AP Psych ALL TERMS

• psychology


  the science of behavior and mental processes
• nature-nurture issue


  the long-standing controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors
• natural selection


  the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations
• neuroscience


  the perspective of psychological science that deals with how the body and brain create emotions, memories, and sensory experiences
• evolutionary


  the perspective of psychological science that deals with how nature selects traits that promote the perpetuation of one's genes
• behavior genetics


  the perspective of psychological science that deals with how much our genes, and our environment, influence our individual differences
• psychodynamic


  the perspective of psychological science that deals with how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts
• behavioral


  the perspective of psychological science that deals with how we learn observable responses
• cognitive


  the perspective of psychological science that deals with how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information
• social-cultural


  the perspective of psychological science that deals with how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures
• basic research


  pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base
• applied research


  scientific study that aims to solve practical problems
• clinical psychology


  a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders
• psychiatry


  a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders, practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy
• hindsight bias (I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon)


  the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it
• critical thinking


  thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions
• theory


  an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes and predicts observations
• hypothesis


  a testable prediction, often implied by a theory
• operational definition


  a statement of the procedures (operations) used to define research variables. For example, intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures
• replication


  repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding generalizes to other participants and circumstances
• case study


  an observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles
• survey


  a technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of them
• false consensus effect


  the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors
• population


  all the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study
• random sample


  a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion
• naturalistic observation


  observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation
• correlation coefficient


  a statistical measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other
• scatterplot


  a graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables. The slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship between the two variables. The amount of scatter suggests the strength of correlation (little scatter indicates high correlation).
• illusory correlation


  the perception of a relationship where none exists
• experiment


  a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). By random assignment of participants the experimenter controls other relevant factors)
• placebo


  an inert substance or condition that may be administered instead of a presumed active agent, such as a drug, to see if it triggers the effects believed to characterize the active agent
• double-blind procedure


  an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo. Commonly used in drug-evaluation studies.
• placebo effect


  any effect on behavior caused by a placebo
• experimental condition


  the condition of an experiment that exposes participants to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable
• control condition


  the condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluation the effect of the treatment
• random assignment


  assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups
• independent variable


  the experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect if being studied
• dependent variable


  the experimental factor--in psychology, the behavior or mental process--that is being measured; the variable that may change in response to the manipulations of the independent variable
• mode


  the most frequently occurring score in a distribution
• mean


  the arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores