AP Psychology cheat sheet

Neuron firing follows the all-or-none principle: an action potential occurs at full strength or not at all; stronger stimuli increase firing rate, not spike size.

Resting potential is about -70 mV, maintained by the Na+/K+ pump (3 Na+ out, 2 K+ in); depolarization past threshold triggers an action potential.

Neurotransmitters are cleared by reuptake (reabsorption by the presynaptic neuron) or enzymatic breakdown; drugs like SSRIs block reuptake of serotonin.

Hindbrain: medulla (breathing, heart rate), pons (sleep, arousal), cerebellum (balance, motor coordination).

Limbic system: amygdala (fear, emotion), hippocampus (memory consolidation), hypothalamus (hunger, temperature, endocrine regulation).

Cerebral cortex lobes: frontal (planning, motor, Broca's area), parietal (somatosensory), temporal (hearing, Wernicke's area), occipital (vision).

Split-brain research: severing the corpus callosum prevents hemispheric transfer; left hemisphere typically controls language, right handles spatial/visual tasks.

Divisions of the nervous system: CNS (brain, spinal cord); PNS splits into somatic (voluntary) and autonomic, which splits into sympathetic (arousal) and parasympathetic (calming).

Endocrine glands release hormones into the bloodstream; the pituitary is the master gland, and the adrenal glands release cortisol and epinephrine during stress.

Three-stage memory model: sensory memory (brief, large capacity) → short-term/working memory (~7±2 items, ~20 seconds) → long-term memory (unlimited).

Chunking groups items to expand short-term capacity; maintenance rehearsal repeats information, while elaborative rehearsal links it to existing knowledge for deeper encoding.

Levels of processing: semantic (meaning-based) encoding produces better recall than acoustic or visual encoding.

Retrieval cues and context-dependent memory: recall improves when the encoding and retrieval environments match (encoding specificity principle).

Problem-solving obstacles: functional fixedness (inability to see new uses for objects) and confirmation bias (favoring information that supports existing beliefs).

Heuristics are mental shortcuts: availability (judging likelihood by ease of recall) and representativeness (judging by similarity to a prototype).

Intelligence theories: Spearman's g (general factor), Gardner's multiple intelligences, Sternberg's triarchic theory (analytical, creative, practical).

Language acquisition: Skinner proposed operant learning; Chomsky proposed an innate language acquisition device and universal grammar; the critical period for language ends around puberty.

Piaget's stages: sensorimotor (0-2, object permanence), preoperational (2-7, egocentrism, no conservation), concrete operational (7-11, conservation), formal operational (11+, abstract reasoning).

Erikson's psychosocial stages pair each life period with a crisis; e.g., trust vs. mistrust (infancy), identity vs. role confusion (adolescence).

Attachment styles (Ainsworth strange situation): secure, avoidant, ambivalent/resistant, disorganized; secure infants use the caregiver as a safe base.

Kohlberg's moral stages: preconventional (punishment/self-interest), conventional (social approval/rules), postconventional (universal ethical principles).

Classical conditioning (Pavlov): neutral stimulus paired with unconditioned stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus eliciting a conditioned response; extinction weakens the CR when the CS is presented alone.

Operant conditioning (Skinner): reinforcement increases behavior, punishment decreases it; positive adds a stimulus, negative removes one.

Schedules of reinforcement: fixed-ratio and variable-ratio produce high response rates; variable schedules resist extinction best.

Observational learning (Bandura): learning occurs by watching models; four processes are attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation.

Fundamental attribution error: overestimating dispositional causes and underestimating situational causes for others' behavior; the actor-observer bias applies this to self vs. others.

Cognitive dissonance (Festinger): discomfort from holding conflicting cognitions motivates attitude change to restore consistency.

Conformity: Asch found that group pressure produces conformity on unambiguous perceptual judgments; conformity rises with group size and unanimity.

Obedience: Milgram found that a majority of participants administered maximum shocks when instructed by an authority figure.

Bystander effect: the probability of helping decreases as the number of bystanders increases; diffusion of responsibility explains part of this.

Group phenomena: group polarization (decisions shift toward the group's initial leaning) and groupthink (cohesion suppresses dissent).

Personality perspectives: psychoanalytic (id, ego, superego), humanistic (Maslow, Rogers), trait (Big Five: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism), social-cognitive (Bandura).

Projective tests (Rorschach, TAT) have low reliability and validity; the MMPI is an objective self-report inventory with validity scales.

DSM-5 classifies disorders by symptom criteria and duration; diagnosis requires clinically significant distress or impairment.

Anxiety disorders: generalized anxiety, panic disorder, phobias, and social anxiety; OCD and PTSD are classified separately from anxiety disorders in DSM-5.

Mood disorders: major depressive disorder (≥2 weeks of depressed mood/anhedonia plus symptoms) and bipolar disorder (manic episodes alternating with depression).

Schizophrenia symptoms: positive (hallucinations, delusions) and negative (flat affect, avolition); the dopamine hypothesis links it to excess dopamine activity.

Biomedical therapies: SSRIs for depression, lithium for bipolar disorder, antipsychotics for schizophrenia, benzodiazepines for anxiety.

Psychotherapies: psychoanalytic (free association, transference), cognitive-behavioral (changing maladaptive thoughts and behaviors), humanistic (client-centered, unconditional positive regard).

Stress response: the general adaptation syndrome (Selye) has three stages - alarm, resistance, exhaustion.

Health psychology: the biopsychosocial model integrates biological, psychological, and social factors in health; type A behavior (hostility) is linked to coronary risk.

Ethical standards in research and treatment include informed consent, confidentiality, and the principle that psychologists do not practice outside their competence.