AP Psychology flashcards
Which concept fits the scenario, and what a study can and cannot show. Answer out loud, then tap the card to flip it.
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Open a card to check your answer. Each one links to the lesson that teaches it.
Unit 1: Biological Bases of Behavior
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Topic 1.1 · Which one fitsResearchers compare identical twins raised in different homes with identical twins raised together to study anxiety. What kind of research is this, and what does it help separate?
A twin study, combined here with adoption. Twins raised apart share heredity but not a home environment, so comparing the two groups helps separate the influence of nature from nurture.
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Topic 1.1 · Spot the mistakeA friend says, 'Adopted kids end up a lot like their adoptive parents, so genes don't matter.' What is wrong with that conclusion?
Resemblance to the adoptive family shows that environment matters. It does not show heredity is irrelevant. Adoption studies compare children with both their biological and adoptive families, and the usual finding is that heredity and environment interact.
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Topic 1.1 · Which one fitsA psychologist explains why people everywhere tend to fear heights by asking how that fear helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. Which perspective is she using?
The evolutionary perspective, which looks at how natural selection shaped behavior and mental processes. Its history includes a warning: some people misused its ideas to discriminate against others, which is what eugenics did.
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Topic 1.2 · Which one fitsA car swerves toward you. Your heart pounds and you breathe fast, then a few minutes later your body slowly calms down. Which nervous system division handles each part?
Both are autonomic, because neither is voluntary. The sympathetic nervous system arouses you for the emergency. The parasympathetic nervous system calms the body back down afterward.
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Topic 1.2 · Know the termWhat makes up the central nervous system, and what does the peripheral nervous system do?
The central nervous system is the brain and the spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system relays messages between the central nervous system and the rest of the body, and it includes the autonomic and somatic nervous systems.
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Topic 1.3 · Which one fitsYou step on a tack and jerk your foot away before you even feel the pain. Which three types of neurons made that happen, and in what order?
A reflex arc in the spinal cord. Sensory neurons carry the signal in, interneurons in the spinal cord pass it along, and motor neurons send the command out to the leg muscles.
Review: 1.3 The Neuron and Neural Firing
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Topic 1.3 · Spot the mistakeA student says a stronger stimulus makes a neuron fire a bigger action potential. What is the mistake?
The all-or-none principle. Once the neuron reaches threshold it fires completely, and if it does not reach threshold it does not fire at all. The size of each action potential does not grow with the stimulus.
Review: 1.3 The Neuron and Neural Firing
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Topic 1.3 · Know the termA drug fits into a neurotransmitter's receptors without activating them, so the neurotransmitter is blocked from sending its message. Agonist or antagonist?
An antagonist: it blocks the receptor, which discourages the neural firing that neurotransmitter would cause. An agonist does the opposite, mimicking or boosting the neurotransmitter to encourage firing.
Review: 1.3 The Neuron and Neural Firing
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Topic 1.4 · Which one fitsAfter a stroke, a man understands everything said to him but can only get out a few slow, broken words. Which brain area was most likely damaged?
Broca's area, usually in the left hemisphere, which is responsible for speech production. The result is a kind of aphasia. If he spoke fluently but could not understand speech, Wernicke's area would be the likely site.
Review: 1.4 The Brain
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Topic 1.4 · Say it in contextA split-brain patient sees a picture of a key flashed only to her left visual field. She says she saw nothing, yet her left hand picks a key out of a bag. What does this show?
The left visual field goes to the right hemisphere, which can guide the left hand but usually cannot produce speech. Language is typically in the left hemisphere, and with the corpus callosum cut, the two halves cannot share what was seen.
Review: 1.4 The Brain
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Topic 1.4 · Check the conditionsA researcher wants to know which brain areas are active while teens look at photos of their friends. Why is fMRI a better fit than a case study of one patient with brain damage?
fMRI shows brain activity while the task is happening, in many healthy participants. A case study gives rich detail about one person, but it cannot show what is typical, and one person's damage may not match anyone else's.
Review: 1.4 The Brain
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Topic 1.5 · Say it in contextAcross one night, REM periods get longer and NREM periods get shorter. What does that pattern say about when most dreaming happens?
