Final Exam Study Guide
The final covers all 14 chapters. That is a lot to hold at once. So this guide starts with the big threads that tie the chapters together. Then it gives each chapter one screen. Next come tables that line up ideas from many chapters side by side. After that you will find worked examples, the common traps, a 30-item self-test, and a cram sheet. Work a part a day and the whole course fits into a week.
How this guide is built
- Part 1 · The threads. Five ideas that show up in almost every chapter.
- Part 2 · The chapters. One screen each, with the facts most worth knowing.
- Part 3 · Compare tables. Theorists, methods, kinds of learning, memory systems, emotion theories, therapies, and more.
- Part 4 · Worked examples. How to reason through the question types, step by step.
- Part 5 · Traps. The mix-ups that cost the most points.
- Part 6 · Self-test. Thirty items from across the course, each with a reason.
- Part 7 · Cram sheet. The whole course in a few tables.
Part 1 · The whole courseThe threads that run through every chapter
A final exam rewards the person who sees links. A question about memory may really test research methods. A question about stress may really test the nervous system. These five threads are the links. Learn them first, and each chapter will feel like part of one story.
Thread 1 · Nature and nurture, working together
The old question was “nature or nurture?” Nature means what we inherit, such as genes and the brain they build. Nurture means experience, such as family, learning, culture, and stress. Today the answer is “both, all the time.” Each one shapes the other.
Genes do not act like a fixed script. They set a range of leanings. Experience can turn genes up or down. The field of epigenetics studies how this happens without changing the DNA code. And the push goes the other way too. A child with a bold temper seeks out new things, and that changes the experiences the child gets.
The key tool here is the twin study. Identical twins share almost all their genes. Fraternal twins share about half. If identical twins are more alike on a trait, genes likely play a part. The number that results is heritability. It says how much of the differences between people in a group come from genetic differences. It never says how much of one person's trait is “from genes.”
- Chapter 1: the nature-nurture question, now seen as both working together.
- Chapter 8: intelligence. Heritability rises with age, yet the Flynn effect and stereotype threat show the power of the world around us.
- Chapter 9: development. Maturation unfolds on a schedule, but attachment depends on care.
- Chapter 11: the Big Five are moderately heritable, and still shaped by life.
- Chapter 14: the diathesis-stress model. A weak spot plus stress, not either alone.
Thread 2 · Levels of analysis, from neurons to culture
Any behavior can be studied at many levels. You can zoom all the way in to one neuron. You can zoom all the way out to a whole culture. Each level asks a fair question. None of them is the only “real” answer.
This is why the course has seven perspectives. The biological lens looks at brain, hormones, and genes. The evolutionary lens asks how a behavior helped our ancestors survive. The psychodynamic lens looks for hidden, unconscious motives. The behavioral lens looks at rewards and learning. The cognitive lens looks at thoughts. The humanistic lens looks at growth and free will. The sociocultural lens looks at groups and culture.
When the levels are put together on purpose, we call it the biopsychosocial model. It says body, mind, and social world all shape health and illness. Chapters 13 and 14 lean on it hardest.
Thread 3 · How evidence is weighed
Chapter 2 is not just one chapter. It is the rulebook for every claim in the course. Each time the book says “research shows,” ask three questions.
- What method was used? A case study or survey can describe. A correlation can predict. Only an experiment can show cause.
- Could something else explain it? Look for a third variable, reversed direction, a placebo effect, or a biased sample.
- Has it been repeated? One study can be a fluke. A finding that holds up in new people and new places earns trust.
Two other words guard the door. A test is reliable if it gives the same result each time. It is valid if it measures what it claims to measure. A test can be reliable and still not valid. And a good hypothesis must be falsifiable, which means some result could prove it wrong.
Thread 4 · The replication story
To replicate a study is to run it again and see if the result holds. In the 2010s, large teams tried to repeat many famous psychology studies. Many results did not hold up, or came out much weaker. This became known as the replication crisis.
The field did not hide from it. It fixed its methods. Many researchers now post their plans before they collect data. They use larger samples and share their data. That is science correcting itself. For the exam, know which famous findings stand firm, which hold with limits, and which fell.
Thread 5 · The person and the situation
We tend to explain behavior by the person: “She did it because she is that kind of person.” Psychology keeps finding that the situation matters more than we think. Over-blaming the person is the fundamental attribution error.
Milgram's results came from ordinary people in a strong setting. Bystanders fail to help because of the crowd, not because they are cold. Personality is steady over time, but less steady from one setting to the next. The best predictor is the person and the situation together. Bandura called this loop reciprocal determinism: thoughts, actions, and setting all shape one another.
