Psychology 101 Study Guide

Everything you need for Intro to Psychology - from the brain and behavior to disorders and therapy. Covers PSYA01, PSYC 100, PSY 101, and AP Psychology.

1. Research Methods in Psychology

Psychology is a science. That means everything you learn in this course is backed by research methods - understanding these methods is often 10-15% of the exam.

The Scientific Method in Psychology

1. Observe a phenomenon
2. Form a hypothesis (testable prediction)
3. Design a study (experiment, survey, observation, case study)
4. Collect and analyze data
5. Draw conclusions and replicate

Research Designs

Design	What It Does	Can Show Causation?	Example
Experiment	Manipulates IV, measures DV, controls confounds	Yes	Does caffeine improve test scores?
Correlational	Measures relationship between two variables	No	Is screen time related to GPA?
Survey	Self-report questionnaires	No	How stressed are first-year students?
Case Study	In-depth study of one individual/group	No	Patient H.M. and memory
Naturalistic Observation	Observe behavior in natural setting	No	How do children interact at recess?
Longitudinal	Same participants over time	No (shows change)	Tracking IQ from age 5 to 50
Cross-sectional	Different age groups at one time	No	Comparing memory in 20s vs 60s

Key Terms

• Independent Variable (IV): what the researcher manipulates
• Dependent Variable (DV): what the researcher measures
• Confounding Variable: uncontrolled factor that could explain results
• Random Assignment: participants randomly placed in conditions (reduces confounds)
• Random Sampling: every member of population has equal chance of selection (improves generalizability)
• Double-blind: neither participant nor researcher knows condition assignment
• Placebo effect: improvement from believing you received treatment
• Operational definition: specific, measurable definition of a variable

2. Biological Psychology

This section links the brain and nervous system to behavior. It's the most "science-y" part of intro psych and often the most heavily tested.

The Neuron

Neurons are the basic building blocks of the nervous system. Here's how they work:

1. Dendrites receive signals from other neurons
2. Signal travels along the axon (covered in myelin sheath for speed)
3. Reaches the axon terminal (synaptic knob)
4. Neurotransmitters released into the synapse (gap between neurons)
5. Bind to receptors on the next neuron's dendrites

Key Neurotransmitters

Neurotransmitter	Function	Too Little	Too Much
Serotonin	Mood, sleep, appetite	Depression	Serotonin syndrome
Dopamine	Reward, motivation, movement	Parkinson's disease	Schizophrenia (hypothesis)
Norepinephrine	Alertness, arousal, fight-or-flight	Depression	Anxiety
GABA	Inhibition (calms neural activity)	Anxiety, seizures	Sedation
Glutamate	Excitation (major excitatory NT)	Cognitive impairment	Seizures, excitotoxicity
Acetylcholine	Muscle movement, memory, attention	Alzheimer's disease	Muscle spasms
Endorphins	Pain relief, pleasure	Chronic pain sensitivity	Insensitivity to pain

Brain Structure

The brain is organized into regions, each with specialized functions:

The Cerebral Cortex (4 Lobes)

• Frontal lobe: planning, decision-making, personality, motor control (Broca's area = speech production)
• Parietal lobe: somatosensory processing (touch, temperature, pain), spatial awareness
• Temporal lobe: auditory processing, memory (Wernicke's area = speech comprehension)
• Occipital lobe: visual processing

Subcortical Structures

• Thalamus: sensory relay station (everything except smell)
• Hypothalamus: hunger, thirst, temperature, hormones (the "4 F's": fighting, fleeing, feeding, mating)
• Hippocampus: forming new memories (Patient H.M. - removed hippocampus → no new memories)
• Amygdala: emotion processing (especially fear)
• Cerebellum: coordination, balance, motor learning
• Brain stem: basic life functions (breathing, heart rate, sleep/wake)

The Nervous System

• Central Nervous System (CNS): brain + spinal cord
• Peripheral Nervous System (PNS):
  • Somatic: voluntary movement
  • Autonomic: involuntary functions
    • Sympathetic: fight-or-flight (activates)
    • Parasympathetic: rest-and-digest (calms)

3. Sensation and Perception

Sensation = detecting physical energy from the environment (bottom-up). Perception = organizing and interpreting that information (top-down).

