AP Psych
What do I know?
Unit 1 - Biological Bases of Behaviors
Evolution
Nature vs Nurture
Neural firing
Neurotransmitters - how they affect the brain
Brain structures
E.g. Hippocampus, amygdala, prefrontal cortex, temporal lobes, etc.
E.g. Cerebellum, medulla, thalamus, etc.
Nervous system
E.g. Parasympathetic nervous system, sympathetic nervous system, central nervous system, etc.
Unit 2 - Cognition
Psychoanalysis
Unit 3 - Development and Learning
Psycho-sexual development
Unit 4 - Social Psychology and Personality
Social theories
Social effects 
Unit 5 - Mental and Physical Health
Mental disorders
E.g. OCD, Schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, BPD, Generalized Anxiety disorder, etc.
Causes/development of mental disorders
Therapy types
E.g exposure therapy, token economy, cognitive behavioral therapies, etc.
Important people
Paul Broca - “Broca’s area”
Carl Wernicke
Sigmund Freud* (Very important!!)
Shows up again during psycho sexual development and personality
Abraham Maslow - Developed the hierarchy of needs and contributed to humanistic psychology.
Notes -
Unit 1 - Parts of the brain
Cerebral cortex - responsible for higher-order functions of the brain - the four lobes each specialize in processing information.
frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobe.
Front lobe - cision-making, planning, and problem-solving
Parietal lobe - sensory processing, spatial awareness, and language
Temporal lobe - Auditory processing, processing auditory information and with the encoding of memory
Occipital lobe - primary visual processing, distance and depth perception, color determination, object and face recognition and memory formation.
Limbic System - responsible for processing emotions, motivations, and memories
Brain stem - connects brain with the spinal cord
Basal ganglia - motor control, learning, decision-making
Thalamus - relay station of sensory and motor information; processing this before it hits the cerebral cortex
Hypothalamus - regulates our body’s functions - all about regulating homeostasis
Unit 1 - Neurons
Neurons - specialized cells for electrical signaling
Dendrites, soma, and axons
Axons - the segmented neuron extension that passes messages through its branches to other neurons or to muscles or glands.
Myelin - accelerates signal transmission
Myelin sheath - a fatty tissue layer segmentally encasing the axons of some neurons; it enables vastly greater transmission speed as neural impulses hop from one node to the next.
Neurotransmitters - signals released at synapse that will bind with other receptors — keep in mind the role of action potential
Action Potential - neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon.
Dopamine, serotonin, norephinephrine, GABA
DSNG: Don’t stress, no gloom!
Unit 1 - Nervous System
Two parts: Central Nervous system and Peripheral Nervous system
Central: Brain and spinal cord
Peripheral: Nerves outside CNS
Somatic - voluntary movements
Automatic - involuntary movements
Sympathetic - emergency situations involving “fight or flight”
Parasympathetic - homeostasis
Somatic nervous system - the division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body’s skeletal muscles. Also called the skeletal nervous system
Autonomic nervous system - the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs. Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms
Sympathetic nervous system - the division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy.
Parasympathetic nervous system - the division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy.
Unit 1 - Hormones
Function - the chemical messengers released by the endocrine system — heavily influential on behavior and physiological processes
Travel through the blood and impact target cells in the body - keep in mind the role of the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland in this process
Cortisol, testosterone, oxytocin, estrogen, dopamine, melatonin, adrenaline
Imbalances = depression, anxiety, etc.
Unit 2 - Cognition
The mental processes involved from knowing, thinking, remembering to communicating
Information processing:
Encoding storage, and retrieval
Impacted by attention, prior knowledge, and meaningfulness of information
Refer to the working memory model by Baddeley and Hitch — 4 components — central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer
Unit 2
Piaget - cognitive development theory for how children’s thinking evolves (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational)
Vygotsky - social interaction and culture for cognitive development → zone of proximal development
Chomsky - theory of an innate language acquisition device that proposes babies are “set up” to learn a language
Miller - Chunking
Gardner - multiple intelligences
Unit 2
Language is the communication system of using symbols and rules while thought uses our mental process
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis →theory language influences thought and perception - suggests it does not determine thought
Chomsky → universal grammar maintains a shared underlying structure across language (LAD - language acquisition device.)
Unit 2
Intelligence allows humans to learn and apply knowledge/skills to solve problems
Spearman suggest that a single factor is the foundation of all cognitive abilities
Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences
Sternbger’s triarchic theory - analytical, creative, and practical make up intelligence
Types of thinking: divergent and convergent
Unit 3 - Stages of Development *longest
Prenatal - conception to birth — germinal, embryonic, and fetal
Infancy and toddlerhood (birth to 2) — basic motor skills
Early Childhood (2-6) — language, social skills, and self-regulation
Middle childhood (6-11) — logical thinking, social comparison, more independence
Adolescence (11-18) — puberty, abtract thinking, social-emotional
Early Adulthood (18-40) — career development, intimate relationships, parenthood
Middle Adulthood (40-65) — personal/professional growth
Late Adulthood (65+) — retirement, life reflection’
Unit 3 - Theories — Cognitive
Vygotsky’s social culture - social interaction — zone of proximal development, use of scaffolding
Piaget’s - cognitive development
Sensorimotore (birth to age 2) — object permanace, basic problem solcing
Preoperational (2-7) — emergence of animism, egocentrism, symbolic thining
Concrete operational stage (7-11) — logical thinking, conversation
Formal operational stages (11+) = abstract thinking, consider alternative viewpoints
Unit 3 - Social/Emotional Development
Bandura - Bobo doll experiment - emphasizes role of observation
Experiment where children would witness an adult model either aggressively or non-aggressively interact with a Bobo doll, those who observed the aggressive model were more likely to show aggressive behaviours towards the doll.
