AP Psych FRQ Terms e
Psychology Key Concepts Your Quick
Study Guide
This guide covers essential psychology concepts you need to know. Focus on the
bolded answers for quick review
Sensation and Perception
1. Afterimage effect is best explained by the opponent process theory, where
cells in the thalamus respond to opposing pairs of receptor sets (black/white,
red/green, blue/yellow). Fatigue in one receptor leads to seeing its opposite
in the afterimage.
Study Tip: Think of the American flag example – stare at the green, black,
and yellow version, then look at a white surface to see the red, white, and
blue afterimage!
2. We use the availability heuristic when we judge the likelihood of
something based on how easily examples come to mind.
Study Tip: Consider news headlines. Vivid but rare events might seem
more common than they actually are because they're easily recalled.
3. Ethnocentrism is the belief that your own ethnic group is superior to
others.
Think Critically: How can understanding ethnocentrism help us be more
culturally sensitive?
Cognitive Processes
4. Object permanence is the understanding, developed in infancy, that objects
continue to exist even when they are out of sight.
, Relate to Development: Piaget identified this as a key milestone in the
sensorimotor stage.
5. An optimistic explanatory style involves explaining negative events with
external, unstable, and specific reasons, rather than blaming oneself.
Exam Strategy: Recognizing different explanatory styles can be helpful in
analyzing case studies.
6. Proactive interference occurs when old information learned previously
disrupts our ability to remember new information.
Contrast: This is different from retroactive interference, where new
information disrupts the recall of old information.
Statistics and Research Methods
7. Measures of central tendency include the mean (average), median (middle
score), and mode (most frequent score).
Remember the Formulas:
o Mean = n∑X
o Median = The middle value in a sorted dataset
o Mode = The most frequent value
8. A skewed distribution is an asymmetrical distribution where the mean is
pulled away from the median (and mode) by extreme scores, creating a
"tail" on one side (positive or negative skew).
Visualize: Imagine a hill with a long, flat tail extending to the right
(positive) or left (negative).
9. In a normal distribution, the mean, median, and mode are very close
together, forming a symmetrical bell-shaped curve.
Key Feature: This distribution is also known as a bell curve or Gaussian
distribution.
10.A positively skewed distribution has the mean as the largest value, with
the tail extending to the right. The median is a more accurate measure of
central tendency in this case.
Psychology Key Concepts Your Quick
Study Guide
This guide covers essential psychology concepts you need to know. Focus on the
bolded answers for quick review
Sensation and Perception
1. Afterimage effect is best explained by the opponent process theory, where
cells in the thalamus respond to opposing pairs of receptor sets (black/white,
red/green, blue/yellow). Fatigue in one receptor leads to seeing its opposite
in the afterimage.
Study Tip: Think of the American flag example – stare at the green, black,
and yellow version, then look at a white surface to see the red, white, and
blue afterimage!
2. We use the availability heuristic when we judge the likelihood of
something based on how easily examples come to mind.
Study Tip: Consider news headlines. Vivid but rare events might seem
more common than they actually are because they're easily recalled.
3. Ethnocentrism is the belief that your own ethnic group is superior to
others.
Think Critically: How can understanding ethnocentrism help us be more
culturally sensitive?
Cognitive Processes
4. Object permanence is the understanding, developed in infancy, that objects
continue to exist even when they are out of sight.
, Relate to Development: Piaget identified this as a key milestone in the
sensorimotor stage.
5. An optimistic explanatory style involves explaining negative events with
external, unstable, and specific reasons, rather than blaming oneself.
Exam Strategy: Recognizing different explanatory styles can be helpful in
analyzing case studies.
6. Proactive interference occurs when old information learned previously
disrupts our ability to remember new information.
Contrast: This is different from retroactive interference, where new
information disrupts the recall of old information.
Statistics and Research Methods
7. Measures of central tendency include the mean (average), median (middle
score), and mode (most frequent score).
Remember the Formulas:
o Mean = n∑X
o Median = The middle value in a sorted dataset
o Mode = The most frequent value
8. A skewed distribution is an asymmetrical distribution where the mean is
pulled away from the median (and mode) by extreme scores, creating a
"tail" on one side (positive or negative skew).
Visualize: Imagine a hill with a long, flat tail extending to the right
(positive) or left (negative).
9. In a normal distribution, the mean, median, and mode are very close
together, forming a symmetrical bell-shaped curve.
Key Feature: This distribution is also known as a bell curve or Gaussian
distribution.
10.A positively skewed distribution has the mean as the largest value, with
the tail extending to the right. The median is a more accurate measure of
central tendency in this case.