Part 2 · One screen per chapterThe fourteen chapters at a glance
Each card holds the core of one chapter. Read the card, then close your eyes and say the main points out loud. If a card feels thin to you, that is the chapter to reread. The unit study guides go deeper on each one.
Chapter 1What Is Psychology?
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Testing, not opinion, makes it a science. Its four goals are to describe, explain, predict, and change behavior. Common sense seems to explain everything, but only after the fact. That is hindsight bias.
- Wundt opened the first lab in Leipzig in 1879 and used introspection.
- Structuralism (Titchener) asked what the mind is made of. Functionalism (James) asked what it is for.
- Behaviorism (Watson, 1913; Skinner) studied only what can be seen. The cognitive revolution brought the mind back.
- Seven perspectives: biological, evolutionary, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, sociocultural.
- A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who can prescribe. Most psychologists are not.
Chapter 2Psychological Research
A theory is a broad explanation. A hypothesis is a narrow, testable guess. It is written with operational definitions, which spell out exactly how each thing is measured. That makes replication possible.
- Descriptive methods: case study, naturalistic observation, survey. Surveys need a random sample.
- Correlation (r runs from −1 to +1) shows two things moving together. It does not prove cause.
- The experiment changes the independent variable and measures the dependent variable.
- Random assignment, a placebo control, and a double-blind design let it show cause.
- Ethics: informed consent, IRB review, limited deception with debriefing, privacy, humane animal care.
Chapter 3Biopsychology
A neuron takes in signals at its dendrites, adds them up in the cell body, and sends them down the axon. Myelin speeds the signal. Past the threshold, the neuron fires an all-or-none action potential. Na+ rushes in, then K+ flows out.
- Neurotransmitters cross the synapse, bind to receptors, and are cleared by reuptake or enzymes.
- An agonist boosts a neurotransmitter. An antagonist blocks it. SSRIs block serotonin reuptake.
- Sympathetic = fight-or-flight. Parasympathetic = rest-and-digest.
- Four lobes: frontal (planning, movement), parietal (touch), temporal (hearing), occipital (vision).
- Split-brain work (Sperry, Gazzaniga) is real. “Left-brained” people are a myth.
- Hormones travel in the blood. They are slower and longer-lasting than nerve signals.
Chapter 4States of Consciousness
Consciousness is awareness of yourself and the world. The circadian rhythm is a cycle of about 24 hours. The SCN in the hypothalamus is the master clock, reset by light. It tells the pineal gland when to release melatonin. Adenosine builds sleep pressure while you are awake.
- Sleep runs through N1, N2, N3 (deep, slow waves) and REM (vivid dreams, body paralyzed).
- A cycle lasts about 90 minutes. Deep N3 comes early in the night. Long REM comes late.
- Dream theories: Freud's wish fulfillment and activation-synthesis.
- Disorders: insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and the parasomnias.
- Drug families: depressants (boost GABA), stimulants (raise dopamine), opioids, hallucinogens. Repeated use brings tolerance.
Chapter 5Sensation and Perception
Sensation picks up energy and turns it into nerve signals. That step is transduction. Perception organizes those signals and gives them meaning. Bottom-up processing starts from the raw input. Top-down processing uses what you expect.
- Absolute threshold: the faintest stimulus noticed half the time. Weber's law: the noticeable change is a fixed share, not a fixed amount.
- Signal detection theory: noticing depends on the signal and on your expectations.
- Rods see in dim light. Cones see color. Color uses trichromatic coding, then opponent-process coding.
- Hearing: hair cells in the cochlea. Pitch is explained by place and frequency theories.
- Gate-control theory: pain can be turned up or down. Gestalt rules and depth cues build what we see.
Chapter 6Learning
Learning is a lasting change from experience. In classical conditioning (Pavlov), a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US). It becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) that sets off a conditioned response (CR). In operant conditioning (Thorndike, Skinner), consequences shape voluntary acts.
- Classical processes: acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, discrimination.
- Reinforcement increases behavior. Punishment decreases it. Positive adds; negative removes.
- Negative reinforcement is not punishment. It removes something bad, so behavior goes up.
- Shaping rewards each small step closer to the goal.
- Schedules: FR, VR, FI, VI. Variable-ratio is the hardest to extinguish.
- Observational learning (Bandura, Bobo doll): attention, retention, reproduction, motivation.
