AP PSYCHOLOGY 12
UNIT I – HISTORY, APPOACHES AND RESEARCH METHODS (10-14%)
STUDY GUIDE & VOCAB
Use the following Learning Objectives to guide you when making your Cornell Notes.
PROLOGUE
1. Define psychology.
2. Trace psychology’s prescientific roots, from early understandings of mind and body
to the beginnings of modern science.
3. Explain how the early psychologists sought to understand the mind’s structure and
functions, and identify some of the leading psychologists who worked in these areas.
4. Describe the evolution of psychology from the 1920s through today.
5. Summarize the nature-nurture debate in psychology, and describe the principle of
natural selection.
6. Identify the three main levels of analysis in the biopsychosocial approach, and
explain why psychology’s varied perspectives are complementary.
7. Identify some of psychology’s subfields, and explain the difference between clinical
psychology and psychiatry.
8. State five effective study techniques.
KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS
o Psychology
o Empiricism
o Structuralism
o Functionalism
o Humanistic psychology
o Nature-nurture issue
o Natural selection
o Levels of analysis
o Biopsychosocial approach
o Basic research
o Applied research
o Counseling psychology
o Clinical psychology
o Psychiatry
CHAPTER ONE
1. Define hindsight bias, and explain how it can make research findings seem like mere
common sense.
2. Describe how overconfidence contaminates our everyday judgments.
3. Explain how the scientific attitude encourages critical thinking.
4. Describe how psychological theories guide scientific research.
5. Identify an advantage and a disadvantage of using case studies to study behaviour
and mental processes.
6. Identify the advantages and disadvantages of using surveys to study behaviour and
mental processes, and explain the importance of wording effects and random sampling.
7. Identify an advantage and a disadvantage of using naturalistic observation to study
behaviour and mental processes.
8. Describe positive and negative correlations, and explain how correlational measures
can aid the process of prediction.
9. Explain why correlational research fails to provide evidence of cause-effect
relationships.
10. Describe how people form illusory correlations.
11. Explain the human tendency to perceive order in random sequences.
12. Explain how experiments help researchers isolate cause and effect.
13. Explain why the double-blind procedure and random assignment build confidence in
research findings.
14. Explain the difference between an independent and a dependent variable.
15. Explain the importance of statistical principles, and give an example of their use in
everyday life.
16. Explain how bar graphs can misrepresent data.
17. Describe the three measures of central tendency, and tell which is most affected by
extreme scores.
18. Describe two measures of variation.
19. Identify three principles for making generalizations from samples.
20. Explain how psychologists decide whether differences are meaningful.
21. Explain the value of simplified laboratory conditions in discovering general principles
of behaviour.
22. Discuss whether psychological research can be generalized.
23. Explain why psychologists study animals, and discuss the ethics of experimentation
with both animals and humans.
24. Describe how personal values can influence psychologists’ research and its
application, and discuss psychology’s potential to manipulate people.
KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS
o Hindsight bias
o Critical thinking
o Theory
o Hypothesis
o Operational definition
o Replication
o Case study
o Survey
o False consensus effect
o Population
o Random sample
o Naturalistic observation
o Correlation
o Scatterplot
o Illusory correlation
o Experiment
o Double-blind procedure
o Placebo effect
o Experimental condition
o Control condition
o Random assignment
o Independent variable
o Dependent variable
o Mode
o Mean
o Median
o Range
o Standard deviation
o Statistical significance
o Culture
UNIT TEST DATE: ____________________________
*REMINDER: Notes package is due on the day of the test (20 marks).
