Exam Review

AP Psychology

Free Response Review Questions

Question 1.

1. Outline the nature-nurture debate in psychology.
2. How has this debate helped in understanding the following:

· Gender roles

· Schizophrenia

· Language development

· Phobias

· Brain development

· Intelligence

· Diathesis stress model

Questions 2

How have stage theorists explained the following?

· Moral development

· Physical maturation

· Cognitive development

· Personality development

Question 3

Much of human processing is below the level of conscious awareness:

Explain with reference to the following:

· Insight

· Use of heuristics

· Dreams

· Perception

· Motivated forgetting

Question 4

Psychology aims to provide practical advice on a range of human issues

What advice does psychology offer on the following issues?

· Using Punishment to reduce unwanted behaviors

· Reducing Stress

· Maintaining Mental health

· Improving your memory

· Encouraging pro-social behavior

Question 5

What insights have been provided by evolutionary psychology on the following?

· Attraction

· Eating and obesity

· Phobias

· In-group and Out-group

Question 6

Culture has an important influence on human behavior producing both similarities and differences. Explain with reference to the following:

· Parenting styles

· Gestures

· Emotional expressions

· Depression

· Facial expressions

Question 7

Humans like to think that they are logical and rational beings:

With reference to the following, how has this belief being challenged?

· FAE

· Optical illusions

· Proactive and Retroactive interference

· Belief perseverance

· Overconfidence

· Heuristics

· Groupthink

· Just-world phenomenon

· Learned helplessness

Questions 8

Humans need to interact with the environment to develop:

Explain with reference to the following:

· Language development

· Critical periods

· Brain plasticity

· Bottom-up and top-down processing

· Intellectual development

· Unconditional positive regard

Question 9

How would the different psychological perspectives help someone suffering from a psychological disorder?

· Psychodynamic

· Cognitive

· Humanistic

· Learning

· Biological

Question 10

As social animals, we need to be with others. However being with other can have both positive and negative outcomes. Explain with reference to the following:

· Deindividuation

· Bystander affect

· Social loafing

· Social facilitation

· Conformity

· Obedience

Quesiton11

We are well suited to survive in a highly complex environment? Discuss with reference to the following

· Selective attention

· General adaptation syndrome

· Automatic and effortful processing

· Parallel processing

· Fight or flight response

· Schemas

Question 12

Design an experiment to determine whether listening to different types of music improves academic performance. Identify and explain the importance of each of the following:

· Hypothesis

· Target Population

· Random Sample

· Random Assignment

· IV and DV

· Controls

· Biases

· Use of Statistics

Question 13

Psychology has developed a range of data gathering instruments other than the experiment. Briefly explain how each of the following collects data for investigation:

· Case study

· Survey

· Interview

· Observation

· Longitudinal study

· Cross sectional study

· Correlation study

Questions 14

Psychology has a number of challenges to face in that there are competing theories about important aspects of human behavior. Briefly outline the ongoing debate concerning the following issues:

· The benefits of labeling

· The role of cognition and arousal in emotions

· The person-situation controversy

· The usefulness of therapy

· Perceptions of sounds

· Perception of color

· Absolute thresholds and signal detection theory