Must-know sheet

Psychology must-know sheet

The research methods, statistics, theories, theorists and brain structures you should know cold for AP Psychology, organized by unit. The real exam gives you no formula sheet and doesn't allow a calculator, so the few numbers you need, like the normal-curve percentages, are here.

Research designs and variables

Units 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Hypothesis: A testable prediction, usually about how one variable affects another. It has to be falsifiable, meaning some possible result could show it's wrong.
Operational definition: Exactly how a variable will be measured or changed in this study, such as "stress = heart rate in beats per minute" or "memory = number of words written down in 2 minutes." It lets others repeat the study.
Independent variable (IV): The factor the researcher changes on purpose, such as hours of sleep allowed. Only experiments have a true IV.
Dependent variable (DV): What the researcher measures to see if the IV had an effect, such as test score. It "depends" on the IV.
Experimental group and control group: The experimental group gets the treatment or condition being tested. The control group doesn't (or gets a placebo or the normal condition), so the two can be compared.
Random assignment: Putting participants into groups by chance, like a coin flip. It makes the groups alike at the start, which is what lets an experiment show cause and effect.
Confounding variable: Something other than the IV that differs between groups and could explain the results, such as one group testing in the morning and the other at night. Confounds ruin a cause-and-effect claim.
Placebo and placebo effect: A placebo is a fake treatment with no active ingredient, like a sugar pill. The placebo effect is improvement that comes only from expecting to improve.
Single-blind and double-blind procedures: Single-blind: participants don't know which group they're in. Double-blind: neither the participants nor the researchers working with them know, which controls both expectations and experimenter bias.
Experimenter bias: When a researcher's expectations, often without their knowing it, influence how they treat participants or record results. Double-blind procedures guard against it.
Experiment: The only design that can show cause and effect: the researcher manipulates an IV, randomly assigns participants and measures a DV while holding everything else constant.
Correlational study: Measures two variables as they naturally occur to see whether they're related, with no manipulation. It can show a relationship and allow prediction, but not cause and effect.
Correlation is not causation: Two variables can be related because a third variable drives both (the third-variable problem) or because the cause runs the opposite way from what you'd guess (the directionality problem).
Case study: An in-depth look at one person or a small group, often someone with a rare condition. It gives rich detail and ideas for research, but the results may not generalize to other people.
Naturalistic observation: Watching and recording behavior in its real setting without interfering. It shows what people or animals actually do, but it can't explain why, and being watched can change behavior.
Survey: Asking many people questions about their attitudes or behavior. It's quick and can reach a large sample, but answers depend on question wording and on people answering honestly.
Social desirability bias and self-report bias: People may answer in the way that makes them look good, or may simply remember or judge themselves inaccurately. Both make self-report data less trustworthy.
Meta-analysis: A study of studies: it statistically combines the results of many studies on the same question to find the overall effect.
Longitudinal vs. cross-sectional study: Longitudinal follows the same people over years; it shows real change but is slow and loses participants (attrition). Cross-sectional compares different age groups at one time; it's fast but cohort effects (differences from when people grew up) can be mistaken for age effects.
Quantitative vs. qualitative data: Quantitative data are numbers, such as ratings on a Likert scale (for example, 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) or reaction times. Qualitative data are descriptions in words, such as answers from structured interviews, which researchers may sort into categories.
Population and sample: The population is the whole group a researcher wants to learn about. The sample is the smaller group actually studied.
Random sample and representative sample: In a random sample, every member of the population has an equal chance of being picked. That tends to give a representative sample, one that matches the population on key traits.
Convenience sample and sampling bias: A convenience sample uses whoever is easy to reach, like students in one psychology class. Samples like this can be biased, so the results may not represent the population.
Random sampling vs. random assignment: Random sampling (who gets into the study) helps you generalize to the population. Random assignment (which group each person goes into) lets you claim cause and effect. Don't mix them up on the free-response section.
Generalizability: Whether the results apply beyond the people studied. Ask: Was the sample large, random and representative of the population named in the conclusion?
Replication: Repeating a study, ideally with different participants and settings, to see whether the results hold. Findings that replicate are more trustworthy.
Hindsight bias and overconfidence: Hindsight bias is the "I knew it all along" feeling after you learn an outcome. Overconfidence is being more sure you're right than the evidence supports. Both are reasons psychologists test ideas with research instead of trusting common sense.

Research ethics and judging a study

Units 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Institutional review board (IRB): A committee at a school or research center that must review and approve a study before it starts, to protect participants.
Informed consent: Participants agree to take part after being told what the study involves, including any risks, and that they may quit at any time without penalty.
Informed assent: For minors, a parent or guardian gives consent and the child also agrees (assents) in words they can understand.
Protection from harm: Researchers must keep physical and psychological risks to a minimum and never greater than the study's likely benefits.
Confidentiality and anonymity: Participants' personal information and results must be kept private. Anonymous data can't be linked to a person at all.
Deception: Misleading participants about a study's true purpose, sometimes with help from confederates (people secretly working for the researcher). It's allowed only when the study can't be done another way and the risks are small, and participants must be debriefed afterward.
Debriefing: After the study, participants are told its real purpose, any deception is explained, and questions are answered. It's required whenever deception was used.
Animal research: Animal studies must be reviewed and approved too, must have a clear scientific purpose, and must keep pain and distress as low as possible.
Studies famous for ethical problems: Little Albert (fear conditioned in a baby and never removed), Milgram's obedience studies (deception and severe stress) are classic examples. Use them to show which guideline was broken.
Checking a study's conclusion: Ask three things: Was it an experiment with random assignment, which a cause-and-effect claim needs? Was the sample representative of the people named in the conclusion? Was the result statistically significant, and is the effect big enough to matter?
Peer review: Before publication, other experts check a study's methods and conclusions. It catches many errors but doesn't guarantee a finding is true; replication still matters.

Statistics: describing and testing data

Units 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Descriptive vs. inferential statistics: Descriptive statistics summarize data you have (averages, spread). Inferential statistics test whether a result is likely to hold beyond the sample, rather than being due to chance.
Mean: The arithmetic average: add all scores and divide by how many there are. Extreme scores (outliers) pull it toward them.
Median: The middle score when scores are put in order; with an even number of scores, average the two middle ones. It's the best center for skewed data because outliers barely move it.
Mode: The most frequent score. A distribution with two clear peaks is bimodal.
Range: Highest score minus lowest score. It's simple but depends entirely on the two most extreme scores.
Standard deviation: A measure of how spread out scores are around the mean. A small standard deviation means scores cluster close to the mean; a large one means they're spread out.
Normal curve: A symmetric, bell-shaped distribution where the mean, median and mode are equal. About 68% of scores fall within 1 standard deviation of the mean, about 95% within 2, and about 99.7% within 3.
Normal curve example: IQ: Modern IQ tests set the mean at 100 and the standard deviation at 15, so about 68% of people score 85 to 115 and about 95% score 70 to 130.
Percentile rank: The percentage of scores in a group that fall below a given score. A score 1 standard deviation above the mean on a normal curve is at about the 84th percentile (50% + 34%).
Positive skew: Most scores are low with a few very high ones, so the tail points right. The mean is pulled above the median (example: household income).
Negative skew: Most scores are high with a few very low ones, so the tail points left. The mean is pulled below the median (example: scores on a very easy test).
Correlation coefficient (r): A number from −1 to +1. The sign gives the direction: positive means the variables rise together, negative means one rises as the other falls. The distance from 0 gives the strength, so −0.8 is stronger than +0.5.
Scatterplot: A graph with one dot per person showing their scores on two variables. Dots near a rising line mean a positive correlation, near a falling line a negative one, and a shapeless cloud means little or no correlation.
Regression toward the mean: An unusually high or low score tends to be followed by one closer to the average, and as more data are collected, the average settles toward the true mean. Don't credit a treatment for improvement that's just an extreme score drifting back to normal.
Statistical significance: A result is statistically significant when it would be very unlikely to happen by chance if there were no real effect, usually a probability (p) under 0.05, or 5%. It doesn't tell you the effect is large or important.
Effect size: How strong a relationship is, or how big the difference between conditions is, regardless of sample size. Rough guide for the effect-size statistic: about 0.2 or below is small, about 0.3 to 0.7 is medium, and 0.8 or above is large. A huge sample can make a tiny effect statistically significant, so look at both.
Reading a data table: Name which group or condition scored higher, by how much, and what that suggests. Say what the data can't show, such as cause and effect from a correlation.

