Download Format: 125 Multiple choice questions and 1 free response question

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Format: 125 Multiple choice questions and 1 free response question
Please note all vocabulary words are fair game on the final. Below I have listed concepts that you should
have an understanding of, beyond just the definition.
UNIT 1: Psychology’s History and Approaches & Research Methods
History and Approaches:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
Important people:
A. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon, John Locke (tabular Rasa),
William Wundt, Edward Titchner, William James
What is empiricism?
Be able to distinguish between the outdated perspectives of psychology
A. Structuralism: Edward Titchener, what is introspection?
B. Functionalism: William James
Psychology developing:
A. Psychoanalytical (Sigmund Freud)
B. Behaviorism (John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner)
C. Humanistic psychology (Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow)
What is psychology?
Contemporary Psychology
A. Nature-Nurture debate
B. Three levels of analysis
C. Biopsychosocial approach (be able to apply to each chapter)
D. Be able to distinguish between the different contemporary perspectives:
1. Biological psychology, evolutionary psychology, psychodynamic psychology,
behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology, humanistic psychology, socialcultural psychology, eclectic approach
E. Psychologist vs. Psychiatrist
F. Applied (industrial/organizational, human factors, counseling, clinical, psychiatry) vs.
Research (Developmental, educational, personality, social psychology)
Research Methods:
I. Psychology as a Scientific method – why do we need it to be a science?
A. Hindsight bias & Overconfidence
II. Scientific attitude 3 main components: curious eagerness, scrutinize competing ideas, humility
III. Scientific method: theory, hypothesis, operational definition, replication
IV. Types of research – description of each and pros and cons of each.
A. Case Study
B. Survey: word effects, random sampling (representative sample, population, and random
sample)
C. Naturalistic Observation
D. Correlation: correlation coefficient, positive/negative correlations, strength of correlation
(-1.0 to +1.0), scatter plot interpretations, predict (not cause and effect!), illusory
correlation,
V. Experimental research: random assignment, blind (single-blind and double-blind), placebo effect,
Groups (experimental and control group), independent variable, dependent variable,
confounding variable
VI. Describing data
A. Measures of central tendency: mode, mean, median
B. Measures of variability: range, standard deviation, normal curve
C. Inferential statistics – statistical significance (averages are reliable, differences between
averages is relatively large)
VII.
Ethics in research: (Informed consent, Protect from harm and discomfort, confidentiality,
debrief)
Unit 2: Biological Bases of Behavior
I. Neural processing and the endocrine system
A. Neural Communication
1. Biological psychology
2. Neuron: sensory neurons, motor neurons, interneurons
a. Parts of a neuron: dendrite, axon, myelin sheath, terminal branches
b. Firing a neuron: action potential, ions (positively versus negatively
charged), resting potential, selectively permeable, depolarize, refractory
period, excitatory versus inhibitory, threshold, all or none response
c. How neurons communicate: synapse, synaptic gap, neurotransmitters,
reuptake
i. Neurotransmitters functions: Acetylcholine, Dopamine,
Serotonin, Norepinephrine, GABA, Glutamate
ii. Agonists versus antagonist
B. The Nervous System:
1. Peripheral nervous system: Somatic nervous system, autonomic nervous
system (sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system)
2. Central nervous system: brain and spinal cord, neural networks, spinal cord
(reflexes)
3. Endocrine system: hormones, adrenal glands (fight or flight response),
pituitary gland
II. The brain
A. Tools of examining the brain:
1. Lesion
2. Electrical activity: Electoencephalogram (EEG)
3. Neuroimaging techniques: Computed tomography scan (CT), Positron emission
tomography scan (PET), Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Functinoal MRI
(fMRI)
B. Parts of the brain and their functions
1. Older Brain structures: Brainstem (medulla, pons, reticular formation), thalamus,
cerebellum, limbic system (hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus), cerebral
cortex (glial cells, lobes – frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal, motor cortex,
sensory cortex)
C. Language: aphasia (broaca’s area and wernicke’s area)
D. Brain damage: plasticity, constraint-induced therapy, neurogenesis
E. Split brain – consequences
F. Right-left brain differences: hemispheric specialization
G. Dual processing: priming, conscious left brain and intuitive right brain
H. Two-track mind: visual perception track and visual action track
III. Genetics, evolutionary psychology, and behavior
A. Behavior genetics: heredity versus the environment
B. Codes for life: chromosome, DNA, genes, and genome
C. Twin and adoption studies: identical twins, fraternal twins
D. Molecular genetics (molecular behavior genetics, genetics and diseases)
E. Evolutionary psychology: natural selection (mutation, adaptation, fitness), gender
differences in sexuality, gender different preferences in partners
UNIT 3: Sensation and Perception and States of Consciousness
Sensation and Perception
I.
