EPPP study guide
EPPP · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) is the examination series that psychology licensing authorities in the United States and Canada use as part of their licensure requirements. It is administered by the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB) and is intended for doctoral-level psychologists who are pursuing a license to practice - it is not a specialty certification and does not by itself confer a credential. The EPPP study guide has 8 sections and about 2,364 words.
01Biological Bases of Behavior
Questions here reward a hierarchy: neuron → neurotransmitter → circuit → lobe → behavior. Know that the resting potential is roughly −70 mV, that the action potential is all-or-none, and that postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs/IPSPs) are graded and summate.
316 words, about 2 min02Cognitive-Affective Bases of Behavior
Encoding → storage → retrieval, and depth of processing predicts recall. In a free-recall list, primacy reflects long-term storage and recency reflects short-term/working memory; introducing a delay before recall abolishes the recency effect only.
309 words, about 2 min03Social and Cultural Bases of Behavior
Fundamental attribution error: over-weighting disposition and under-weighting situation when explaining others' behavior. The actor–observer bias is the self/other version; self-serving bias credits one's successes to self and failures to circumstance.
285 words, about 1 min04Growth and Lifespan Development
Sensorimotor (object permanence), preoperational (egocentrism, no conservation, appearance-based reasoning), concrete operational (roughly 7–11: conservation and classification but not abstract hypothesis testing), formal operational (abstract and hypothetical reasoning). Vygotsky: learning is social; the zone of proximal development is what a child can do with guidance but not alone, and scaffolding is that support.
275 words, about 1 min05Assessment and Diagnosis
Reliability is consistency (test–retest, interrater, internal consistency/split-half). Validity is whether the test measures what it claims (content, criterion/predictive, construct, face).
289 words, about 1 min06Treatment, Intervention, Prevention, and Supervision
Psychodynamic: transference, working through, insight. Person-centered (Rogers): congruence, unconditional positive regard, empathic understanding.
284 words, about 1 min07Research Methods and Statistics
Internal validity concerns causal inference; external validity concerns generalizability. Threats include history, maturation, testing, instrumentation, selection, attrition, and regression to the mean.
295 words, about 1 min08Ethical, Legal, and Professional Issues
APA Ethics Code: five aspirational principles (beneficence/nonmaleficence, fidelity and responsibility, integrity, justice, respect for people's rights and dignity) plus enforceable standards. Ethical standards may exceed law but never fall below it; when law and ethics conflict, comply with law and document/consult (Standard 1.02).
311 words, about 2 min