PSEB SS Psychology cheat sheet

Wilhelm Wundt founded the first experimental psychology laboratory at Leipzig in 1879, marking psychology's emergence as an independent discipline.

Structuralism (Titchener) sought the basic elements of consciousness through introspection; functionalism (James) asked how mental processes help adaptation.

Behaviourism (Watson, Skinner) restricts psychology to observable behaviour; psychoanalysis (Freud) emphasises unconscious conflict and early experience.

Gestalt psychology (Wertheimer, Koffka, Köhler) holds that perception and thought are organised wholes, not sums of parts; key ideas include the phi phenomenon and insight.

Humanistic psychology (Maslow, Rogers) emphasises free will, self-actualisation and unconditional positive regard; cognitive psychology studies information processing.

Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes; its goals are description, explanation, prediction, and control or change.

Major subfields include biological, cognitive, developmental, social, personality, clinical, counselling, educational, industrial-organisational, health and environmental psychology.

Freud's model divides personality into id (pleasure principle), ego (reality principle) and superego (morality); psychosexual stages run from oral to genital.

A scientific claim must be testable and falsifiable; psychology relies on empirical evidence rather than intuition or anecdote.

Experiment: manipulate the independent variable, measure the dependent variable, hold extraneous variables constant, and use random assignment to support causal claims.

Correlational research measures the association between variables; r ranges from -1.00 to +1.00, and correlation does not establish causation.

Between-subjects designs compare separate groups; within-subjects designs compare the same participants across conditions and are vulnerable to order effects.

Observational methods include naturalistic versus laboratory settings and participant versus non-participant roles; observer bias and reactivity threaten validity.

Surveys and interviews may be structured, semi-structured or unstructured; representative sampling (random, stratified) supports generalisation.

A test is reliable if it yields consistent scores and valid if it measures the construct it claims; standardisation provides norms and uniform administration.

Case studies provide detailed longitudinal or clinical data about one person or group but do not permit causal generalisation.

Ethical safeguards include informed consent, confidentiality, right to withdraw, debriefing, and avoiding physical or psychological harm.

Descriptive statistics summarise data (mean, median, mode, standard deviation); inferential statistics (t-test, ANOVA, chi-square) estimate the probability that results exceed chance.

Neuron parts: dendrites receive input, the soma integrates it, the axon conducts the action potential, myelin speeds conduction, and terminal buttons release neurotransmitters.

Action potentials are all-or-none; after threshold, depolarisation is followed by repolarisation and a refractory period.

At synapses, neurotransmitters bind to receptors and are removed by reuptake or enzymes; excitatory signals depolarise and inhibitory signals hyperpolarise.

Key neurotransmitters: dopamine (reward, motor control), serotonin (mood, sleep), acetylcholine (muscle, memory), norepinephrine (arousal), GABA (inhibitory), glutamate (excitatory), endorphins (pain relief).

The nervous system divides into central (brain, spinal cord) and peripheral; peripheral divides into somatic and autonomic, and autonomic into sympathetic (fight-or-flight) and parasympathetic (rest-and-digest).

Hindbrain: medulla (vital reflexes), pons (sleep, respiration), cerebellum (balance, motor coordination); the midbrain coordinates sensory reflexes.

Forebrain: thalamus relays sensory information, hypothalamus regulates homeostasis and endocrine function, and the limbic system handles emotion and memory.

Cortical lobes: frontal (movement, executive function, Broca's area), parietal (somatosensory), temporal (hearing, Wernicke's area), occipital (vision).

The endocrine system uses hormones: the pituitary is the master gland, adrenal glands release cortisol and adrenaline, the thyroid regulates metabolism, and gonads release sex hormones.

Classical conditioning (Pavlov): a neutral conditioned stimulus paired with an unconditioned stimulus comes to elicit a conditioned response.

Classical conditioning processes include acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalisation and discrimination; Watson and Rayner conditioned fear in Little Albert.

Thorndike's law of effect states that responses followed by satisfying consequences are strengthened; Skinner formalised operant conditioning.

Positive reinforcement adds a pleasant consequence; negative reinforcement removes an unpleasant one; punishment decreases behaviour by adding or removing a stimulus.

Schedules: fixed and variable ratio (reinforcement after a number of responses) and fixed and variable interval (after time); variable ratio resists extinction most.