Unit 1: Heredity, neurons and the nervous system

Unit 1

Nature and nurture: Heredity (genes) and environment (experience) work together and shape each other. On almost any "genes or experience?" question, the best answer is both.
Evolutionary perspective: Explains behaviors by how they may have helped our ancestors survive and reproduce, such as a quick fear of snakes. Hard to test directly.
Twin, family and adoption studies: If identical twins (about 100% shared genes) are more alike than fraternal twins (about 50%), genes likely matter more. Adoption studies compare children with biological parents (genes) and adoptive parents (environment). These are correlational, not experiments.
Eugenics: A movement that misused claims about heredity to justify forced sterilization, immigration limits and discrimination. It's in the course as a warning.
Central nervous system (CNS): The brain and spinal cord. The spinal cord also handles simple reflexes on its own.
Peripheral nervous system (PNS): All the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord, carrying messages between the CNS and the body.
Somatic nervous system: The part of the PNS that controls voluntary skeletal muscles and carries sensory input to the CNS.
Autonomic nervous system: The part of the PNS that runs automatic functions: heart rate, breathing, digestion, sweating, pupil size.
Sympathetic nervous system: Arouses the body for fight or flight: faster heart and breathing, dilated pupils, slowed digestion, adrenaline release.
Parasympathetic nervous system: Calms the body back to baseline: slower heart, constricted pupils, digestion restarts.
Parts of a neuron: Dendrites receive messages, the cell body (soma) combines them, and the axon carries the signal away to axon terminals. A fatty myelin sheath insulates many axons and speeds the signal.
Glial cells: Support cells that hold neurons in place, form myelin, bring nutrients, clear waste and help regulate communication.
Sensory neurons, motor neurons and interneurons: Sensory neurons carry information to the CNS, motor neurons carry commands to muscles and glands, and interneurons in the brain and spinal cord connect them.
Reflex arc: Sensory neuron to spinal-cord interneuron to motor neuron, so you pull away from a hot pan before your brain registers pain.
Resting potential and threshold: At rest the inside of the axon is negative compared with the outside. If combined excitatory input reaches the threshold, the neuron fires.
Action potential and depolarization: Positive ions rush into the axon, the inside briefly becomes positive, and this electrical change travels down the axon.
Refractory period: A brief recovery time after firing before the neuron can fire again.
All-or-none principle: A neuron fires fully or not at all. A stronger stimulus makes neurons fire more often and makes more neurons fire, not a bigger action potential.
Synapse and reuptake: Neurotransmitters cross the synapse (the gap between neurons) to receptors on the next neuron. Afterward the sending neuron reabsorbs the leftovers (reuptake).
Excitatory vs. inhibitory neurotransmitters: Excitatory ones make the next neuron more likely to fire; inhibitory ones make it less likely.
Multiple sclerosis and myasthenia gravis: In multiple sclerosis, the myelin sheath is damaged, so signals slow or misfire. In myasthenia gravis, the immune system blocks muscle receptors for acetylcholine, so muscles weaken.
Dopamine: Movement, motivation and reward. Too little is linked to Parkinson's disease; too much activity is linked to schizophrenia.
Serotonin: Mood, sleep and appetite. Low levels are linked to depression.
Norepinephrine: Alertness and arousal; part of the sympathetic stress response.
Glutamate: The main excitatory neurotransmitter; important in memory. Too much can overexcite the brain.
GABA: The main inhibitory neurotransmitter. Low levels are linked to anxiety and seizures; alcohol boosts GABA's effect.
Endorphins: The body's natural painkillers and a source of pleasure. Opioid drugs mimic them.
Substance P: Carries pain signals. Endorphins can block its effects.
Acetylcholine: Muscle movement, learning and memory. Involved in myasthenia gravis and reduced in Alzheimer's disease.
Hormones vs. neurotransmitters: Hormones travel through the bloodstream, so they're slower but last longer and reach the whole body. Know adrenaline (fight-or-flight energy), leptin (fullness), ghrelin (hunger), melatonin (sleepiness) and oxytocin (bonding and trust).
Agonist: A drug that mimics or strengthens a neurotransmitter's effect, such as heroin or morphine at endorphin receptors.
Antagonist: A drug that blocks a neurotransmitter's effect, such as naloxone, which blocks opioid receptors and can reverse an overdose.
Reuptake inhibitor: A drug that keeps a neurotransmitter in the synapse longer by blocking reuptake, such as SSRI antidepressants (serotonin) or cocaine (dopamine).
Stimulants: Increase neural activity, alertness and heart rate. Examples: caffeine, nicotine, cocaine.
Depressants: Decrease neural activity, slowing reactions and impairing judgment and memory. Example: alcohol.
Hallucinogens: Distort perception and thinking. Examples: LSD and marijuana (the course classifies marijuana here).
Opioids: Relieve pain and can dangerously slow breathing. Example: heroin.
Tolerance, addiction and withdrawal: Tolerance: needing more of a drug for the same effect. Addiction: compulsive use despite harm. Withdrawal: unpleasant symptoms, often the opposite of the drug's effects, when use stops.

Unit 1: Brain structures and how the brain is studied

Unit 1

Brainstem and medulla: The oldest part of the brain, at the top of the spinal cord. The medulla controls heart rate and breathing, so damage here can be fatal.
Reticular activating system: A network through the brainstem that controls alertness and arousal and filters incoming information. Damage can cause a coma.
Reward center: Dopamine-rich areas that make some experiences feel pleasurable so you repeat them. Many addictive drugs act here.
Cerebellum: At the back, below the cortex. Coordinates movement and balance and stores some procedural learning, like riding a bike.
Limbic system: Structures beneath the cortex that link emotion, motivation and memory. The course lists five: thalamus, hypothalamus, pituitary gland, hippocampus and amygdala.
Thalamus: The sensory relay station: routes information from every sense except smell to the right cortex area.
Hypothalamus: Regulates hunger, thirst, body temperature and sexual behavior, and controls the pituitary gland.
Pituitary gland: The "master gland" of the endocrine system, releasing hormones that direct other glands.
Hippocampus: Helps form new explicit memories of facts and events. Damage can cause anterograde amnesia.
Amygdala: Processes emotion, especially fear and aggression.
Cerebral cortex: The wrinkled outer layer of the brain, split into left and right hemispheres, each with four lobes. Association areas combine information for higher thinking.
Frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex: Behind the forehead. The prefrontal cortex handles planning, judgment, impulse control and other executive functions, and it keeps maturing into the mid-20s.
Motor cortex: A strip at the back of the frontal lobe that controls voluntary movement, with each hemisphere moving the opposite side of the body.
Parietal lobe and somatosensory cortex: Top and back of the head. The somatosensory cortex, at the front of the parietal lobe, processes touch and body sensation.
Temporal lobe: Sides of the head, above the ears. Processes hearing (auditory cortex) and holds Wernicke's area.
Occipital lobe: Back of the head. Processes vision (visual cortex).
Broca's area: In the frontal lobe, usually the left. Controls speech production; damage causes slow, effortful speech even though understanding is mostly fine (Broca's aphasia).
Wernicke's area: In the temporal lobe, usually the left. Handles understanding language; damage causes fluent speech that doesn't make sense and poor comprehension (Wernicke's aphasia).
Contralateral control: Each hemisphere controls and senses the opposite side of the body. The left visual field goes to the right hemisphere, and the right visual field to the left.
Corpus callosum and split-brain research: The corpus callosum is the band of axons joining the hemispheres. When it's cut to stop severe seizures, a word flashed to the left visual field reaches only the right hemisphere: the person usually can't say it but can pick the object out with the left hand.
Hemispheric specialization: The hemispheres have different strengths; in most people, language depends mainly on the left. They still work together as a whole.
Plasticity: The brain's ability to change by forming new connections or reorganizing after learning or injury. It's strongest in childhood but continues all through life.
EEG: Electrodes on the scalp record the brain's electrical activity. Good at showing when activity happens, poor at showing where. Used to identify sleep stages.
fMRI: Tracks changes in blood flow to show which brain areas are active during a task.
Lesioning: Deliberately destroying a small area of brain tissue, usually in animals, to see what changes. Raises serious ethical concerns.
Case studies of brain damage: In-depth studies of people with unusual brain damage, such as Phineas Gage, whose personality reportedly changed after an iron rod pierced his frontal lobe in 1848.

