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AP Psychology ALL Terms / Questions &
Expertly Verified Answer, 2025 / 2026.
psychology - Answer: the science of behavior and mental processes nature-nurture issue - Answer: the long-standing controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors natural selection - Answer: the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations neuroscience - Answer: the perspective of psychological science that deals with how the body and brain create emotions, memories, and sensory experiences evolutionary - Answer: the perspective of psychological science that deals with how nature selects traits that promote the perpetuation of one's genes behavior genetics - Answer: the perspective of psychological science that deals with how much our genes, and our environment, influence our individual differences psychodynamic - Answer: the perspective of psychological science that deals with how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts behavioral - Answer: the perspective of psychological science that deals with how we learn observable responses
cognitive - Answer: the perspective of psychological science that deals with how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information social-cultural - Answer: the perspective of psychological science that deals with how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures basic research - Answer: pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base applied research - Answer: scientific study that aims to solve practical problems clinical psychology - Answer: a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders psychiatry - Answer: a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders, practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy hindsight bias (I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon) - Answer: the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it critical thinking - Answer: thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions theory - Answer: an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes and predicts observations hypothesis - Answer: a testable prediction, often implied by a theory
variables. The amount of scatter suggests the strength of correlation (little scatter indicates high correlation). illusory correlation - Answer: the perception of a relationship where none exists experiment - Answer: a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). By random assignment of participants the experimenter controls other relevant factors) placebo - Answer: an inert substance or condition that may be administered instead of a presumed active agent, such as a drug, to see if it triggers the effects believed to characterize the active agent double-blind procedure - Answer: an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo. Commonly used in drug-evaluation studies. placebo effect - Answer: any effect on behavior caused by a placebo experimental condition - Answer: the condition of an experiment that exposes participants to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable control condition - Answer: the condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluation the effect of the treatment random assignment - Answer: assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups
independent variable - Answer: the experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect if being studied dependent variable - Answer: the experimental factor--in psychology, the behavior or mental process--that is being measured; the variable that may change in response to the manipulations of the independent variable mode - Answer: the most frequently occurring score in a distribution mean - Answer: the arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores median - Answer: the middle score in a distribution; the scores are above it and half are below it range - Answer: the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution standard deviation - Answer: a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score statistical significance - Answer: a statistical criterion for rejecting the assumption of no differences in a particular study culture - Answer: the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next Biological psychology - Answer: concerned with links between biology and behavior Neuron - Answer: building blocks of the nervous system
Nervous system - Answer: the body's speedy, electrochemical communication system, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous systems. Central nervous system (CNS) - Answer: the brain and spinal cord Peripheral nervous system (PNS) - Answer: The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body Nerves - Answer: Neural "cables" containing many axons. These bundled axons, which are part of the peripheral nervous system, connect the central nervous system with muscles, glands, and sense organs Sensory neurons - Answer: neurons that carry incoming information from the sense receptors to the central nervous system Interneurons - Answer: central nervous system neurons that intervene between the sensory inputs and motor outputs Motor neurons - Answer: The neurons that carry outgoing information from the central nervous system to the muscles and glands Somatic nervous system - Answer: the division of the peripheral nervous sytem that controls the body's skeletal muscles. Autonomic nervous system - Answer: the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs (such as the heart). Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms. Sympathetic nervous system - Answer: The division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations
Parasympathetic nervous system - Answer: The division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy Reflex - Answer: a simple, automatic, inborn response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee- jerk response Neural networks - Answer: interconnected neural cells. With experience, networks can learn, as feedback strengthens or inhibits connections that produce certain results. Computer stimulations of neural networks show analogous learning. Phrenology - Answer: an ill-fated theory that claimed bumps on the skull could reveal our mental abilities and our character traits. lesion - Answer: tissue destruction. A brain lesion is a naturally or experimentally caused destruction of brain tissue EEG (electroencephalogram) - Answer: an amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity that sweep across the brain's surface. These waves are measured by electrodes placed on the scalp CT (computed tomography) - Answer: a series of x-ray photographs taken from different angles and combined by computer into a composite representation of a slice through the body PET (positron emission tomography) - Answer: a visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) - Answer: a technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated images that distinguish among different types of soft tissue; allows us to see structures within the brain
glial cells - Answer: cells in the nervous system that are not neurons but that support, nourish, and protect neurons frontal lobes - Answer: the portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead; involved in speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgement parietal lobes - Answer: the portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top of the head and toward the rear; includes the sensory cortex occipital lobes - Answer: the portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head; includes the visual areas, which receive visual information from the opposite visual field temporal lobes - Answer: the portion of the cerebral cortex lying roughly above the ears, includes the auditory areas, each of which receives auditory information primarily from the opposite ear motor cortex - Answer: an area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements sensory cortex - Answer: the area at the front of the parietal lobes that registers and processes body sensations association areas - Answer: areas of the cerebral cortex that are not involved in primary motor or sensory functions; rather, they are involved in higher mental functions such as learning, remembering, thinking, and speaking aphasia - Answer: impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage to either Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding)