Later in the night. Dreaming typically occurs in REM sleep, and REM takes up more of each cycle as the night goes on, so the longest dreaming tends to come toward morning.
Review: 1.5 Sleep
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Topic 1.5 · Which one fitsAfter a week of late-night cramming, Priya finally sleeps a full night and spends far more time than usual in REM sleep. What is this called?
REM rebound. When people are deprived of REM sleep, they tend to get extra REM once they can sleep normally again.
Review: 1.5 Sleep
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Topic 1.5 · Know the termWhy is REM sleep called paradoxical?
During REM, brain waves look much like being awake, yet the body is at its most relaxed. An active brain in a nearly still body is the paradox.
Review: 1.5 Sleep
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Topic 1.6 · Work it outHolding a 100-gram bag, you can just notice when 2 grams are added. Using Weber's law, about how much must be added to a 500-gram bag before you notice?
About 10 grams. Weber's law says the just-noticeable difference is a constant proportion of the original stimulus, here 2%, so a heavier bag needs a bigger change.
Review: 1.6 Sensation
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Topic 1.6 · Say it in contextStare at a green, black and yellow flag for 30 seconds, then look at a white wall, and you see a red, white and blue flag. Which color vision theory does this support?
Opponent-process theory. Ganglion cells work in opposing pairs, red/green, blue/yellow and black/white, and when one side of a pair tires, the afterimage shows its opposite. Trichromatic theory explains color at the level of the three kinds of cones.
Review: 1.6 Sensation
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Topic 1.6 · Spot the mistakeWith a stuffed-up nose, your friend says the soup tastes bland because his tongue isn't working. What is really going on?
The chemical senses interact. Without smell, taste sensations are muted or not experienced at all, so the missing smell information is what flattened the flavor.
Review: 1.6 Sensation
Unit 2: Cognition
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Topic 2.1 · Which one fitsYou read 'Th3 qu1ck br0wn f0x' without slowing down, even though some letters are numbers. Top-down or bottom-up processing?
Top-down processing. Your expectations and knowledge of English fill in what the raw input does not quite say. Bottom-up processing builds a perception from the sensory details themselves.
Review: 2.1 Perception
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Topic 2.1 · Which one fitsIn a photo of a long, straight road, the two edges seem to meet at the horizon. Which monocular depth cue is this?
Linear perspective. Parallel lines appear to converge in the distance, which gives an illusion of depth on a flat surface.
Review: 2.1 Perception
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Topic 2.1 · Spot the mistakeA student says convergence is when parallel lines seem to meet in a drawing. What is the mix-up?
That is linear perspective, a monocular cue that works on a flat picture. Convergence is a binocular cue: as an object comes closer the eyes turn inward and the brain merges the images from the two eyes to judge depth.
Review: 2.1 Perception
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Topic 2.2 · Which one fitsAfter a plane crash is all over the news, Dev is sure flying is more dangerous than riding in a car. Which heuristic is he using?
The availability heuristic: judging how likely something is by how easily a vivid example comes to mind. Dramatic events are easy to recall, so they feel more common than they are.
Review: 2.2 Thinking, Problem-Solving, Judgments, and Decision-Making
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Topic 2.2 · Which one fitsTaylor has lost five coin flips in a row and bets big on the next one because heads is 'due.' What thinking error is this?
The gambler's fallacy: believing past random outcomes change the odds of the next one. Each flip is still a 50-50 chance.
Review: 2.2 Thinking, Problem-Solving, Judgments, and Decision-Making
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Topic 2.3 · Which one fitsYou can easily tell a friend about your eighth birthday party, but you cannot explain exactly how you keep your balance on a bike. Which kinds of memory are these?
The party is episodic memory, a type of explicit memory you can describe. Bike riding is procedural memory, a type of implicit memory that is hard to put into words.
Review: 2.3 Introduction to Memory
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Topic 2.3 · Say it in contextThree groups see the same word list. One judges whether each word is in capital letters, one whether it rhymes with 'cat,' and one whether it fits a sentence. Which group should remember the most words?
