AP Psychology

AP Psychology 2025 Cheatsheet – Key Terms, Units & Tips

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AP Psychology – 2025 Detailed Cheatsheet

Foundations

  • Nature + Nurture Interaction: Behavior and mental processes arise from the continuous interplay between genetic predispositions (nature) and environmental influences (nurture). It's not one versus the other, but how they work together.
  • Research Methods (Behavior Genetics):
    • Twin Studies: Compare similarities between identical (monozygotic, share 100% genes) and fraternal (dizygotic, share 50% genes, like typical siblings) twins. Greater similarity in identical twins suggests a stronger genetic influence for that trait.
    • Family Studies: Examine trait similarities among family members who share varying degrees of genetic relatedness. Patterns can suggest genetic contributions.
    • Adoption Studies: Compare adopted children to their biological parents (shared genes) and adoptive parents (shared environment). Similarities to biological parents suggest genetic influence; similarities to adoptive parents suggest environmental influence.

Nervous System

  • Central Nervous System (CNS) & Peripheral Nervous System (PNS):
    • CNS: The brain and spinal cord; the body's command center, processing information and making decisions.
    • PNS: Nerves connecting the CNS to the rest of the body. Subdivided into:
      • Somatic Nervous System: Controls voluntary muscle movements and transmits sensory information.
      • Autonomic Nervous System: Controls involuntary bodily functions (heart rate, digestion, breathing).
  • Autonomic Nervous System Divisions:
    • Sympathetic Nervous System: Arouses the body, mobilizing energy for "fight-or-flight" responses (e.g., increases heart rate, dilates pupils).
    • Parasympathetic Nervous System: Calms the body, conserving energy for "rest-and-digest" functions (e.g., slows heart rate, stimulates digestion).
  • Neurons (Nerve Cells): The basic building blocks of the nervous system.
    • Structure & Signal Flow: Dendrites (receive messages) → Soma/Cell Body (integrates signals, maintains cell life) → Axon (transmits signal, often covered by myelin sheath for speed) → Terminal Buttons/Axon Terminals (release neurotransmitters).
  • Neural Transmission (Action Potential): The process of how a neuron fires.
    • Resting Potential: The neuron's stable, negative charge when inactive (polarized).
    • Threshold: The level of stimulation required to trigger an action potential.
    • Action Potential: A brief electrical charge that travels down the axon (depolarization); an "all-or-none" response (it either fires fully or not atall).
    • Neurotransmitter Release: When the action potential reaches the terminal buttons, it causes the release of chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) into the synapse (gap between neurons).

Brain Structure

  • Lobes of the Cerebral Cortex:
    • Frontal Lobe: Higher-level cognitive functions: planning, decision-making, working memory, voluntary movement (motor cortex), speech production (Broca's area).
    • Parietal Lobe: Processes sensory information like touch, temperature, pain, and pressure (somatosensory cortex); spatial awareness.
    • Temporal Lobe: Processes auditory information (auditory cortex), memory formation, language comprehension (Wernicke's area).
    • Occipital Lobe: Processes visual information (visual cortex).
  • Other Key Brain Structures:
    • Brainstem: Connects the cerebrum to the spinal cord; controls vital life functions (breathing, heart rate, sleep). Includes medulla, pons, reticular formation.
    • Cerebellum: Coordinates voluntary movement, balance, posture, and procedural memory ("little brain").
  • Language Centers:
    • Broca's Area: Typically in the left frontal lobe; crucial for speech production (forming words). Damage leads to Broca's aphasia (difficulty speaking fluently).
    • Wernicke's Area: Typically in the left temporal lobe; crucial for language comprehension (understanding spoken/written language). Damage leads to Wernicke's aphasia (difficulty understanding, producing meaningless speech).

Chemical Messengers

  • Key Neurotransmitters: Chemical substances that transmit signals across synapses.
    • Glutamate: The primary excitatory neurotransmitter; involved in learning and memory.
    • GABA (Gamma-aminobutyric acid): The primary inhibitory neurotransmitter; helps calm nervous activity.
    • Dopamine: Involved in reward, motivation, pleasure, and motor control. Imbalances linked to Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia.
    • Serotonin: Affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal. Imbalances linked to depression.
  • Drugs and Neurotransmission: Psychoactive drugs alter brain chemistry.
    • Stimulants (e.g., caffeine, cocaine, amphetamines): Increase CNS activity and neurotransmitter levels (e.g., dopamine, norepinephrine), leading to heightened alertness and energy.
    • Depressants (e.g., alcohol, barbiturates, opiates): Decrease CNS activity, often by enhancing GABA's effects, leading to relaxation and reduced inhibition.
    • Hallucinogens (e.g., LSD, psilocybin): Distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input, often by affecting serotonin pathways.

Sleep & Consciousness

  • Sleep Cycle: A recurring pattern of sleep stages.
    • NREM (Non-Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep: Consists of three stages:
      • N1: Light sleep, easily awakened, hypnagogic jerks.
      • N2: Deeper sleep, sleep spindles (bursts of brain activity).
      • N3: Deepest sleep (slow-wave sleep), difficult to awaken, important for physical restoration and memory consolidation.
    • REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep: Stage characterized by rapid eye movements, vivid dreams, muscle paralysis (atonia), and brain activity similar to wakefulness. Important for cognitive functions.
    • Circadian Rhythm: The ~24-hour biological clock that regulates sleep-wake cycles and other bodily functions, influenced by light (via suprachiasmatic nucleus).
  • Effects of Sleep Loss:
    • Impaired Memory: Difficulty forming new memories and consolidating existing ones.
    • Reduced Attention & Concentration: Difficulty focusing and maintaining vigilance.
    • Mood Disturbances: Increased irritability, emotional reactivity, and risk of mood disorders.
    • Poor Decision-Making: Impaired judgment and increased risk-taking.
    • Weakened immune system, increased risk of accidents.

Sensation

  • Thresholds: Limits of sensory detection.
    • Absolute Threshold: The minimum amount of stimulus energy needed for detection 50% of the time.
    • JND (Just Noticeable Difference) / Difference Threshold: The smallest detectable difference between two stimuli 50% of the time. Weber's Law states that the JND is a constant proportion of the original stimulus intensity.
  • Vision Theories: How we perceive color.
    • Trichromatic Theory (Young-Helmholtz): Proposes three types of cone receptors in the retina, sensitive to red, green, and blue light. All other colors are perceived by a combination of these. Explains color vision at the receptor level.
    • Opponent-Process Theory: Proposes that color vision is processed in opponent pairs: red-green, yellow-blue, and black-white. Explains afterimages and certain types of color blindness. Both theories are needed for a full explanation (trichromatic at cones, opponent-process at ganglion cells and beyond).
  • Hearing Theories: How we perceive pitch.
    • Place Theory: Different pitches activate different places on the cochlea's basilar membrane. Best explains high-pitched sounds.
    • Frequency Theory (Temporal Theory): The rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone. Best explains low-pitched sounds. (Volley Principle: For intermediate frequencies, groups of neurons fire in rapid succession, or volleys, to match the frequency).