Sensing the world
A. Sensation vs. perception
B. Bottom-up processing vs. top-down processing
C. Selective attention (cocktail party effect), inattentional blindness, change blindness
D. Thresholds: psychophysics, absolute threshold, signal-detection theory, subliminal,
priming, differences threshold, Weber’s law
E. Sensory adaptation
F. Vision
1. The Stimulus input: Light energy: transduction, wavelength, hue, intensity)
2. The eye: cornea, pupil, iris, lens (accommodation), retina (rods and cones)
3. Visual processing: visual cortex, feature detectors, parallel processing
4. Color vision: young-helmholtz trichromatic (three color) theory, opponentprocess theory
G. Hearing
1. Sound waves: audition, amplitude, frequency (pitch)
2. The ear: outer ear (auditory canal, ear drum), middle ear (hammer, anvil, stirrup),
inner ear (oval window, cochlea (basilar membrane), auditory nerve, auditory
cortex
3. Perceiving loudness: basilar membrane’s hair cells (compressed sound)
4. Perceiving pitch: place theory (high pitched sounds), frequency theory (low
pitched sounds, volley principle)
5. Locating sounds: stereophonic hearing, localization of sounds (intensity, speed of
the sound)
6. Hearing loss: conduction hearing loss, sensorineural hearing loss, chochlea
implant
H. Other senses:
1. Touch: Types of touch (pressure, warmth, cold, pain), sensation of hot,
kinesthesis, vestibular sense (semicircular canals), understanding pain (biological
influences: noiceptors, gate-control theory, endorphins, phantom limb sensation,
tinnitus, social-cultural influences
2. Taste ( sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami), taste buds (chemical sense), age and
taste, sensory interaction (small and taste – McGurk effect)
3. Smell: Olfaction (chemical sense, odor molecules, olfactory bulb, olfactory
nerve), smell and age
I. Perceptual Organization:
1. Gestalt
2. Form perception: figure-ground, grouping (proximity, similarity, continuity,
connectedness, closure)
3. Depth perception (visual cliff), binocular cues (retinal disparity), monocular cues
(horizontal-vertical illusion, relative height, relative size, interposition, linear
perspective, relative motion, light and shadow)
4. Motion perception: stroboscopic movement, phi phenomenon
5. Perceptual constancy (shape, size, lightness, color)
6. Perceptual interpretation: sensory deprivation and restored vision, perceptual
adaptation (displacement goggles), perceptual set (mental predisposition,
schemas, context effects, motivation on perception, emotion on perception)
7. Parapsychology & Extrasensory perception (Telepathy, clairvoyance,
precognition), psychokinesis
8. What do analyses of psychic visions reveal?
States of Consciousness:
II. States of consciousness (sleep, wake, altered states)
A. Sleep and Dreams: Circadian rhythm (24 hour cycle, temperature changes,
suprachiasmatic nucleus – melatonin)
i. Stages of sleep: what happens in each stage? , REM (paradoxical) sleep vs
NREM sleep, 90 minute cycle
ii. Why do we sleep: sleep debt, variations in sleeping patterns, cultural influences,
effects of sleep loss, sleep theories,
iii. Sleep disorders – symptoms of each (insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea, night
terrors, sleepwalking/sleeptalking)
iv. Dreams: manifext vs. latent content, theories of dreams
B. Hypnosis: Can everyone be put under hypnosis? Can hypnosis force people to act against
their will? Hypnotherapists, posthypnotic suggestion, alleviate pain?
C. Drugs and consciousness: tolerance, withdrawal, dependence (physical vs.
psychological), addiction
i. Psychoactive drugs: Know types of each and consequences
ii. Factors that contribute to drug abuse
UNIT 4: Learning and Cognition
Learning:
I. Learning, habituation, associative learning (classical conditioning, operant conditioning,
observational learning)
II. Classical Conditioning (components: N, US, UR, CS, CR)
A. Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson experiments (Behaviorism)
a. Higher-order conditioning, acquisition
b. Extinction, Spontaneous Recovery, Generalization, Discrimination
c. Learned helplessness, conditioned taste aversion
III. Components of operant conditioning: Skinner’s box, shaping (discriminative stimulus),
positive and negative reinforcement, primary vs. secondary reinforce, immediate vs. delayed
reinforcements, and continuous vs. partial reinforcements
A. Partial reinforcement schedules
B. Problems with punishment
IV. Cognition and operant conditioning: latent learning (cognitive map), insight intrinsic
motivation, vs. extrinsic motivation
V. Observational Learning: modeling, mirror neurons, Bandura’s experiment, prosocial effects
vs. antisocial effects.
Cognition:
I. Memory
A. Three-stage model: encoding, storage, retrieval
B. Connectionism model: Sensory memory (duration, capacity, etc.), Short term memory
(magic number 7), Long-term memory (unlimited capacity)
C. Modified memory model: working memory, automatic processing
D. Encoding: automatic processing (parallel processing, automatic processing), effortful
processing, rehearsal, overlearning, spacing effect (massed vs. distributed practice),
testing effect, serial position effect (recency and primacy effect), proactive and
retroactive interference
1. What we encode: levels of processing (visual – rosy retrospection , acoustic, and
semantic encoding), self-reference effect)
2. Organization information we encode: chunking, hierarchies
E. Storing memories: long-term potentiation, memory boosting drugs (CREB and
glutamate), emotions and memories, flashbulb memory, implicit and explicit memories,
amnesia, hippocampus,
F. Retrieval: recall, recognition, and relearning, retrieval cues, mnemonic devices, priming,
context effects, déjà vu, state dependent memory (mood congruent memory)
G. Forgetting: proactive interference and retroactive interference, repression
H. Memory construction: misinformation effect, source amnesia, suggestibility and memory
formation
II. Thinking, Problem Solving, Creativity and Language
A. Concepts (category hierarchies, prototype)
B. Problem solving methods: Trial and error and algorithm – which is a better approach?
1. Components of creativity
C. Obstacles to problem solving: confirmation bias, fixation (mental set and functional
fixedness), representative heuristic, availability heuristic, overconfidence, belief
perseverance, intuition, confirmation bias – how do they relate to problem solving?,
Framing effect
D. Components of language structure: phoneme, morpheme, grammar (semantics, syntax)
a. Receptive vs. productive language (babbling stage, one-word sage, two-word
stage, telegraphic speech)
A. Language theories: Skinner (operant learning –association, imitation, reinforcement),
Chomski (inborn universal – language acquisition device)
UNIT 5: Motivation and Emotions
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Motivational concepts: Evolutionary psychology (instinct), drive-reduction theory (homeostasis),
incentive, optimum arousal, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs –(what are the different levels, can we
skip stages?, what are some problems with his theory?)
Hunger:
A. Physiological (contractions of the stomach, glucose, insulin, hypothalamus (laterial vs.
vetromedical), appetite hormones (ghrelin, obestatin, PYY, leptin), set point, basal
metabolic rate,
B. Psychology: taste preferences, eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and
binge-eating disorder),
C. Anorexia and bulimia – psychological, cultural, and biological factors
D. Obesity – historical explanations, social effects of obesity (weight discrimination),
psychological effects, physiology of obesity (set point and metabolism, genetic factor)
Sexual motivation:
a. Sexual response cycle: excitement phase, plateau phase, orgasm, resolution phase
(refractory period)
b. Hormones and sexual behavior: estrogen, testosterone
c. Psychology of sex: external stimuli, imagined stimuli (dreams/sexual fantasies)
d. Adolescence and sexuality
e. Sexual orientation
f. Need to belong: aiding survival, wanting to belong, sustaining relationships, pain of
ostracism
Emotion
a. What are emotions?
b. Theories of emotion: James-Lange theory, cannon-bard theory, two-factor theory
c. Autonomic nervous system: sympathetic nervous system (arousing), parasympathetic
nervous system (calming)
d. Polygraph: how does it work?
e. Cognition and emotion: spillover effect
f. Function of fear
g. Causes and consequences of anger and happiness
Stress and health:
a. Health psychology
b. Stress response system: general adaptation syndrome
c. Stress and the heart (coronary heart disease, type A versus type B)
d. Stress and disease: psychophysiological illness
Unit 6: Developmental psychology
III. Studying developmental psychology: Nature versus nurture, continuity and stages, stability and
change
IV. Prenatal development– know how each contributes to development
A. Prenatal development: zygote, embryo, fetus (what happens during each?)
B. Placenta, teratogens, fetal alcohol syndrome
V. The competent newborn: reflexes, habituation, sensation and perception
VI. Infancy to Childhood
A. Brain development: pruning process, maturation
B. Motor development: Describe the stages infants go through (can they skip stages?)
VII.
Cognitive development
A. Piaget’s theory: know each stage of development and concepts related to each
i. Criticisms of Piaget’s theory
VIII. Social Development:
A. Attachment: body contact (Harry Harlow’s studies), Familiarity (Critical period,
imprinting, sensitive period)
B. Ainsworth’s ‘strange situation’: secure attachment, insecure attachment
C. Temperament: easy, difficult, and slow to warm up babies
D. Erikson’s stages: Know name of each stage, age ranges, and major conflicts in each stage
E. Parenting styles (Baumrind): know the characteristics of each stage and the typical results
(worksheet)
IX. Gender
A. Differences between gender and sex:
B. Influences on social development
C. Gender and aggression – physical versus relational aggression
D. Gender role : Gender and child rearing (gender identity, gender typing, social learning
theory
X. Adolescence
A. Physical development
i. Puberty: primary sexual characteristics, secondary sexual characteristics,
maturation time table
B. Moral development (Lawrence Kohlberg): Know how each stage would answer a moral
dilemma question
C. Forming an identity: identity, social identity, intimacy
XI. Emerging adulthood: what contributed to adolescence as new life stage? What contributed to
adolescence becoming a longer life stage?
A. Adulthood: Physical changes in middle adulthood: menopause, physical changes in later
life: life expectancy, sensory abilities, health, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease
B. Aging and memory: Recall versus recognition and prospective memory
XII.
C. Aging and intelligence: cross-sectional study, longitudinal study, crystallized
intelligence, fluid intelligence
Midlife transition: social clock
Unit 7: Personality & Testing
Personality:
I. Psychodynamic personality theory
i. Freud: Personality structure, personality stages, defense mechanisms, criticism
ii. Neo Freudians: Karen Horney (sense of helplessness), Alfred Adler (inferiority
complex), Carl Jung (collective unconscious)
II. Projective tests (TAT, Rorschach inkblot test), pros, cons
II. Humanistic personality theory: Abraham Maslow (self-actualization, self-transcendence, peak
experiences), Carl Rogers (genuineness, acceptance, empathy. Unconditional positive regard,
self-concept, ideal self versus actual self, criticisms (vague and subjective, individualistic and
western biased)
III. Trait perspective: Allport
I. Personality inventories – MBTI (only positive), factor analysis, MMPI (objective tests),
Lie scale, the big five personality dimensions
II. Persistency of traits – inconsistency of behaviors in situations
IV. Social-Cognitive Perspective: Reciprocal determinism, personal control: external versus internal
locus of control, tyranny of choice, optimism versus pessimism, criticisms
V. Assessing the self: Possible selves, spotlight effect, self-esteem, self-serving bias, defensive selfesteem
VI. Culture and the self: different views of individualism and collectivism
Testing and Individual differences
I.
II.
III.
IV.
Intelligence, savant
What is an intelligence test? IQ equation?
Different theories of intelligence:
Spearman: g factor, Thurston’s theory, Gardner’s eight intelligences, Sternberg’s three
intelligence. emotional intelligence
V. The brain and intelligence
VI. Assessing Intelligence
A. History of intelligence testing: Francis Galton’s intelligence testing (reaction time,
sensory acuity, muscular power, body proportions), Alfred Binet (mental age,
chronological age), Lewis Terman (intelligence quotient equation, average IQ)
B. aptitude test and achievement test – know the difference between the two and be able
to identify examples
C. Wechsler Adult Intelligence scale, WISC
II.
Evaluating intelligence tests: standardization, normal curve, Flynn effect
A. Reliability: scores correlate, test-retest reliability, split-half reliability
B. Validity: content validity (criterion), predictive validity
III.
Dynamics of intelligence
A. Stability
B. Low extreme: intellectual disability (Mental retardation, down syndrome,
mainstreamed, Classifications of intellectual disability: levels and adaptation to
demands of life
C. High Extreme: Terman’s study of gifted, self-fulfilling prophecy, appropriate
developmental placement (tracking students)
IV.