The sentence group. The levels of processing model says semantic processing, about meaning, is the deepest level and the best remembered. Rhyming is phonemic, and capital letters are structural, the shallowest.
Review: 2.3 Introduction to Memory
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Topic 2.3 · Know the termWhat is long-term potentiation, and why does it matter for memory?
Long-term potentiation is the strengthening of synaptic connections between neurons through frequent activation. It is a biological process behind memory: connections that fire together often become easier to fire again.
Review: 2.3 Introduction to Memory
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Topic 2.4 · Which one fitsAfter hearing a 15-item grocery list once, you remember the first few and the last few items but blank on the middle. Which effect is this?
The serial position effect. Items at the beginning are remembered well (the primacy effect), as are items at the end (the recency effect), while the middle gets lost.
Review: 2.4 Encoding Memories
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Topic 2.4 · Check the conditionsTwo students each study 3 hours for a test. One studies all 3 hours the night before; the other studies 30 minutes a day for six days. Who likely remembers more a week later, and why?
The second student. That is the spacing effect: distributed practice spreads encoding over time and usually leads to better memory than massed practice, cramming it all at once.
Review: 2.4 Encoding Memories
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Topic 2.5 · Which one fitsTo learn 'mitochondria,' Ana says the word twenty times. Ben links it to the power plant his uncle works at. Which kind of rehearsal is each using, and whose memory should last longer?
Ana uses maintenance rehearsal, repeating information to keep it. Ben uses elaborative rehearsal, linking it to meaning. Elaborative rehearsal leads to better long-term retention.
Review: 2.5 Storing Memories
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Topic 2.5 · Know the termWhat is infantile amnesia?
Most adults cannot recall events from their earliest years of life. It is a developmental limit on memory storage, not a sign that anything is wrong.
Review: 2.5 Storing Memories
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Topic 2.6 · Spot the mistakeA student rereads her notes five times and feels ready. Her friend spends the same time quizzing herself with flashcards. Which method does memory research favor?
Quizzing. The testing effect shows that practicing retrieval builds memory better than rereading. Rereading feels productive because the material looks familiar, which is recognition, not recall.
Review: 2.6 Retrieving Memories
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Topic 2.6 · Know the termWhy do most students find a multiple-choice question easier than a fill-in-the-blank question on the same fact?
Multiple choice is recognition, which has retrieval cues in the answer choices. Fill-in-the-blank is recall, remembering without cues.
Review: 2.6 Retrieving Memories
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Topic 2.7 · Which one fitsWitnesses watch a video of a car accident. Those later asked how fast the cars were going when they 'smashed' give higher speeds, and some recall broken glass that was not there. What is this?
The misinformation effect. Misleading information given after an event can change what people remember about the event itself.
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Topic 2.7 · Say it in contextA graph shows the percent of a word list remembered over time. It drops steeply in the first hour, then barely changes over the next week. What does the graph show?
The forgetting curve. Most forgetting happens soon after learning, and then memory levels off, so what survives the first stretch tends to last.
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Topic 2.8 · Say it in contextAn online IQ quiz gives you almost the same score every time you take it, but its scores do not predict anything about school performance. Is it reliable, valid, or both?
Reliable but not valid. Consistent scores are test-retest reliability. Failing to predict what it should means it lacks predictive validity. A test can be reliable without being valid, but not the other way around.
Review: 2.8 Intelligence and Achievement
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Topic 2.8 · Spot the mistakeTwo groups differ by a few points in average IQ. Why is it a mistake to use those averages to judge any one person from either group?
IQ scores vary more within a group than between groups, so the overlap is huge. Group differences can also reflect poverty, discrimination and unequal schooling, and bias can shape how scores are interpreted.
Review: 2.8 Intelligence and Achievement
Unit 3: Development and Learning
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Topic 3.1 · Check the conditionsA team tests 10-, 40- and 70-year-olds once each and finds memory scores drop with age. Why can't it be sure aging alone caused the drop?
It is a cross-sectional design, comparing different people born in different eras. The groups grew up with different schooling and life experiences. A longitudinal design, following the same people as they age, avoids that problem but takes years.