Perception

  • Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Processing:
    • Bottom-Up Processing: Analysis that begins with sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information. Data-driven. (e.g., seeing lines and colors to form an image).
    • Top-Down Processing: Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, such as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations. Concept-driven. (e.g., recognizing a familiar face in a crowd based on expectations).
  • Schemas & Perceptual Sets:
    • Schemas: Mental frameworks or concepts that organize and interpret information, based on prior experiences. (e.g., your schema for "dog" includes fur, four legs, barks).
    • Perceptual Sets: A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another, influenced by expectations, context, emotions, and motivation. (e.g., seeing a "rat" or "man" in an ambiguous figure depending on prior cues).
  • Gestalt Principles of Organization: Rules the brain uses to automatically organize sensory input into meaningful wholes.
    • Proximity: We group nearby figures together.
    • Similarity: We group similar figures together.
    • Closure: We fill in gaps to create a complete, whole object.
    • Others: Continuity (perceive smooth, continuous patterns), Figure-Ground (organize visual field into objects/figures that stand out from surroundings/ground).
  • Depth Cues: Allow us to perceive the world in three dimensions.
    • Binocular Cues (require both eyes):
      • Retinal Disparity: The brain compares the slightly different images received by each eye to judge distance. Greater disparity means closer object.
      • Convergence: The extent to which eyes turn inward when looking at an object. Greater convergence means closer object.
    • Monocular Cues (require only one eye):
      • Relative Size: Smaller objects are perceived as farther away.
      • Interposition (Overlap): If one object partially blocks another, we perceive it as closer.
      • Linear Perspective: Parallel lines appear to converge in the distance.
      • Texture Gradient: Closer objects appear more detailed/coarser in texture.
      • Light and Shadow: Shading produces a sense of depth.
  • Perceptual Constancy: Perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent shapes, size, brightness, and color) even as illumination and retinal images change. (e.g., a door is perceived as rectangular even when it opens and casts a trapezoidal image on our retina).

Thinking

  • Concepts & Prototypes:
    • Concepts: Mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. (e.g., "chair," "bird," "justice").
    • Prototypes: A mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories. (e.g., a robin is a more prototypical bird than a penguin for many).
  • Schema Modification: How we incorporate new information into existing schemas.
    • Assimilation: Interpreting new experiences in terms of our existing schemas. (e.g., a toddler calls all four-legged animals "doggy").
    • Accommodation: Adapting our current schemas to incorporate new information. (e.g., the toddler learns that "cat" is a different category from "doggy," refining their animal schema).
  • Problem-Solving Strategies:
    • Algorithms: Methodical, logical rules or procedures that guarantee solving a particular problem. Slower but accurate. (e.g., trying every possible key on a keyring).
    • Heuristics: Simpler thinking strategies or mental shortcuts that allow us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently. Faster but more error-prone. (e.g., trying only the most likely keys first).
  • Cognitive Biases: Systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, often leading to errors.
    • Confirmation Bias: Tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that confirms or supports one's preexisting beliefs.
    • Anchoring Bias: Relying too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the "anchor") when making decisions.
    • Availability Heuristic: Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of vividness), we presume such events are common.
    • Overconfidence: Tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.
    • Hindsight Bias: Tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it ("I-knew-it-all-along" phenomenon).
  • Creativity: The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.
    • Divergent Thinking: Expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions. (e.g., brainstorming many uses for a brick).
    • Convergent Thinking: Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution. (e.g., finding the one correct answer on a multiple-choice test).
    • Overcoming Fixedness:
      • Functional Fixedness: The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem-solving. (e.g., not realizing a coin can be used as a screwdriver).
      • Mental Set: A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past, but may not be helpful for a new problem.

Memory Systems (Atkinson-Shiffrin Model & Updates)

  • Sensory Memory: The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.
    • Iconic memory: Fleeting sensory memory of visual stimuli (few tenths of a second).
    • Echoic memory: Fleeting sensory memory of auditory stimuli (3-4 seconds).
  • Short-Term/Working Memory: Activated memory that holds a few items briefly (e.g., 7 ± 2 chunks of information) before the information is stored or forgotten.
    • Working Memory (Baddeley's Model): A more complex model than simple short-term storage. Involves active processing and manipulation of information.
      • Phonological Loop: Holds and manipulates auditory and verbal information.
      • Visuospatial Sketchpad: Holds and manipulates visual and spatial information.
      • Central Executive: Manages the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad, directs attention, and coordinates cognitive processes.
      • Episodic Buffer (later addition): Integrates information from different sources and links to long-term memory.
  • Long-Term Memory (LTM): The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.
    • Explicit (Declarative) Memory: Memories of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare." Processed through the hippocampus.
      • Semantic Memory: General knowledge, facts, concepts (e.g., Paris is the capital of France).
      • Episodic Memory: Personal experiences and events (e.g., your first day of school).
    • Implicit (Non-declarative) Memory: Retention independent of conscious recollection. Processed by other brain areas, including the cerebellum.
      • Procedural Memory: Skills and how to perform them (e.g., riding a bike).
      • Conditioning: Classical and operant conditioning effects.
  • Levels of Processing Theory (Craik & Lockhart): Proposes that deeper levels of processing (e.g., focusing on meaning/semantic encoding) result in longer-lasting memory traces than shallow processing (e.g., focusing on appearance or sound).

Memory Processes

  • Encoding: The process of getting information into the memory system.
    • Automatic Processing: Unconscious encoding of incidental information (e.g., space, time, frequency) and well-learned information.
    • Effortful Processing: Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort (e.g., studying for a test).
      • Chunking: Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.
      • Mnemonics: Memory aids, especially techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices (e.g., acronyms, method of loci).
      • Spacing Effect: The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice (cramming).
      • Testing Effect: Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information.
  • Storage: The retention of encoded information over time. Involves changes in neural pathways (long-term potentiation - LTP).
  • Retrieval: The process of getting information out of memory storage.
    • Recall: Retrieving information learned earlier, with few or no cues (e.g., fill-in-the-blank test).
    • Recognition: Identifying items previously learned, with cues present (e.g., multiple-choice test).
    • Context-Dependent Memory: Improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same.
    • State-Dependent Memory: What we learn in one state (e.g., happy, sad, drunk) may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state.
    • Mood-Congruent Memory: The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood.
  • Forgetting: The inability to retrieve information from long-term memory.
    • Encoding Failure: Information never entered LTM.
    • Storage Decay (Transience): Gradual fading of the physical memory trace over time (Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve).
    • Retrieval Failure (Blocking): Inability to access stored information (tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon).
      • Proactive Interference: The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information (Old info blocks new).
      • Retroactive Interference: The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information (New info blocks old).
    • Motivated Forgetting (Repression - Freudian concept): Banishing anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness (controversial).
  • Memory Distortion & Construction: Memories are not perfect recordings; they can be altered.
    • Misinformation Effect (Loftus): Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.
    • Source Amnesia/Misattribution: Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined.
    • Reconstruction: Memories are actively constructed and can be influenced by schemas, expectations, and subsequent information.
    • Amnesia: Memory loss.
      • Anterograde amnesia: Inability to form new memories.
      • Retrograde amnesia: Inability to retrieve information from one's past.
  • Serial Position Effect: Our tendency to recall best the last (recency effect) and first (primacy effect) items in a list.