Chapter 7Memory
Memory has three steps: encoding, storage, and retrieval. The multi-store model moves information from sensory memory to short-term memory to long-term memory. Memory is reconstructive. We rebuild it each time we recall it.
- Short-term memory holds about four chunks (Cowan). Miller's old figure was seven, plus or minus two.
- Deep, meaningful encoding beats repetition. That is the levels-of-processing effect.
- Explicit memory: semantic (facts) and episodic (events). Implicit: procedural, priming, conditioning.
- H.M. lost his hippocampus and could not form new explicit memories, yet still learned skills.
- Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve drops fast, then levels off. Spaced review flattens it.
- Loftus's misinformation effect shows why eyewitness confidence can mislead.
Chapter 8Thinking, Language and Intelligence
Concepts are the mind's groups. A prototype is the best example. An algorithm is a slow, sure method. A heuristic is a fast shortcut that sometimes fails. Tversky and Kahneman mapped how heuristics bend our choices.
- Availability: judging by what comes to mind easily. Representativeness: judging by how well something fits a type.
- Confirmation bias, framing, mental set, and functional fixedness block good thinking.
- Language builds from phonemes to morphemes to grammar. Skinner said it is learned. Chomsky said we are born ready.
- Intelligence: Spearman's g, Gardner's multiple intelligences, Sternberg's triarchic theory, emotional intelligence.
- IQ tests: Binet, Terman, Wechsler. Scores form a normal curve. A test must be reliable and valid.
Chapter 9Lifespan Development
Development asks three questions. How do nature and nurture combine? Is change smooth or in stages? Do early traits last? Cross-sectional studies compare age groups at once. Longitudinal studies follow the same people for years.
- Prenatal stages: germinal, embryonic, fetal. Teratogens do the most harm in a critical period.
- Piaget: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational. Vygotsky added the social side.
- Harlow: contact comfort beats food. Bowlby: attachment. Ainsworth: the Strange Situation and secure or insecure styles.
- Erikson: eight psychosocial stages, from trust to integrity.
- Crystallized knowledge holds up with age. Fluid speed declines.
Chapter 10Motivation and Emotion
Motivation gives behavior energy and direction. Theories run from instinct to drive-reduction (staying in balance, or homeostasis) to arousal to incentives. Maslow's hierarchy stacks needs from body needs up to self-actualization.
- Hunger: the hypothalamus, plus ghrelin (raises hunger) and leptin (lowers it).
- Yerkes-Dodson: best performance at medium arousal. A rough rule, not an exact law.
- Emotion theories: James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, Schachter-Singer two-factor, and Lazarus's appraisal.
- Ekman: basic facial expressions are recognized across cultures. Display rules vary.
- The amygdala has a fast path that can fire before conscious thought.
Chapter 11Personality
Personality is a person's usual, lasting way of thinking, feeling, and acting. Freud placed it in the unconscious, split into the id, ego, and superego. Defense mechanisms protect the ego from anxiety.
- Neo-Freudians: Jung, Adler, Horney, Erikson. They stressed social forces.
- Humanists: Rogers (self-concept, unconditional positive regard) and Maslow.
- Trait theory: the Big Five, or OCEAN. It is the best-tested model.
- Social-cognitive: reciprocal determinism (Bandura), locus of control (Rotter), self-efficacy.
- Tests: objective inventories like the MMPI; projective tests like the Rorschach and TAT, which are less reliable.
Chapter 12Social Psychology
Attribution explains behavior by the person or the situation. The fundamental attribution error over-blames the person. When actions clash with attitudes, we feel cognitive dissonance, and we often change the attitude.
- Persuasion: the central route (strong arguments, lasts) and the peripheral route (surface cues, fades).
- Asch: conformity to a group. Milgram: about 65% obeyed in one version.
- Group effects: social facilitation, social loafing, deindividuation, groupthink, group polarization.
- Stereotype = belief. Prejudice = feeling. Discrimination = action.
- Bystander effect: more onlookers, less help, through diffusion of responsibility.
Chapter 13Stress, Health and Coping
Stress is a process. A stressor meets your appraisal and sets off a stress response. Lazarus split appraisal in two. Primary asks, “Is this a threat?” Secondary asks, “Can I cope?”
- Cannon's fight-or-flight response runs on the sympathetic system and adrenaline.
- Selye's GAS: alarm, resistance, exhaustion.
- The slow HPA axis releases cortisol. Long-term, it builds allostatic load.
- Stress harms the heart (hostility is the risky part) and the immune system (Kiecolt-Glaser, Cohen).