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Topic 3.1 · Know the termOne psychologist describes development as a smooth ramp of gradual growth. Another describes it as a staircase of distinct stages. Which debate is this?
Continuous versus discontinuous development. Stage theories, such as Piaget's stages, describe the discontinuous side.
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Topic 3.2 · Say it in contextMost crawling infants refuse to crawl onto the 'deep' side of a glass-topped table, even when a parent calls them. What does this research show?
The visual cliff studies show that infants can perceive depth early in life. They also show a clever way to measure what babies perceive without any words.
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Topic 3.2 · Which one fitsGoslings follow the first moving thing they see after hatching, even if it is a person. What is this, and what broader idea does it illustrate?
Imprinting. It illustrates critical or sensitive periods, windows early in life when certain experiences have especially strong effects on development, as with language in children.
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Topic 3.2 · Know the termWhat are teratogens?
Substances or agents, such as alcohol, that can harm development before birth and affect later physical and psychological milestones.
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Topic 3.3 · Which one fitsA 4-year-old boy hears relatives say 'boys don't cry' and sees mostly men as heroes in his cartoons. What broad process is shaping his ideas about how boys should act, and through which sources?
Gender socialization: family, peers, school and media teach a child what the culture expects of each gender. Here it comes through his relatives' words and the cartoon models; learning by watching models is social learning, the mechanism behind much of this socialization.
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Topic 3.3 · Check the conditionsA survey finds that girls who play with building toys score higher on spatial tasks. Can the researchers conclude the toys caused the higher scores?
No. The children were not randomly assigned to toys, so this is a correlation. Girls with strong spatial skills may choose building toys, or a third factor, such as encouragement at home, may drive both.
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Topic 3.3 · Know the termHow do psychologists distinguish sex from gender?
Sex refers to biological characteristics of the body. Gender refers to the roles and expectations a culture connects with being a woman, a man or another gender, along with a person's own sense of their gender.
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Topic 3.4 · Which one fitsA 3-year-old is upset because her brother's juice is in a tall, thin glass and hers is in a short, wide one, though both hold the same amount. Which Piaget stage, and what can't she do yet?
The preoperational stage. She has not yet developed conservation, the understanding that an amount stays the same when its shape changes.
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Topic 3.4 · Which one fitsMila cannot solve a word problem alone, but she can when her older brother gives a hint at each step. According to Vygotsky, where is this problem for her?
In her zone of proximal development: the range of tasks she can do with help but not yet alone. Her brother's hints are scaffolding, which he can pull back as she improves.
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Topic 3.4 · Say it in contextGrandpa beats everyone at a vocabulary game but is slow to figure out a brand-new video game. Which kinds of intelligence does this contrast?
Crystallized intelligence, built-up knowledge like vocabulary, stays fairly stable through adulthood. Fluid intelligence, quick reasoning about new problems, tends to decline with age.
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Topic 3.5 · Which one fitsA toddler says 'I goed to the park' and 'I saw two mouses.' What language error is this, and what does it show?
Overgeneralization: applying a grammar rule, like adding -ed or -s, where it does not fit. It shows the child has learned the rule rather than only copying words heard from adults.
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Topic 3.5 · Work it outHow many morphemes are in the word 'unhappiness'?
Three: un-, happy and -ness. A morpheme is the smallest unit of language that carries meaning; a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound.
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Topic 3.6 · Which one fitsWhen his mother leaves the room, a toddler gets upset. When she returns, he is comforted quickly and goes back to playing. Which attachment style does this show?
Secure attachment: the caregiver is a safe base, so the child explores, is distressed by separation and is easily comforted on reunion. Insecure styles are avoidant, anxious and disorganized.
Review: 3.6 Social-Emotional Development Across the Lifespan
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Topic 3.6 · Say it in contextInfant monkeys spend most of their time clinging to a soft cloth 'mother,' even though a wire 'mother' is the one that gives milk. What does this research show?
Comfort matters more than food in forming attachment. The monkeys went to the wire figure only to feed and returned to the cloth one for comfort.