Intelligence

  • Theories of Intelligence:
    • Spearman's g-factor (General Intelligence): Proposed that a single general intelligence factor (g) underlies all specific mental abilities.
    • Gardner's Multiple Intelligences: Proposed at least eight independent intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and naturalist. (Later added existential).
    • Sternberg's Triarchic Theory: Proposed three intelligences:
      • Analytical (Academic Problem-Solving): Assessed by traditional intelligence tests; ability to analyze, judge, evaluate, compare, and contrast.
      • Creative: Ability to generate novel ideas and adapt to new situations.
      • Practical: "Street smarts"; ability to apply knowledge to everyday situations.
    • Emotional Intelligence (Salovey & Mayer, Goleman): The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.
  • Assessing Intelligence (IQ Tests):
    • History: Binet (mental age), Terman (Stanford-Binet, IQ = mental age/chronological age * 100), Wechsler (WAIS, WISC - deviation IQ).
    • Standardization: Defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group. Results typically form a normal curve (bell curve).
    • Validity: The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to.
      • Content Validity: The extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest.
      • Predictive Validity (Criterion-related): The success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict.
    • Reliability: The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms, or on retesting.
    • Cultural Factors/Bias: Tests can reflect cultural knowledge and values, potentially disadvantaging those from different cultural backgrounds.
  • Flynn Effect: The observed phenomenon of rising average IQ scores in many parts of the world over generations, likely due to environmental factors like better nutrition, education, and more stimulating environments.
  • Mindset (Dweck):
    • Fixed Mindset: Believing that intelligence and abilities are static, innate traits that cannot be changed significantly.
    • Growth Mindset: Believing that intelligence and abilities can be developed through dedication, effort, and learning.
  • Extremes of Intelligence:
    • Intellectual Disability: A condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life (conceptual, social, practical skills).
    • Giftedness: Often defined as an IQ score above 130-135, along with high levels of creativity and motivation.

Foundations (Developmental Psychology)

  • Research Methods in Developmental Psychology:
    • Cross-Sectional Studies: Researchers compare groups of individuals of different ages at the same time. Advantages: quick, less expensive. Disadvantages: cohort effects (differences due to generational experiences, not age).
    • Longitudinal Studies: Researchers study the same group of individuals repeatedly over a long period. Advantages: tracks individual change, avoids cohort effects. Disadvantages: time-consuming, expensive, participant attrition.
  • Critical & Sensitive Periods:
    • Critical Period: A specific time during development when an organism is most vulnerable to the presence or absence of certain environmental stimuli or experiences for normal development to occur. If missed, development may be irreversible. (e.g., imprinting in some animals).
    • Sensitive Period: A period when an individual is more responsive to certain influences or experiences. Optimal for learning certain skills, but learning can still occur outside this window, albeit less efficiently. (e.g., language acquisition in early childhood).
  • Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory: Emphasizes the influence of multiple environmental layers on development.
    • Microsystem: Immediate environment (family, school, peers).
    • Mesosystem: Connections between microsystems (e.g., parent-teacher interactions).
    • Exosystem: Indirect environmental settings that affect the child (e.g., parent's workplace).
    • Macrosystem: Broader cultural values, laws, customs.
    • Chronosystem: The patterning of environmental events and transitions over the life course, as well as sociohistorical circumstances.

Physical Development

  • Prenatal Development: Development from conception to birth.
    • Stages: Germinal (zygote, first 2 weeks), Embryonic (2-8 weeks, organogenesis), Fetal (9 weeks to birth, growth and maturation).
    • Teratogens: Harmful agents (e.g., viruses, drugs like alcohol, chemicals) that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm or birth defects. The impact depends on timing, dosage, and genetic susceptibility.
    • Maternal Health: Factors like nutrition, stress, and maternal age can significantly impact fetal development.
  • Motor Skills Development: The emergence of the ability to execute physical actions.
    • Cephalocaudal Trend: Development proceeds from head to tail (e.g., infants gain control over head movements before torso or limbs).
    • Proximodistal Trend: Development proceeds from the center of the body outward (e.g., control over arm movements before fine motor control of fingers).
    • Reflexes (e.g., rooting, sucking, grasping) are innate, unlearned responses.
  • Puberty: The period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing.
    • Timing: Typically earlier in females (average onset 10-12 years) than males (average onset 12-14 years). Influenced by genetics, nutrition, and health.
    • Hormonal Changes: Involves increased production of sex hormones (estrogen in females, testosterone in males).
    • Primary Sex Characteristics: Body structures directly involved in reproduction (ovaries, testes, external genitalia).
    • Secondary Sex Characteristics: Nonreproductive sexual traits (e.g., female breasts and hips, male voice quality, body hair).
  • Aging: Physical changes across adulthood.
    • Sensory Decline: Gradual decline in vision, hearing, taste, and smell.
    • Physical Decline: Decrease in muscle strength, reaction time, stamina; changes in skin, hair.
    • Menopause: The cessation of menstruation in women, typically around age 50, marking the end of reproductive capability. Associated with a decrease in estrogen. (Andropause in men is a more gradual decline in testosterone).

Cognitive Development

  • Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development: Theory that children actively construct their understanding of the world through a series of stages.
    • Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years): Infants learn about the world through their senses and motor actions. Key achievement: Object Permanence (understanding that objects continue to exist even when not perceived). Stranger anxiety also develops.
    • Preoperational Stage (2-7 years): Children use language and symbolic thinking but lack logical reasoning. Characterized by:
      • Symbolic Thought/Pretend Play: Ability to use symbols to represent objects or ideas.
      • Egocentrism: Difficulty taking another's point of view.
      • Centration: Tendency to focus on only one aspect of a situation, neglecting other important features.
      • Lack of Conservation: Inability to understand that quantity remains the same despite changes in appearance (e.g., water poured into different shaped glasses).
      • Animism: Belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities.
    • Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years): Children can think logically about concrete events and grasp concrete analogies. Key achievements:
      • Conservation: Understanding that properties like mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in form.
      • Decentration: Ability to consider multiple aspects of a situation.
      • Reversibility: Understanding that actions can be undone.
      • Seriation: Ability to order items along a quantitative dimension (e.g., length, weight).
    • Formal Operational Stage (12+ years): Adolescents can think logically about abstract concepts and hypothetical situations. Key achievements:
      • Abstract Reasoning: Ability to think about concepts that are not concrete or tangible.
      • Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning: Ability to systematically test hypotheses and solve problems.
      • Moral Reasoning: Development of more complex ethical thinking.
    • Schemas, Assimilation, Accommodation: Central concepts in Piaget's theory (see Unit 2 - Thinking).
  • Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory: Emphasized the role of social interaction and culture in cognitive development.
    • Social Learning: Children learn through interactions with more knowledgeable others (parents, teachers, peers).
    • Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): The gap between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance and support from a more skilled person.
    • Scaffolding: The support provided by adults or more capable peers to help a child master a task within their ZPD. Support is gradually withdrawn as the child becomes more competent.
    • Internalization of Language: Language plays a crucial role in cognitive development, moving from social speech to private speech (self-talk) to inner speech (thought).
  • Language Progression: Typical stages of language development.
    • Cooing (2-3 months): Vowel-like sounds.
    • Babbling (6-10 months): Consonant-vowel combinations (e.g., "ba-ba," "da-da"). Initially includes sounds from all languages, then narrows to native language sounds.
    • One-Word Stage (Holophrastic, ~12 months): Single words used to convey complex ideas (e.g., "milk" for "I want milk").
    • Two-Word Stage (Telegraphic Speech, ~18-24 months): Two-word sentences, often noun-verb combinations, omitting non-essential words (e.g., "want juice," "go car").
    • Later development: More complex sentences, understanding of grammar and syntax.
    • Theories of Language Acquisition: Nativist (Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device - LAD, universal grammar), Behaviorist (Skinner - reinforcement), Interactionist (combines innate abilities and environmental influences).

