AP Psychology Final FRQ Prep
Psychology Core Concepts Your Quick
Study Guide
This guide covers essential psychology terms and concepts you need to know. Let's
dive in
1. Authoritarian Parenting Style
Question: Describe the key characteristics of an authoritarian parenting
style.
Answer: An authoritarian parenting style is characterized by parents who
are demanding, expect unquestioned obedience, are not responsive to
their children's desires, and communicate poorly with their children.
2. Divergent Thinking
Question: What is divergent thinking?
Answer: Divergent thinking is a type of creative thinking in which one
generates new solutions to problems.
3. Elaborate Rehearsal
Question: How does elaborate rehearsal aid long-term memory (LTM)?
Answer: Elaborate rehearsal is a memory strategy that involves associating
new items of information with material that has already been stored or
with other new facts, making it a better strategy for retaining information in
LTM.
4. Intrinsic Motivation
, Question: Define intrinsic motivation.
Answer: Intrinsic motivation is a desire to perform a behavior effectively
for its own sake.
5. Self-Efficacy
Question: What does self-efficacy refer to?
Answer: Self-efficacy is belief in one's ability to perform a task
successfully.
6. Chunking
Question: Explain how chunking can improve short-term memory capacity.
Provide an example.
Answer: Chunking is a way to increase the capacity of short-term
memory by recoding information into larger, more meaningful units.
For example, a grocery list of 15 items can be chunked into 7 or fewer
groups like meats, dairy, produce, snacks, beverages, grains, and
household.
7. Encoding Failure
Question: What is encoding failure?
Answer: Encoding failure is the inability to recall specific information
because of insufficient encoding of the information for storage in long-
term memory.
8. Age and Language Acquisition
Question: How does age affect language acquisition?
Answer: Language acquisition is most effective in early life. By the age of
12, language acquisition has solidified, and it becomes harder to learn a
, new language. If language isn't acquired in the early years, individuals often
struggle to master it later.
9. Self-Efficacy Modeling
Question: Describe how self-efficacy modeling works in children.
Answer: Self-efficacy modeling occurs when children witness a model
similar to themselves succeeding and are likely to believe that they can
perform as well as the model. This can be summarized as: "If they can do
it, I can do it as well," which increases their self-efficacy.
10. Correlational Research
Question: What is the primary goal of correlational research, and what is
one of its advantages?
Answer: Correlational research is a research strategy that identifies the
relationships between two or more variables in order to describe how
these variables change together. One advantage is that it helps
psychologists make predictions.
11. Overjustification Effect
Question: Explain the overjustification effect.
Answer: The overjustification effect is the effect of promising a reward
for doing what one already likes to do. The person may now see the
reward, rather than intrinsic interest, as the motivation for performing
the task.
12. Belief Perseverance
Question: Define belief perseverance.
Answer: Belief perseverance is clinging to one's initial conceptions after
the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
Psychology Core Concepts Your Quick
Study Guide
This guide covers essential psychology terms and concepts you need to know. Let's
dive in
1. Authoritarian Parenting Style
Question: Describe the key characteristics of an authoritarian parenting
style.
Answer: An authoritarian parenting style is characterized by parents who
are demanding, expect unquestioned obedience, are not responsive to
their children's desires, and communicate poorly with their children.
2. Divergent Thinking
Question: What is divergent thinking?
Answer: Divergent thinking is a type of creative thinking in which one
generates new solutions to problems.
3. Elaborate Rehearsal
Question: How does elaborate rehearsal aid long-term memory (LTM)?
Answer: Elaborate rehearsal is a memory strategy that involves associating
new items of information with material that has already been stored or
with other new facts, making it a better strategy for retaining information in
LTM.
4. Intrinsic Motivation
, Question: Define intrinsic motivation.
Answer: Intrinsic motivation is a desire to perform a behavior effectively
for its own sake.
5. Self-Efficacy
Question: What does self-efficacy refer to?
Answer: Self-efficacy is belief in one's ability to perform a task
successfully.
6. Chunking
Question: Explain how chunking can improve short-term memory capacity.
Provide an example.
Answer: Chunking is a way to increase the capacity of short-term
memory by recoding information into larger, more meaningful units.
For example, a grocery list of 15 items can be chunked into 7 or fewer
groups like meats, dairy, produce, snacks, beverages, grains, and
household.
7. Encoding Failure
Question: What is encoding failure?
Answer: Encoding failure is the inability to recall specific information
because of insufficient encoding of the information for storage in long-
term memory.
8. Age and Language Acquisition
Question: How does age affect language acquisition?
Answer: Language acquisition is most effective in early life. By the age of
12, language acquisition has solidified, and it becomes harder to learn a
, new language. If language isn't acquired in the early years, individuals often
struggle to master it later.
9. Self-Efficacy Modeling
Question: Describe how self-efficacy modeling works in children.
Answer: Self-efficacy modeling occurs when children witness a model
similar to themselves succeeding and are likely to believe that they can
perform as well as the model. This can be summarized as: "If they can do
it, I can do it as well," which increases their self-efficacy.
10. Correlational Research
Question: What is the primary goal of correlational research, and what is
one of its advantages?
Answer: Correlational research is a research strategy that identifies the
relationships between two or more variables in order to describe how
these variables change together. One advantage is that it helps
psychologists make predictions.
11. Overjustification Effect
Question: Explain the overjustification effect.
Answer: The overjustification effect is the effect of promising a reward
for doing what one already likes to do. The person may now see the
reward, rather than intrinsic interest, as the motivation for performing
the task.
12. Belief Perseverance
Question: Define belief perseverance.
Answer: Belief perseverance is clinging to one's initial conceptions after
the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