Unit 1: Sleep and sensation

Unit 1

Consciousness: Your awareness of yourself and your surroundings, which comes in different states and levels, such as alert, drowsy and asleep.
Circadian rhythm: A roughly 24-hour biological clock for sleep and wakefulness. Darkness triggers melatonin; light suppresses it. Jet lag and shift work throw it off.
NREM-1: Light transition into sleep; you may feel falling sensations or see dreamlike images (hypnagogic sensations).
NREM-2: Clearly asleep but fairly easy to wake; the EEG shows sleep spindles. Adults spend the most total time here.
NREM-3: Deep, slow-wave sleep with large, slow delta waves; hardest to wake from. Sleepwalking happens here.
REM sleep: Rapid eye movements, awake-like brain waves and near-paralysis of major muscles ("paradoxical sleep"). Most vivid dreams happen here.
The night's pattern: A full cycle takes about 90 minutes, repeated 4 to 6 times a night. Deep NREM-3 sleep is greatest early in the night; REM periods get longer toward morning.
REM rebound: After REM deprivation, the brain enters REM sooner and stays longer, suggesting REM serves a purpose.
Why we sleep: Restoration theory: sleep lets the body and brain recover and repair. Memory consolidation theory: sleep strengthens and stores the day's memories.
Activation-synthesis theory: Dreams are the cortex's attempt to make a story out of random neural activity from the brainstem during REM.
Consolidation theory of dreams: Dreams reflect the brain processing and storing the day's experiences and memories.
Insomnia: Ongoing trouble falling or staying asleep.
Narcolepsy: Sudden, uncontrollable sleep attacks during the day, sometimes going straight into REM.
Sleep apnea: Breathing repeatedly stops during sleep, waking the person briefly many times; linked to loud snoring and daytime sleepiness.
REM sleep behavior disorder: The normal muscle paralysis of REM fails, so people act out their dreams.
Somnambulism (sleepwalking): Walking or doing other actions during deep NREM-3 sleep; more common in children.
Sensation vs. perception: Sensation is detecting energy from the world with your sense organs; perception (Unit 2) is organizing and interpreting it.
Transduction: Converting one form of energy, like light, sound waves or chemicals, into neural signals.
Absolute threshold: The weakest stimulus you can detect at least 50% of the time.
Just-noticeable difference (JND): The smallest change in a stimulus you can detect 50% of the time; also called the difference threshold.
Weber's law: The JND is a constant proportion of the starting stimulus, not a fixed amount. If 2 g is just noticeable on 100 g (2%), you need about 8 g on 400 g.
Sensory adaptation: Reduced sensitivity to a constant, unchanging stimulus, like no longer feeling your socks. It happens at the receptors.
Sensory interaction and synesthesia: Senses affect each other, as when food tastes bland with a stuffy nose. In synesthesia, one sense triggers an experience in another, like seeing colors when hearing music.
Lens and accommodation: The lens changes shape to focus light on the retina for near or far objects. Nearsightedness: image focuses in front of the retina, so far objects blur. Farsightedness: behind the retina, so near objects blur.
Retina, rods and cones: Rods (mostly in the periphery) work in dim light and don't see color. Cones (packed in the fovea, the center of the retina) handle color and fine detail in good light.
Optic nerve and blind spot: Ganglion cell axons form the optic nerve. Where it leaves the eye there are no receptors, creating a blind spot your brain fills in.
Trichromatic theory: Three types of cones, sensitive to short (blue), medium (green) and long (red) wavelengths, combine to produce all colors you see.
Opponent-process theory: Beyond the cones, cells work in opposing pairs: red-green, blue-yellow, black-white. Explains afterimages, like seeing red after staring at green.
Color vision deficiency: Comes from missing or irregular cones. Dichromatism means two working cone types (red-green deficiency is most common); monochromatism means no color vision.
Prosopagnosia and blindsight: Prosopagnosia: inability to recognize faces. Blindsight: a person says they see nothing in part of the visual field but can still point to objects there better than chance. Both come from damage to visual brain areas.
Pitch and loudness: The frequency of sound waves determines pitch; the amplitude (wave height) determines loudness.
Cochlea and hair cells: Sound passes through the eardrum and middle-ear bones to the fluid-filled cochlea, where hair cells transduce vibrations into signals on the auditory nerve.
Place theory: Different pitches vibrate different places along the cochlea's membrane. Best explains high pitches.
Frequency theory and volley theory: Frequency theory: the auditory nerve fires at the same rate as the sound wave, explaining low pitches. Volley theory: groups of neurons take turns firing to signal frequencies faster than one neuron can manage.
Sound localization: You tell where a sound comes from because it reaches the nearer ear slightly sooner and louder.
Conduction vs. sensorineural deafness: Conduction deafness: damage to the eardrum or middle-ear bones. Sensorineural deafness: damage to the hair cells or auditory nerve, often from loud noise or aging.
Smell (olfaction): The only sense that doesn't route first through the thalamus. Its close links to emotion and memory areas explain why smells trigger vivid memories. Pheromones are chemical signals within a species.
Taste (gustation): Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami and oleogustus (fat). The number of taste receptors sets sensitivity: supertasters have the most and find bitter tastes intense, then medium tasters, then nontasters. Without smell, taste is muted.
Touch and pain: Skin receptors detect pressure, warmth, cold and pain; the feeling of "hot" comes from warm and cold receptors firing together. Gate control theory: the spinal cord has a "gate" that can block or pass pain signals. Phantom limb sensation, feeling a limb that's gone, shows that pain is processed in the brain as well as the body.
Vestibular sense and kinesthesis: The vestibular sense (semicircular canals in the inner ear) handles balance. Kinesthesis senses the position and movement of your body parts from receptors in muscles and joints.

