • Glial cells: Provide nutrition and protection for neurons.
  • Sensory neurons: Take information from the senses to the brain.
  • Motor neurons: Take information from the brain to the body.
  • Interneurons: Take messages and send them elsewhere in the brain or spinal cord.
  • Mirror Neurons: Play a role in action understanding, imitation learning, and language processing.
  • Action Potential: An impulse or brief electric charge that travels down the axon.
  • Threshold: The level of stimulation needed to trigger a neural impulse.
  • All or None Response: A neuron either sends an impulse or it does not.
  • Resting Potential: When a neuron does not have an action potential.
  • Polarized: The state of a resting neuron with positive charge outside and negative charge inside.
  • Depolarization: An axon that is firing, positive ions enter the axon.
  • Refractory Period: A resting pause, neurons restore positively charged sodium ions back outside of the cell.
  • Reuptake: The reabsorption of neurotransmitters by the sending neuron.
  • Excitatory neurotransmitters: Stimulate the brain.
  • Inhibitory neurotransmitters: Calm the brain down.

Neurotransmitters and Their Functions

  • Neurotransmitters: Chemical messengers that cross synaptic gaps between neurons that generate the next neural impulse.
  • Acetylcholine (ACH): Enables muscle action, learning, and memory. Deterioration linked to Alzheimer's disease.
  • Dopamine: Influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion. Oversupply linked to schizophrenia, undersupply to Parkinson's.
  • Serotonin: Affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal. Undersupply linked to depression.
  • Norepinephrine: controls alertness and arousal. Undersupply can depress mood.
  • GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid): A major inhibitory neurotransmitter. Undersupply linked to seizures, tremors, and insomnia.
  • Glutamate: A major excitatory neurotransmitter involved in memory. Oversupply can overstimulate the brain, producing migraines or seizures.
  • Endorphins: Neurotransmitters that influence the perception of pain or pleasure. Oversupply with opioid drugs can suppress the body's natural endorphin supply.
  • Substance P: Involved in pain perception and immune response. Oversupply can lead to chronic pain.
  • Hormone: A chemical messenger produced in the body (released in the bloodstream).
  • Adrenaline: Activates the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight).
  • Melatonin: Regulates sleep and wake cycles.
  • Ghrelin: Increases hunger.
  • Leptin: Decreases hunger.
  • Oxytocin: Plays a role in social bonding, sexual reproduction, childbirth, and the period after childbirth.

Psychoactive Drugs

  • Psychoactive drugs: Chemical substances that alter perceptions, mood, or behavior.
  • Addiction: Craving for a chemical substance despite its adverse effects.
  • Tolerance: Brain produces less of a neurotransmitter after long-term use, needing increased amounts of the drug for the same effect.
  • Withdrawal: Symptoms associated with discontinuing a drug.
  • Depressants: Lower neural activity and slow body functioning.
    • Alcohol: Slows neural processing and thinking and impairs physical activity
    • Opiates: Reduce neurotransmission and temporarily lessen pain and anxiety
    • Barbiturates
  • Stimulants: Speed up the body's functions.
    • Caffeine, Nicotine, Cocaine, meth, Amphetamines
  • Hallucinogens (psychedelics): Distort perceptions of reality.
    • LSD, Marijuana
  • Opioids: Psychoactive drugs that act on opioid receptors, producing pain relief, euphoria, and sedation. (heroin)
  • Agonists: Chemicals that activate receptors and make effects stronger.
    • Caffeine: agonist for ACH.
    • Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs): agonists for serotonin.
    • Adderall, methamphetamine, cocaine, and speed: agonists of norepinephrine.
    • Benzodiazepines and alcohol: agonists of GABA.
    • Opiates (morphine, oxycodone, heroin, etc.): agonists of endorphins.
  • Antagonists: Chemicals that inhibit the actions of neurotransmitters.
    • LSD: antagonist for serotonin.
  • Reuptake inhibitors: Drugs that prevent the reuptake of neurotransmitters.
    • Cocaine

Neurological Disorders

  • Multiple Sclerosis (MS): Loss of muscle control resulting from a deterioration of myelin sheath
  • Myasthenia gravis (MG): autoimmune disorder caused by a blockade of neuromuscular transmission resulting in skeletal muscle weakness and rapid muscle fatigue (caused by a blockage of acetylcholine)

The Brain

  • Brainstem: Oldest part, responsible for automatic survival functions.
    • Medulla: Controls heartbeat, blood circulation, breathing, muscle maintenance, regulation of reflexes like sneezing/coughing.
    • Reticular activating system: Regulate behavioral arousal, consciousness and motivation
  • Cerebellum: Processes sensory input, coordinates movement output and balance, and enables nonverbal learning and memory.
  • Thalamus: Directs messages to the sensory receiving areas in the cortex.
  • Limbic System: Associated with emotions and drives.
    • Hippocampus: Vital to our memory system
    • Amygdala: Responsible for fear and aggressive responses
    • Hypothalamus: Regulates the autonomic nervous system temperature, hunger, and sex
  • Pituitary Gland: Controls other glands and makes the hormones that trigger growth
  • Hemisphere: the brain has two hemispheres, the left and the right. The left controls the right side of the body and the right controls the left side of the body
    • Left Hemisphere: specializes in language, speech, handwriting, calculation, sense of time and rhythm
    • Right Hemisphere: specializes in processing involving perception, visualization, recognition of faces & emotions
  • Corpus Callosum: Connects the two brain hemispheres.
  • Cerebral Cortex: The outer layer of tissue of the hemispheres, and smaller subcortical structure
    • Frontal Lobe: speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgements
      • The prefrontal cortex: Controls executive functions including attention, inhibition, working memory, problem-solving and planning
      • Broca's Area: Responsible for speech production and language Damage to this area can result in Broca's aphasia
    • Parietal Lobe: receives sensory input for touch and body position
    • Occipital Lobe: Includes areas that receive information from the visual fields, contains the visual cortex
    • Temporal Lobe: Includes the auditory areas and helps with hearing and meaningful speech, contains the primary auditory cortex
      • Wernicke's area: involved in understanding written and spoken language. Damage to this area is called Wernicke's Aphasia.
    • Motor Cortex: Controls voluntary movements
    • Sensory Cortex: Registers and processes body touch and movement sensations
    • Association Areas: areas in the cerebral cortex involved in higher mental function.
  • Contralateral Hemispheric Organization: Arrangement where the motor cortex of each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body.
  • Split Brain: Condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain's two hemispheres.
    • Left Hemisphere: Controls right hand, spoken language, written language, mathematical and logical thought processes, analysis, and reading
    • Right Hemisphere: Controls left hand, nonverbal (visual) perception. Is responsible for musical and artistic processing, and emotional thought
  • Neuroplasticity: Reorganization of neural pathways as a result of experience.
  • Brain Lesion: Lesions are tissue that is destroyed
  • EEG: recording of the waves of electrical activity sweeping across the brain's surface
  • fMRI: technique for revealing blood flow/brain activity

Sleep

  • Consciousness: Our awareness of ourselves and our environment
  • Circadian Rhythm: The biological clock; regular bodily rhythms
  • Jet Lag: A temporary physiological condition that occurs when a person's circadian rhythm, or "internal clock", is out of sync with the time zone
  • EEG patterns: patterns recorded in the brain's electrical activity: alpha waves, beta waves, theta waves, and delta waves
  • NREM 1-2: awake/½ asleep
    • Hypnagogic sensations: a sensation of impending threat, feelings of suffocation, and sensations of floating, spinning, or falling
  • NREM 2: light sleep - associated with sleep talking
  • NREM 3: Deep Sleep
    • Hormones for growth in children, Immune system refreshes itself
  • REM Sleep: rapid eye movement sleep; a recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur and body is immobilized
  • Rem Rebound: when a person experiences more rapid eye movement (REM) sleep than normal after a period of sleep deprivation or stress
  • Consolidation Dream Theory: Sleep helps convert short-term memories into long-term memories
  • Activation Synthesis Dream Theory: Dreams may be a way to make sense of that activity.
  • Insomnia: Inability to fall asleep or stay asleep.
  • Narcolepsy: marked by sudden & irresistible onsets of sleep during normal waking periods
  • Sleep Apnea: temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary awakenings
  • REM sleep behavior disorder: physically and vocally act out vivid, often unpleasant dreams during REM sleep.
  • Somnambulism: sleep walking-a behavior disorder that originates during deep sleep.