Social-Emotional Development

  • Attachment (Ainsworth, Bowlby): The strong emotional bond that forms between an infant and a primary caregiver, crucial for social and emotional development.
    • Strange Situation Procedure (Ainsworth): Used to assess attachment styles.
    • Secure Attachment: Infant uses caregiver as a secure base to explore; distressed when caregiver leaves, happy upon return. Associated with sensitive, responsive caregiving.
    • Insecure-Avoidant Attachment: Infant shows little distress when caregiver leaves, avoids caregiver upon return. Associated with rejecting or unavailable caregiving.
    • Insecure-Anxious/Resistant (Ambivalent) Attachment: Infant is very distressed when caregiver leaves, ambivalent (both clingy and resistant) upon return. Associated with inconsistent caregiving.
    • Disorganized Attachment: Infant shows contradictory behaviors, confusion, or fear towards caregiver. Often associated with trauma or frightening caregiver behavior.
    • Factors: Harlow's monkey studies highlighted the importance of contact comfort over nourishment in forming attachment.
  • Erikson's Psychosocial Stages of Development: Theory that individuals face a series of psychosocial crises throughout the lifespan, the resolution of which shapes personality.
    • Trust vs. Mistrust (0-1 year): Developing a sense of trust if needs are met.
    • Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (1-3 years): Developing a sense of independence and self-control.
    • Initiative vs. Guilt (3-6 years): Developing a sense of purpose and ability to initiate activities.
    • Industry vs. Inferiority (6-puberty): Developing a sense of competence and mastery in skills.
    • Identity vs. Role Confusion (Adolescence): Developing a sense of self and personal identity. (Marcia's identity statuses: diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, achievement).
    • Intimacy vs. Isolation (Early Adulthood): Developing the capacity for close, loving relationships.
    • Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle Adulthood): Contributing to the world and future generations.
    • Integrity vs. Despair (Late Adulthood): Reflecting on life with a sense of satisfaction or regret.
  • Identity Formation in Adolescence: The process of developing a stable sense of self, including values, beliefs, and goals. Influenced by exploration and commitment.
    • Social Clock: Culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement. Varies by culture and historical period.
  • Parenting Styles (Baumrind):
    • Authoritarian: High demands, low responsiveness. Strict rules, expect obedience, use punishment. Children may be anxious, withdrawn, less socially adept.
    • Authoritative: High demands, high responsiveness. Set clear rules and expectations but are also warm, supportive, and encourage discussion. Children tend to be competent, self-reliant, and have higher self-esteem. (Generally considered most effective in many Western cultures).
    • Permissive (Indulgent): Low demands, high responsiveness. Few rules, lenient, act more like a friend. Children may be immature, impulsive, and lack self-control.
    • Neglectful/Uninvolved: Low demands, low responsiveness. Indifferent, uninvolved, provide basic needs but little else. Children tend to have poor outcomes across many domains.
  • Moral Development (Kohlberg): Theory of how moral reasoning develops through stages, based on responses to moral dilemmas.
    • Preconventional Level: Morality based on self-interest; avoiding punishment or gaining rewards. (Stage 1: Punishment-Obedience, Stage 2: Instrumental Purpose/Exchange).
    • Conventional Level: Morality based on upholding laws and social rules, gaining approval. (Stage 3: Good Boy/Nice Girl, Stage 4: Law and Order).
    • Postconventional Level: Morality based on abstract ethical principles and individual rights. (Stage 5: Social Contract, Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles - often not reached).
    • Criticisms: Gilligan argued Kohlberg's theory was biased towards male moral reasoning (justice orientation) and overlooked female moral reasoning (care orientation). Cultural variations also exist.

Learning & Conditioning

  • Classical Conditioning (Pavlov, Watson): Learning through association, where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response.
    • Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response (e.g., food).
    • Unconditioned Response (UCR): The unlearned, naturally occurring response to the UCS (e.g., salivation to food).
    • Neutral Stimulus (NS): A stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning (e.g., a bell).
    • Conditioned Stimulus (CS): An originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with a UCS, comes to trigger a conditioned response (e.g., the bell after pairing with food).
    • Conditioned Response (CR): The learned response to the previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (e.g., salivation to the bell).
    • Processes:
      • Acquisition: The initial stage of learning when the NS is paired with the UCS, and the NS begins to elicit the CR.
      • Extinction: The diminishing of a CR when the UCS no longer follows the CS.
      • Spontaneous Recovery: The reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished CR.
      • Generalization: The tendency for stimuli similar to the CS to elicit similar responses.
      • Discrimination: The learned ability to distinguish between a CS and other stimuli that do not signal an UCS.
      • Higher-Order Conditioning: A CS is paired with a new NS, creating a second (often weaker) CS.
  • Operant Conditioning (Skinner, Thorndike): Learning through consequences, where behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. (Based on Thorndike's Law of Effect: behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely).
    • Reinforcement: Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.
      • Positive Reinforcement: Adding a desirable stimulus to increase behavior (e.g., giving a treat for sitting).
      • Negative Reinforcement: Removing an aversive stimulus to increase behavior (e.g., taking an aspirin to remove a headache; fastening seatbelt to stop beeping). *Not punishment.*
    • Punishment: Any event that decreases the behavior it follows.
      • Positive Punishment: Adding an aversive stimulus to decrease behavior (e.g., scolding for misbehaving).
      • Negative Punishment (Omission Training): Removing a desirable stimulus to decrease behavior (e.g., taking away phone privileges for breaking curfew).
    • Shaping: An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.
    • Primary Reinforcers: Innately reinforcing stimuli, such as those that satisfy a biological need (e.g., food, water).
    • Secondary (Conditioned) Reinforcers: Stimuli that gain their reinforcing power through association with a primary reinforcer (e.g., money, grades).
  • Reinforcement Schedules: Patterns that define how often a desired response will be reinforced.
    • Continuous Reinforcement: Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs. Rapid learning, but also rapid extinction.
    • Partial (Intermittent) Reinforcement: Reinforcing a response only part of the time. Slower acquisition, but greater resistance to extinction.
      • Fixed-Ratio (FR): Reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses (e.g., paid for every 10 items made). High response rate, brief pause after reinforcement.
      • Variable-Ratio (VR): Reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses (e.g., gambling). Very high, steady response rate, most resistant to extinction.
      • Fixed-Interval (FI): Reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed (e.g., weekly paycheck). Scalloped response pattern (more responses as time for reward nears).
      • Variable-Interval (VI): Reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals (e.g., pop quizzes, checking email). Slow, steady response rate.
  • Social Learning Theory / Observational Learning (Bandura): Learning by observing others (models).
    • Modeling: The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior. (Bandura's Bobo Doll experiment demonstrated aggressive modeling).
    • Vicarious Reinforcement/Punishment: Observing the consequences of others' behaviors influences whether we imitate them. If a model is reinforced, we are more likely to imitate; if punished, less likely.
    • Key Processes: Attention (to model's behavior), Retention (remembering it), Reproduction (ability to perform it), Motivation (to imitate it).
  • Cognitive Influences on Learning:
    • Latent Learning (Tolman): Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it (e.g., rats learning a maze without reward, demonstrated when reward is introduced). Involves cognitive maps (mental representations of an environment).
    • Insight Learning (Köhler): A sudden realization of a problem's solution ("aha!" moment), not achieved through trial-and-error.
    • Learned Helplessness (Seligman): The hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events. Can contribute to depression.