Unit 2: Perception and thinking

Unit 2

Bottom-up processing: Building a perception from the raw sensory details up, as when you piece together an unfamiliar symbol.
Top-down processing: Using what you already know and expect to interpret information, as when you read a word with missing letters.
Schema and perceptual set: A schema is a mental framework for organizing information. A perceptual set is a readiness to perceive something a certain way, shaped by context, experience, expectations and culture.
Gestalt principles: Your brain organizes parts into meaningful wholes. Figure-ground separates an object from its background; proximity groups things that are close; similarity groups things that look alike; closure fills gaps to see a complete shape.
Selective attention and the cocktail party effect: You focus on one thing and filter out the rest, but unattended information still gets some processing, so you notice your name across a noisy room.
Inattentional blindness: Failing to notice a visible object when your attention is elsewhere, like missing a person in a gorilla suit while counting basketball passes.
Change blindness: Failing to notice a change in what you're looking at, like not noticing that the person you were giving directions to was swapped for someone else.
Binocular depth cues: Need both eyes. Retinal disparity: the more the two retinal images differ, the closer the object. Convergence: the more your eyes turn inward, the closer the object.
Monocular depth cues: Work with one eye. Relative size (a smaller image seems farther), interposition (the object in front seems closer), relative clarity (hazy seems farther), texture gradient (finer texture seems farther), linear perspective (parallel lines seem to meet in the distance).
Perceptual constancy: Seeing objects as unchanging even when their image on the retina changes: size constancy, shape constancy, and color and lightness constancy.
Apparent movement: Seeing motion that isn't there. Phi phenomenon: lights blinking in sequence seem to move. Stroboscopic movement: a rapid series of still images, like a flipbook, looks like smooth motion.
Concept and prototype: A concept is a mental grouping of similar things. A prototype is the most typical example of a concept, like a robin for "bird."
Assimilation and accommodation: Assimilation: fitting new information into an existing schema. Accommodation: changing the schema to fit new information.
Algorithm: A step-by-step method that guarantees a solution but can be slow, like trying every combination on a lock.
Heuristic: A mental shortcut that is fast and usually works but can lead to errors.
Representativeness heuristic: Judging how likely something is by how well it matches a prototype or stereotype, while ignoring how common it actually is.
Availability heuristic: Judging how likely something is by how easily examples come to mind, like fearing flying after news of a crash.
Mental set: Sticking with a method that worked before, even when a better one exists.
Priming: Earlier exposure to something unconsciously affects your later response, like recognizing "banana" faster after seeing "yellow."
Framing: How a choice is worded changes the decision, as with a "90% survival rate" vs. a "10% death rate."
Gambler's fallacy: Believing past random events change the odds of future ones, like thinking tails is "due" after five heads.
Sunk-cost fallacy: Continuing something because of what you've already invested rather than whether it's still worth it.
Executive functions: Planning, organizing, focusing, controlling impulses and switching tasks, handled mainly by the prefrontal cortex.
Divergent vs. convergent thinking: Divergent thinking produces many possible answers and drives creativity. Convergent thinking narrows down to one correct answer.
Functional fixedness: Seeing an object only in its usual use, like not thinking of a coin as a screwdriver. It blocks creative problem-solving.

Unit 2: Memory

Unit 2

Encoding, storage and retrieval: Encoding gets information into memory, storage keeps it over time, and retrieval gets it back out.
Explicit (declarative) memory: Memories you can consciously recall and put into words. Episodic memory is personal events tied to a time and place; semantic memory is general facts. The hippocampus is key to forming them.
Implicit (nondeclarative) memory: Memory shown in behavior without conscious recall. Procedural memory, for skills like riding a bike, is the main example.
Prospective memory: Remembering to do something in the future, like taking medicine at 8 p.m.
Multi-store model: Information moves from sensory memory to short-term memory (if you pay attention) to long-term memory (if it's rehearsed or processed further).
Working memory model: Short-term memory as an active workspace: a central executive directs attention and coordinates a phonological loop (sounds and words) and a visuospatial sketchpad (images and layouts).
Levels of processing: Deeper processing gives better memory. From shallowest to deepest: structural (appearance), phonemic (sound), semantic (meaning).
Long-term potentiation (LTP): A synapse becomes stronger and more efficient after repeated activation; thought to be a biological basis of learning and memory. Glutamate plays a key role.
Automatic vs. effortful processing: Some information is encoded without effort, like where you ate lunch. Other information takes attention and work, like vocabulary.
Mnemonic devices: Memory aids such as the method of loci (placing items along a familiar mental route), acronyms and rhymes.
Chunking and hierarchies: Chunking groups items into larger meaningful units (FBI, CIA, NBA). Organizing material into categories or hierarchies also improves recall.
Spacing effect: Study spread over several sessions (distributed practice) is remembered better long-term than the same amount crammed into one session (massed practice).
Serial position effect: You recall the first items (primacy effect) and last items (recency effect) of a list best and the middle worst, giving a U-shaped graph. After a delay, recency fades but primacy stays.
Sensory memory: A brief, detailed copy of sensory input: under a second for sights (iconic memory), a few seconds for sounds (echoic memory).
Short-term memory: Holds about 7 items (newer estimates say about 4 chunks) for roughly 15 to 30 seconds without rehearsal.
Long-term memory: Essentially unlimited capacity, lasting minutes to a lifetime.
Maintenance vs. elaborative rehearsal: Maintenance rehearsal is simple repetition that keeps information in short-term memory. Elaborative rehearsal links information to its meaning or to what you already know and builds much better long-term memories.
Autobiographical memory and HSAM: Autobiographical memory is memory of your own life. A few people have highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM) and can recall details of nearly any day of their adult lives.
Retrograde amnesia: Losing memories formed before an injury or illness (memories going backward).
Anterograde amnesia: Being unable to form new long-term memories after an injury or illness, often from hippocampus damage (memories going forward).
Alzheimer's disease: A progressive brain disease that destroys neurons, starting with trouble forming new memories; linked to loss of acetylcholine-producing neurons. It's the most common cause of dementia.
Infantile amnesia: Most people can't recall events from before about age 3 or 4, a normal part of development.
Recall vs. recognition: Recall is retrieving without cues (fill-in-the-blank). Recognition is identifying the right answer when you see it (multiple choice), which is usually easier.
Retrieval cue: Anything that helps you access a stored memory, like a smell, word, place or feeling.
Context-dependent memory: Better recall in the same physical place where you learned, like divers who learned words underwater recalling them best underwater.
State-dependent memory: Better recall in the same internal physical state as during learning, such as tired or caffeinated.
Mood-congruent memory: Your current mood makes it easier to recall memories that match it.
Testing effect: Practicing retrieval by quizzing yourself builds stronger memories than rereading for the same amount of time.
Metacognition: Thinking about your own thinking, like judging accurately what you do and don't know.
Forgetting curve: Ebbinghaus (1880s) found forgetting is fast at first, then slows and levels off.
Encoding failure: The information never got into long-term memory, like not knowing the exact design of a coin you've seen thousands of times.
Proactive interference: Old learning disrupts new learning, like your old locker combination blocking the new one. Proactive works forward.
Retroactive interference: New learning disrupts old learning, like new Spanish vocabulary crowding out French you learned earlier. Retroactive works backward.
Retrieval failure and tip-of-the-tongue: The memory is stored but you can't reach it without the right cue, like knowing a name starts with M but not producing it.
Repression: A psychodynamic idea that painful memories are pushed out of awareness to reduce anxiety. Many researchers doubt it, since trauma is often remembered all too well.
Constructive (reconstructive) memory: Memories are rebuilt each time they're recalled, using stored pieces plus knowledge and expectations, so they can change.
Misinformation effect: Misleading information after an event changes the memory of it. In Loftus's studies, asking how fast cars "smashed" (vs. "hit") raised speed estimates and false memories of broken glass.
Source amnesia: Remembering information but forgetting or mixing up where it came from.
Imagination inflation: Repeatedly imagining an event makes you more confident it really happened. Confident eyewitnesses can still be wrong.