- Problem-focused coping fits what you can control. Emotion-focused fits what you cannot.
- Social support is one of the strongest buffers we know.
Chapter 14Psychological Disorders and Therapy
A pattern counts as a disorder when the four Ds are weighed together: dysfunction, distress, deviance, and danger. The DSM-5-TR gives shared rules for each diagnosis. Having two or more at once, called comorbidity, is common.
- Anxiety disorders are the most common. OCD and PTSD have their own DSM chapters.
- Mood: major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. Psychotic: schizophrenia, with positive and negative symptoms.
- Models: diathesis-stress and biopsychosocial.
- Therapies: psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioral, cognitive and CBT.
- Biomedical: SSRIs, antipsychotics, lithium, ECT, TMS.
- The therapeutic alliance predicts success across all kinds of therapy.
Part 3 · Across chaptersCompare tables
Final exams love questions that cross chapters. These tables line up ideas that live far apart in the book. Cover the right side of each table and rebuild it from memory. Then check.
The major theorists and what each explained
| Person | Ch | What they explained | Key idea or study |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wilhelm Wundt | 1 | Psychology as a lab science | First lab, Leipzig, 1879; introspection |
| William James | 1, 10 | What the mind is for | Functionalism; the James-Lange theory of emotion |
| Sigmund Freud | 1, 4, 11, 14 | Hidden motives | The unconscious; id, ego, superego; dream wishes; psychoanalysis |
| Ivan Pavlov | 6 | Learning by pairing | Classical conditioning in dogs |
| John B. Watson | 1, 6 | Behavior, not mind | Founded behaviorism, 1913; Little Albert, 1920 |
| B. F. Skinner | 6, 8 | Learning by consequences | Operant conditioning; schedules; language as learned |
| Albert Bandura | 6, 11, 12 | Learning by watching | Bobo doll; self-efficacy; reciprocal determinism |
| Roger Sperry | 3 | What each hemisphere does | Split-brain studies; Nobel Prize, 1981 |
| Hermann Ebbinghaus | 7 | How fast we forget | The forgetting curve |
| Elizabeth Loftus | 7 | How memory gets rewritten | The misinformation effect |
| Tversky and Kahneman | 8 | Why judgment goes wrong | Heuristics and biases; framing |
| Noam Chomsky | 8 | How children get language | An inborn readiness for grammar |
| Spearman, Gardner, Sternberg | 8 | What intelligence is | g; multiple intelligences; triarchic theory |
| Jean Piaget | 9 | How thinking grows | Four stages; object permanence; conservation |
| Lev Vygotsky | 9 | The social side of thinking | Learning with help from others |
| Harlow, Bowlby, Ainsworth | 9 | How bonds form | Contact comfort; attachment; the Strange Situation |
| Erik Erikson | 9, 11 | Growth across the whole life | Eight psychosocial stages |
| Abraham Maslow | 10, 11 | Which needs come first | Hierarchy of needs; self-actualization |
| Paul Ekman | 10 | Faces of emotion | Basic expressions recognized across cultures |
| Schachter and Singer | 10 | How we label arousal | Two-factor theory of emotion |
| Richard Lazarus | 10, 13 | Why the same event feels different | Appraisal; primary and secondary appraisal |
| Carl Rogers | 11, 14 | Growth and the self | Unconditional positive regard; client-centered therapy |
| Julian Rotter | 11 | Who is in control | Internal and external locus of control |
| Solomon Asch | 12 | Going along with the group | The line-judging study |
| Stanley Milgram | 12 | Obeying authority | The shock study; about 65% in one version |
| Latané and Darley | 12 | Why crowds fail to help | The bystander effect |
| Leon Festinger | 12 | Actions changing beliefs | Cognitive dissonance; the one-dollar study |
| Hans Selye | 13 | The body's stress pattern | General adaptation syndrome |
| Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis | 14 | Thoughts that feed distress | Cognitive therapy; REBT; the roots of CBT |
| Joseph Wolpe | 14 | Unlearning fear | Systematic desensitization |
The research methods: what each can and cannot show
| Method | What it can show | What it cannot show | Course example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Case study | Rich detail on one person; rare cases | Cause; whether it applies to others | Phineas Gage; H.M. |
| Naturalistic observation | Real behavior in real settings | Cause; why people do it | Watching children at play |
| Survey | Attitudes and habits of many people fast | Cause; honest answers are not certain | Sleep habits poll with a random sample |
| Correlational study | Whether two things move together, and how strongly | Which causes which; third variables | Stress and colds; IQ in twins |
| Experiment | Cause and effect | Some questions are unethical to test | Bandura's Bobo doll; Schachter-Singer |
| Cross-sectional | Age differences, quickly | Change in one person; open to cohort effects | Memory in 20, 50 and 80 year olds |
| Longitudinal | How the same people change | Fast results; it suffers from attrition | Following children into adulthood |