Attachment Theory - focuses on role of caregiver-infant relationships for emotional/social development
Erikson’s Psychological Stages: 8 developmental stages each with a psychosocila crisis to be resolved (e.g. trust vs. mistrust)
Kohlberg - Moral development — moreal reasoning
Preconventional (2-9), Conventional (9-20), Postconventional (20+)
Unit 3 - Language Development
Process of acquiring phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics
Phonology - the system of contrastive relationships among the speech sounds that constitute the fundamental components of a language
Morphology - the study of the structure and form of things, particularly within the context of language and personality
Syntax - the rules that govern how words are combined to form sentences
Semantics - the study of meaning, particularly how we understand and process the meanings of words, phrases, and sentences
Pragmatics - explores how context influences communication and the understanding of meaning beyond literal language
6 months: babbling, early vocalizations come before language
12 months: first words appear → then two-word phrases
*Chomsky and the LAD → emphasizes the critical period
Critical period - an optimal period early in life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development
Bilingualism easiest at the young ages; does not inhibit language development
Unit 3 - Learning
Classical Conditioning (Pavlov) - learning through association with neutral stimulus with a reflexive response
Neutral stimulus (NS) becomes conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (UCS) → conditioned response (CR)
Extinction - in classical conditioning, the diminishing of a conditioned response when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus. (In operant conditioning, when a response is no longer reinforced.)
Operant Conditioning - learning through consequences
Positive reinforcement - add stimulus to increase a behaviour
Negative reinforcement - remove an aversive stimulus to increase a behaviour
Positive punishment: adding an aversice stimulus to decrease a behaviour
Negative punishment: removing a desirable stimulus to decrease behaviour
Unit 4 - Social Psychology/Behaviour
Focuses on thoughts, feelings, behaviours and how these are impacted by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others
Social cognition, social influence, and social behaviour
Social identity theory - how we group ourselves (in-groups and out-groups) → impacts self-esteem
Attribution theory - how we explain the causes of behaviour
Cognitive dissonance theory - feeling of psychological discomfort experienced when individuals hold conflicting thoughts, beliefs, or behaviours
Fundamental Attribution Error - overestimate dispositional factors and underestimate situation factors when explaining another person’s behaviour
E.g. You get to work late, you blame it on the traffic, when your coworker arrives late you call them lazy.
Social cognition - how we understand and think about the world
Schemas - how the mind organizes/interprets this information that impacts our perceptions
Stereotypes - generalized beliefs of a social group; prejudice (negative attitudes) vs. discrimination (negative behaviours)
Heuristics - mental shortcuts that simplify decision making (consider above)
Availability vs. representativeness heuristics
Primacy effect - tendency to recall information presented first in a series better than later information
Unit 4 - The group
Group dynamics - interaction between members of the group
Social facilitation - others present can help performance on a single task, but hinder performance on more complex responsilibites
Social loafing - less effort by individuals when contributions are not tracked easily
Groupthink - the desire for group consensus overrids critical thinking leading to poor decisions
Conformity - adjust behaviours to agree with the group standard
Obedience - compliance with authority figure
Unit 4 - Personality Theories
Personality - person’s pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours
Trait Theories - Big Five: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism (OCEAN)*
Psychodynamic Theories - THINK FREUD!! — the role of the unconscious conflicts and early experiences fundamental in shaping personality
Humanistic — Hierarchy of Needs — Maslow
Social-cognitive - Emphasis on interaction with personal factors/behaviour and environment (THINK BANDURA)
Consider the role of genetics
Measuring Personality - self-report (MMPI), projective (Inkblot, TAT), behavioural observations
Unit 4 - Research
Experiment - independent variables manipulated to view effect on dependent variables
MUST include random assignments, control groups, manipulation checks (potential for causation)
Correlation - study relationship between two variables (not causation)
Observational - observe/document behaviour in real world setting (no manipulation)
Survery - questionnaires/interviews
Longitudinal - data from participants over long period of time
Cross-sectional - data from diverse participants at the same time
Meta-analysis - combines results of different studies
*Consider ethics = e.g. informed consent, no harm to particpants
Unit 5 - Mental Health
Biological factors - Genetics - impacts phsyical and mental health disorders; Factors include: hormones, neurotransmitters, brain issues, immune system
Social/Cultural Factors - social relationships, socioeconomic status, cultural beliefs, discrimination, cultural norms, roles in the family, etc.
Psychological factors - focus on personality traits (e.g. feelings, behaviours)
Consider cognitive, emotional factors
Self-efficacy, coping abilities, learned helplessness, resilience
Unit 5 - Dealing with mental health
General Adaptation Syndrome - alarm, resistance, exhaustion
Allostatic load - negative physical result from ineffective coping on the body
Acute and chronic stress
Problem-focused (planning) vs. emotional-focused (relaxtion) vs. maladaptive coping (substance abuse)
Emphasis on mindfulness (e.g. yoga)
Unit 5 - Mental health disorders
Anxiety - prolonged fear and worry
*Depressive disorder - prolonged sadness (major and persistent depression)
*Bipolar - manic vs. depressive episodes
*Schizophrenia - characterized by psychotic symptoms (delusions) that disrupt thought processes, emotions and social interaction
PTSD - response to trauma
OCD - unwanted, prolonged, thoughts and repetitive behaviours
Eating disorders - (e.g. bulimia, anorexia)
Therapies
Psychotherapy - verbal therapy with a certified mental health professional
Cognitive based therapy
Interpersonal therapy
Pharmacotherapy - medication (use of antidepressants, medications)
Other lifestyle strategies - used alongside above treatments (e.g. exercise)
Community-based interventions - programs that increase mental health awareness