Key Concepts

• Absolute threshold: minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50% of the time
• Difference threshold (JND): minimum difference between two stimuli that can be detected 50% of the time
• Weber's Law: the JND is a constant proportion of the original stimulus (e.g., notice 5% change in weight)
• Signal Detection Theory: detection depends on the signal strength AND the observer's state (motivation, fatigue, expectations)
• Sensory adaptation: decreased sensitivity after constant stimulation (stop smelling your own perfume)

Gestalt Principles of Perception

Your brain groups visual elements using these rules:

• Figure-ground: distinguish object (figure) from background (ground)
• Proximity: objects near each other are grouped together
• Similarity: similar objects are grouped together
• Closure: brain fills in gaps to complete shapes
• Continuity: brain perceives smooth, continuous lines rather than abrupt changes

4. States of Consciousness

Sleep Stages

Stage	Brain Waves	What Happens	Key Facts
NREM 1	Theta	Light sleep, hypnic jerks	5-10 min, easy to wake
NREM 2	Sleep spindles, K-complexes	Body temp drops, HR slows	~50% of total sleep
NREM 3	Delta (slow-wave)	Deep/restorative sleep	Growth hormone released, hard to wake
REM	Beta (active, like waking)	Vivid dreaming, eyes move	Body paralyzed (atonia), memory consolidation

Sleep Disorders

• Insomnia: difficulty falling/staying asleep (most common)
• Sleep apnea: breathing stops repeatedly during sleep
• Narcolepsy: sudden attacks of sleep during the day (enters REM immediately)
• Night terrors: intense fear episodes during NREM 3 (NOT nightmares, which occur during REM)
• Sleepwalking: occurs during NREM 3 (deep sleep, not during dreams)

5. Learning: Classical and Operant Conditioning

This is often the most heavily tested chapter. Know the differences cold.

Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)

Learning through association. A neutral stimulus becomes associated with one that naturally triggers a response.

Key Terms

• UCS (Unconditioned Stimulus): naturally triggers a response
• UCR (Unconditioned Response): natural, unlearned reaction
• CS (Conditioned Stimulus): previously neutral, now triggers response
• CR (Conditioned Response): learned reaction to the CS
• Extinction: CS presented alone repeatedly → CR fades
• Spontaneous recovery: CR reappears after a rest period (even after extinction)
• Generalization: responding to stimuli similar to the CS
• Discrimination: responding only to the specific CS

Operant Conditioning (Skinner)

Learning through consequences. Behavior is shaped by reinforcement (increases behavior) and punishment (decreases behavior).

	Positive (Add Something)	Negative (Remove Something)
Reinforcement (increase behavior)	Give a reward. "Good job" sticker for homework.	Remove something unpleasant. Seatbelt stops beeping.
Punishment (decrease behavior)	Add something unpleasant. Speeding ticket.	Take away something pleasant. Phone confiscated.

Reinforcement Schedules

Schedule	How It Works	Example	Response Pattern
Fixed Ratio	After every N responses	Paid per 10 items assembled	High rate, brief pause after reward
Variable Ratio	After unpredictable # of responses	Slot machine	Highest, most consistent rate (hardest to extinguish)
Fixed Interval	After a set time period	Paycheck every 2 weeks	Increases near the end of interval
Variable Interval	After unpredictable time periods	Checking email for a reply	Steady, moderate rate

Observational Learning (Bandura)

Bobo doll experiment: Children who watched adults act aggressively toward a doll imitated the behavior. Learning happens through observation, even without direct reinforcement. Requires: attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation.

6. Memory

The Three-Stage Model (Atkinson-Shiffrin)

1. Sensory Memory: ultra-brief (0.5-3 seconds), large capacity. Iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory).
2. Short-Term/Working Memory: ~20-30 seconds without rehearsal. Capacity: 7 ± 2 items (Miller's magic number). Can be extended through chunking.
3. Long-Term Memory: potentially unlimited capacity and duration.
   • Explicit (declarative): facts you can consciously recall
     • Episodic: personal events (your 10th birthday)
     • Semantic: general knowledge (Ottawa is Canada's capital)
   • Implicit (non-declarative): skills, habits, conditioned responses
     • Procedural: how to ride a bike
     • Priming: exposure to one stimulus affects response to another

Encoding Strategies

• Elaborative rehearsal: connecting new info to existing knowledge (much more effective than rote repetition)
• Self-referencing: relating material to yourself ("When have I experienced this?")
• Depth of processing (Craik & Lockhart): deeper processing = better encoding. Shallow = appearance. Deep = meaning.
• Spacing effect: studying over time beats cramming (this is why spaced repetition works)

Why We Forget

• Encoding failure: never stored properly in the first place
• Decay: memory trace fades over time (especially STM)
• Interference:
  • Proactive: old memories interfere with new ones (old phone number blocks new one)
  • Retroactive: new memories interfere with old ones (new password makes you forget the old one)
• Retrieval failure: information is stored but can't be accessed (tip-of-the-tongue)
• Motivated forgetting: repression of painful memories (controversial in modern psych)

