Assam HS Class 11-12 Psychology cheat sheet

Psychology is defined as the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes, including both observable actions and internal states such as thought, emotion and memory.

Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychology laboratory at Leipzig in 1879 and is treated as the founder of psychology as an experimental discipline.

Structuralism (Wundt, Titchener) analysed consciousness into basic elements using introspection; functionalism (James, Dewey) studied how mental processes help adaptation.

Psychoanalysis (Freud) emphasises unconscious conflict and early childhood; behaviourism (Watson, Skinner) restricts psychology to observable behaviour and learning.

Gestalt psychology (Wertheimer, Köhler, Koffka) holds that perception and thought are organised wholes that cannot be reduced to parts.

Humanistic psychology (Maslow, Rogers) focuses on self-actualisation and free will; cognitive psychology studies information processing, and the biological perspective links behaviour to brain and hormones.

Branches: clinical, counselling, educational, industrial-organisational, social, developmental, cognitive, biological and sports psychology differ in the behaviour studied and the setting of application.

Themes of modern psychology include empirical evidence, multiple causes of behaviour, cultural context, and the interaction of heredity with environment.

Psychology in India began with the department at Calcutta University (1916); indigenisation debates concern whether Western concepts fit Indian social and cultural contexts.

Goals of psychological enquiry: description, explanation, prediction, control and application; each goal requires different designs and evidence.

Steps of a study: formulate the problem, state hypotheses, choose a design, collect data, analyse data, interpret results, and report findings.

Variables: independent variable is manipulated, dependent variable is measured, and extraneous or confounding variables must be controlled to protect internal validity.

Observational method records behaviour in natural settings; it needs clear behavioural categories, observer training and checks for observer bias.

Experimental method manipulates the IV to establish cause-effect; random assignment, control groups and counterbalancing reduce confounding.

Correlational method measures the relationship between two variables; a correlation coefficient ranges from -1.00 to +1.00 and never proves causation.

Survey and questionnaire methods collect self-report data; reliability (consistency) and validity (measuring what is intended) are the key quality criteria.

Case study gives an in-depth account of one individual or group, useful for rare phenomena but limited in generalisability.

Ethics: informed consent, voluntary participation, no deception unless justified and debriefed, confidentiality, and protection from harm; animals must be treated humanely.

Development is lifelong, multidimensional (physical, cognitive, socio-emotional) and multidirectional, involving both gains and losses.

Prenatal development has three stages: germinal (first two weeks), embryonic (weeks 3-8) and foetal (week 9 to birth); teratogens are agents that harm the embryo or foetus.

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

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

Kohlberg's moral reasoning has preconventional, conventional and postconventional levels; Gilligan argued his model underrepresents an ethic of care.

Attachment: Bowlby's ethological theory and Ainsworth's Strange Situation classify secure, avoidant and ambivalent (and later disorganised) patterns.

Vygotsky distinguished the zone of proximal development and emphasised scaffolding and language as tools of cognitive growth.

Adolescence involves puberty, identity formation, peer influence and egocentrism; ageing shows declines in fluid abilities and relative stability of crystallised abilities.

Sensation is the detection of physical energy by receptor cells; perception is the interpretation and organisation of that sensory information into meaningful experience.

Absolute threshold is the minimum intensity detectable 50% of the time; difference threshold (just noticeable difference) follows Weber's law: ΔI/I is constant.

Sensory adaptation is reduced sensitivity after prolonged stimulation; transduction converts stimulus energy into neural impulses.

Vision: rods are sensitive in dim light and to movement, cones mediate colour and fine detail; the retina's blind spot has no photoreceptors.

Audition: pitch depends on frequency (Hz), loudness on amplitude (dB); the basilar membrane and hair cells transduce sound in the cochlea.

Gestalt laws of perceptual organisation: figure-ground, proximity, similarity, continuity, closure and common fate.

Depth cues: binocular cues are retinal disparity and convergence; monocular cues include relative size, interposition, linear perspective, texture gradient and motion parallax.

Perceptual constancies (size, shape, brightness) keep perception stable; optical illusions such as Müller-Lyer reveal that perception is constructed, not copied.

Attention is selective allocation of processing; divided attention is limited, and factors such as intensity, contrast, movement and novelty draw attention.

Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour or potential behaviour resulting from experience, excluding maturation and temporary states.

Classical conditioning (Pavlov): a neutral stimulus paired with an unconditioned stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus eliciting a conditioned response.

Classical conditioning phenomena: acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalisation and discrimination.

Operant conditioning (Skinner): behaviour changes through consequences; reinforcement increases behaviour, punishment decreases it.

Positive reinforcement adds a pleasant consequence; negative reinforcement removes an unpleasant one; both increase behaviour, unlike punishment.

Schedules of reinforcement: continuous versus partial; ratio or interval, fixed or variable; variable-ratio schedules produce high, persistent responding.

Observational learning (Bandura): attention, retention, reproduction and motivation; reinforcement can be vicarious.

Cognitive learning includes insight learning (Köhler's chimpanzees) and latent learning (Tolman), where learning is not immediately shown in performance.

Transfer of learning may be positive or negative; motivation and practice conditions affect the strength and retention of learned behaviour.