AP Psychology Commonly Missed Terms

Hawthorne Effect

A change in a subject's behavior caused simply by the awareness of being studied.

Sublimation

Channeling one's frustration toward a different goal; viewed as healthy (Ex: feeling angry = channeling it through boxing)

Semantic Memory

General knowledge of the world, stored as facts, meanings, or non-sequentially

MRI

Gives more detailed image of the brain

Axis V

Global assessment of functioning; global assessment of functioning scale (GAF) - yields score from 1 to 100, higher numbers are indicative of higher levels of functioning

Statistical Significance

How likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance; The smaller the p-value, the more significant the results. P-value of 0.5 means a 5% chance exists that results occurred by chance

Validity

How well test measures what it's supposed to measure

Premack Principle

Idea that the reinforcing properties of something depend on the situation (Ex: primary reinforcer like food will have a different effect based on hunger level)

Information-Processing Model

Information passes through 3 stages before it's stored: Sensory ➙ Short-term ➙ Long-term

PET

Lets researchers see what areas of the brain are most active during certain tasks; measures how much glucose parts of the brain are using. (Think: Don't give your pet too much sugar)

Axis III

Medical conditions; physical ailments that could impact a person's psychological well-being (Ex: cancer, brain injury, diabetes)

Episodic Memory

Memories of specific events, stored in a sequential series of events

Levels of Processing Model

Memory depends on how data is encoded with "deeper" processing resulting in better encoding and retrieval than "shallow" processing; Memory depends on how data is programmed into the mind

Procedural Memory

Memory of skills and how to perform them

Efferent Neurons

Motor neurons; Take information from the brain to the rest of the body

Retroactive Interference

New information interferes with recall of old information

APA Ethical Guidelines

No coercion - Participation should be voluntary Informed consent - Participants must give their consent Anonymity/confidentiality - No matching responses with names Risk - Can't be placed at significant mental or physical risk Debriefing - Participants must be told study's purpose at the end

Eclectic

No one perspective has all the answers to the variety of human thought and behavior.

Axis IV

Psychosocial conditions; environmental factors that may affect person's mental health (Ex: divorce, job loss, poverty, dysfunctional family)

Overjustification Effect

Promising a reward for doing what one already likes to do; The person may now see the reward, rather than intrinsic interest, as the motivation for performing the task.

Iris

Ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening

Piaget's Stages

Sensorimotor - Object permanence Preoperational - Egocentrism Concrete operations - Conservation Formal operations - Abstract reasoning, hypothesis testing

Afferent Neurons

Sensory neurons; Take information from the senses to the brain

Hindbrain

Structures in top of spinal cord; is our life support system that controls the basic biological functions that keep us alive. Important structures: medulla, pons, cerebellum

Ex-Post Facto Study

Subjects chose based on pre-existing conditions

Barnum Effect

Tendency for people to accept very general or vague characterizations of themselves and take them to be accurate (Ex: believe astrological predictions)

Mental Set

Tendency to fall into established thought patterns; using solutions or past experience to try to solve novel problems

Selective Attention

The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus; stimuli not attended to are not remembered

Psychosocial Stage Theory

Trust vs. Mistrust - Babies learn whether or not they can trust caregivers and that their requests are effective; need fulfillment Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt - Learn to control ourselves and develop healthy will (child's favorite word is "no") Initiative vs. Guilt - Want to understand the world and ask many questions (child's favorite word is "why?") Industry vs. Inferiority - Feel we are as good as our peers at school or else we will feel inferior Identity vs. Role Confusion - Try out different roles before finding one we are comfortable with to find a stable sense of self Intimacy vs. Isolation - Balance ties between work and relationships with other people Generativity vs. Stagnation - Look back on life to ensure our lives are going the way we want them to go

Prototype

What we think is the most typical example of a particular concept (Ex: we think of a chair as something with 4 legs and a seat)

MMPI-2

A widely used personality assessment instrument that gives scores on ten important clinical traits. Also called the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