Unit 2: Intelligence and testing

Unit 2

General intelligence (g): The idea, from Charles Spearman, that one general ability underlies performance on many mental tasks, because people who do well on one type of test tend to do well on others.
Multiple abilities views: Other theorists argue intelligence is made of several distinct abilities (well-known examples are Gardner's multiple intelligences and Sternberg's analytical, creative and practical intelligence). The course asks you to explain the g vs. multiple-abilities debate.
Intelligence quotient (IQ): Early ratio IQ was mental age ÷ chronological age × 100, so a 10-year-old performing like a 12-year-old scored 120. Modern tests compare you with others your age, with an average of 100.
Psychometrics: The science of measuring mental traits such as abilities and personality.
Standardization: Giving and scoring a test the same way for everyone and comparing scores with a large, representative group who took it earlier.
Reliability: Consistency of results. Test-retest reliability means similar scores when retaking the test; split-half reliability means two halves of the test give similar scores. A test can be reliable without being valid.
Validity: Measuring what the test claims to measure. Construct validity: it truly measures the trait. Predictive validity: scores predict the future performance they're meant to, like grades.
Achievement vs. aptitude tests: Achievement tests measure what you've already learned. Aptitude tests predict how well you'll do in the future.
Flynn effect: Average IQ scores rose across much of the world during the 20th century, too fast to be genetic, pointing to social factors such as higher living standards, better health care and better nutrition.
Stereotype threat and stereotype lift: Stereotype threat: worry about confirming a negative stereotype about your group lowers performance. Stereotype lift: a boost from knowing a compared group is negatively stereotyped.
Group differences in test scores: Scores vary more within groups than between them, so group averages say little about any individual. Poverty, discrimination and unequal schooling can lower scores.
Misuse of intelligence tests: Test scores have been used to limit access to schools, jobs and the military and, in the early 1900s, to argue for restricting immigration, often with tests biased toward people fluent in English and US culture.
Growth vs. fixed mindset: A fixed mindset sees ability as set at birth; a growth mindset sees it as growing with effort and good strategies, which helps people persist after setbacks.

Unit 3: Development across the lifespan

Unit 3

Three themes of development: Nature and nurture; continuity vs. discontinuity (gradual change or distinct stages); stability vs. change (do traits last or shift?). Most psychologists see both sides of each.
Teratogens: Harmful substances, such as alcohol, nicotine, some drugs and some viruses, that can harm development before birth. Heavy drinking in pregnancy can cause fetal alcohol syndrome.
Newborn reflexes: Automatic responses at birth, such as the rooting reflex (turning toward a touch on the cheek and opening the mouth), sucking and grasping.
Maturation and motor development: Biological growth unfolds in a mostly fixed order (head control, rolling, sitting, crawling, standing, walking), but timing varies a lot between babies.
Visual cliff: A glass table that looks like it has a drop. Most crawling infants won't cross the "deep" side, showing early depth perception.
Critical and sensitive periods: A critical period is a window when certain experiences are needed for normal development; a sensitive period is when learning is easiest. Language is the clearest human example.
Imprinting: Some newly hatched animals, like Lorenz's goslings, attach to the first moving thing they see. Human attachment develops more gradually.
Puberty: The period of sexual maturation, along with the adolescent growth spurt. Primary sex characteristics are the reproductive organs; secondary ones include breasts, facial hair and a deeper voice. Menarche is the first period; spermarche is the first ejaculation.
Teen brain: The emotional limbic system matures before the prefrontal cortex (judgment and impulse control), which helps explain more risk-taking around peers.
Adulthood and aging: Physical abilities peak in early adulthood, then decline gradually: slower reaction time, less flexibility, weaker close vision and high-pitch hearing. Menopause ends menstruation, typically around age 50.
Sex and gender: Sex refers to biological characteristics. Gender refers to the roles and behaviors a culture links with being male, female or another gender.
Gender roles and gender identity: Gender roles are a culture's expectations for how each gender should act. Gender identity is a person's own inner sense of their gender.
Sexual orientation: A lasting pattern of romantic or sexual attraction. It's separate from gender identity.
Socialization: Learning a culture's norms, roles and behaviors from family, peers, school and media.
Piaget's sensorimotor stage (birth to about 2): Babies learn through senses and actions and develop object permanence, knowing that things exist when out of sight.
Piaget's preoperational stage (about 2 to 7): Children use language, symbols and pretend play, but show egocentrism (trouble taking another's view) and animism, and can't yet conserve or mentally reverse actions.
Piaget's concrete operational stage (about 7 to 11): Children think logically about concrete events and master conservation (quantity stays the same when shape changes) and reversibility.
Piaget's formal operational stage (about 12 and up): Teens and adults can think abstractly and hypothetically and reason systematically. Piaget said not everyone reaches this stage.
Theory of mind: Understanding that other people have their own thoughts and beliefs, which may differ from yours; typically develops around age 4 or 5.
Vygotsky: zone of proximal development and scaffolding: The zone of proximal development is the gap between what a child can do alone and with help. Scaffolding is temporary support from a more skilled person, removed as skill grows.
Crystallized vs. fluid intelligence: Crystallized intelligence (knowledge and vocabulary) stays stable or grows in adulthood. Fluid intelligence (fast reasoning about new problems) tends to decline with age.
Dementia: A decline in memory and thinking severe enough to interfere with daily life. It isn't a normal part of aging.
Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound in a language; "chat" has three (ch, a, t).
Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning; "unbreakable" has three (un, break, able).
Syntax, semantics and grammar: Syntax is the rules for word order. Semantics is how meaning is derived from words and sentences. Grammar is the whole system of rules.
Stages of language development: Cooing (about 2 months), babbling (about 4 to 6 months), one-word stage (about 12 months), telegraphic speech ("want cookie," about 18 to 24 months). The order is the same across cultures.
Overgeneralization: Applying a grammar rule too widely, like "I goed" or "two mouses." It shows the child has learned a rule.
Ecological systems theory: Bronfenbrenner's nested layers: microsystem (direct contacts like family), mesosystem (links between them), exosystem (indirect settings like a parent's job), macrosystem (culture and laws), chronosystem (time and life changes).
Parenting styles: Authoritarian parents set strict rules without explanation; authoritative parents set clear rules, explain them and are warm; permissive parents are warm but set few rules. In much US research, authoritative parenting is linked to the best outcomes, but effects vary by culture.
Secure attachment: The infant uses the caregiver as a safe base to explore, is upset when they leave and is easily comforted when they return.
Insecure attachment: Avoidant (little distress, avoids the caregiver), anxious (clingy, very upset, hard to comfort) and disorganized (confused or contradictory behavior). Attachment styles vary by culture, and childhood attachment can shape adult relationships.
Temperament and separation anxiety: Temperament is a baby's inborn emotional style, which affects attachment. Separation anxiety is distress when apart from a caregiver, common in later infancy.
Harlow's monkeys: Infant monkeys clung to a soft cloth "mother" rather than a wire one that gave milk, showing comfort matters more than food for attachment.
Peer relationships: Young children play side by side without interacting (parallel play) and act out make-believe roles (pretend play). Adolescents rely more and more on peers as they age.
Imaginary audience and personal fable: Teen egocentrism. Imaginary audience: feeling everyone is watching and judging you. Personal fable: believing you're unique and invulnerable.
Identity statuses (Marcia): Achievement (explored, then committed), moratorium (exploring, not committed), foreclosure (committed without exploring) and diffusion (neither exploring nor committed). Teens also form ethnic, gender, religious, career and family identities, often by imagining possible selves.
Emerging adulthood and the social clock: Emerging adulthood is a period of about 18 to 25 in some cultures between adolescence and full independence. The social clock is a culture's expected timing for events like marriage or retirement.
Erikson's stages: childhood: Trust vs. mistrust (infancy), autonomy vs. shame and doubt (toddler), initiative vs. guilt (preschool), industry vs. inferiority (elementary school).
Erikson's stages: adolescence and adulthood: Identity vs. role confusion (adolescence), intimacy vs. isolation (young adult), generativity vs. stagnation (middle adult), integrity vs. despair (late adult).
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs): Abuse, neglect or serious household problems in childhood. More ACEs are linked to higher risk of later health and relationship problems, and supportive relationships can protect against them.

