AP Psychology Study Guide (AP psych 2026)

AP Psychology Study Guide AP psych  

Wilhelm Wundt 1. Introduced structuralism (Bell experiment) 2. Set up the first psychological laboratory Introspection study of the mind by looking into oneself structuralism identifying components of the mind: combined subjective emotions and objective sensations (Wundt) "the whole is equal to the sum of the parts" Freud Personality theorist who created psychoanalysis Psychoanalytic Theory Focus on past childhood experience, repressed memories, and study of the unconscious mind (Freud) Behaviorism Focus on stimuli and response-study only observable behavior (Watson) Humanistic Perspective Emphasized the human capacity for free-will and individual choice (Rogers & Maslow) Evolutionary Perspective Examines how behaviors help a species survive from on generation to the next, focus on natural selection Biopsychology Explains human thought in terms of the relationship between biology and psychology Social-Cultural behavior varies by culture Pavlov Behaviorist-Classically conditioned dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell Watson Behaviorist-In his Little Albert Experiment he conditioned Albert to fear white rat by associating it with loud noises Skinner Behaviorist-Proposed theory of operant conditioning with skinner box experiment, reinforcing rats behavior with rewards or punishments Independent Variable Changed by experimenter-what is being controlled Dependent Variable Changed by independent variable Operational definition Defining how something is measured in an experiment: help to easily replicate Target Population Demographic experimenter wants to study Representative Sample Group that resembles target population Stratified Sample Takes specific criteria (race, gender, %) into account Matched pairs Similar people for different conditions of a study Experimenter bias when experimenter treats people differently because of his/her expected results Double blind Neither experimenter nor subject knows which group subject is in Single blind Subject does not know which group (control or experimental) they are in Demand characteristics Cues that subject picks up on and uses in order to respond appropriately Placebo effect Taking a drug that has no pharmacological effects produces similar results as the real medication Positive Correlation A direct relationship in which both variables are increasing or both are decreasing Negative Correlation An inverse relationship in which one variable increases and the other decreases or vice versa Survey Method Easy to distriubute to large population and inexpensive, but can't control who sends it back, and has other confounding variables Naturalistic Observation Has high ecological validity (acts normally in natural habitat) but can't control variables and therefore does not show cause and effect Case studies Follows in detail one person or a group of people with a rare condition Hindsight bias Tendency to believe, once the outcome is already known, that you would have foreseen it (Also "I-KnewIt-All-Along Phenomenon) Applied research Solving a problem