7. Developmental Psychology

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

Stage	Age	Key Feature	Limitation
Sensorimotor	0-2	Object permanence (things exist when hidden)	No mental representations yet
Preoperational	2-7	Symbolic thinking, language explosion	Egocentrism, no conservation
Concrete Operational	7-11	Conservation, logical thought about concrete events	Can't think abstractly
Formal Operational	12+	Abstract reasoning, hypothetical thinking	Not everyone fully reaches this stage

Erikson's Psychosocial Stages (Key Ones for Exams)

Stage	Age	Crisis	What Happens
1	0-1	Trust vs. Mistrust	Can I trust my caregivers?
5	12-18	Identity vs. Role Confusion	Who am I? (most relevant to college students)
6	19-40	Intimacy vs. Isolation	Can I form close relationships?
7	40-65	Generativity vs. Stagnation	Am I contributing to the next generation?
8	65+	Integrity vs. Despair	Did I live a meaningful life?

Attachment Theory (Ainsworth)

Based on the Strange Situation experiment (observing infant reactions to caregiver leaving/returning):

• Secure (~60%): distressed when caregiver leaves, happy on return. Healthy exploration.
• Anxious-ambivalent (~15%): very distressed on separation, clingy on return but also resistant.
• Avoidant (~20%): shows little distress, avoids caregiver on return.
• Disorganized (~5%): confused, contradictory behavior. Associated with abuse/neglect.

Kohlberg's Moral Development

• Pre-conventional (childhood): obey rules to avoid punishment or gain rewards
• Conventional (adolescence): follow rules to gain approval or maintain social order
• Post-conventional (some adults): moral reasoning based on abstract principles of justice

8. Personality Theories

Theory	Key Figure	Core Idea	Strengths	Weaknesses
Psychoanalytic	Freud	Unconscious drives (id, ego, superego), defense mechanisms	Introduced concept of unconscious	Unfalsifiable, overemphasis on sexuality
Humanistic	Maslow, Rogers	Self-actualization, unconditional positive regard	Positive view of human nature	Hard to test scientifically
Trait	Allport, Big Five	Personality = stable traits along dimensions	Reliable, measurable, cross-cultural	Descriptive, not explanatory
Social-Cognitive	Bandura	Reciprocal determinism (person ↔ behavior ↔ environment)	Testable, accounts for context	May underestimate biology

The Big Five (OCEAN)

• Openness - creativity, curiosity, openness to new experiences
• Conscientiousness - organization, self-discipline, reliability
• Extraversion - sociability, assertiveness, positive emotionality
• Agreeableness - trust, altruism, cooperation
• Neuroticism - anxiety, moodiness, emotional instability

Freud's Defense Mechanisms

• Repression: pushing threatening thoughts into the unconscious
• Denial: refusing to accept reality
• Projection: attributing your own unacceptable feelings to others
• Displacement: redirecting emotions to a safer target (angry at boss → kick the dog)
• Rationalization: creating logical explanations for irrational behavior
• Sublimation: channeling unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable activities (aggression → sports)
• Regression: reverting to an earlier developmental stage under stress

9. Social Psychology

How people think about, influence, and relate to each other. This chapter is full of classic experiments and counterintuitive findings.

Attribution

• Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE): overestimating personality and underestimating situational factors when explaining others' behavior. ("She's rude" vs. "She's having a bad day.")
• Self-serving bias: attributing successes to yourself, failures to the situation
• Just-world hypothesis: believing people get what they deserve (can lead to blaming victims)

Social Influence

• Conformity (Asch): changing behavior to match a group, even when the group is clearly wrong. 75% of participants conformed at least once.
• Obedience (Milgram): 65% of participants delivered what they believed were lethal shocks when instructed by an authority figure.
• Groupthink: desire for group harmony overrides critical thinking (Bay of Pigs, Challenger disaster)
• Social loafing: putting in less effort in a group than when working alone
• Bystander effect (Kitty Genovese): less likely to help when others are present. Diffusion of responsibility.
• Deindividuation: losing self-awareness in a group → more extreme behavior

Attitudes and Persuasion

• Cognitive dissonance (Festinger): discomfort from holding conflicting beliefs/actions. Resolved by changing one of them. Classic study: paid $1 vs. $20 to say a boring task was fun → $1 group changed their attitude more.
• Foot-in-the-door: small request first → large request later
• Door-in-the-face: large request first (refused) → smaller request later

Prejudice and Discrimination

• Stereotype: cognitive generalization about a group
• Prejudice: negative attitude toward a group
• Discrimination: negative behavior toward a group
• In-group bias: favoring your own group
• Contact hypothesis: prejudice decreases when groups interact as equals on common goals

10. Psychological Disorders

The DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) is the classification system used to diagnose disorders. Know the criteria for major disorders, not just their names.