Review: 3.6 Social-Emotional Development Across the Lifespan
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Topic 3.7 · Say it in contextEvery time your cat hears the can opener, its food follows. Now the cat drools and gets excited as soon as it hears the opener, before any food appears. Name the UCS, UCR, CS and CR.
UCS: the food. UCR: drooling and excitement at the food, which need no learning. CS: the sound of the can opener, once neutral. CR: drooling and excitement at the sound alone, learned by pairing the sound with the food.
Review: 3.7 Classical Conditioning
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Topic 3.7 · Know the termBehaviorists studying conditioning traditionally focused on what, and left out what?
They focused on observable behavior and left out mental processes, because thoughts cannot be directly observed. That focus defines the behavioral perspective.
Review: 3.7 Classical Conditioning
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Topic 3.8 · Spot the mistakeYour mom stops nagging as soon as you clean your room, so you start cleaning it sooner. A friend calls the nagging punishment. What is the correct term for what made you clean sooner?
Negative reinforcement. Removing something unpleasant, the nagging, made the behavior more likely. In operant conditioning, negative means taking something away, and reinforcement always increases a behavior.
Review: 3.8 Operant Conditioning
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Topic 3.8 · Say it in contextA graph of one student's studying shows almost none right after each Friday quiz, then a sharp climb just before the next Friday. Which reinforcement schedule produces this scalloped pattern?
Fixed-interval. Reinforcement is tied to a set amount of time, so responding drops right after it and speeds up as the next one gets close.
Review: 3.8 Operant Conditioning
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Topic 3.9 · Which one fitsA 5-year-old watches her older sister get praised for setting the table, and the next night she sets the table without being asked. What kind of learning is this?
Social learning, through observation and modeling. She learned from the consequence her sister received, which is vicarious conditioning. Models who seem similar to us are more likely to be copied.
Review: 3.9 Social, Cognitive, and Neurological Factors in Learning
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Topic 3.9 · Say it in contextRats explore a maze for days with no reward. When food is finally placed at the end, they run it as fast as rats that were rewarded all along. What does this show?
Latent learning. The rats learned the maze without reinforcement, building a cognitive map, and the learning showed up only once there was a reason to use it.
Review: 3.9 Social, Cognitive, and Neurological Factors in Learning
Unit 4: Social Psychology and Personality
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Topic 4.1 · Which one fitsA driver cuts you off, and you immediately think, 'What a jerk,' without considering that he might be rushing to a hospital. Which bias is this?
The fundamental attribution error: overestimating dispositional causes, like personality, and underestimating situational causes when explaining someone else's behavior.
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Topic 4.1 · Which one fitsEllie believes her grades depend on her own effort. Her friend believes grades depend mostly on luck and which teacher you get. What concept describes this difference?
Locus of control. Ellie has an internal locus of control, seeing outcomes as within her control. Her friend has an external locus of control, seeing outcomes as set by outside forces.
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Topic 4.2 · Which one fitsKai believes vaping is harmful but vapes anyway. To feel less uncomfortable, he decides it is 'not that bad.' Which concept explains his change of attitude?
Cognitive dissonance: the discomfort of holding an attitude that conflicts with an action. People reduce it by changing the action or, as Kai did, the attitude.
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Topic 4.2 · Which one fitsSure that a classmate dislikes her, Zoe notices every time he does not say hi and ignores the times he does. What is she doing?
Confirmation bias: seeking and noticing evidence that supports a belief while overlooking evidence against it. It helps a belief persist even when it is wrong, which is belief perseverance.
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Topic 4.3 · Which one fitsA student trips in a crowded hallway and dozens of people walk past. Later, when she trips with only one other person nearby, he helps right away. Which effect does this show?
The bystander effect. With more people present, each feels less responsible to act, which is diffusion of responsibility, so help becomes less likely.
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Topic 4.3 · Spot the mistakeYou laugh at a joke you didn't get so you won't stand out, because everyone else laughed. A friend says you were looking to the group for information. Normative or informational social influence?
Normative social influence: going along to fit in and be accepted. Informational influence is going along because you think the group knows something you don't, such as following the crowd to the right exit.