| Twin and adoption studies | How much genes and experience add to differences | The share of one person's trait from genes | Heritability of IQ and the Big Five |
| Replication | Whether a finding is real | Anything new on its own | The pen study; Milgram's 2009 partial repeat |
The kinds of learning
| Kind | What is linked | Key name | Behavior type | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Habituation | Nothing; one stimulus repeats | Not tied to one name | Response fades | You stop hearing the fridge hum |
| Sensitization | Nothing; one strong stimulus repeats | Not tied to one name | Response grows | Jumpier after a scare |
| Classical conditioning | Two stimuli | Pavlov, Watson | Automatic, reflex-like | A dental drill sound makes you tense |
| Operant conditioning | A behavior and its consequence | Thorndike, Skinner | Voluntary | Studying more after a good grade |
| Observational learning | A model's act and its outcome | Bandura | Voluntary, copied | A child copies a sibling's swing |
Reinforcement and punishment, drawn
The schedules of reinforcement
| Schedule | Reward comes after | Response pattern | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed ratio (FR) | A set number of responses | High rate, short pause after each reward | Paid per 10 boxes packed |
| Variable ratio (VR) | An unpredictable number | Highest, steadiest rate; hardest to extinguish | Slot machines |
| Fixed interval (FI) | The first response after a set time | Scalloped: slow, then a rush near the time | Cramming before a weekly quiz |
| Variable interval (VI) | The first response after an unpredictable time | Slow, steady rate | Checking for a text reply |
The memory systems
| System | Capacity | How long | Brain area or clue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iconic (sensory, sight) | Very large | Under 1 second | Sperling's letter grid |
| Echoic (sensory, sound) | Very large | A few seconds | “What did you say?” then you replay it |
| Short-term / working | About 4 chunks | About 20 seconds without rehearsal | Frontal lobe; works on the material |
| Semantic (explicit) | No known limit | Can last for life | Hippocampus forms; cortex stores |
| Episodic (explicit) | No known limit | Can last for life | Hippocampus; amygdala adds emotion |
| Procedural (implicit) | No known limit | Very lasting | Cerebellum and basal ganglia |
| Priming (implicit) | Not measured in chunks | Short to long | One exposure eases the next |
The theories of emotion, drawn
| Theory | Core claim | Clue words in a question | Main problem |
|---|---|---|---|
| James-Lange | We feel afraid because we tremble | “noticed her heart racing, then felt…” | Many emotions share similar body states |
| Cannon-Bard | Arousal and feeling happen at once, separately | “at the same time,” thalamus | Body feedback does shape feeling somewhat |
| Schachter-Singer | Arousal plus a cognitive label | “looked around to figure out why” | Later studies support it only partly |
| Lazarus appraisal | A judgment comes first | “decided it was a threat” | Some fear fires before thought (LeDoux) |
| Facial feedback | Making a face can shift the feeling | “held a pen in her teeth” | The famous pen study did not replicate |
The theories of motivation
| Theory | What drives us | Best at explaining | Weak spot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instinct | Inborn, fixed patterns | Animal behavior | Names behaviors more than it explains them |
| Drive-reduction | Needs create drives; we act to restore homeostasis | Hunger, thirst | Why we seek thrills when all needs are met |
| Arousal | We seek a best level of stimulation | Curiosity; Yerkes-Dodson | The best level differs a lot by person |
| Incentive | Outside rewards pull us | Working for pay or grades | Leaves out inner drives |
| Maslow's hierarchy | Needs in layers, lower ones first | Priorities in hard times | The order is not strict for everyone |
The stage theories, side by side
| Age | Piaget (thinking) | Erikson (social growth) | Freud (psychosexual) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Birth to 1 | Sensorimotor: object permanence | Trust vs. mistrust | Oral |
| 1 to 3 | Sensorimotor, then preoperational | Autonomy vs. shame and doubt | Anal |
| 3 to 6 | Preoperational: egocentrism; no conservation yet | Initiative vs. guilt | Phallic |
| 6 to puberty | Concrete operational (about 7 to 11): conservation | Industry vs. inferiority | Latency |
| Teens | Formal operational (12 and up): abstract thought | Identity vs. role confusion | Genital |
| Young adult | No stage | Intimacy vs. isolation | No stage |
| Middle adult | No stage | Generativity vs. stagnation | No stage |
| Late adult | No stage | Integrity vs. despair | No stage |
The seven perspectives applied to one behavior
Here is the scene. A teen named Dario shoves a classmate in the hallway. Each lens offers a different “why.” On the exam, find the cause word, then match it to its lens.
