425 Terms You 'Ought to Know for the AP Psych Exam

Tendency to give explanations for someone's behavior, often by crediting a situation or person's disposition

Tendency to overestimate the impact of person's disposition and underestimate impact of situation

Tendency to apply with larger requests after responding to a smaller request

Role Playing: people take on the role of what they feel are proper for the situation

People change their behavior to avoid looking bad

Tendency to go along with the views and actions of others, even if you know they are wrong (line test)

People tend to obey authority figures; 60% of participants thought they delivered the max possible level of shock

Improved performance in presence of others; easy task get easier as hard tasks get harder

In the presence of others, people tend to do less, partly because they believe others will do it

Loss of self- awareness and self-restraint, typically in a sense of anomie (mob situation)

If a group is like-minded, discussion strengthens prevailing options and attitudes

A mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision- making group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives

Tendency of people to believe that the world is just and people get what they deserve and deserve what they get

Situation in which the confliction parties, by each rationally pursuing their self interests, become caught in mutually destructive behaviro

People with whom one shares a common identity with

Those perceived as different from themselves

Tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that we would have predicted it beforehand and may contribute to blaming the victim and forming prejudices against him/her

Unjustifiable attitude towards a group and its members

The mere exposure to a stimulus will increase the liking of it

Unselfish regard for the welfare to others

Tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present

The expectation that we should return help, not harm to those who have helped us

Explore the links between brain and mind

Study how we perceive, thinks, and solve problems

Study that says that humans are basically good and possess a free-will

Study that says that all behavior is observable and measurable

Study of the unconscious, includes childhood and aggression issues

Study of how cultural and political experiences affect our life

Study of the evolutionary of humans over time

Study of our changing abilities from womb to tomb

Father of psychology

Looking inward at one's own mental processes

Analyze sensations, images, and feelings into their most basic elements

The brain and mind are constantly changing

Underlying causes and practical consequences of certain behaviors and mental strategies

Tabula Rosa- mind is a blank slate written on experiences

Founder of psychoanalysis

All behavior is meaningful and driven by unconscious forces

Aims to solve practical problems

Pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base

A testable prediction, often induced by a thy, to enable us to accept, reject, or revise the thy

A factor, manipulated by the experimenter, and whose effect is studies

A factor that may change in response to the independent variable

An explanation that integrates principles, organizes, and predicts both the behavior or the event

A clear statement of what one is looking for in an experiment

Measures what you want to be measured

It is replicable and it is consistent

The process by which participants are selected

The amount of participants that can be selected for the sample

Take the results from a smaller group and apply that to a larger group of people

Everyone has an equal chance of being selected for the experiment because the participants are chosen at random

The group that does not take part in the critical part of the experimentation process, used as a comparison group

The experimenter, either unconsciously or consciously, affected the outcome of the experiment

The subjects do not know to what group they belong

Neither the experimenter nor the subject knows to what the group the subjects are in

If you know you're being studied, you will act differently than you normally would

Sugar pill-something administered that has no real affect on the person and other than what they think mentally

As one goes up, the other goes up

As one goes up, the other goes down

A technique for ascertaining the self- reported, attitudes, opinions, or behavior of people in a questionnaire, or similar way of ascertaining information

Observing and recording behavior in the wild/natural environment

Get a full, detailed picture of one participant or a small group of participants

Average of the scores

Middle Score

The most frequently occurring score in the distribution

The lowest score subtracted from the higher score

The average distance of scores around the mean

A type of standard score that tells us how many standard deviation units a given score is above or below the mean for that group

A fatty covering around the axon of some neurons that speeds the neural impulse

Wire-like structure ending in the terminal that extends from the cell body

Neurons that carry incoming information from the sense receptors to the central nervous system

A nerve cell

Central nervous system neurons that internally communicate and intervene between the sensory inputs and the motor outputs

Neurons that carry incoming information from the central nervous system to the muscles and glands

Chemical contained in terminal buttons that enable neurons to communication

Excite, by causing neurotransmitters to hit site multiple times

Inhibits, by blocking neurotransmitters

The brain and the spinal cord

Sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body

The division of the Peripheral Nervous System that controls the body's skeletal muscles

The division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and muscles of the internal organs

Arouses the body

Calms the body

The endocrine system's most influential gland, under the influence of the hypothalamus, this regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands

An amplified recording of waves of electrical activity that sweep across the brain's surface, these waves are measured by electrodes placed on the skull

A visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a certain task

A technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce a computed generated image that distinguishes between the types of soft tissue in the brain

Connected to the base of the brain stem, controls our blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing

Screens incoming information, and filters out irrelevant, controls arousal and attention

The brains sensory switchboard

Above the medulla, makes chemicals involved with sleep and facial expressions

The little brain attached to the rear of the brain stem, controls coordination, fire muscles movements and balance

Associated with emotions like aggression and fear and drives such as hunger and thirst and sex (hypothalamus, hippocampus, and amygdala)

Part of the limbic system that is involved in emotions, aggression, and fear

Controls the metabolic functions of body temperature, sex arousal, hunger, thirst, motivations, and the endocrine section

Part of the limbic system involved in learning and memory

At side of brain above ears involved in memory, perception, hearing

Lower back part of brain involved with processing visual information

Top of brain, discriminated between textures and shapes

Located under forehead, involved with complex cognitive functions