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Topic 4.3 · Check the conditionsA study observes that people obey an authority figure more often when the authority stands in the room. What would the design need before claiming the authority's presence caused more obedience?
An experiment: randomly assign participants to an authority-present or authority-absent condition, keep everything else the same, and compare obedience. Without random assignment, other differences between the groups could explain the result.
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Topic 4.4 · Which one fitsAfter his coach yells at him, Marcus goes home and snaps at his little brother. Which ego defense mechanism is this?
Displacement: shifting feelings from a threatening target, the coach, onto a safer one, his brother.
Review: 4.4 Psychodynamic and Humanistic Theories of Personality
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Topic 4.4 · Which one fitsA psychologist shows a client a series of ambiguous inkblots and asks what she sees in each. What kind of assessment is this, and which theory does it come from?
A projective test, from the psychodynamic theory. The idea is that people project unconscious thoughts and feelings onto an ambiguous image.
Review: 4.4 Psychodynamic and Humanistic Theories of Personality
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Topic 4.5 · Which one fitsLena keeps a detailed planner, finishes assignments early and has never missed practice. Which Big Five trait is she high in?
Conscientiousness. The other four are agreeableness, openness to experience, extraversion and emotional stability.
Review: 4.5 Social-Cognitive and Trait Theories of Personality
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Topic 4.5 · Spot the mistakeRavi feels good about himself overall, but he doubts he can pass chemistry. Is his self-esteem low or his self-efficacy?
His self-efficacy, his belief that he can succeed at a specific task, is low for chemistry. His self-esteem, his overall sense of his own worth, is fine. Both feed into self-concept.
Review: 4.5 Social-Cognitive and Trait Theories of Personality
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Topic 4.5 · Know the termHow do Big Five personality inventories turn answers to many questions into a few traits?
They use factor analysis, a statistical method that finds which items tend to be answered alike and groups them into a small number of traits.
Review: 4.5 Social-Cognitive and Trait Theories of Personality
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Topic 4.6 · Say it in contextA graph shows test performance rising as arousal increases, up to a point, then falling as arousal keeps climbing. Which law is this, and what does it suggest for a big test?
The Yerkes-Dodson law, which supports arousal theory. A moderate level of arousal tends to produce the best performance; being half-asleep or panicked both hurt.
Review: 4.6 Motivation
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Topic 4.6 · Which one fitsJust before lunch, your stomach growls and you feel hungry. After a big meal you feel full. Which hormones signal each feeling?
Ghrelin signals hunger and leptin signals satiety, or fullness. The hypothalamus regulates them via the pituitary gland.
Review: 4.6 Motivation
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Topic 4.7 · Say it in contextPeople who hold a pen in their teeth, which forces a smile, rate cartoons as a little funnier. Which hypothesis does this test, and what does the research show overall?
The facial-feedback hypothesis: facial expressions influence the emotion you feel. Research testing it has produced mixed results, so treat it as a supported idea, not a settled fact.
Review: 4.7 Emotion
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Topic 4.7 · Say it in contextEarly theories of emotion disagreed about the order of two things. What were they debating?
Whether the body's physiological reaction and the mind's cognitive experience of an emotion happen one after the other or at the same time, and whether a cognitive label is needed to feel an emotion at all.
Review: 4.7 Emotion
Unit 5: Mental and Physical Health
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Topic 5.1 · Which one fitsJordan gets through finals week on adrenaline, but the week after, he catches a bad cold. Which phase of the general adaptation syndrome best explains that?
The exhaustion phase. After the alarm reaction and the resistance phase, resources run low, and that is when susceptibility to illness is greatest.
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Topic 5.1 · Which one fitsStressed about a group project, Nina makes a schedule and assigns tasks. Her partner goes for a run and does deep breathing to calm down. Which kind of coping is each using?
Nina is using problem-focused coping, treating the stress as a problem to solve. Her partner is using emotion-focused coping, managing the emotional reaction to the stress.
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Topic 5.1 · Spot the mistakeA friend says all stress is bad for you. What does health psychology say about the nervous excitement before a big game?