Unit 3: Learning

Unit 3

Learning: A relatively lasting change in behavior due to experience. Behaviorists such as Watson argued psychology should study only observable behavior.
Neutral stimulus (NS): Something that doesn't trigger the response before conditioning, like a tone.
Unconditioned stimulus and response (UCS, UCR): The UCS naturally triggers a response without learning (food); the UCR is that natural response (salivating to food).
Conditioned stimulus and response (CS, CR): After pairing, the old neutral stimulus becomes the CS (the tone), and the learned response to it is the CR (salivating to the tone). Label the response by what triggers it.
Acquisition: The first stage, when the NS is paired with the UCS. It works best when the NS comes just before the UCS.
Extinction: When the CS is repeatedly presented without the UCS, the CR weakens and stops.
Spontaneous recovery: After extinction and a rest, the CR suddenly reappears, usually weaker, without any new pairing.
Generalization and discrimination: Generalization: responding to stimuli similar to the CS. Discrimination: responding only to the CS and not to similar stimuli. Both also happen in operant conditioning.
Higher-order conditioning: A CS acts like a UCS to condition a new neutral stimulus, like a light paired with a tone that already predicts food.
Little Albert (1920): Watson and Rayner paired a white rat with a loud noise until a baby feared the rat, and the fear generalized to other furry things. Unethical by today's standards.
Counterconditioning: Pairing a feared stimulus with a new, incompatible response, like relaxation. It's the basis of exposure therapies.
Taste aversion: Garcia's research: one pairing of a taste with sickness, even hours later, creates lasting avoidance (one-trial learning).
Biological preparedness: Animals learn some associations more easily than others, like taste with nausea rather than a light with nausea.
Habituation: A decrease in response to a repeated stimulus, like tuning out a ticking clock. It's the simplest form of learning.
Law of effect: Thorndike: behaviors followed by satisfying consequences become more likely; those followed by unpleasant ones become less likely. Skinner built on this with the operant chamber.
Positive reinforcement: Add something pleasant to increase a behavior, like getting paid for mowing the lawn.
Negative reinforcement: Remove something unpleasant to increase a behavior, like buckling your seatbelt to stop the beeping. It's not punishment.
Positive punishment: Add something unpleasant to decrease a behavior, like getting a speeding ticket.
Negative punishment: Remove something pleasant to decrease a behavior, like losing your phone for breaking curfew.
Primary vs. secondary reinforcers: Primary reinforcers meet biological needs (food, water, warmth). Secondary (conditioned) reinforcers get their power from links to primary ones (money, grades, praise).
Shaping: Reinforcing successive approximations, steps closer and closer to a goal behavior.
Instinctive drift: Trained animals drift back toward instinctive behaviors, like raccoons rubbing coins together instead of dropping them in a box.
Superstitious behavior: A behavior repeated because a reinforcer happened to follow it by chance, like lucky socks.
Learned helplessness: After learning it can't control bad events, an organism stops trying even when escape becomes possible (Seligman's dogs). Linked to depression.
Continuous vs. partial reinforcement: Continuous (every response): fast learning, fast extinction. Partial (some responses): slower learning, much more resistant to extinction.
Fixed-ratio schedule: Reward after a set number of responses, like a free coffee after 10 purchases. High rate with a short pause after each reward.
Variable-ratio schedule: Reward after an unpredictable number of responses, like slot machines. Highest, steadiest rate and most resistant to extinction.
Fixed-interval schedule: Reward for the first response after a set time. Responding slows after each reward and speeds up as the time nears (a scalloped graph).
Variable-interval schedule: Reward for the first response after an unpredictable time, like pop quizzes or checking for texts. Slow, steady rate.
Observational learning and modeling: Bandura's social learning theory: people learn by watching others (observational learning) and imitating them (modeling). In the Bobo doll studies, children copied an adult's aggression.
Vicarious conditioning: Learning from the consequences someone else gets. Children imitated more when the model was rewarded and less when punished, and people are more likely to copy a model who is similar to them.
Insight learning: A sudden "aha" solution without trial and error, like Köhler's chimps stacking boxes to reach bananas.
Latent learning and cognitive maps: Tolman's rats learned a maze without reward and showed it only once food appeared, suggesting they had formed a cognitive map (a mental layout of the environment).

Unit 4: Social psychology

Unit 4

Dispositional vs. situational attribution: Explaining behavior by something inside the person (personality, effort) or by outside circumstances (the bus broke down).
Explanatory style: Optimists see bad events as temporary, limited and not all their fault; pessimists see them as permanent, wide-reaching and their own doing. A pessimistic style is linked to depression.
Fundamental attribution error: When judging others, overestimating personality and underestimating the situation.
Actor-observer bias: Explaining your own actions by the situation but the same actions in others by their personality.
Self-serving bias: Taking credit for successes (internal) and blaming failures on the situation (external).
Locus of control: Internal: you believe your own choices and effort drive outcomes. External: you believe luck, fate or powerful others do.
Mere-exposure effect: Liking something more the more often you're exposed to it.
Self-fulfilling prophecy: A belief leads you to act in ways that make it come true, like a teacher's high expectations leading to more help and better student performance.
Social comparison and relative deprivation: Judging yourself against others: upward comparison can motivate but lower mood; downward comparison can boost mood. Relative deprivation is feeling you have less than you deserve compared with those around you.
Stereotype, prejudice and discrimination: A stereotype is a generalized belief about a group (thought). Prejudice is an unjustified, usually negative attitude toward a group (thought plus feeling). Discrimination is unjustified negative behavior toward a group (action).
Implicit attitudes: Attitudes you hold without being aware of them, often studied with reaction-time tasks like the Implicit Association Test.
Just-world phenomenon: Believing the world is fair, so people get what they deserve; it leads to blaming victims.
In-group bias and out-group homogeneity bias: In-group bias: favoring your own group. Out-group homogeneity: seeing members of other groups as all alike.
Ethnocentrism: Judging other cultures by your own culture's standards.
Belief perseverance and confirmation bias: Belief perseverance: clinging to a belief after its evidence is discredited. Confirmation bias: seeking and remembering information that supports what you already believe.
Cognitive dissonance: Discomfort when your actions and attitudes conflict, which you reduce, often by changing the attitude. In Festinger's 1959 study, people paid $1 to call a dull task fun later rated it more enjoyable than people paid $20.
Social norms: A group's unwritten rules for how members should behave.
Normative vs. informational social influence: Normative: going along to be accepted or avoid rejection. Informational: going along because you think others know something you don't.
Elaboration likelihood model: Central route: careful thinking about strong arguments, producing lasting change. Peripheral route: persuasion by surface cues like fame, looks or catchy music, producing weaker change.
Halo effect: Assuming someone with one good trait, such as attractiveness, has other good traits too. It's an example of the peripheral route to persuasion.
Foot-in-the-door and door-in-the-face: Foot-in-the-door: a small request first makes a bigger one more likely to be accepted. Door-in-the-face: a huge request is refused, so a smaller follow-up seems reasonable.
Conformity (Asch): Changing behavior to match a group. In Asch's line studies, many people went along with an obviously wrong group answer at least once. Conformity rises with a unanimous group of 3 or more, public answers, high-status groups and uncertainty; one ally sharply reduces it.
Obedience (Milgram): Following an authority's direct orders. In Milgram's best-known version, 65% gave the maximum fake shock. Obedience dropped when the experimenter was absent, the learner was close or others refused.
Social facilitation: Having others around improves performance on easy or well-practiced tasks and hurts it on hard or new ones.
Social loafing: Putting in less effort in a group when individual work isn't tracked.
Diffusion of responsibility: In a group, each person feels less personally responsible to act.
Deindividuation: Losing self-awareness and restraint in groups that make people feel anonymous.
Group polarization: Discussion among like-minded people pushes the group's view to a more extreme position.
Groupthink: A group's desire for harmony overrides realistic thinking, so doubts go unspoken and bad decisions follow.
False consensus effect: Overestimating how many people share your opinions and habits.
Individualism vs. collectivism: Individualist cultures stress personal goals and independence; collectivist cultures stress group goals, family and harmony. Multiculturalism means valuing several cultural identities within a society.
Superordinate goals and social traps: Superordinate goals are shared goals that require groups to cooperate, which reduced hostility in Sherif's Robbers Cave study. A social trap is when everyone acting in their own short-term interest harms the group.
Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology: Studies people at work: hiring, management, teamwork and job satisfaction. Burnout is exhaustion, cynicism and reduced effectiveness from long-term job stress.
Altruism and helping norms: Altruism is unselfish concern for others. The reciprocity norm says help those who helped you; the social responsibility norm says help those who depend on you.
Bystander effect: People are less likely to help in an emergency when others are present. A helper must notice, interpret it as an emergency and take responsibility, and other people interfere at each step.