Attribution Theory

  • Attributions: Internal (Dispositional) vs. External (Situational): How we explain the causes of behavior (our own and others').
    • Internal (Dispositional) Attribution: Explaining behavior as due to a person's traits, personality, or character (e.g., "He's late because he's disorganized").
    • External (Situational) Attribution: Explaining behavior as due to the situation or environment (e.g., "He's late because of traffic").
  • Attributional Biases: Common errors in making attributions.
    • Fundamental Attribution Error (Correspondence Bias): The tendency for observers, when analyzing others' behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the impact of personal disposition. (More common in individualistic cultures).
    • Actor-Observer Bias: The tendency to attribute our own behavior to situational factors but others' behavior to dispositional factors.
    • Self-Serving Bias: The tendency to attribute our successes to internal (dispositional) factors and our failures to external (situational) factors, to maintain self-esteem.
  • Explanatory Styles: A person's habitual way of explaining events.
    • Optimistic Explanatory Style: Attributing negative events to external, unstable, and specific causes, and positive events to internal, stable, and global causes. Associated with better coping and resilience.
    • Pessimistic Explanatory Style: Attributing negative events to internal, stable, and global causes, and positive events to external, unstable, and specific causes. Associated with increased risk of depression.
  • Locus of Control (Rotter): An individual's belief about the extent to which they can control events affecting them.
    • Internal Locus of Control: Belief that one controls their own destiny and outcomes through their actions.
    • External Locus of Control: Belief that chance or outside forces beyond one's personal control determine one's fate.

Person Perception & Attitudes

  • Mere Exposure Effect: The phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them. Familiarity breeds fondness.
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: A belief or expectation that leads to its own fulfillment. Our expectations about others can influence their behavior, causing them to act in ways that confirm our initial beliefs. (e.g., Rosenthal & Jacobson's "Pygmalion in the Classroom" study).
  • Social Comparison Theory (Festinger): We evaluate our opinions and abilities by comparing ourselves to others.
    • Upward Social Comparison: Comparing ourselves to people who are better off or more skilled. Can be motivating or discouraging.
    • Downward Social Comparison: Comparing ourselves to people who are worse off or less skilled. Can boost self-esteem.
  • Implicit Attitudes/Biases: Attitudes, often unconscious, that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions without our awareness. Can be measured by tests like the Implicit Association Test (IAT).
  • Belief Perseverance: Clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited. It's difficult to change first impressions or strongly held beliefs even with contradictory evidence.
  • Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger): We experience discomfort (dissonance) when our thoughts, beliefs, or behaviors are inconsistent with each other. We are motivated to reduce this dissonance by changing one of the conflicting elements (e.g., changing attitude to match behavior, or vice versa). (e.g., justifying effort for a boring task by increasing liking for it).
  • Attitude Formation & Change:
    • Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo): Persuasion occurs through two routes:
      • Central Route to Persuasion: Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts. Leads to more durable attitude change.
      • Peripheral Route to Persuasion: Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness or celebrity endorsement. Leads to more superficial and temporary attitude change.

Social Influence

  • Conformity (Asch): Adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.
    • Factors Increasing Conformity:
      • Group Size: Conformity increases with group size up to a point (typically 3-5 people).
      • Unanimity: Conformity is highest when the group is unanimous. If even one other person dissents, conformity drops significantly.
      • Task Difficulty/Ambiguity: When the task is difficult or ambiguous, we are more likely to look to others for information.
      • Normative Social Influence: Conforming to gain approval or avoid disapproval/rejection from the group.
      • Informational Social Influence: Conforming because we believe others' interpretations of an ambiguous situation are more correct than our own and will help us choose an appropriate course of action.
      • Group Cohesion: Higher in more cohesive groups.
      • Status: Higher status individuals are less likely to conform; people conform more to high-status groups.
  • Obedience to Authority (Milgram): Complying with the demands of an authority figure.
    • Milgram's Experiments: Demonstrated that ordinary people could be induced to deliver apparently harmful electric shocks to an innocent victim if instructed by an authority figure.
    • Factors Increasing Obedience:
      • Proximity of Authority Figure: Obedience is higher when the authority figure is physically present.
      • Perceived Legitimacy of Authority: Authority figures perceived as legitimate (e.g., lab coat, prestigious institution) elicit more obedience.
      • Proximity of Victim: Obedience decreases when the victim is closer or more personalized.
      • Gradual Escalation of Requests (Foot-in-the-Door): Starting with small requests makes it easier to comply with larger, more extreme requests later.
      • Absence of Role Models for Defiance: If others obey, it's harder to disobey.
  • Persuasion Techniques:
    • Foot-in-the-Door Technique: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
    • Door-in-the-Face Technique: Making a large, unreasonable request that is likely to be refused, followed by a smaller, more reasonable request (the actual target request).
    • Low-Balling: Getting someone to commit to an attractive proposition before its hidden costs are revealed.
  • Group Effects on Behavior:
    • Social Facilitation: Improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others. (Zajonc: presence of others increases arousal, which enhances dominant responses). Performance on complex or new tasks may be impaired.
    • Social Loafing: The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable. (Diffusion of responsibility).
    • Groupthink (Janis): The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. Leads to poor decisions. Symptoms: illusion of invulnerability, self-censorship, pressure to conform, illusion of unanimity.
    • Deindividuation: The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity (e.g., riots, mob behavior).
    • Group Polarization: The enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group. If a group is like-minded, discussion strengthens its prevailing opinions.
  • Bystander Effect & Prosocial Behavior:
    • Bystander Effect (Latané & Darley): The tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present.
      • Diffusion of Responsibility: As the number of bystanders increases, each individual feels less personal responsibility to help.
      • Pluralistic Ignorance: When a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but incorrectly assume that most others accept it, and therefore go along with it. In emergencies, if no one else seems concerned, individuals may assume it's not a serious situation.
    • Altruism: Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.
      • Social Exchange Theory: Our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs. We help if benefits outweigh costs.
      • Reciprocity Norm: An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them.
      • Social-Responsibility Norm: An expectation that people will help those dependent upon them.

Cultural Influences & Group Relations

  • Individualistic vs. Collectivistic Cultures:
    • Individualistic Cultures (e.g., USA, Western Europe): Emphasize personal goals, individual achievement, and self-reliance. Identity is defined by personal attributes. More prone to Fundamental Attribution Error.
    • Collectivistic Cultures (e.g., East Asia, Latin America): Emphasize group goals, interdependence, and social harmony. Identity is defined by group memberships. More likely to consider situational factors.
    • These cultural orientations shape perceptions, attributions, conformity, and social behaviors.
  • Cultural Display Rules for Emotions: Culturally specific rules about how, when, and to whom it is appropriate to express emotions. (e.g., some cultures encourage open emotional expression, others value emotional restraint).
  • Gender & Cultural Norms Affecting Emotional Expression: Societal expectations and norms for how males and females should express emotions vary across cultures. (e.g., stereotypes about women being more emotionally expressive than men).
  • Prejudice, Stereotypes, Discrimination:
    • Stereotype (Cognitive): A generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people.
    • Prejudice (Affective): An unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members. Typically involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action.
    • Discrimination (Behavioral): Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members.
    • Sources of Prejudice: Social (inequalities, in-group bias, scapegoating), Emotional (frustration-aggression), Cognitive (categorization, vivid cases).
    • In-group Bias: The tendency to favor our own group ("us") over other groups ("them").
    • Out-group Homogeneity: The perception that out-group members are more similar to one another than in-group members are ("they are all alike; we are diverse").
    • Scapegoat Theory: Prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.
    • Just-World Phenomenon: The tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Can lead to blaming the victim.
  • Aggression: Any physical or verbal behavior intended to harm or destroy.
    • Biological Influences: Genetic, neural (e.g., amygdala, frontal lobes), biochemical (e.g., testosterone, alcohol).
    • Psychological Influences: Frustration-Aggression Principle (frustration creates anger, which can generate aggression), learning (reinforcement, modeling), aversive stimuli (pain, heat, insults).
    • Social-Cultural Influences: Media violence, social scripts (culturally provided mental guides for how to act in various situations).
  • Conflict & Peacemaking:
    • Social Traps (Tragedy of the Commons): Situations in which conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior. (e.g., overfishing).
    • Mirror-Image Perceptions: Mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful and views the other side as evil and aggressive.
    • Superordinate Goals (Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiment): Shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation. Effective in reducing intergroup conflict.
    • GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction): A strategy designed to decrease international tensions. One side announces recognition of mutual interests and intent to reduce tension, then initiates small conciliatory acts, inviting reciprocation.
    • Contact Hypothesis: Prejudice can be reduced through intergroup contact, especially if it involves cooperation, equal status, and institutional support.