Conservation

Ability to recognize that objects can be transformed in some way, visually or phycially, yet still be the same in number, weight, substance, or volume; Piaget's term for the awareness that physical quantities remain constant in spite of changes in their shape or appearance

Pupil

Adjustable opening in center of eye through which light enters

Naturalistic Observation

Advantage: Get realistic and rich picture of participants' behavior Disadvantage: No control

Case Study

Advantage: Get richest possible picture of what is being studied Disadvantage: Findings can't be generalized to a larger population because the focus is on a single individual/small group

Survey

Advantage: See if there's a relationship between 2 variables. Disadvantage: Can't control participant-relevant confounding variables

Peripheral Nervous System

All other nerves in the body; divided into somatic and autonomic nervous systems

Long-Term Potentation

An increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basic for learning and memory

Association Area

Area of cerebral cortex not associated with receiving sensory information or controlling muscle movements

Contiguity Model

Behaviorist approach that states, for learning to occur, the response must occur in the presence of or very soon after a stimulus is presented, or an association will not occur. In essence, learning will occur only if events occur relatively close together in time

Psychoanalytic Perspective

Believe that the unconscious mind controls much of our thought and action. Says that we must examine our unconscious mind through dream analysis, word association, and other psychoanalytic therapy techniques. (Ex: says introverted person may limit social contact because of childhood trauma involving a social situation)

Humanist Perspective

Believe that we choose most of our behaviors and these choices are guided by physiological, emotional, or spiritual needs; the least deterministic model because behavior is not predetermined and rather comes out of free will. (Ex: says introverted person may limit social contact because they feel their social needs are better satisfied by contact with a few close friends rather than large groups)

Trait Perspective

Believe we can describe people's personalities by specifying their main characteristics, or traits; thought to be stable and to motivate behavior in keeping with the trait

Projection

Believing that the feelings one has toward someone else are actually held by the other person directed at oneself (Ex: you love a girl who hates you but you think she loves you)

Fovea

Central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster

Anterograde Amnesia

Can't encode new memories

Optic nerve

Carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain

Neurotransmitters

Chemicals contained in terminal buttons that enable neurons to communicate. Neurotransmitters fit into receptor sites on the dendrites of neurons like a key that fits into a lock

Axis I

Clinical disorders; what we think of as the client's major diagnosis (Ex: major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia)

Pons

Connects hindbrain with midbrain and forebrain; also involved in control of facial expressions

Autonomic Nervous System

Controls automatic body functions - heart, lungs, internal organs, glands, etc. Controls our responses to stress - fight or flight response; divided into sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems

Somatic Nervous System

Controls voluntary muscle movements; impulses sent by motor cortex

Reliability

Degree to which produces stable and consistent results

Schizophrenic Disorders

Delusions and hallucinations; include disordered schizophrenia (language disturbances/flat affect), paranoid schizophrenia (delusions of persecution), catatonic schizophrenia (engage in odd/jerky movements), undifferentiated schizophrenia (disordered thinking only)

Dissociative Disorders

Disruption in conscious processes; include psychogenic amnesia, fugue, and DID

Availability Heruistic

Estimating likelihood of events based on their availability in memory (if instances come readily to mind, we think such events are more common)

Cognitive Perspective

Examine human thought and behavior in terms of how we interpret, process, and remember environmental events. In this perspective, the rules that we use to view the world are important to understanding why we think and behave the way we do. (Ex: explains a person's tendency to be extroverted in terms of how he or she interprets social situations)

Longitudinal Study

Examines 1 group of participants over time (Ex: see how group of mentally challenged children progress in their learning skills)

Mood Disorders

Experiences extreme or inappropriate emotions; include major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder

Behavioral Perspective

Explain human thought and behavior in terms of conditioning. (Ex: says that person might be extroverted in terms of reward and punishment)

Biological Perspective

Explain human thought and behavior strictly in terms of biological processes. Believes that human cognition/reactions might be caused by our genes, hormones, and neurotransmitters in the brain.