Unit 4: Personality, motivation and emotion

Unit 4

Psychodynamic theory: Freud's view that unconscious thoughts, wishes and memories drive personality. The preconscious holds material that isn't in awareness but is easy to recall. Freud's psychosexual stages aren't tested.
Defense mechanisms: Unconscious strategies that protect the ego (in Freud's terms, the realistic part of the self) from anxiety by distorting or hiding reality. If done on purpose, it isn't a defense mechanism.
Repression and denial: Repression pushes threatening thoughts or memories out of awareness. Denial refuses to accept a painful reality.
Displacement and projection: Displacement shifts feelings onto a safer target, like yelling at a sibling after a fight with your boss. Projection sees your own unacceptable feelings in someone else.
Rationalization and reaction formation: Rationalization makes up a reasonable-sounding excuse for behavior. Reaction formation acts the opposite of a hidden feeling, like being extra sweet to someone you resent.
Regression and sublimation: Regression returns to behavior from an earlier stage of life, like thumb-sucking under stress. Sublimation redirects an unacceptable urge into a socially valued activity, like aggression into sports.
Projective tests: Ambiguous images people interpret, like the Rorschach inkblots or the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), meant to reveal unconscious material. Criticized for low reliability and validity.
Humanistic theory: Carl Rogers's view that people are basically good and have a self-actualizing tendency, a natural drive to grow toward their potential. (Maslow's hierarchy of needs isn't tested.)
Unconditional positive regard: Accepting and valuing a person no matter what they do. With genuineness and empathy, it creates the climate Rogers said people need to grow. Conditional love can create conditions of worth.
Reciprocal determinism: Bandura's social-cognitive idea that personal factors (thoughts and feelings), behavior and environment all influence each other in a loop.
Self-concept, self-efficacy and self-esteem: Self-concept is your overall picture of who you are. Self-efficacy is belief that you can succeed at a specific task. Self-esteem is your overall sense of your own worth.
Trait theories: Describe personality as stable traits that shape typical behavior across situations. Traits predict behavior averaged over many situations better than in any single one.
Big Five traits (OCEAN): Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability (the opposite end of neuroticism).
Personality inventory: A questionnaire where people rate how well statements describe them. Scored objectively, so it's more reliable than a projective test.
Factor analysis: A statistical method that finds clusters of items people answer similarly; it's how the Big Five were identified.
Drive-reduction theory: A physical need creates a drive that pushes you to reduce it, restoring homeostasis (a steady internal state). It doesn't explain thrill seeking.
Arousal theory and the Yerkes-Dodson law: People seek an optimal level of arousal. Performance is best at moderate arousal; easy tasks are done best at somewhat higher arousal and hard tasks at somewhat lower arousal.
Instincts: Innate, fixed behavior patterns triggered by certain stimuli, like a spider spinning a web. Many animals show them, but humans don't seem to; our behavior is shaped heavily by learning.
Self-determination theory: People need autonomy, competence and relatedness to stay intrinsically motivated.
Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation: Intrinsic: doing something because it's satisfying in itself. Extrinsic: doing it for outside rewards or to avoid punishment.
Incentive theory: Rewards and punishments in the environment (extrinsic motivators) pull or push behavior, like studying for a prize.
Approach and avoidance conflicts (Lewin): Approach-approach: two attractive options. Avoidance-avoidance: two unattractive options. Approach-avoidance: one option with both good and bad sides.
Sensation-seeking theory: People differ in their need for novel, intense experiences: thrill and adventure seeking, experience seeking, disinhibition and boredom susceptibility.
Hunger: ghrelin, leptin and the hypothalamus: Ghrelin from an empty stomach signals hunger; leptin from fat cells signals fullness. The hypothalamus monitors these signals. External cues like the time of day or friends eating also trigger hunger.
Need to belong: People are motivated to form and keep close relationships, and being left out is distressing.
Parts of an emotion: Physiological arousal, expressive behavior (like a smile) and conscious experience.
Body first: A stimulus causes body arousal, and you feel the emotion by noticing that arousal. (The exam asks for the idea, not the theory's name.)
At the same time: A stimulus triggers body arousal and the feeling of emotion together and independently.
Arousal plus a label: A stimulus causes general arousal, and you need a cognitive label from the situation to know which emotion you feel.
Facial-feedback hypothesis: Your facial expressions can influence your feelings, like smiling making you a bit happier. It fits the body-first idea of emotion, but evidence is mixed, so treat the effect as modest.
Broaden-and-build theory: Positive emotions widen your thinking and actions and build lasting resources like skills and friendships; negative emotions narrow attention toward a threat.
Universal emotions: Anger, disgust, sadness, happiness, surprise and fear are often recognized across cultures at above-chance rates, though recognition is better within your own culture.
Display rules: Cultural norms about when, where and how strongly to show emotions. They govern expression, not what people feel, and can vary by gender, age and setting.