Personality Theories

  • Psychodynamic Theories (Freud): Emphasize the role of unconscious conflicts, early childhood experiences, and defense mechanisms in shaping personality.
    • Levels of Consciousness: Conscious, Preconscious, Unconscious.
    • Structure of Personality:
      • Id: Operates on the pleasure principle; demands immediate gratification of basic drives (sex, aggression). Entirely unconscious.
      • Ego: Operates on the reality principle; mediates between the demands of the id, superego, and reality. Largely conscious.
      • Superego: Represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.
    • Psychosexual Stages: Oral, Anal, Phallic (Oedipus/Electra complex), Latency, Genital. Fixation at a stage can influence adult personality.
    • Defense Mechanisms: The ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality. Examples:
      • Repression: Banishing anxiety-arousing thoughts from consciousness.
      • Regression: Retreating to an earlier, more infantile stage of development.
      • Reaction Formation: Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites.
      • Projection: Disguising one's own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.
      • Rationalization: Offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening reasons.
      • Displacement: Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.
      • Sublimation: Transferring unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives.
      • Denial: Refusing to believe or perceive painful realities.
    • Neo-Freudians: Followers who accepted Freud's basic ideas but placed more emphasis on the conscious mind and social/cultural influences (e.g., Adler - inferiority complex; Jung - collective unconscious, archetypes; Horney - basic anxiety, cultural influences).
    • Assessment: Projective tests (e.g., Rorschach Inkblot Test, Thematic Apperception Test - TAT) aim to reveal unconscious thoughts (criticized for low reliability/validity).
  • Humanistic Theories (Maslow, Rogers): Focus on human potential, free will, self-actualization, and conscious experience. Emphasize inherent goodness.
    • Abraham Maslow: Hierarchy of Needs (physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization, self-transcendence). Self-actualization is the motivation to fulfill one's potential.
    • Carl Rogers: Person-Centered Perspective.
      • Self-Concept: All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?"
      • Actualizing Tendency: Innate drive to maintain and enhance oneself.
      • Conditions for Growth: Genuineness (being open with feelings), Acceptance (Unconditional Positive Regard - an attitude of total acceptance toward another person), Empathy (sharing and mirroring others' feelings).
      • Incongruence: Discrepancy between one's self-concept and actual experience, leading to anxiety.
    • Assessment: Questionnaires about self-concept, interviews (criticized for being too subjective).
  • Social-Cognitive Theories (Bandura): Emphasize the interaction between traits (and thinking) and their social context.
    • Reciprocal Determinism (Bandura): The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition (thoughts/feelings), and environment. They all influence each other.
    • Self-Efficacy: One's sense of competence and effectiveness in dealing with specific situations. Influences choices, effort, and persistence.
    • Locus of Control (Rotter - also relevant here): See Attribution Theory section.
    • Observational Learning: Learning by observing others (see Learning section).
    • Assessment: Observing behavior in realistic situations, self-report questionnaires.
  • Trait Theories: Focus on identifying, describing, and measuring stable personality characteristics (traits).
    • Allport: Identified thousands of traits, categorized as cardinal, central, and secondary.
    • Cattell: Used factor analysis to identify 16 personality factors.
    • Eysenck: Proposed two primary dimensions: Introversion-Extraversion and Neuroticism-Stability (later added Psychoticism).
    • The Big Five (OCEAN / CANOE) (McCrae & Costa): The most widely accepted trait model.
      • Openness: Imaginative, prefers variety, independent vs. practical, prefers routine, conforming.
      • Conscientiousness: Organized, careful, disciplined vs. disorganized, careless, impulsive.
      • Extraversion: Sociable, fun-loving, affectionate vs. retiring, sober, reserved.
      • Agreeableness: Soft-hearted, trusting, helpful vs. ruthless, suspicious, uncooperative.
      • Neuroticism (Emotional Stability vs. Instability): Anxious, insecure, self-pitying vs. calm, secure, self-satisfied.
    • Assessment: Personality inventories (e.g., MMPI - Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, NEO-PI-R). Generally good reliability and validity for trait measurement.
    • Person-Situation Controversy: Debate over whether personality traits or situational factors are more influential in determining behavior. Modern view: traits are stable but behavior varies with situation; interactionism.

Health Psychology & Biopsychosocial Model

  • Health Psychology: A subfield of psychology that provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine. Studies how psychological, behavioral, and cultural factors contribute to physical health and illness.
  • Biopsychosocial Model: A holistic perspective that health and illness are determined by the complex interaction of:
    • Biological Factors: Genetics, neurochemistry, physiological responses, immune system.
    • Psychological Factors: Thoughts, emotions, behaviors, stress, coping styles, personality.
    • Social-Cultural Factors: Social support, cultural norms, socioeconomic status, environment, access to healthcare.
  • Health-Promoting Behaviors: Actions that enhance health and prevent illness.
    • Diet & Nutrition: Balanced eating for physical and mental well-being.
    • Exercise: Regular physical activity benefits physical health (cardiovascular, weight) and mental health (reduces stress, anxiety, depression).
    • Sleep: Adequate, quality sleep is crucial for physical restoration, cognitive function, and emotional regulation.
    • Avoiding risky behaviors (smoking, excessive alcohol, drug use).
  • Doctor-Patient Relationship & Adherence to Treatment:
    • Effective communication, trust, and a collaborative relationship between doctor and patient can improve health outcomes.
    • Adherence (Compliance): The extent to which a person's behavior (taking medication, following diets, executing lifestyle changes) corresponds with agreed recommendations from a healthcare provider. Factors influencing adherence include understanding of illness/treatment, complexity of regimen, social support, and patient beliefs.

Stress & Coping

  • Stress: The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging.
    • Stressors: Events or situations that cause stress (e.g., major life changes, catastrophes, daily hassles, acculturative stress).
    • Stress Appraisal (Lazarus): Our interpretation of a stressor and our resources to cope with it determines our stress response. Primary appraisal (Is it a threat?), Secondary appraisal (Can I cope?).
  • Physiological Response to Stress (Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome - GAS): The body's adaptive response to stress in three phases:
    • Phase 1: Alarm Reaction: Sympathetic nervous system is activated; heart rate zooms, blood diverted to skeletal muscles (fight-or-flight).
    • Phase 2: Resistance: Body attempts to cope with the stressor; temperature, blood pressure, respiration remain high; hormones (e.g., cortisol) released.
    • Phase 3: Exhaustion: Body's reserves are depleted; become more vulnerable to illness, collapse, or even death if stress is prolonged.
  • Acute vs. Chronic Stress:
    • Acute Stress: Short-term stress, can be adaptive (e.g., helps perform under pressure).
    • Chronic Stress: Long-term, unremitting stress. Can have detrimental effects on physical health (weakens immune system, increases risk of heart disease, hypertension) and mental health.
  • Behavioral Responses to Stress:
    • Fight-or-Flight Response (Cannon): Sympathetic nervous system prepares body to either fight or flee from a perceived threat. Primarily associated with male stress response.
    • Tend-and-Befriend Response (Taylor): Under stress, people (especially women) often provide support to others (tend) and bond with and seek support from others (befriend). May be linked to oxytocin.
  • Coping Strategies: Ways to manage stress.
    • Problem-Focused Coping: Attempting to alleviate stress directly by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor. Used when we feel a sense of control. (e.g., studying for a test, talking to someone to resolve conflict).
    • Emotion-Focused Coping: Attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to one's stress reaction. Used when we believe we cannot change a situation. (e.g., exercising, meditating, seeking social support for comfort).
  • Resilience Factors: Characteristics that promote effective coping and positive adaptation in the face of adversity.
    • Social Support: Feeling liked, affirmed, and encouraged by intimate friends and family. Buffers stress, promotes health.
    • Optimism: Expecting positive outcomes. Associated with better health and coping.
    • Sense of Control (Locus of Control): Belief in one's ability to influence events (internal locus of control) is associated with better stress management.
    • Perceived control, aerobic exercise, relaxation techniques (meditation, mindfulness), spirituality.

