The visual guide to
AP® Psychology
6 units, 168 topics. Each topic is explained in writing, drawn as a lesson you can watch, and checked with practice questions.
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Each unit is as wide as its share of the exam's multiple-choice section. Striped units aren't weighted on the exam.Filled: topics you've opened.
Unit 1Biological Bases of Behavior
- Nature and Nurture Interacting
- The Evolutionary Perspective
- Twin, Family, and Adoption Studies
- The Central Nervous System
- The Peripheral Nervous System
- Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Arousal
- Neurons and Glial Cells
- The Reflex Arc
- The Action Potential
- Synaptic Transmission and Reuptake
- Excitatory and Inhibitory Neurotransmitters
- Hormones and Endocrine Messages
- Agonists, Antagonists, and Reuptake Inhibitors
- Psychoactive Drugs, Tolerance, and Withdrawal
- The Brainstem and Cerebellum
- The Reticular Activating System and the Reward Center
- The Limbic System
- The Lobes of the Cortex
- The Motor and Somatosensory Cortex
- Split-Brain Research and Hemispheric Specialization
- Broca's Area, Wernicke's Area, and Aphasia
- Plasticity and the Tools for Studying the Brain
- Consciousness and Circadian Rhythms
- The Stages of Sleep
- REM Sleep and Dreaming
- Why We Sleep
- Sleep Disorders
- Absolute Threshold and Transduction
- Weber's Law and Sensory Adaptation
- The Eye and Accommodation
- Rods, Cones, and the Blind Spot
- Color Vision
- The Visual Pathway and Its Failures
- Hearing: Pitch, Loudness, and Localization
- Smell and Taste
- Touch, Pain, and Body Position
Unit 2Cognition
- Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processing
- Schemas, Perceptual Sets, and Context
- Gestalt Principles of Grouping
- Attention and Inattentional Blindness
- Binocular and Monocular Depth Cues
- Perceptual Constancy and Apparent Movement
- Concepts and Prototypes
- Algorithms and Heuristics
- Framing, Priming, and Mental Set
- The Gambler's Fallacy and the Sunk Cost Fallacy
- Creativity and Functional Fixedness
- Explicit, Implicit, and Prospective Memory
- Long-Term Potentiation
- The Working Memory Model
- The Multi-Store Model of Memory
- Mnemonics and Chunking
- The Spacing Effect and Depth of Processing
- The Serial Position Effect
- Duration and Capacity of the Memory Stores
- Amnesia and Memory Loss
- Recall, Recognition, and Retrieval Cues
- Context-Dependent and State-Dependent Memory
- The Forgetting Curve
- Interference and Encoding Failure
- The Misinformation Effect and Constructive Memory
- What Intelligence Tests Try to Measure
- IQ Scores and the Normal Curve
- Standardization, Reliability, and Validity
- The Flynn Effect and Bias in Testing
- Achievement, Aptitude, and Mindset
Unit 3Development and Learning
- Stability, Change, and Continuous Development
- Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Designs
- Prenatal Development and Teratogens
- Infant Reflexes, Motor Milestones, and the Visual Cliff
- Critical Periods and Imprinting
- Physical Development in Adolescence and Adulthood
- Sex, Gender, and Socialization
- The Sensorimotor Stage and Object Permanence
- The Preoperational Stage: Conservation and Egocentrism
- Concrete and Formal Operational Thinking
- Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development
- Cognitive Change in Adulthood
- The Building Blocks of Language
- Stages of Language Development
- Ecological Systems Theory
- Parenting Styles
- Attachment and the Strange Situation
- Contact Comfort and Separation Anxiety
- Erikson's Psychosocial Stages
- Adolescent Identity and Peer Relationships
- Acquisition in Classical Conditioning
- Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery
- Generalization and Discrimination
- Conditioned Emotion and Higher-Order Conditioning
- Taste Aversion, One-Trial Learning, and Habituation
- The Law of Effect
- Reinforcement and Punishment
- Primary and Secondary Reinforcers
- Shaping and Instinctive Drift
- Schedules of Reinforcement
- Superstitious Behavior and Learned Helplessness
- Observational Learning and Modeling
- Insight, Latent Learning, and Cognitive Maps
Unit 4Social Psychology and Personality
- Dispositional and Situational Attributions
- The Fundamental Attribution Error and Self-Serving Bias
- Explanatory Style and Locus of Control
- Person Perception and Social Comparison
- Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
- Implicit Attitudes and In-Group Bias
- Belief Perseverance and Confirmation Bias
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Social Norms and Types of Influence
- Conformity
- Obedience
- Persuasion
- Group Polarization and Groupthink
- Social Loafing, Facilitation, and Deindividuation
- Culture, Superordinate Goals, and Social Traps
- Altruism and the Bystander Effect
- The Unconscious and Defense Mechanisms
- The Humanistic View of Personality
- Reciprocal Determinism and Self-Efficacy
- Trait Theory and the Big Five
- Drive Reduction and Homeostasis
- Arousal Theory and Sensation Seeking
- Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
- Motivational Conflicts
- Hunger and Belongingness
- Theories of Emotion
- Facial Feedback and Broaden-and-Build
- Universal Emotions and Display Rules
Unit 5Mental and Physical Health
- Stress and the Body
- Stressors, Eustress, and Daily Hassles
- The General Adaptation Syndrome
- Coping With Stress
- Well-Being, Gratitude, and Signature Strengths
- Resilience and Posttraumatic Growth
- Defining a Psychological Disorder
- The DSM, the ICD, and the Cost of a Label
- Perspectives on the Causes of Disorders
- The Biopsychosocial and Diathesis-Stress Models
- Neurodevelopmental Disorders
- Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders
- Depressive Disorders
- Bipolar Disorders
- Anxiety Disorders
- Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders
- Dissociative Disorders
- Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorders
- Feeding and Eating Disorders
- Personality Disorders
- Psychodynamic and Humanistic Therapies
- Cognitive Therapies
- Behavior Therapies and Exposure
- Biomedical Interventions
- Effectiveness, Ethics, and Deinstitutionalization
Unit 6Science Practices: Research Methods and Data
- 2.A Experimental and Non-Experimental Designs
- 2.B Hypotheses and Operational Definitions
- 2.B Independent, Dependent, and Confounding Variables
- 2.B Populations, Samples, and Sampling Bias
- 2.B Random Assignment, Control Groups, and Placebos
- 2.B Single-Blind and Double-Blind Procedures
- 2.C Case Studies, Observation, and Meta-Analysis
- 2.C Correlation and the Scatterplot
- 2.C Why Correlation Is Not Causation
- 2.C Surveys, Likert Scales, and Self-Report Bias
- 3.B Central Tendency and Variation
- 3.B The Normal Curve and Percentile Rank
- 3.B Regression Toward the Mean
- 3.C Effect Size and Statistical Significance
- 2.D Research Ethics
- 4.B Peer Review, Replication, and Reasoning Biases