| Perspective | Its explanation of the shove | Cause word to spot | Linked chapters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biological | A fast amygdala response and high arousal | brain, hormones, genes | 3, 10 |
| Evolutionary | Defending status helped ancestors survive | survival, ancestors | 1, 12 |
| Psychodynamic | Hidden anger at a parent, displaced onto a peer | unconscious, defense | 11, 14 |
| Behavioral | Past shoves got him respect, so the habit was reinforced | reward, learned | 6 |
| Cognitive | He read a bump as a deliberate insult | interpreted, believed | 7, 8, 12 |
| Humanistic | An unmet need for esteem and belonging | self-worth, growth | 10, 11 |
| Sociocultural | A peer group that expects toughness from boys | group, norms, culture | 12 |
The therapies
| Approach | Key names | Where the problem comes from | What therapy does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psychodynamic | Freud | Unconscious conflicts from early life | Builds insight through free association and interpretation |
| Humanistic | Rogers | Blocked growth; a self-concept out of step with experience | Client-centered warmth, empathy, unconditional positive regard |
| Behavioral | Wolpe, Skinner | Learned responses | Exposure, systematic desensitization, reinforcement |
| Cognitive and CBT | Beck, Ellis | Distorted, unhelpful thoughts | Spots and tests those thoughts; adds behavior change |
| Biomedical | Physicians, often psychiatrists | Brain chemistry and function | SSRIs, antipsychotics, lithium, ECT, TMS |
The pairs that get mixed up most
| This | Is not | The difference |
|---|---|---|
| Negative reinforcement | Punishment | Reinforcement makes behavior go up, even when something is removed |
| Reliable | Valid | Consistent results versus measuring the right thing |
| Correlation | Causation | Moving together versus one making the other happen |
| Independent variable | Dependent variable | What the researcher changes versus what is measured |
| Random sample | Random assignment | Who is in the study versus which group each person joins |
| Sensation | Perception | Picking up the signal versus making sense of it |
| Proactive interference | Retroactive interference | Old blocks new versus new blocks old |
| Recall | Recognition | Pulling it up yourself versus picking it from options |
| Algorithm | Heuristic | Slow and sure versus fast and error-prone |
| Crystallized intelligence | Fluid intelligence | Stored knowledge versus fast, new problem solving |
| Sympathetic | Parasympathetic | Fight-or-flight versus rest-and-digest |
| Agonist | Antagonist | Boosts a neurotransmitter versus blocks it |
| Stereotype | Prejudice; discrimination | A belief versus a feeling versus an action |
| Conformity | Obedience | Going along with peers versus following an authority |
| Problem-focused coping | Emotion-focused coping | Changing the problem versus changing how you feel about it |
| Positive symptoms | Negative symptoms | Something added, like hallucinations, versus something missing, like flat emotion |
| Psychologist | Psychiatrist | Psychiatrists are medical doctors who can prescribe |
Part 4 · Exam-style practiceWorked examples
Most final exam items are short scenarios. The trick is to slow down and name what the question is really asking. Each example below walks through the thinking, one step at a time.
Example 1 · Chapter 2 · can this study show cause?
“Researchers found that students who drink more coffee earn higher grades. They say coffee improves grades.” Is the claim justified?
Step 1 · name the methodNo one was assigned to drink coffee. The researchers only measured two things. That is a correlation.
Step 2 · look for other explanationsA third variable could drive both. Students who study late may drink more coffee and also study more. The direction could also run backward.
Step 3 · answerNo. A correlation cannot show cause. To test it, randomly assign students to coffee or a decaf placebo, keep both groups blind, and compare grades.
Example 2 · Chapter 6 · label the parts of classical conditioning
“Each time Mia gets a shot, the nurse first wipes her arm with a cold swab. Now the cold swab alone makes Mia tense up.”
Step 1 · find the reflexWhat causes tensing with no learning? The shot. So the shot is the US, and tensing at the shot is the UR.
Step 2 · find what was pairedThe swab came just before the shot each time. So the swab is now the CS.
