AP Psychology NOTES-Check for Understanding: Units 1 and 2

You can use these to take notes in class (if that works for you), or take notes on your own and do these as
homework. They are due on the day of the test. (Wed, Sept. 5
th
for Test 1) Please ANSWER them-not just
with a 1 word answer.

1. Why do so many people find psychology interesting? Why is it such a popular course of study?

Psychology is fascinating/interesting because we all have so many different thoughts/emotions and actions that we want to
explain; we also want to understand others strange behavior.

2. From which 2 disciplines does Psychology draw its origins? How did those disciplines influence the study of Psychology?

Philosophy & Biology. Philosophy influenced psychology as we explored WHY we behave the way we do; Biology influenced
the examination of the BRAIN.

3. Explain the difference between structuralism and functionalism.

-Edward Titchener (structuralism): analyze consciousness with basic elements of introspection. (careful, systematic
observations of ones own conscious experience.
-William James (functionalism)-mental testing, investigates function of consciousness

4. Describe the evolution of psychology as defined from the 1920s through today. (Which perspectives in which order.
General idea of each perspective.)
Until the 1920s, psychology was a science of mental life studied through introspection. Then American behaviorists, led by
John B. Watson and later by B. F. Skinner, changed psychology's focus to the study of observable behavior. In the 1960s,
humanistic psychologists drew attention to the importance of environmental influences, personal growth, and the needs for
love and acceptance. Also in the 1960s, the cognitive revolution began to refocus psychology's interest in mental processes,
with special attention to perception, information processing, and memory. Cognitive neuroscientists are broadening our
understanding of these and other processes in today's psychology, which views itself as a science of behavior and mental
processes.

5. Summarize the nature-nurture debate in psychology, and describe the principle of natural selection.
Psychologys biggest and most enduring issue concerns the balance between the influences of nature (genes) and nurture
(all other influences, from conception to death). Philosophers had long debated whether nature (the view of Plato and
Descartes) or nurture (the view of Aristotle and Locke) was more important. Charles Darwin proposed a mechanismthe
principle of natural selectionby which nature selects chance variations that enable organisms to survive and reproduce in
particular environments. Psychologists now believe that in most cases, every psychological event is simultaneously a
biological event. A great deal of research, including studies of identical and fraternal twins, sheds light on the relative
importance of these two sets of influences on such traits as personality and intelligence.

6. Identify the three main levels of analysis in the biopsychosocial approach, and explain why psychology's varied
perspectives are complementary.
The biopsychosocial approach integrates information from the biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of
analysis. Psychologists study human behaviors and mental processes from many different perspectives (including the
neuroscientific, evolutionary, behavior genetics, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and social-cultural perspectives).
Melding the information gathered from these many lines of research creates a more complete understanding of behaviors
and mental processes than would be available from any one viewpoint alone.


7. Identify some of psychologys subfields, and explain the difference between clinical psychology and psychiatry.
Psychologys subfields encompass basic research (often done by biological, developmental, cognitive, personality, and social
psychologists), applied research (sometimes conducted by industrial/organizational psychologists), and clinical applications
(the work of counseling and clinical psychologists). Clinical psychologists study, assess, and treat (with psychotherapy)
people with psychological disorders; psychiatrists also study, assess, and treat people with disorders, but they are medical
doctors who can prescribe medication as well as offer psychotherapy.

8. Describe hindsight bias, and explain how it can make research findings seem like mere common sense.
Hindsight bias (also called the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon) is the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that
we would have foreseen it. Thus, learning the outcome of a study can make it seem like obvious common sense. Scientific
inquiry and critical thinking can help us overcome this tendency to overestimate our unaided intuition.

9. Describe how overconfidence contaminates our everyday judgments.
We are routinely overconfident of our judgments, thanks partly to our bias to seek information that confirms them. Science,
with its procedures for gathering and sifting evidence, restrains error by taking us beyond the limits of our intuition and
common sense.

10. Explain how the scientific attitude encourages critical thinking.
Although limited by the testable questions it can address, a scientific approach helps us sift reality from illusion. Scientific
inquiry begins with an attitudea curious eagerness to skeptically scrutinize competing ideas and an open-minded humility
before nature. This attitude carries into everyday life as critical thinking, which examines assumptions, discerns hidden
values, evaluates evidence, and assesses outcomes. Putting ideas, even crazy-sounding ideas, to the test helps us winnow
sense from nonsense.

11. Describe how psychological theories guide scientific research.
Psychological theories organize observations and imply predictive hypotheses. After constructing precise operational
definitions of their procedures, researchers test their hypotheses (predictions), validate and refine the theory, and,
sometimes, suggest practical applications. If other researchers can replicate the study with similar results, we can then place
greater confidence in the conclusion.

12. Identify an advantage and a disadvantage of using case studies to study behavior.
Researchers using case studies focus in depth on one individual, in the hope of revealing universal principles. Case studies
describe behavior. They can suggest hypotheses, but studying an unrepresentative individual may lead to false conclusions.