Positive Psychology

  • Positive Psychology (Seligman): The scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive. Focuses on well-being rather than solely on pathology.
  • Key Elements & Concepts:
    • Focus on Strengths & Well-being: Identifying and cultivating positive traits, abilities, and experiences.
    • Flourishing: A state of optimal human functioning, characterized by positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment (PERMA model by Seligman).
    • Gratitude Practice: Consciously appreciating the good things in one's life. Associated with increased happiness and well-being.
    • Using Signature Strengths: Identifying and applying one's core character strengths (e.g., creativity, kindness, curiosity) in daily life.
    • Finding Meaning & Purpose: Connecting to something larger than oneself; having a sense of direction and significance.
    • Flow (Csikszentmihalyi): A completely involved, focused state of consciousness, with diminished awareness of self and time, resulting from optimal engagement of one's skills.
    • Mindfulness: Paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.
  • Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG): Positive psychological change experienced as a result of struggling with highly challenging, stressful life circumstances. Individuals may report a greater appreciation for life, stronger relationships, increased personal strength, new possibilities, or spiritual development. (Different from resilience, which is bouncing back).

Psychological Disorders: Defining & Perspectives

  • Defining Psychological Disorders (The 3 D's + Dysfunction): A syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior.
    • Dysfunction: Maladaptive behaviors or thoughts that interfere with daily life, work, or relationships.
    • Distress: Causing significant personal suffering or unhappiness to the individual.
    • Deviance: Behavior that violates social norms or is statistically rare. (Cultural context is important here; what's deviant in one culture may not be in another).
  • Perspectives on Psychological Disorders:
    • Medical Model: Conceives of psychological disorders as diseases that have biological causes, defined symptoms, and possible cures. Emphasizes diagnosis and treatment.
    • Biological Perspective: Focuses on genetic predispositions, neurotransmitter imbalances, brain abnormalities, and other physiological factors.
    • Psychological Perspectives:
      • Psychodynamic: Attributes disorders to unconscious conflicts and early childhood experiences.
      • Behavioral: Views disorders as learned maladaptive behaviors (through classical/operant conditioning, observational learning).
      • Cognitive: Focuses on a_person's thoughts, interpretations, beliefs, and attitudes as contributing to disorders (e.g., negative thought patterns in depression).
      • Humanistic: Emphasizes disruptions to self-actualization, incongruence, and lack of unconditional positive regard.
    • Sociocultural Perspective: Considers how social and cultural factors (e.g., poverty, discrimination, cultural norms) contribute to disorders.
    • Biopsychosocial Model (Integrated Approach): Assumes that biological, psychological, and social-cultural factors interact to produce specific psychological disorders. This is the dominant contemporary model.
  • Interaction Models:
    • Diathesis-Stress Model: Suggests that a person may be predisposed (diathesis - genetic, biological, or early life vulnerability) for a psychological disorder that remains unexpressed until triggered by stress.
  • DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition): The American Psychiatric Association's widely used system for classifying psychological disorders. Provides diagnostic criteria, but not causes or treatments.
    • Benefits: Standardized diagnostic system, facilitates communication among professionals, guides treatment decisions, allows for research.
    • Criticisms: Potential for labeling and stigmatization, pathologizing normal behavior, cultural bias, influence of pharmaceutical industry, comorbidity (co-occurrence of disorders).

Common Psychological Disorders

  • Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Typically manifest early in development, characterized by developmental deficits that produce impairments in personal, social, academic, or occupational functioning.
    • Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development.
    • Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities.
  • Anxiety Disorders: Characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety.
    • Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): Excessive anxiety and worry, occurring more days than not for at least 6 months, about a number of events or activities. Person finds it difficult to control the worry.
    • Panic Disorder: Recurrent unexpected panic attacks (abrupt surge of intense fear or discomfort) and persistent concern about having additional attacks.
    • Phobias (Specific Phobia): Marked fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation (e.g., flying, heights, animals). The object/situation almost always provokes immediate fear and is actively avoided.
    • Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia): Marked fear or anxiety about one or more social situations in which the individual is exposed to possible scrutiny by others.
    • Agoraphobia: Marked fear or anxiety about two (or more) of the following: using public transportation, being in open spaces, being in enclosed places, standing in line or being in a crowd, being outside of the home alone. Fear is often related to thoughts that escape might be difficult or help unavailable if panic-like symptoms occur.
  • Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders:
    • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): Presence of obsessions, compulsions, or both.
      • Obsessions: Recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are experienced as intrusive and unwanted, and cause marked anxiety or distress.
      • Compulsions: Repetitive behaviors (e.g., hand washing, ordering, checking) or mental acts (e.g., praying, counting, repeating words silently) that the individual feels driven to perform in response to an obsession or according to rules that must be applied rigidly, aimed at preventing or reducing anxiety or distress.
  • Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders:
    • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Develops after exposure to a traumatic event (e.g., combat, natural disaster, assault). Characterized by intrusive memories, avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, negative alterations in cognitions and mood, and marked alterations in arousal and reactivity.
  • Mood Disorders (Affective Disorders): Characterized by severe disturbances in mood and emotion.
    • Major Depressive Disorder (MDD): Five (or more) depressive symptoms (e.g., depressed mood, loss of interest/pleasure, significant weight loss/gain, insomnia/hypersomnia, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, difficulty concentrating, recurrent thoughts of death) present during the same 2-week period and represent a change from previous functioning; at least one symptom is depressed mood or loss of interest/pleasure.
    • Bipolar Disorder (formerly Manic-Depressive Disorder): Characterized by alternating periods of depression and mania.
      • Manic Episode: A distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood and abnormally and persistently increased goal-directed activity or energy, lasting at least 1 week. Symptoms include inflated self-esteem, decreased need for sleep, talkativeness, racing thoughts, distractibility, increased goal-directed activity, and excessive involvement in activities with high potential for painful consequences.
      • Bipolar I: At least one manic episode (may or may not have major depressive episodes).
      • Bipolar II: At least one hypomanic episode (less severe than manic) and at least one major depressive episode.
  • Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders: Characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking/speech, grossly disorganized or abnormal motor behavior, and negative symptoms.
    • Positive Symptoms (presence of inappropriate behaviors):
      • Delusions: False beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders.
      • Hallucinations: False sensory experiences, such as seeing or hearing something in the absence of an external visual/auditory stimulus (auditory hallucinations are most common).
      • Disorganized Speech (Thought Disorder): Jumbled ideas, incoherent speech (e.g., "word salad").
      • Grossly Disorganized or Catatonic Behavior.
    • Negative Symptoms (absence of appropriate behaviors):
      • Flat Affect: Diminished emotional expression.
      • Avolition: Lack of motivation or ability to initiate and persist in goal-directed activities.
      • Alogia: Diminished speech output.
      • Anhedonia: Decreased ability to experience pleasure.
    • Causes: Strong genetic component, dopamine hypothesis (excess dopamine activity), brain abnormalities (e.g., enlarged ventricles, reduced gray matter), prenatal environment (e.g., viral infection during pregnancy). Diathesis-stress model is often applied.
  • Dissociative Disorders: Characterized by a disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior.
    • Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID - formerly Multiple Personality Disorder): Presence of two or more distinct personality states or an experience of possession. Involves recurrent gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events. Highly controversial.
    • Dissociative Amnesia: Inability to recall important autobiographical information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature, inconsistent with ordinary forgetting. (May involve dissociative fugue - purposeful travel or bewildered wandering associated with amnesia for identity).
  • Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders: Characterized by physical symptoms for which there is no apparent medical cause, suggesting a psychological factor.
    • Somatic Symptom Disorder: One or more somatic symptoms that are distressing or result in significant disruption of daily life, plus excessive thoughts, feelings, or behaviors related to the somatic symptoms.
    • Illness Anxiety Disorder (formerly Hypochondriasis): Preoccupation with having or acquiring a serious illness, despite absent or mild somatic symptoms.
    • Conversion Disorder (Functional Neurological Symptom Disorder): One or more symptoms of altered voluntary motor or sensory function, with clinical findings providing evidence of incompatibility between the symptom and recognized neurological or medical conditions. (e.g., unexplained paralysis, blindness).
  • Personality Disorders: Characterized by enduring, inflexible patterns of inner experience and behavior that deviate markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture, are pervasive and inflexible, have an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, are stable over time, and lead to distress or impairment. Clustered into three groups:
    • Cluster A (Odd/Eccentric): Paranoid, Schizoid, Schizotypal.
    • Cluster B (Dramatic/Erratic/Emotional): Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, Narcissistic.
      • Antisocial Personality Disorder: Pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, lack of remorse, deceitfulness, impulsivity. (Often linked to conduct disorder in childhood).
      • Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD): Pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and emotions, and marked impulsivity. Intense fear of abandonment, recurrent suicidal behavior or self-mutilation.
    • Cluster C (Anxious/Fearful): Avoidant, Dependent, Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD - distinct from OCD, involves preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency).

