WACE Psychology cheat sheet

The neuron transmits signals electrically along the axon and chemically across synapses via neurotransmitters released into the synaptic cleft.

Resting potential is about -70 mV; depolarisation past threshold triggers an action potential with an all-or-nothing response, followed by a refractory period.

Neurotransmitter excess or deficit underlies several disorders: dopamine links to schizophrenia, serotonin to depression, acetylcholine to Alzheimer's disease.

The somatic nervous system controls voluntary skeletal movement; the autonomic nervous system controls involuntary functions via sympathetic (arousing) and parasympathetic (calming) branches.

The endocrine system communicates more slowly than neurons: the hypothalamus signals the pituitary, which regulates glands releasing hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline.

Brain localisation: occipital lobe = vision, temporal lobe = hearing and language comprehension, parietal = somatosensory, frontal = planning and motor control.

Split-brain research (Sperry) shows the left hemisphere typically handles language and the right handles spatial and facial processing, connected by the corpus callosum.

Stress activates the HPA axis, raising cortisol; chronic activation suppresses immune function and impairs hippocampal memory formation.

Heritability estimates the proportion of variance in a trait attributable to genetic differences within a population, not the proportion of an individual's trait that is inherited.

Atkinson-Shiffrin model: sensory memory (brief, large capacity) → short-term memory (about 7±2 items, ~18–30 s) → long-term memory (unlimited, durable) via encoding.

Working memory (Baddeley) comprises a central executive plus phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad and episodic buffer.

Chunking and rehearsal increase short-term capacity and transfer; elaborative encoding (linking to meaning) produces stronger long-term retention than rote maintenance rehearsal.

Recall requires retrieval without cues; recognition requires identifying a previously presented stimulus; both measure memory differently.

Serial position effect: primacy reflects long-term storage, recency reflects short-term storage; a delay before recall reduces the recency effect.

Classical conditioning (Pavlov): neutral stimulus paired with unconditioned stimulus becomes conditioned stimulus eliciting a conditioned response; extinction and spontaneous recovery follow.

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

Schedules of reinforcement: variable ratio produces the highest, most resistant response rates; fixed interval produces scalloped responding.

Piaget-style assimilation fits new information into existing schemas; accommodation modifies schemas; both drive cognitive equilibration.

Piaget's stages: sensorimotor (0–2, object permanence), preoperational (2–7, egocentrism, conservation failure), concrete operational (7–11, conservation), formal operational (11+, abstract reasoning).

Conservation is the understanding that quantity remains constant despite changes in appearance; failure is typical before about age seven.

Theory of mind, the understanding that others hold different beliefs, typically emerges around age four, tested by false-belief tasks.

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

Attachment: secure infants use the caregiver as a safe base; Ainsworth's Strange Situation classifies secure, avoidant, resistant and disorganised patterns.

Harlow's monkey studies showed contact comfort outweighs feeding as a basis for attachment, challenging drive-reduction accounts.

Baumrind's parenting styles: authoritative (high warmth, high control) predicts best outcomes; authoritarian, permissive and uninvolved differ on those two dimensions.

Kohlberg's moral stages: preconventional (obedience, self-interest), conventional (social approval, law and order), postconventional (abstract principles).

Nature and nurture interact: heritability and environment jointly shape development; sensitive periods are windows of heightened plasticity, such as early language acquisition.

Conformity (Asch): participants yielded to an obviously wrong majority on line-judgement trials; conformity rises with group size up to about three to four and with unanimity.

Obedience (Milgram): ordinary participants administered apparently harmful shocks when instructed by an authority figure; proximity, legitimacy and buffers affect obedience.

Bystander effect: the probability of helping decreases as the number of bystanders increases, due to diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance.

Attribution: dispositional attributions credit personality, situational attributions credit circumstances; the fundamental attribution error overweights dispositional causes for others.

Cognitive dissonance (Festinger): holding conflicting cognitions produces discomfort, motivating attitude change or rationalisation to restore consistency.

Social facilitation: performance improves on simple tasks and worsens on complex tasks in the presence of others; social loafing reduces effort in group tasks.

Group polarisation shifts group decisions toward the initial leaning; groupthink suppresses dissent in cohesive groups under pressure.

Prejudice is an attitude; discrimination is behaviour; stereotypes are cognitive generalisations that can operate automatically.

Persuasion: central route relies on argument quality and produces durable attitude change; peripheral route relies on cues such as attractiveness or source credibility.

Independent variable is manipulated; dependent variable is measured; extraneous variables are held constant and confounds vary systematically with the IV.

Random assignment to conditions supports causal inference; random sampling supports generalisability; these are distinct procedures.

Reliability is consistency of measurement; validity is whether a measure assesses what it claims; a measure can be reliable but invalid.

Experimental designs: independent groups (between-subjects) vs repeated measures (within-subjects); repeated measures control individual differences but risk order effects, countered by counterbalancing.

Correlation coefficient r ranges from -1 to +1; it quantifies strength and direction of linear association and does not establish causation.

Descriptive statistics summarise data (mean, median, mode, standard deviation); inferential statistics estimate the probability that results exceed chance, conventionally p < .05.

Ethical requirements: informed consent, voluntary participation, withdrawal rights, confidentiality, debriefing, and minimal harm; deception requires justification and full debriefing.

Demand characteristics and experimenter bias threaten internal validity; single-blind and double-blind procedures reduce them.

Qualitative methods (interviews, case studies, observation) generate rich data but limit generalisation; triangulation strengthens conclusions across methods.

Intelligence: Spearman proposed a general factor g; Gardner proposed multiple independent intelligences; Sternberg proposed triarchic (analytical, creative, practical) abilities.

IQ scores are standardised with mean 100 and standard deviation 15; about 68% of scores fall between 85 and 115 under a normal distribution.

Reliability and validity of intelligence tests matter; test bias concerns whether scores predict outcomes equally across groups.

Defining abnormality uses criteria including statistical infrequency, violation of social norms, personal distress and maladaptive functioning; none alone is sufficient.

The DSM and ICD classify mental disorders by symptom clusters and duration; classification enables communication and treatment but risks labelling and stigma.

The diathesis-stress model explains disorder as the interaction of a predisposition (diathesis) with environmental stressors.

Anxiety disorders include generalised anxiety, panic disorder, phobias and obsessive-compulsive patterns; depression involves persistent low mood, anhedonia and functional impairment.

Schizophrenia symptoms divide into positive (hallucinations, delusions) and negative (flat affect, social withdrawal); genetic and environmental factors both contribute.

Treatments: cognitive-behavioural therapy targets maladaptive thoughts and behaviours; pharmacotherapy alters neurotransmitter activity; effectiveness is evaluated with controlled trials and relapse rates.