13. Identify the advantages and disadvantages of using surveys to study behavior and mental processes, and explain
the importance of wording effects and random sampling.
Surveys describe behavior by gathering information from a large number of people. This technique relies on people giving
accurate self-reports of their attitudes or behaviors. Wording effectssubtle influences in the sequence or phrasing of
questions can affect responses. Random sampling helps researchers achieve a sample that fairly represents the population
under study. Because random sampling chooses people by chance, each person in the entire group has an equal chance of
participating.

14. Identify an advantage and a disadvantage of using naturalistic observation to study behavior.
Naturalistic observation gives researchers an opportunity to watch and record behavior in naturally occurring situations.
Like other forms of description, naturalistic observation cannot explain behaviors, but it can expand our understanding and
lead to hypotheses that can be studied by other methods.


15. Describe positive and negative correlations, and explain how correlational measures can aid the process of
prediction. Provide an example of a positive AND a negative correlation.
A correlation coefficient is a statistical measure of the strength and duration of the relationship between two factors. In a
nging from 0
to 1.00), one item rises as the other falls. Scatterplots and the correlations they reveal help us to see relationships that the
naked eye might miss.

16. Explain why correlational research fails to provide evidence of cause-effect relationships.
A correlation indicates the possibility of a cause-effect relationship, but it does not prove causation or, if causation exists,
the direction of the influence. A third factor may be the cause of the correlation.

17. Describe how people form illusory correlations. Post hoc, ergo, propter hoc.
Illusory correlations are random events that we notice and falsely assume are related. They arise from our sensitivity to
dramatic or unusual events. Once we believe two things are related, we tend to notice and recall instances that confirm this
belief.

18. Explain the human tendency to perceive order in random sequences.
We search for patterns in an attempt to make sense of the world around us. Patterns or sequences occur naturally in sets of
random data, but we tend to interpret these patterns as meaningful connections.

19. Explain how experiments help researchers isolate cause and effect.
To discover cause-effect relationships, psychologists conduct experiments. By manipulating one or more factors of interest,
and controlling other factors, experimenters can determine the effect on some behavior or mental process.

20. Explain why the double-blind procedure and random assignment build confidence in research findings.
In a double-blind procedure, neither the researchers nor the participants know whether participants are receiving the
treatment or a placebo. This counteracts the possibility that a placebo effect or researchers expectations will
unintentionally influence the studys results. Random assignment minimizes preexisting differences between the groups by
selecting people by chance for the experimental condition (the group exposed to the treatment) or the control condition (a
group that experiences no treatment or a different version of the treatment).

21. Explain the difference between an independent and a dependent variable.
The independent variable is the factor you manipulate to study its effect. The dependent variable is the factor you measure
to discover any changes that occur in response to these manipulations.

22. Explain the importance of statistical principles, and give an example of their use in everyday life.
Statistics help us to organize, summarize, and make inferences from data. We need not remember complicated formulas to
think more clearly and critically about the data we encounter in everyday life. For example, understanding statistical
concepts teaches us the importance of doubting big, round, undocumented numbers.

23. Describe the three measures of central tendency, and tell which is most affected by extreme scores.
The median is the middle score in a group of data. The mode is the most frequently occurring score. The mean, the
arithmetic average, is most easily distorted by a few very high or very low scores (aka outliers).

24. (repeat of 23)

25. Explain the difference between the two measures of variation.
Measures of variation tell us how similar or diverse data are. A range describes the gap between the highest and lowest
scores. The more useful measure, the standard deviation, states how much scores vary around the mean, or average, score.

26. Use information from the Cookie Lab activity to explain the concept of standard deviation. Explain one example of why the
concept of SD might matter to a teacher.
Standard deviation displays the amount of variability in a sample, when compared to the population it derives from.
Comparing a small group of cookies to all cookies, for example. Teachers would care about standard deviation because they
would want relatively LESS variability in student scores.

27. Identify three principles for making generalizations from samples.
1. Representative samples are better than biased samples. 2. Less-variable observations are more reliable than those that
are more variable. 3. More cases are better than fewer.

28. Explain how psychologists use one specific statistic (I rhyme! Ha) to decide whether differences between groups in an
experiment are meaningful.
The statistic would be the p or alpha value from a test of statistical significance. P (probability, aka alpha value) should be
less than .05 or there would be too much chance involved for a conclusion to be drawn from the experiment.

29. Explain the value of simplified laboratory conditions in discovering general principles of behavior.
Researchers test theoretical principles by intentionally creating a controlled, simplified environment in the lab. Their concern
is not the particular behavior being studied, but rather the underlying general principles that help explain many behaviors.

30. Discuss whether psychological research can be generalized across cultures and genders.
Behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions vary across cultures, but the principles that underlie them are shared, in part
because of our common biological heritage. Biology also determines our sex, but our culture sets up expectations about
what it means to be male or female. Males and females do differ in some ways, but they are biologically and psychologically
much more alike than different.

31. Explain why the Milgram experiment would NOT be considered ethical using modern rules of experimentation.
Many of APAs ethical guidelines for the treatment of human subjects were created due to questionable ethical practices
from the Milgram experiment. The experiment used coercion, subjects were not anonymous, deception was a huge part of
the experiment, etc.