Reaction Formation

Expressing the opposite of how one truly feels (Ex: claiming you hate candy when you really love it)

Big Five

Five personality traits determined through factor analyses: Conscientiousness - Hardworking, responsible, organized Agreeableness - How easy someone is at getting along Neuroticism - How consistent one's mood is Openness - Open to new experiences (creativity, curiosity, willingness to try new things) Extroversion - How outgoing/shy someone is

Law of Effect

If consequences of a behavior are pleasant, the stimulus-response connection will be strengthened and the likelihood of the behavior will increase

Functional Fixedness

Inability to see a new use for an object (Ex: not thinking of using a car jack to raise a car from the mud because it's usually used for flat tires)

WAIS/WISC

Intelligence tests; Mean is 100 and SD is 15

Representative Heuristic

Judging likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent/match particular prototypes

Nativist Theory of Language Acquisition

Language acquisition device; the ability to learn a language rapidly as children

Retina

Light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information

Sociocultural Perspective

Looks at how our thoughts and behaviors vary from people living in other cultures; emphasizes the influence culture has on the way we think and act. (Ex: explains that person's tendency to be extroverted by examine their culture's rules about social interaction)

Personality Disorders

Maladaptive ways of behaving; include antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and histrionic personality disorder (overly dramatic behavior)

Measures of Central Tendency

Mean, Median, Mode

EEG

Measures electrical activity of the brain (Think: EEG looks like egg ➙ electrical egg)

Proactive Interference

Older information interferes with recall of new information

Interneurons

Once information reaches the brain or spinal cord by afferent neurons, these neurons take the messages and send them elsewhere in the brain or on to efferent neurons

Approach-Avoidance Conflict

One event or goal has both attractive and unattractive features (Ex: If you were lactose intolerant, an ice cream = conflict because the taste is appealing but the effect is not)

Freud's Psychosexual Stages

Oral - Infants seek pleasure through their mouths Anal - Toilet training Phallic - Babies realize their gender Latency - Puberty & low psychosexual anxiety Genital - Focus of sexual pleasure in the genitals

Somatoform Disorders

Person manifests a psychological problem through a physical symptom; include hypochondriasis and conversion disorder

Axis II

Personality and developmental disorders; maladaptive, long-term ways a person has of interacting with the world (Ex: antisocial, paranoia)

Reciprocal Determinism

Personality arises out of interaction of person's traits, environment, and behavior

Projective Tests

Personality test, in which examinees are shown a standard set of ambiguous stimuli and asked to respond to the stimuli in their own way (Rorschach inkblot test, TAT)

Blind spot

Point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because no receptor cells are located there

Self-Report Inventories

Questionnaires that ask people to provide information about themselves (MMPI-2)

Displacement

Redirecting one's feelings toward another person or object (Ex: feeling angry so you yell at your dog)

Cones

Retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near center of retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions; function in daylight or in well-lit conditions; detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations

Rods

Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond

Omission Training

Same thing as negative punishment; taking away something good

Anxiety Disorders

Share common symptom of anxiety; include phobias, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, OCD, PTSD

fMRI

Shows function of brain parts (Think: f = function = functional MRI)

CAT

Shows only structure of the brain (Think: CAT ➙ cat ➙ cats like climbing on structures)

Transduction

Signals are transformed into neural impulses that travel first to the thalamus and then on to different cortices of the brain

Lens

Transparent structure behind pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina

Cross-Sectional Study

Uses participants of different ages to compare how certain variables may change over the life span (Ex: see how our ability to recall syllables change with age)

Yerkes-Dodson Law

We might perform well at an easy task with a very high level of arousal, but the same high level of arousal would prevent us from performing well on a different task

Confirmation Bias

We tend to look for evidence that confirms our beliefs and ignore evidence that contradicts what we think is true; consequence is that we may miss evidence important to finding the correct solution

Approach-Approach Conflict

You must choose between 2 desirable outcomes (Ex: 1 friend invites you to go to the Galapagos and 1 friend invites you to go to Australia and both appeal to you but you must choose 1)

Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict

You must choose between 2 undesirable outcomes (Ex: You have a choice between staying home and cleaning the garage or going to your annoying cousin's house)