Unit 5: Stress, well-being and psychological disorders

Unit 5

Health psychology: Studies how behavior, thinking and stress affect physical health. Long-term stress is linked to high blood pressure, headaches and a weaker immune system.
Eustress vs. distress: Eustress is stress felt as positive and motivating; distress is stress that overwhelms and wears you down.
Kinds of stressors: Traumatic events are sudden and severe; daily hassles are small but add up. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are linked to higher risk of later health problems.
General adaptation syndrome (Selye): Alarm reaction (sympathetic arousal, stress hormones jump), resistance (body stays on high alert, coping), exhaustion (resources run down; most vulnerable to illness).
Fight-flight-freeze and tend-and-befriend: Fight-flight-freeze is the body's quick reaction to a threat, driven mainly by the sympathetic nervous system. Tend-and-befriend (Taylor) is caring for others and seeking support under stress, seen more often in women.
Problem-focused vs. emotion-focused coping: Problem-focused coping tackles the stressor itself and works best when you can change the situation. Emotion-focused coping manages your reaction (exercise, meditation, talking) and helps most when you can't.
Positive psychology: The study of what helps people thrive, such as well-being, positive emotions and strengths.
Subjective well-being: Your own judgment of how your life is going: life satisfaction plus how often you feel positive vs. negative emotions.
Gratitude: Noticing and appreciating good things. Experiments with random assignment link gratitude exercises to modest gains in well-being.
Character strengths and virtues: 24 strengths grouped under six virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence. Using your signature strengths in new ways is linked to well-being.
Resilience vs. posttraumatic growth: Resilience is adapting and bouncing back after adversity. Posttraumatic growth is positive change beyond your earlier level, which some people report after trauma; distress can exist alongside it.
What makes a psychological disorder: Significant disturbance in thoughts, feelings or behavior, judged by dysfunction (interferes with daily life), distress (causes suffering) and deviation (unusual in the person's culture). No single factor is enough.
DSM and ICD: The DSM (from the American Psychiatric Association) and the ICD (from the World Health Organization) are the main systems trained clinicians use to diagnose. Both are updated regularly as research advances.
Benefits and risks of diagnosis: A diagnosis can guide treatment and insurance coverage, but labels can bring stigma (unfair negative judgment). Person-first language, like "a person with schizophrenia," helps.
Perspectives on disorders: Biological (genes, brain, neurotransmitters), psychodynamic (unconscious conflicts from childhood), behavioral (learned associations), cognitive (maladaptive thoughts and beliefs), humanistic (lack of support, unmet potential), evolutionary (behaviors that hurt survival, such as once-useful fears now out of proportion), sociocultural (unhealthy social and cultural conditions).
Eclectic approach: Drawing on more than one perspective to diagnose and treat, since disorders rarely have one cause.
Biopsychosocial model: Problems come from a combination of biological, psychological and sociocultural factors.
Diathesis-stress model: A disorder develops when a predisposition or vulnerability (diathesis), often genetic, combines with stressful experiences.
ADHD and autism spectrum disorder: Neurodevelopmental disorders that begin in childhood. ADHD involves ongoing inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity in more than one setting; ASD involves differences in social communication plus restricted, repetitive behaviors or interests. Research shows vaccines don't cause autism.
Schizophrenia: positive symptoms: Experiences added to normal functioning: delusions (false beliefs, such as of persecution or grandeur), hallucinations (false perceptions, often voices) and disorganized thinking or speech (like word salad).
Schizophrenia: negative symptoms and catatonia: Negative symptoms are missing typical behaviors, like flat affect or reduced speech and motivation. Catatonia can be excited (positive) or stuporous (negative).
Causes of schizophrenia: Genetics (risk rises with closer affected relatives), prenatal virus exposure, and the dopamine hypothesis (overactive dopamine signaling).
Major depressive disorder: Depressed mood or loss of interest for at least two weeks, with symptoms like sleep and appetite changes, low energy, poor concentration and worthlessness.
Persistent depressive disorder: A long-lasting depressed mood on most days for at least two years in adults.
Bipolar I and bipolar II: Mania is an abnormally elevated or irritable mood with high energy, little need for sleep and risky behavior. Bipolar I requires at least one full manic episode. Bipolar II requires hypomania (milder) plus major depression, with no full mania.
Specific phobia and agoraphobia: Specific phobia: intense fear of a particular object or situation. Agoraphobia: fear of situations where escape may be hard, like crowds or public transportation.
Panic disorder: Repeated, unexpected panic attacks. Ataque de nervios is a related culture-bound form.
Social anxiety disorder: Intense fear of being watched or judged. Taijin kyofusho, seen mainly in Japan, is a fear that one's body offends others.
Generalized anxiety disorder: Persistent, hard-to-control worry about many things, not one trigger.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder and hoarding disorder: OCD: intrusive, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors done to relieve them (compulsions). Hoarding: persistent difficulty discarding possessions.
Dissociative disorders: Disruptions in memory, identity or awareness. Dissociative amnesia (sometimes with fugue, wandering away confused about identity) and dissociative identity disorder (two or more identity states). Not the same as schizophrenia.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): After a traumatic event: flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, anxiety, insomnia and detachment lasting more than a month. Most people who experience trauma don't develop it.
Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa: Anorexia: restricting food to a dangerously low weight, with intense fear of gaining weight and distorted body image. Bulimia: binge eating followed by vomiting, fasting or excessive exercise, often at a typical weight.
Personality disorders: Lasting, inflexible patterns that cause distress or impairment, grouped in three clusters: A, odd (paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal); B, dramatic (antisocial, histrionic, narcissistic, borderline); C, anxious (avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive).

Unit 5: Treatment of psychological disorders

Unit 5

Does therapy work?: Meta-analyses show that, on average, people who get psychotherapy improve more than similar people who don't. Evidence-based interventions are treatments supported by research for a specific problem.
Therapeutic alliance and cultural humility: The trusting, cooperative bond between therapist and client predicts success across approaches, as does a therapist's ongoing openness to learning about the client's culture.
Ethics in treatment: Therapists follow APA principles: do no harm (nonmaleficence), be trustworthy and keep commitments (fidelity), be honest (integrity), and respect clients' rights, dignity and confidentiality.
Psychodynamic therapy: Brings unconscious conflicts into awareness, using free association (saying whatever comes to mind) and dream interpretation.
Person-centered (humanistic) therapy: Client-led and focused on the present. The therapist uses active listening (restating and clarifying feelings) and unconditional positive regard.
Applied behavior analysis (ABA): Using conditioning principles to change behavior in mental disorders and developmental disabilities. Exposure therapies, aversion therapy and token economies are all forms of it.
Exposure therapy and systematic desensitization: Behavioral treatments for fears. In systematic desensitization, the client ranks fears in a hierarchy, learns relaxation, then works up the list while staying relaxed.
Aversion therapy: Pairs an unwanted behavior with something unpleasant, like a drug that causes nausea when combined with alcohol.
Token economy: Rewards target behaviors with tokens that can be traded for privileges (operant conditioning).
Biofeedback: Gives real-time information about body signals like heart rate so a person can learn to control stress responses.
Cognitive therapy: Changes maladaptive thinking through cognitive restructuring (spotting and replacing distorted thoughts). Beck's approach targets negative automatic thoughts and the cognitive triad (negative views of yourself, the world and the future).
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT): Changes both thoughts and behaviors. Examples: rational emotive behavior therapy (Ellis), which targets irrational beliefs, and dialectical behavior therapy (Linehan), which adds mindfulness and emotion regulation.
Group and family therapy: Group therapy costs less, shows people they aren't alone and lets them practice social skills, but gives less individual attention and privacy. Family therapy treats the family as a system.
Hypnosis: Can help reduce pain and anxiety, but it doesn't recover accurate memories and can increase confidence in false ones.
Antidepressants: Many, like SSRIs, increase serotonin activity by blocking its reuptake. Used for depression, anxiety disorders and OCD; often take weeks to work.
Antianxiety drugs: Many, like benzodiazepines, boost GABA's calming effect. Give short-term relief but carry a risk of dependence.
Lithium: A mood stabilizer used for bipolar disorders; needs careful blood monitoring.
Antipsychotics: Block dopamine receptors to reduce psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations. Long-term use of older drugs can cause tardive dyskinesia (involuntary face and tongue movements).
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT): A brief electric current causes a controlled seizure in an anesthetized patient. Used for severe depression that hasn't responded to other treatment; may cause short-term memory loss.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS): Magnetic pulses through the scalp stimulate brain areas, without anesthesia.
Psychosurgery: Removing or lesioning brain tissue. The lobotomy, common in the mid-1900s, is rarely if ever done today.
Deinstitutionalization: Newer medications in the second half of the 1900s helped move many people out of psychiatric hospitals into community-based care.