AP PSYCH TEST REVIEW

Question 1

Aaron Beck’s view of depression-

Answer 1

A cognitive theory of depression; identified patterns of thinking that correlated with symptoms of depression. In an effort to better understand depression and related illness, he developed the Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory and the Scale for Suicide Ideation. Beck believes that depression is maintained because depressed patients are unaware of the negative automatic thoughts that they habitually formulate.

Question 2

Absolute threshold-

Answer 2

The minimum amount of physical energy needed to produce a reliable sensory experience; operationally defined as the stimulus level at which a sensory signal is detected half the time.

Question 3

. Achievement vs. aptitude tests-

Answer 3

Achievement: measures what has been acquired (terminal); selection purposes; designed for K-12; group or individually administered. Aptitude: predicts future performance or ability; decisions about future; designed for high school+; group or individually administered

Question 4

Action vs. resting potential-

Answer 4

Action: nerve impulse activated by in a neuron that travels down the axon and causes neurotransmitters to be released into a synapse. Resting: polarization of cellular fluid within a neuron, which provides the capability to produce an action potential.

Question 5

Acuity-vision-

Answer 5

Acuteness of vision or perception; keenness.

Question 6

Ainsworth Strange Situation (Paradigm) -

Answer 6

The Strange Situation procedure, developed by American psychologist Mary Ainsworth, is widely used in child development research. The goal of the Strange Situation procedure was to provide an environment that would arouse in the infant both the motivation to explore and the urge to seek security. An observer (often a researcher or therapist) takes a mother and her child (usually around the age of 12 months) to an unfamiliar room containing toys. A series of eight separations and reunions are staged involving mild, but cumulative, stress for the infant. Separation in such an unfamiliar setting would also likely activate the child’s attachment system and allow for a direct test of its functioning. Ainsworth categorized the responses into three major types:
(A) Anxious/avoidant–the child may not be distressed at the mother’s departure and may avoid or turn away from her on her return;
(B) Securely attached–the child is distressed by the mother’s departure and easily soothed by her on her return;
(C) Anxious/resistant–the child may stay extremely close to the mother during the first few minutes and become highly distressed at her departure. When she returns, the child will simultaneously seek both comfort and distance from the mother. The child’s behavior will be characterized by crying and reaching to be held and then

Question 7

Albert Bandura: major view on learning and Bobo Doll experiment-

Answer 7

Bandura argued that individuals, especially children, learn aggressive responses from observing others, either personally or through the media or environment. He stated that many individuals believed that aggression will produce reinforcements. In the Bobo Doll experiment, he had children witness a video of a model aggressively attacking a plastic clown. After the video, the children were placed in a room with attractive toys, but they could not touch them. The process of retention had occurred. Therefore, the children became angry and frustrated. Then the children were led to another room where there were identical toys used in the Bobo video. The motivation phase was in occurrence. Bandura and many other researchers found that 88% of the children imitated the aggressive behavior. Eight months later, 40% of the same children reproduced the violent behavior observed in the Bobo doll experiment.

Question 8

Albert Ellis-

Answer 8

Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) - The RET is a comprehensive system of personality change based on changing irrational beliefs that cause undesirable, highly charged emotional reactions such as severe anxiety.

Question 9

Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) -

Answer 9

The RET is a comprehensive system of personality change based on changing irrational beliefs that cause undesirable, highly charged emotional reactions such as severe anxiety.

Question 10

All-or-nothing law (all-or-none) of neural firing-

Answer 10

The rule that the size of the action potential is unaffected by increases in the intensity of stimulation beyond the threshold level.

Question 11

altruism:

Answer 11

prosocial behaviors a person carries out without considering his or her own safety or interests.

Question 12

American Psychological Association (APA):

Answer 12

an organization that includes psychologists

from all over the world. At the end of 1998, the organization was reported to have over 155,000 members worldwide.