Step 3 · answerTensing at the swab alone is the CR. If Mia then tenses at any cold touch, that is generalization.
Example 3 · Chapter 6 · reinforcement or punishment?
“Leo has a headache. He takes a pain reliever, and the pain goes away. Next time he has a headache, he takes it sooner.”
Step 1 · did the behavior go up or down?Up. He takes the pill sooner and more readily. So this is reinforcement.
Step 2 · was something added or removed?The pain was removed. Removed means negative.
Step 3 · answerNegative reinforcement. It is not punishment, because the behavior went up.
Example 4 · Chapter 7 · which kind of interference?
“Ana learned Spanish in high school. Now she is learning Italian. When she tries to say an Italian word, the Spanish word pops out.”
Step 1 · which memory is old, and which is new?Spanish is old. Italian is new.
Step 2 · which one is blocked?The new one, Italian, is being blocked by the old one.
Step 3 · answerProactive interference. Old blocks new. Think “pro” means forward: the old memory pushes forward into the new one.
Example 5 · Chapter 10 · which emotion theory?
“After a hard run, Kai's heart is racing. A friend says something kind. Kai feels a rush of strong affection and puzzles over why it felt so intense.”
Step 1 · find the arousalThe arousal came from the run, not from the friend.
Step 2 · find the labelKai pinned the arousal on the nearest cause, the kind words.
Step 3 · answerSchachter-Singer two-factor theory. Arousal plus a label from the situation equals the emotion. Here the label went to the wrong source.
Example 6 · Chapter 12 · person or situation?
“A driver cuts you off. You think, ‘What a selfish person.’ Later you cut someone off and think, ‘I was late for a job interview.’”
Step 1 · how did you explain the other driver?By the person. That is the fundamental attribution error.
Step 2 · how did you explain yourself?By the situation. Explaining others by person and yourself by situation is the actor-observer effect.
Step 3 · answerBoth biases appear. If you also took credit for your wins and blamed bad luck for your losses, that would be the self-serving bias.
Example 7 · Chapters 9 and 2 · which design, and what can go wrong?
“A team tests memory in 25-year-olds and 75-year-olds this year. The older group scores lower. The team concludes that memory declines with age.”
Step 1 · name the designDifferent ages tested at one time is cross-sectional.
Step 2 · find the riskThe groups grew up in different times, with different schooling and health care. That is a cohort effect.
Step 3 · answerThe conclusion may be too strong. A longitudinal design, following the same people, would show true change. Its own risk is attrition, as people drop out.
Example 8 · Chapter 13 · which coping style fits?
“Jordan's grandmother has died. Jordan also has a big project due that has not been started.” Which coping style fits each stressor?
Step 1 · can the stressor be changed?The loss cannot be changed. The project can.
Step 2 · match the styleFor what you cannot change, emotion-focused coping helps: grieving, leaning on friends, reframing. For what you can change, problem-focused coping helps: a plan and a start.
Step 3 · answerEmotion-focused for the loss, problem-focused for the project. Avoiding both would backfire. Social support helps with both.
Example 9 · Chapter 14 · which therapy is this?
“A therapist helps a client notice the thought ‘If I make one mistake, I am a total failure.’ Together they test it against the facts and plan small steps to try.”
Step 1 · what is the target?A distorted thought. That points to the cognitive approach.
Step 2 · is behavior also changed?Yes, through small planned steps. That adds the behavioral side.
Step 3 · answerCognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), rooted in the work of Beck and Ellis. Insight into childhood would point to psychodynamic therapy. Warm, nondirective listening would point to Rogers.
Part 5 · Watch outCommon traps
- Calling negative reinforcement punishment. Ask only, “Did the behavior go up?” If yes, it is reinforcement.
- Reading a correlation as a cause. Unless people were randomly assigned, no cause can be claimed.
- Mixing up random sampling and random assignment. Sampling decides who is in. Assignment decides which group.
- Treating heritability as a personal number. A heritability of 0.5 does not mean half of your IQ came from genes. It is about differences in a group.
- Thinking a fact is wrong because it is strong. Milgram's 65% is real, but it came from one version. Rates ranged from almost none to more than 90%.
- Quoting the Stanford Prison Experiment as solid proof. It had no control group, and guards were coached. Treat it as a story.
- Believing the brain myths. We use all of our brain. Learning styles and “left-brained” people are myths.
- Calling schizophrenia “split personality.” It is a psychotic disorder. It is not the same as dissociative identity disorder.
- Mixing up the hippocampus and the amygdala. The hippocampus forms new explicit memories. The amygdala drives fear and adds emotion to memories.
- Mixing up REM and N3. N3 is deep, slow-wave sleep, mostly early in the night. REM has vivid dreams and comes mostly late.
- Swapping proactive and retroactive interference. Proactive: old blocks new. Retroactive: new blocks old.
- Swapping James-Lange and Cannon-Bard. James-Lange: body first, then feeling. Cannon-Bard: both at the same time.
- Mixing up Piaget and Erikson. Piaget is about thinking. Erikson is about social growth across the whole life.
- Calling all stress bad. Short bursts of cortisol help. The harm comes when stress is chronic.
- Calling a single odd behavior a disorder. The four Ds are weighed together, and dysfunction matters most.
- Picking the answer that says the most. On methods questions, the best answer claims no more than the evidence allows.
Part 6 · Thirty itemsCumulative self-test
Answer each one out loud or on paper before you reveal it. Then read the reason, even when you were right. Items run in chapter order, with a few that cross chapters.
Part 7 · Night beforeCram sheet
Definitions worth having word-perfect
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Psychology | The scientific study of mind and behavior |
| Hypothesis | A specific, testable, falsifiable prediction |
| Operational definition | Exactly how a variable is measured |
| Heritability | The share of differences in a group linked to genetic differences |
| Action potential | An all-or-none electrical signal down the axon |
| Transduction | Turning outside energy into nerve signals |
| Learning | A lasting change in behavior or knowledge from experience |
| Encoding | Getting information into memory |
| Heuristic | A fast mental shortcut that can cause errors |
| Homeostasis | The body's drive to stay in balance |
| Personality | A person's usual, lasting way of thinking, feeling, and acting |
| Fundamental attribution error | Over-blaming the person and under-weighing the situation |
| Cognitive dissonance | Discomfort when actions and beliefs clash |
| Appraisal | Judging whether an event is a threat and whether you can cope |
| Diathesis-stress | A disorder starts when a weak spot meets stress |
Numbers and dates to know cold
| Number | What it marks |
|---|---|
| 1879 | Wundt's lab in Leipzig |
| 1913 | Watson launches behaviorism |
| 1920 | Little Albert |
| 1961 | Bandura's Bobo doll study |
| 1971 | Stanford Prison Experiment (now seen as flawed) |
| 1979 | The Belmont Report on research ethics |
| 2010s | The replication crisis |
| −1 to +1 | The range of r |
| About 4 chunks | Short-term memory span (Miller's old figure: 7 plus or minus 2) |
| About 90 minutes | One sleep cycle |
| About 24 hours | One circadian cycle |
| 100 and 15 | Mean and standard deviation of IQ scores |
| 0.4 to 0.5, then 0.6 to 0.8 | IQ heritability in childhood, then adulthood |
| About 65% | Full obedience in one version of Milgram's study |
Sequences to know in order
| Sequence | Order |
|---|---|
| Scientific method | Observe, hypothesize, test, revise, replicate |
| Neuron signal | Dendrites, cell body, axon, terminals, synapse |
| Sleep | N1, N2, N3, back up, REM; repeat about every 90 minutes |
| Memory | Sensory, short-term, long-term; encode, store, retrieve |
| Prenatal | Germinal, embryonic, fetal |
| Piaget | Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete, formal |
| Maslow | Physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, self-actualization |
| Selye's GAS | Alarm, resistance, exhaustion |
| Bandura's modeling | Attention, retention, reproduction, motivation |
| Language | Phonemes, morphemes, words, grammar |
One line per chapter
| Ch | If you remember one thing |
|---|---|
| 1 | Psychology is a science because it tests claims; seven lenses work together |
| 2 | Only a randomized experiment shows cause; replication earns trust |
| 3 | Neurons fire all-or-none; drugs act as agonists or antagonists |
| 4 | The SCN sets the clock; deep sleep early, REM late |
| 5 | Sensation detects; perception builds meaning |
| 6 | Up means reinforcement; down means punishment |
| 7 | Memory is rebuilt each time, so it can be wrong |
| 8 | Shortcuts are fast but biased; reliable is not valid |
| 9 | Nature and nurture together; stages for thinking and social growth |
| 10 | Emotion theories differ on the order of body, thought, and feeling |
| 11 | The Big Five describe; person and situation together predict |
| 12 | Situations are more powerful than we think |
| 13 | Stress depends on appraisal; support is a strong buffer |
| 14 | Weigh the four Ds; the therapeutic alliance matters in every therapy |