Broca's Area - Answer: an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech Wernicke's area - Answer: a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe plasticity - Answer: the brain's capacity for modification, as evident in the brain reorganization following damage (especially in children) and in experiments on the effects of experience on brain development corpus callosum - Answer: the large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them split brain - Answer: a condition in which the two hemispheres of the brain at isolated by cutting the connecting fibers (mainly those of the corpus callosum) between them endocrine system - Answer: the body's "slow" chemical communication system; a set of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream hormones - Answer: chemical messengers, mostly those manufactured by the endocrine glands, that are produced in one tissue and affect another adrenal glands - Answer: a pair of endocrine glands just above the kidneys. The adrenals secrete the hormones epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (nonadrenaline), which help to arouse the body in times of stress pituitary gland - Answer: the endocrine system's most influential gland. Under the influence of the hypothalamus, the pituitary regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands. learning - Answer: a relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience
extinction - Answer: the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced spontaneous recovery - Answer: the reappearance, after a rest period, of an extinguished conditioned response generalization - Answer: the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses discrimination - Answer: in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguished between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus operant conditioning - Answer: a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by reinforcement or diminished if followed by punishment respondent behavior - Answer: behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus; Skinner's term for behavior learned through classical conditioning operant behavior - Answer: behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences law of effect - Answer: Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely operant chamber ("Skinner box") - Answer: a chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer, with attached devices to record the animal's rate of bar pressing or key pecking. Used in operant conditioning research
shaping - Answer: an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximation of a desired goal reinforcer - Answer: in operant conditioning, an event that strengthens the behavior it follows primary reinforcer - Answer: an innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need conditioned reinforcer (or secondary reinforcer) - Answer: a stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer continuous reinforcement - Answer: reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs partial (intermittent) reinforcement - Answer: reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement fixed-ratio schedule - Answer: in operant conditioning, a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses variable-ratio schedule - Answer: in operant conditioning, a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses fixed-interval schedule - Answer: in operant conditioning, a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed. variable-interval schedule - Answer: in operant conditioning, a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals
retrieval - Answer: the process of getting information out of memory storage sensory memory - Answer: the immediate, initial recording of sensory information in the memory system short-term memory - Answer: activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten long-term memory - Answer: the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system working memory - Answer: a similar concept that focuses more on the processing of briefly stored information automatic processing - Answer: unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meaning effortful processing - Answer: encoding that requires attention and conscious effort rehearsal - Answer: the conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage spacing effect - Answer: the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practiced serial position effect - Answer: our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list
semantic encoding - Answer: the encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words acoustic encoding - Answer: the encoding of sound, especially the sound of words visual encoding - Answer: the encoding of picture images imagery - Answer: mental pictures, a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding mnemonics - Answer: memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivd imagery and organizational devices chunking - Answer: organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically iconic memory - Answer: a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second echoic memory - Answer: momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled with 3 or 4 seconds long-term potentiation (LPT) - Answer: an increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory amnesia - Answer: the loss of memory implicit memory - Answer: retention without conscious recollection (of skills and dispositions) (aka procedural memory)
repression - Answer: in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness misinformation effect - Answer: incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event source amnesia - Answer: attributing to the wrong source an event that we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined (aka source misattribution). Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories cognition - Answer: the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering concept - Answer: a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people prototype - Answer: a mental image of best example of a category. Matching new items to the prototype provides a quick and easy method for including items in a category (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin) algorithm - Answer: a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier--but also more error-prone--use of heuristics heuristic - Answer: a rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier also more error-prone than algorithms insight - Answer: a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions confirmation bias - Answer: a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions
fixation - Answer: the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an impediment to problem solving mental set - Answer: a tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, especially a way that has been successful in the past but may or may not be helpful in solving a new problem. functional fixedness - Answer: the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions, an impediment to problem solving representativeness heuristic - Answer: a rule of thumb for judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; maybe lead one to ignore other relevant information availability heuristic - Answer: estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vivdness), we presume such events are common overconfidence - Answer: the tendency to be more confident than correct - to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs in judgments framing - Answer: the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgements belief bias - Answer: the tendency for one's preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning, sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalid belief perseverance - Answer: clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited
