Download AP Psychology Schedule of Topics: First Semester—66 days of

AP Psychology Schedule of Topics: First Semester—66 days of class
Unit 1: Psychology’s History and
Approaches
1) What is psychology?
2) The major approaches
Unit 2: Research Methods
3) The scientific method
4) Research methods: the experiment
5) Research methods: correlational (e.g.,
observational, survey)
6) Statistics: descriptive and inferential
7) Ethics in research
8) In-class group activity—designing research
Movie: The Stanford Prison Experiment
Student Teaching Project
 Brown v. Board of Education
Unit 3: Biological Bases of Behavior
9) Techniques for “viewing” the brain
10) The nervous system
11) The neuron and neurotransmitters
12) The anatomy and function of the hindbrain
13) The “emotional brain”—the limbic system
14) The anatomy and function of the forebrain
15) Evolutionary psychology
Round Table Discussion:
Forty Studies
 Reading 1: One Brain or Two
 Reading 2: More Experience = Bigger Brain
 Reading 3: Are You a “Natural”?
Student Teaching Project
 Endocrine System
 Music and the Brain
Unit 11: Testing and Individual
Differences
24) Alfred Binet
25) Spearman’s factor (g)
26) Howard Gardner
27) Robert Sternberg
28) Emotional Intelligence
29) Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test
30) Achievement tests & Aptitude Tests
31) Principles of test construction—reliability and
validity
Unit 4: Sensation & Perception
32) The eye
33) The ear
34) Is anything there?—selective attention
35) Signal detection theory
36) Top down & bottom up processing
37) Is anything there?—absolute threshold
Student Teaching Project:
 Color psychology
Unit 5: States of Consciousness
38) Sleep
39) Dreams
40) Opponent Process Theory
Round Table Discussion:
Forty Studies
 Reading 6: To Sleep, No Doubt to Dream
 Reading 8: Acting as if You are Hypnotized
Website
 Unromancing the Dream
Student Teaching Project:
 Psychoactive Drugs
Unit 14: Social Psychology
16) Attribution theory: judging others
17) Reciprocity theory: in-class activity
18) Cognitive dissonance theory
19) Charles Milgram & obedience
20) Solomon Asch & conformity
21) Aggression
22) Attraction
23) In-class group activity: self-esteem
Round Table Discussion:
Forty Studies
 Reading 13: What You Expect is What You Get
 Reading 38: The Power of Conformity
 Reading 39: To help or not to help
 Reading 40: Obey at any cost
Student Teaching Project
 Groupthink
Unit 6: Learning
41) Classical conditioning
42) Operant conditioning
43) Cognitive-behaviorism
44) Social learning
Round Table Discussion:
Forty Studies
 Reading 11: Knock wood!
 Reading 12: See aggression…do aggression
Unit 7: Cognition
45) Brain structures & long-term potentiation
46) Atkinson & Shifrin’s 3-stage model
47) Sensory input and coding
48) Types of memories: procedural, episodic,
semantic, flashbulb
49) Encoding failure: (STM limits, trauma, next-inline effect, serial position effect)
50) Retrieval failures (interference, state/context
dependent memory)
51) Memory construction & reconstruction
Round Table Discussion
Forty Studies
 Reading 16: Thanks for the Memories!
Website:
 Witness for the Defense