Genetic and environmental influences on intelligence
A. Twin and adoption studies: polygenetic, adoptive children studies
B. Heritability
C. Environmental influences: tutored human enrichment, targeted training, schooling
and intelligence (project head start)
D. Gender similarities and differences: spelling, verbal ability, nonverbal ability,
sensation, emotion-detecting ability, math and spatial aptitudes
E. Ethnic similarities and ethnic differences
F. The question of bias: two meaning of bias (popular sense/scientific sense), testtaker’s expectations (stereotype threat)
Unit 8: Abnormal Psychology, Treatment, and Social Psychology
Abnormal Psychology:
I.
Defining abnormal behavior (deviant behavior, distressful behavior, harmful
dysfunctional behavior), different definitions for different cultures
II.
Pinel’s contribution
III.
Medical model
IV.
DSM IV-TR: what each axis does in the diagnosing process
V.
Labeling psychological disorders: Rosenhan’s study
VI.
Types and symptoms of anxiety disorders: generalized anxiety disorder (free floating
anxiety), panic disorder, phobias (specific, social, agoraphobia), OCD (difference
between compulsive behaviors and obsessive thoughts), PTSD
a. Learning perspective and anxiety disorders (fear conditioning, observation learning)
b. Biological perspective: natural selection, genes, brain
VII. Types and symptoms of somatoform disorders: conversion disorder and hypochondriasis
VIII. Types and symptoms of dissociative disorders (fugue state and dissociate: dissociative
identity disorder - criticisms against existence of DID
IX.
Types and symptoms of mood disorders (major depressive disorders and bipolar disorder)
a. Understanding mood disorders, genetic influences, social-cognitive perspectives,
vicious cycle of depression
X.
Schizophrenia: symptoms, subtypes, onset and development, brain abnormalities, genetic
contributions, psychological factors
XI.
Personality disorders: Three clusters (anxiety, eccentric, dramatic/impulsive), antisocial
personality disorder
XII. Rates of disorder: poverty
Treatment of Psychological Disorders:
I.
History of treatment: Dorothea Dix, psychotherapy, eclectic approach
i. Psychological therapies: psychoanalysis (free association, resistance, interpretation,
dream analysis, transference), psychodynamic therapy
ii. Humanistic therapies: insight therapies, client-centered therapy (nondirective), active
listening (paraphrase, invite clarification, reflect feelings), unconditional positive
regard
iii. Behavior therapies: classical conditioning techniques (counterconditioning, exposure
therapies – systematic desensitization, virtual reality exposure therapy, aversive
conditioning), operant conditioning techniques (behavior modification, token
economy)
iv. Cognitive therapies: cognitive-behavioral therapy
v. Group therapy, family therapy
vi. Evaluating psychotherapy: regression toward the mean, meta-analysis, placebo
treatments
vii. Evidence-based practice, EMDR, light exposure therapy (SAD),
viii. Types of therapists
ix. Biomedical therapy: drugs, electroconvulsive therapy, magnetic impulses,
psychosurgery, psychiatrist
A. Psychopharmacology: antipsychotic drugs, antianxiety drugs, antidepressant
drugs, mood-stabilizing medications
B. Electroconvulsive therapy: severe depression, side effects
C. Magnetic stimulation: rTMS, deep-brain stimulation
D. Psychosurgery: lobotomy
XIII. Prevention: resilience
Social Psychology:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Explaining others behavior: attribution theory (fundamental attribution error)
Attitudes and actions: foot-in-the-door phenomenon,
Stanford prison study: role
Cognitive dissonance
Conformity and obedience: chameleon effect, Solomon asch study, reasons for
conforming, Milgram’s study
VI. How do others influence our behavior?
A. Social facilitation, social loafing, deindividuation, group think, group
polarization, cultural norms
XIII. Psychological factors of aggression and love/attraction
XIV. Psychological factors of helping others: altruism
XV. Social conflicts, social traps, mirror-image perceptions, and self-fulfilling prophecies.
Free Response Question:
1. Many treatments for psychological disorders are based on one of the following psychological
perspectives: psychoanalytic, humanistic, behaviorist, or biological. Define each of the following
concepts give an example of what they would be used to treat and explain which of the three perspectives
the concept is based on.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Electroconvulsive therapy
Token economy
Systematic desensitization
Virtual reality exposure therapy
Aversive therapy
Unconditional positive regard
Insight therapy
Transference
Resistance
Psychopharmacology