Shaping reinforces successive approximations; chaining links behaviours; discriminative stimuli signal when reinforcement is available.

Observational learning (Bandura) requires attention, retention, reproduction and motivation; the Bobo doll study showed vicarious reinforcement.

Cognitive learning includes latent learning (Tolman), insight learning (Köhler) and learned helplessness (Seligman); habituation and sensitisation are non-associative forms.

Atkinson-Shiffrin model: sensory memory (iconic about 0.5 s, echoic about 2-4 s), short-term memory (about 7 plus or minus 2 items, 20-30 s) and long-term memory (unlimited capacity).

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

Encoding is deeper and more durable when semantic rather than phonemic or structural; elaboration, chunking and organisation improve storage.

Long-term memory types: explicit or declarative (episodic, semantic) and implicit or nondeclarative (procedural, priming, conditioning).

Serial position effect: primacy reflects long-term memory and recency reflects short-term memory; middle items are recalled least.

Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve shows rapid early loss that then levels off; spaced rehearsal slows forgetting.

Interference: proactive interference is disruption of new learning by old material; retroactive interference is disruption of old material by new learning.

Other causes of forgetting include decay, retrieval failure, encoding failure and motivated forgetting; amnesia may be anterograde or retrograde.

Context-dependent, state-dependent and mood-congruent memory show that retrieval cues and internal states affect recall.

Thinking manipulates concepts and mental images; concepts are categories formed around prototypes, the best examples of a category.

Algorithms guarantee a solution but are effortful; heuristics are fast rules of thumb, including means-end analysis, working backward and analogy.

Problem-solving obstacles include functional fixedness, mental set, confirmation bias and unnecessary constraints.

Judgment heuristics: availability (ease of recall), representativeness (similarity to a prototype) and anchoring-adjustment (reliance on an initial value).

Decision biases include framing effects, loss aversion and the sunk-cost fallacy; creativity involves divergent then convergent thinking.

Language has phonemes (sound units), morphemes (meaning units), syntax (grammar), semantics (meaning) and pragmatics (social use).

Language development proceeds from cooing and babbling to one-word, telegraphic and complex speech; a critical or sensitive period exists for acquisition.

Theories: Skinner explains language by reinforcement; Chomsky proposes an innate language acquisition device; Whorf links language and thought; Vygotsky emphasises social interaction.

Deductive reasoning moves from general premises to specific conclusions and is judged by validity; inductive reasoning generalises from specific observations and is judged by strength of evidence.

Maslow's hierarchy: physiological, safety, belongingness and love, esteem and self-actualisation needs, with lower needs generally satisfied first.

Drive-reduction theory (Hull) explains motivated behaviour as restoring homeostasis; arousal theory and the Yerkes-Dodson law relate arousal to performance.

Intrinsic motivation arises from interest and enjoyment; extrinsic motivation comes from external rewards; McClelland studied the need for achievement.

James-Lange: physiological change precedes and produces emotion; Cannon-Bard: arousal and emotion occur simultaneously.

Schachter-Singer two-factor theory: emotion requires physiological arousal plus a cognitive label; Lazarus emphasises cognitive appraisal.

The facial feedback hypothesis holds that facial expressions can shape emotional experience; Ekman identified cross-culturally recognised basic emotions.

Spearman proposed general intelligence (g) plus specific factors (s); Thurstone proposed primary mental abilities; Gardner proposed multiple intelligences.

Sternberg's triarchic theory: analytical, creative and practical intelligence; Goleman popularised emotional intelligence.

Ratio IQ equals mental age divided by chronological age multiplied by 100; deviation IQ has mean 100 and standard deviation 15; the Flynn effect is the rise in average IQ scores.

Freud's structural model: the id follows the pleasure principle, the ego the reality principle, and the superego moral ideals; conflict and defence mechanisms manage anxiety.

Psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital; fixation at a stage is said to shape adult personality.

Defence mechanisms include repression, denial, projection, displacement, rationalisation, reaction formation and sublimation.

Neo-Freudians: Jung (collective unconscious, archetypes, introversion-extraversion), Adler (inferiority complex), Horney (basic anxiety), Erikson (psychosocial stages).

Trait theories: Allport (cardinal, central, secondary traits), Cattell (16 factors), Eysenck (extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism) and the Big Five (OCEAN).

Social-cognitive theory (Bandura) emphasises reciprocal determinism and self-efficacy; Rotter distinguished internal and external locus of control.

Humanistic theory: Rogers's self-concept and unconditional positive regard; Maslow's self-actualisation.

Objective tests (MMPI, NEO-PI) use standardised items; projective tests (Rorschach, TAT) use ambiguous stimuli and are criticised for low reliability.

Type A behaviour (competition, urgency, hostility) is associated with greater coronary risk; the hostility component is the strongest predictor.

Stress can be viewed as a stimulus (stressors), a response (strain), or a transaction between person and environment.

Selye's general adaptation syndrome has three stages: alarm, resistance and exhaustion.

Lazarus's transactional model: primary appraisal evaluates harm, threat or challenge; secondary appraisal evaluates coping resources.

Problem-focused coping changes the stressor; emotion-focused coping regulates distress; avoidant and meaning-focused coping are additional categories.

Social support, hardiness (commitment, control, challenge), optimism and self-efficacy buffer the effects of stress.

Chronic stress is linked to cardiovascular disease, impaired immunity and mental health problems; PTSD follows exposure to traumatic events.

Burnout comprises emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and reduced personal accomplishment, typically in occupational settings.

Stress-management methods include relaxation training, biofeedback, meditation, cognitive restructuring and time management.

Holmes and Rahe's Social Readjustment Rating Scale assigns life change units to major life events to estimate stress load.

Social cognition uses schemas and stereotypes; prejudice is an attitude, discrimination is behaviour, and both can operate implicitly.

Attribution theory (Heider, Kelley) distinguishes internal or dispositional causes from external or situational causes.

The fundamental attribution error overestimates disposition in others; actor-observer bias and self-serving bias favour the self.

Attitudes have affective, behavioural and cognitive components; cognitive dissonance (Festinger) motivates attitude change to reduce inconsistency.

Asch's conformity studies showed that many participants yield to an obviously wrong majority; normative and informational influence explain conformity.

Milgram's obedience studies found that a majority obeyed an authority figure administering apparent shocks; proximity, legitimacy and group support affect obedience.

Compliance techniques: foot-in-the-door (small request first), door-in-the-face (large request first) and low-ball (changing terms after agreement).

Bystander effect: helping decreases as the number of bystanders increases, explained partly by diffusion of responsibility.

Group processes include social facilitation, social loafing, deindividuation, group polarisation and groupthink; attraction is predicted by proximity, similarity and reciprocity.

Health psychology studies how biological, psychological and social factors influence health, illness and health behaviour.

Subjective well-being combines life satisfaction, frequent positive affect and infrequent negative affect; adaptation and set points affect it.

Seligman's PERMA model: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment.

Job satisfaction, burnout and work-life balance are central organisational concerns; job demands and control interact to affect strain.

In education, teacher expectations (the Pygmalion effect) and student motivation influence achievement; matching instruction to learning preferences has weak evidence.

Erikson's psychosocial stages span trust versus mistrust in infancy to integrity versus despair in old age.

Community psychology focuses on prevention, empowerment and social settings rather than only individual treatment.

Sport and exercise psychology applies motivation, arousal and mental-skills training to performance and physical activity.

Environmental psychology studies the reciprocal transaction between people and their physical settings, including built and natural environments.

Proxemics (Hall) describes intimate, personal, social and public distance zones that vary by culture and relationship.

Density is the number of people per unit area; crowding is the subjective experience of insufficient space, mediated by control and expectations.

Territoriality involves marking and defending space; it can reduce conflict in some settings and increase it in others.

Noise raises annoyance, stress and cardiovascular risk and impairs complex task performance; adaptation is only partial.

Attention restoration theory (Kaplan) holds that natural environments restore directed attention; biophilia suggests an innate affinity for nature.

Environmental stressors include crowding, noise, temperature extremes, poor air quality and architectural features that reduce perceived control.

Pro-environmental behaviour is influenced by attitudes, norms, convenience and feedback; the attitude-behaviour gap is common.

Climate psychology examines risk perception, eco-anxiety and behaviour change; nudges and structural changes often outperform information alone.