Anxiety Disorders

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): persistent, excessive worry about multiple things for 6+ months
• Panic Disorder: recurring panic attacks (sudden terror, chest pain, shortness of breath)
• Specific Phobias: intense, irrational fear of a specific object or situation
• Social Anxiety Disorder: intense fear of social situations and judgment
• OCD (now its own category): obsessions (unwanted thoughts) + compulsions (repetitive behaviors to reduce anxiety)

Mood Disorders

• Major Depressive Disorder: depressed mood or loss of interest for 2+ weeks, plus changes in sleep, appetite, energy, concentration, self-worth. Leading cause of disability worldwide.
• Bipolar Disorder: alternating episodes of depression and mania (elevated mood, decreased need for sleep, grandiosity, risky behavior). Not the same as mood swings.
• Persistent Depressive Disorder: milder but chronic depression lasting 2+ years

Schizophrenia Spectrum

Characterized by a break from reality. Symptoms are divided into:

• Positive symptoms (additions to normal experience): hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech/behavior
• Negative symptoms (reductions from normal experience): flat affect, social withdrawal, lack of motivation
• Cognitive symptoms: impaired working memory, attention, executive function

Other Important Disorders

• PTSD: flashbacks, nightmares, hyperarousal following a traumatic event
• Dissociative Identity Disorder: two or more distinct personality states (controversial)
• Antisocial Personality Disorder: disregard for others' rights, lack of empathy/remorse (not just "antisocial" in everyday sense)
• Borderline Personality Disorder: emotional instability, fear of abandonment, impulsive behavior, unstable relationships

11. Therapy and Treatment

Approach	Based On	Technique	Best For
Psychoanalytic	Freud - unconscious conflicts	Free association, dream analysis, transference	Understanding deep-rooted patterns
Humanistic (Client-Centered)	Rogers - self-actualization	Unconditional positive regard, active listening, reflection	Self-esteem, personal growth
CBT	Beck/Ellis - faulty cognitions	Identify and challenge irrational thoughts, behavioral experiments	Depression, anxiety, most disorders (gold standard)
Behavioral	Skinner/Pavlov - learned behavior	Systematic desensitization, exposure therapy, token economy	Phobias, OCD, substance abuse
Biomedical	Brain chemistry/structure	Medication (SSRIs, antipsychotics), ECT, TMS	Severe depression, schizophrenia, bipolar

Key Medications

• SSRIs (Prozac, Zoloft): increase serotonin. First-line for depression and anxiety.
• SNRIs (Effexor, Cymbalta): increase serotonin + norepinephrine.
• Antipsychotics (Haldol, Clozapine): block dopamine receptors. For schizophrenia.
• Mood stabilizers (Lithium): for bipolar disorder.
• Benzodiazepines (Xanax, Valium): enhance GABA. For acute anxiety. Risk of dependence.

12. Exam Strategy for Intro Psychology

What Psych Exams Actually Test

Most intro psych exams are application-based, not definition-based. You won't just be asked "What is operant conditioning?" You'll be given a scenario: "A child cleans their room to avoid their parent's nagging. What type of operant conditioning is this?" (Answer: negative reinforcement - removing something unpleasant to increase behavior.)

Study Strategies That Work

1. Make comparison tables: Classical vs. operant conditioning. Proactive vs. retroactive interference. Positive vs. negative reinforcement vs. punishment. These comparisons are exam gold.
2. Create your own examples: For every concept, generate a real-life example. If you can't explain it with an example, you don't understand it well enough.
3. Practice scenarios: Get a study partner and quiz each other with "What type of X is this?" questions.
4. Don't just re-read: Active recall is 3x more effective. Close the textbook and explain each concept from memory.
5. Focus on the classics: Pavlov, Milgram, Asch, Bandura, Ainsworth, Piaget, Erikson - these studies are always tested.

Common Exam Traps

• Confusing negative reinforcement with punishment (most common mistake)
• Mixing up proactive and retroactive interference
• Confusing schizophrenia with DID (dissociative identity disorder)
• Attributing behavior to personality when the situation explains it (FAE on the exam about FAE)
• Thinking correlation = causation (the exam WILL test this)

Frequently Asked Questions