Treatment Approaches for Psychological Disorders

  • Psychotherapy ("Talk Therapy"): Treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth.
    • Psychoanalysis & Psychodynamic Therapy (Freud & Neo-Freudians):
      • Goal: To bring unconscious conflicts and repressed feelings into conscious awareness, providing insight.
      • Techniques: Free association, dream analysis, interpretation of resistance and transference.
      • Psychodynamic Therapy: Briefer, more focused on current symptoms and relationships, face-to-face.
    • Humanistic Therapy (Rogers, Maslow):
      • Goal: To help clients achieve self-awareness and self-acceptance, fostering personal growth (self-actualization). Focus on present and future.
      • Client-Centered Therapy (Rogers): Therapist uses active listening, unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathy to create a supportive environment. Non-directive.
    • Behavior Therapy (Skinner, Watson, Wolpe):
      • Goal: To apply learning principles to eliminate unwanted behaviors and teach more adaptive ones.
      • Techniques based on Classical Conditioning:
        • Exposure Therapies: Treat anxieties by exposing people (in imagination or actual situations) to the things they fear and avoid.
          • Systematic Desensitization (Wolpe): Associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Used to treat phobias. Involves relaxation training, anxiety hierarchy, gradual exposure.
          • Flooding: Intense exposure to a feared stimulus until anxiety subsides.
        • Aversive Conditioning: Associates an unpleasant state (e.g., nausea) with an unwanted behavior (e.g., drinking alcohol).
      • Techniques based on Operant Conditioning:
        • Token Economy: People earn a token (secondary reinforcer) for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange tokens for various privileges or treats.
        • Behavior modification, shaping.
    • Cognitive Therapy (Beck, Ellis):
      • Goal: To teach people new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.
      • Aaron Beck's Therapy for Depression: Challenges negative thought patterns (e.g., catastrophizing, overgeneralization) and cognitive distortions. Aims to restructure thinking.
      • Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT - Albert Ellis): Vigorously challenges illogical, self-defeating attitudes and assumptions (irrational beliefs). Uses ABC model (Activating event, Beliefs, Consequences).
    • Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): An integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior).
      • Widely used and effective for many disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD).
      • Focuses on current problems and solutions.
    • Other Therapies:
      • Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT - Linehan): A form of CBT specifically developed for Borderline Personality Disorder. Emphasizes mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.
      • Group Therapy: Therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals, permitting therapeutic benefits from group interaction. Cost-effective, provides social support, allows people to see others share similar problems.
      • Family Therapy: Treats the family as a system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, other family members.
  • Evidence-Based Practices (EBP): Clinical decision-making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics and preferences.
    • Emphasizes using therapies that have demonstrated effectiveness in controlled research studies for specific disorders.
    • CBT, Exposure Therapy, and DBT are examples of well-supported EBPs.
  • Biomedical Therapies (Bio Interventions): Prescribed medications or procedures that act directly on the person's physiology.
    • Psychopharmacology (Drug Therapies): The study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.
      • Antipsychotic Drugs: Used to treat schizophrenia and other severe thought disorders (e.g., chlorpromazine, risperidone). Typically block dopamine receptors. Side effects can include tardive dyskinesia (involuntary movements).
      • Antianxiety Drugs: Used to control anxiety and agitation (e.g., benzodiazepines like Xanax, Valium). Depress CNS activity. Can be addictive.
      • Antidepressant Drugs: Used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, and PTSD.
        • SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors): e.g., Prozac, Zoloft. Increase availability of serotonin. Fewer side effects than older antidepressants.
        • Others: SNRIs, tricyclics, MAOIs.
      • Mood-Stabilizing Medications: Used to treat bipolar disorder (e.g., Lithium, valproate).
    • Brain Stimulation:
      • Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT): A biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in whom a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient. Effective for severe, treatment-resistant depression. Side effects can include temporary memory loss.
      • Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS): The application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity. Used for depression.
      • Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS): Implantation of electrodes in specific brain areas, used for severe OCD or depression.
    • Psychosurgery (Rare): Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior. Most drastic and least-used intervention (e.g., lobotomy - historically).
  • Treatment Settings:
    • Individual Therapy: One-on-one sessions with a therapist.
    • Group Therapy: Therapist works with a small group of clients.
    • Inpatient Treatment: Client resides in a hospital or residential facility for intensive treatment. Used for severe cases, risk of harm to self/others, or need for medical stabilization.
    • Outpatient Treatment: Client attends therapy sessions while living in the community. Most common setting.
    • Community Psychology: Focuses on preventing mental health problems by addressing social and environmental factors.
  • Evaluating Psychotherapies:
    • Effectiveness: Research generally supports that psychotherapy is effective for many disorders, often more so than no treatment. Some therapies are more effective for specific disorders.
    • Common Factors in Effective Therapy: Therapeutic alliance (bond between therapist and client), hope, new perspectives, empathy, and a supportive environment.
    • Cultural Competence: Therapists need to be aware of and sensitive to cultural differences in their clients to provide effective treatment.
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