Question 13

Amnesia:

Answer 13

a failure of memory caused by physical injury, disease, drug use, or psychological trauma

Question 14

Apparent Motion:

Answer 14

a movement illusion in which one or more stationary lights going on and off in succession are perceive as a single moving light; the simplest form or apparent motion is the phi phenomenon

Question 15

arousal:

Answer 15

a motivational state of excitement and tension brought about by various stimuli. A result is emotions, which serve as a motivational function.

Question 16

Asch’s conformity study (line segments):

Answer 16

Male college students were led to believe that they were in a study of simple visual perception. They were shown cards with three lines of differing lengths and asked to indicate which of the three lines was the same length as the standard line. Most of the participants, when faced with conflicting beliefs, who yielded to the majority’s opinion, were described as “disoriented” and “doubt-ridden.” Two-thirds of the time, however, participants gave the correct, nonconforming answer.

Question 17

Attachment:

Answer 17

emotional relationship between a child and the “regular” caregiver.

Question 18

Attribution Theory:

Answer 18

a social-cognitive approach to describing the ways the social perceiver uses information to generate causal explanations.

Question 19

Aversive Conditioning:

Answer 19

when a stimuli one seeks to avoid is used to condition a subject.

Question 20

Aversive Conditions:

Answer 20

when a stimulus one seeks to avoid is present.

Question 21

Babinsky response-

Answer 21

A reflex produced by stroking the sole of the foot that manifests in dorsal flexion of the big toe.

Question 22

Behavior as Being Adaptive-

Answer 22

Behavior that is learned in response to a set of stimuli in an environment.

Question 23

Bell Curve (normal distribution)-

Answer 23

Used to assess intelligence on a bell shaped curve; most people’s scores cluster in the middle and fewer are found toward the two extremes of genius and mental deficiency.

Question 24

Benjamin Whorf’s theory of linguistic relativism (determinism)-

Answer 24

through cross-linguistic exploration, came to the Conclusion that differences in language created differences in thought. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: linguistic relativity- structural differences between languages will generally be paralleled by nonlinguistic cognitive differences in the native speakers of two languages. linguistic determinism- the structure of language strongly influences or fully determines the way that its native speakers perceive and reason about the world.

Question 25

Binocular Disparity-

Answer 25

the displacement between the horizontal positions of corresponding images in the two eyes.

Question 26

Blind Spot-

Answer 26

a.k.a., the optic disc, which is the region in the retina where optic nerve leaves each eye; contains no receptor cells. You do not experience total blindness for two reasons: The blind spots of the two eyes are positioned so that receptors in each eye register what is missed in the other, and, The brain “fills in” this region with appropriate sensory information from the surrounding area.

Question 27

Blood Brain Barrier-

Answer 27

made up of specialized glial cells (astrocytes) that form a continuous envelope of fatty material around blood vessels in the brain. Protects the brain from poisons and harmful substances that are not fat-soluble.

Question 28

What part of the brain do we share with animals?

Answer 28

We and animals share the same basic hind brain, at the base of our skull where the brain meets the spinal cord. These structures (medulla, cerebellum, reticular system, pons, etc.) are important for basic vital functions such as heartbeat, balance, digesting and breathing. So humans and animals all have the same lower part to their brains. It’s only the higher parts (cerebral cortex) that distinguishes us from the apes, dogs, lions, tigers and bears.

Question 29

Brainstorming:

Answer 29

A way to generate novel solutions to problems. Everyone in the room just sort of shouts out ideas about something and the ideas are written on the board, no one is allowed to criticize the ideas until everyone has said everything they want. By reducing criticism, there is a free flow of ideas from which you can go back later on and judge which ones are good or which ones are bad. But the initial idea is to get those ideas out and on the board. If you know you’ll be instantly criticized, they someone with a good idea might not speak up in the first place.

Question 30

Broca’s Aphasia:

Answer 30

this is a kind of language disorder that is caused by damage to the left frontal lobe. Damage in this area could lead to an inability to “produce speech.” A person has a hard time forming the words, moving his mouth, much like a stroke victim that can’t actually make the correct sounds for the words he’s trying to say. Aphasia means language problem and Paul Broca was the French physician who discovered the specific area in the brain that contributes to it