Stress you see as motivating is eustress, and it can push you to perform. Distress is stress that feels debilitating. Long-term stress, though, is linked to problems like hypertension, headaches and a weaker immune system.
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Topic 5.2 · Which one fitsA year after a house fire, Rosa says she feels closer to her family and clearer about what matters to her. What is this called?
Posttraumatic growth: a positive change that can follow trauma or major stress. It does not mean the event was good, only that growth came after it.
Review: 5.2 Positive Psychology
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Topic 5.2 · Check the conditionsA study finds that students who write gratitude letters report higher well-being. What would the design need to show the letters caused the increase?
Random assignment: some students write gratitude letters and a comparable group writes about something neutral, with well-being measured in both. Otherwise, happier students may simply be the ones who choose to write gratitude letters.
Review: 5.2 Positive Psychology
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Topic 5.2 · Know the termPositive psychology groups character strengths under six virtues. What are they?
Wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence. People who use their signature strengths report more happiness and subjective well-being.
Review: 5.2 Positive Psychology
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Topic 5.3 · Which one fitsA therapist believes a client's depression comes from thoughts like 'I always fail' and 'Nothing will ever get better.' Which perspective on the cause is she using?
The cognitive perspective, which looks for causes in maladaptive thoughts, beliefs and attitudes.
Review: 5.3 Explaining and Classifying Psychological Disorders
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Topic 5.3 · Which one fitsTwo cousins share a family history of depression. One develops depression after a parent's death; the other, who has had no major loss, does not. Which model explains the difference?
The diathesis-stress model: a disorder develops from a genetic vulnerability, the diathesis, combined with stressful life experiences.
Review: 5.3 Explaining and Classifying Psychological Disorders
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Topic 5.3 · Spot the mistakeA student says that anyone who acts differently from everyone else has a psychological disorder. What is wrong with that reasoning?
Deviation from social norms is only one factor. Psychologists also weigh the level of dysfunction and the person's distress, and a diagnosis takes specialized training and tools like the DSM or ICD. A label can also bring stigma.
Review: 5.3 Explaining and Classifying Psychological Disorders
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Topic 5.4 · Which one fitsA person with schizophrenia shows almost no facial expression and speaks in a flat tone. Is this a positive or a negative symptom?
A negative symptom, flat affect, which is the absence of a typical behavior. Positive symptoms add something that is not usually there, such as hallucinations, delusions or disorganized speech.
Review: 5.4 Selection of Categories of Psychological Disorders
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Topic 5.4 · Spot the mistakeA TV character with 'split personalities' is described as having schizophrenia. What is the mix-up?
Separate identities fit dissociative identity disorder, a dissociative disorder. Schizophrenia is a schizophrenic spectrum disorder, marked by symptoms like delusions, hallucinations and disorganized thinking, not by multiple identities.
Review: 5.4 Selection of Categories of Psychological Disorders
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Topic 5.4 · Know the termWhich category of disorder involves periods of depression that alternate with periods of mania?
Bipolar disorders, such as Bipolar I and Bipolar II. Depressive disorders, such as major depressive disorder, involve depression without episodes of mania.
Review: 5.4 Selection of Categories of Psychological Disorders
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Topic 5.5 · Which one fitsA client afraid of elevators first imagines one while relaxing, then looks at one, then rides up a single floor. Which therapy is this?
Systematic desensitization, an exposure therapy that uses a fear hierarchy. It applies conditioning principles, pairing relaxation with each step until the fear fades.
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Topic 5.5 · Spot the mistakeA TV show claims hypnosis can recover accurate memories from early childhood. What does research say?
Research does not support using hypnosis to retrieve accurate memories or to regress someone in age. Where hypnosis has shown effectiveness is in treating pain and anxiety.
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Topic 5.5 · Say it in contextA meta-analysis combines hundreds of psychotherapy studies and finds clients who received therapy generally improved more than those who did not. What can you conclude, and what can't you?
Psychotherapies are generally effective, which is stronger evidence than any single study. It does not show that every therapy works for every person, so therapists still choose evidence-based treatments that fit the client.