AP Psychology Review Discussion Questions



AP Psychology Review Discussion Questions

The following must be typed and submitted on the day of our Spacing Effect test. You may use your notes, power point reviews, or the textbook to complete this assignment.

Early Psychology

1. Explain briefly the influence of Structuralism and Functionalism in psychology’s early attempts to understand the mind’s structure and function. (We will address this together in class.)

2. Describe briefly the evolution of the field of psychology from the 1920’s to today. (To be done in class.)

3. Explain psychology’s biopsychosocial approach to understanding the individual. Provide an example that illustrates each component, as well as their complementary nature.

Research

4. Identify one major strength and weakness of each type of correlational study below.

a. Case study

b. Survey

c. Naturalistic Observation

5. Identify any three major controls used in an experiment and explain briefly how each is a critical element in eliminating bias.

6. Measures of central tendency (mean, median and mode) are helpful in understanding the patterns of data, but why is the standard deviation considered so critical in evaluating statistics?

7. When, (or under what conditions) in psychological studies, is the data thought to have statistical significance?

8. Briefly explain the role of phrenology in early psychologists’ attempt to explain the human brain and mental processes.

9. Describe briefly the process of neurotransmission using the specific parts of the neuron as the basis of your response. Summarize its role in regards to human function?

10. Identify the subdivisions of the Peripheral nervous system and briefly explain the role of each.

11. Describe the role of plasticity in the brain and provide one specific example.

12. What insight does parallel processing provide in understanding the complexity of the human brain? Provide one specific example.

13. Provide any two examples that demonstrate the difficulty associated with the nature-nurture debate in understanding the human condition.

14. Summarize briefly the fundamental perspective of the evolutionary psychologist.

15. Analyze briefly the role of maturation in human development and list two specific examples.

16. Summarize Piaget’s contribution to psychology’s understanding of cognitive development.

17. Why is Kohlberg’s theory on moral development considered to be paralleled with Piaget’s cognitive development?

18. Summarize briefly the role of transduction in human sensation. Provide two specific examples.

19. Explain Gestalt’s contribution in our understanding of human perception.

20. Summarize briefly how each of the following affects our state of consciousness and provide a specific example for each.

a. Circadian rhythm

b. Sleep cycle

21. Summarize, from a neurological perspective, how psychoactive drugs affect our state of consciousness. Provide one specific example for each drug classification.

22. Summarize the influence of the Dopamine reward center on drug addiction.

23. Provide a brief, real life example of how classical and operant conditioning affect our lives on any given day. (One examples for each.)

24. Summarize the major similarities and differences between classical and operant conditioning.

25. “A memory is more atmospheric than accurate, more an evolving fiction than a sacred text.” (Diane Ackerman) Explain what is meant by this quote and list any five principles from our study that would help substantiate this claim.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download