AP Notes
Modules 1 & 2
Psychology’s History & Approaches/ Thinking Critically with Psychological Science
History of psychology topics are addressed throughout the textbook. Where their theories and research are relevant,
the psychologists from this unit will be mentioned. Be sure to try & go back and connect the people and ideas you
learned in this unit with those mentioned later.
You may leave this unit believing that psychologists still subscribe to defined perspectives. Modern psychologists are
more eclectic, using ideas, theories & research from multiple perspectives according to their needs.
Contemporary Psychology (what you will need to focus on for AP exam)
Biopsychosocial approach
Biological psychology
Evolutionary psychology
Psychodynamic psychology
Behavioral psychology
Cognitive psychology
Social-cultural psychology
Psychometrics
Basic & applied research
Developmental psychology
Educational psychology
Personality psychology
Social psychology
Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology
Human factors psychology
Counseling psychology
Clinical psychology
Psychiatry
You will see throughout the course that the definition of psychology expands beyond the therapist and his/her couch.
Psychology is a wide ranging discipline that can encompass any aspect of human and nonhuman behavior.
Here’s a website that where you can search for important events that happened in psychology—especially on your
birthday! Today in the History of Psychology: http://www.cwu.edu/~warren/today.html
Structuralism and Functionalism, the two early schools of thought in psychology, are often confused by students.
Because these two concepts are less relevant to later study of psychology, remember to come back to this page:
 Structuralism has its basis in Wundt’s European perspective.
 Functionalism is based on William James’ ideas about psychology having practical applications to life
 Structuralists sought to identify what the mind and consciousness were
 Functionalists sought to identify how the and consciousness work
Another way to distinguish between structuralism & functionalism:
Use salt: you learn about salt by studying its structure-its components (sodium & chlorine). You
learn different aspects of salt by studying its functions or uses—melting ice, flavoring or preserving
food
To help to remember John Locke’s idea of tabula rasa ink it with Behaviorism and John Watson. Watson believed he
could take any infant and raise the child in a chosen environment to create any type of person he might want. He
believed the environment was the main component of psychology, just as Locke believed.
Humanistic psychology is often referred in history books as the “third force” in psychology. Students often don’t
understand why humanistic psychology has this nickname. At the time of its beginnings in the 1950s and 1960s,
psychologists followed either the behaviorist or the psychoanalytic perspective. Humanistic psychology offered a
third way of thinking about behavior.
 Humanistic psychologists believed people were essentially good, unlike psychoanalytic psychologists.
 Humanistic psychologists believed humans were unique and distinct from animals, unlike behaviorists.
Another school of thought in psychology that is mentioned elsewhere is Gestalt psychology—an early school of
psychology from Germany that studied how people organized perceptual experiences in understandable ways. They
are famous for developing rules for how we organize what we sense and perceive, and for the statement that, “the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Gestalt psychology is discussed in Mods 12—17.
Psychologists use different technologies to study how cognition and biology interact. These technologies: fMRI, CT
scan, EEG, PET scan, are used to study the brain and diagnose mental and physical illness. These are discussed more
thoroughly in Mod 5
I know that Darwinism is somewhat controversial, especially when considering religion. When dealing with
psychology, focus only on the key elements of evolution that are important to psychology: natural selection and
adaptation within species. These ideas have a significant scientific basis in all species, including humans. Focus more
on how one’s present environment would necessitate physical and psychological adaptation for the success of future
generations.
Here are two quick demos to show that many traits and behaviors are inherited:
 Draw a straight horizontal line on a sheet of paper. When you place the tip of your ring
finger on the line, does the tip of the forefinger also reach the line? Research indicates that
short forefingers are determined by a recessive trait in females, whereas in males, it is
dominant.
 When interlocking your fingers, do you place the left or right thumb on top? This particular
characteristic is genetically controlled. Practice or experience has no effect.
Additionally, there are several misunderstandings about evolutionary psychology:
 Evolution does NOT imply genetic determinism.
 Behavior CAN be changed.
 Organisms do NOT have a conscious or unconscious goal of maximizing gene reproduction. Rather, the most
adaptive traits will survive due to natural selection.
Throughout the course, you may want to sue the graphic in Fig 1.1 to analyze any behavior you will study. For
instance, in Social Psychology, you could fill in the biological, psychological, and social-cultural reasons for the
results of the Milgram obedience studies or the Asch conformity studies. This type of activity will help you to
remember these three levels of analysis as we go further & further into the text.
The difference between the psychodynamic theory & psychoanalytic theory is that the psychodynamic theory is less
concerned with the sexual emphasis Freud advocated. Psychodynamic psychologists focus more on childhood
relationships and how those affect normal adult behavior.
Table 1.1 list of subfields in psychology is NOT exhaustive. If you look at Appendix A in the back of your text, you will
see the type of careers and education you would need to pursue a career in psychology.
For example, positive psychology is the modern “evolution” of humanistic psychology. Positive psychology holds
many of the same ideas as humanistic psychology—discovering human potential and fulfillment—but relies more on
scientific methodology rather than theorizing to explore ideas. Believe it or not, Dr. Zimbardo has led the charge on
this new field.
You may have a tendency to overlook the difference between basic and applied research:
 Basic research is more concerned with discovering concepts or processes. It is less practical in nature.
 Applied research is more concerned with providing solutions to problems. It is more practical in nature.
Some psychologists from each of the subfields mentioned engage in basic research while others engage in
applied research. Some areas like I/O or human factors psychology are largely applied in nature while others,
like developmental psychology, are more basic in nature.
Basic research is much like structuralism, whose adherents wanted to discover what the mind and consciousness
were. Applied research is much like functionalism, whose practitioners wanted to discover how the mind and
consciousness worked and how they helped people adapt to circumstances.
Many typically do not understand the differences between psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, especially since
both are referred to as “doctors.”
 Psychiatrists go to medical school and receive training in the treatment of psychological disorders during a
specialized residency. Typically, psychiatrists treat psychological disorders with medically based treatments,
often prescribing drugs in addition to, or instead o psychotherapy.
 Clinical psychologists earn a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, which includes a specialized internship in which they
practice different psychologically based treatments, or psychotherapies. Typically, clinical psychologists use
psychotherapy to treat mental illness.
Today, many psychiatrists work together in mental health settings to maximize the biopsychosocial approach
to treating mental illness.
Module 2
A great way to introduce this unit is to present common misconceptions about behavior that are persistent in
popular culture. By pointing out misconceptions and the evidence against them, you can be more aware o other
misconceptions you may have. Consider whether each of the following are true or false:
 Most people suffer from unrealistic low self-esteem.
 The opinions of 1500 randomly selected people can provide a fairly accurate picture of the opinions of an
entire nature.
 The scientific finding that depressed people tend to have low self-esteem proves that depression causes
people to be down on themselves.
*Answers can be found at the end of these notes!!
Another example of errors in critical thinking occurred after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings. Immediately after
the bombings, alerts were issued to be on the lookout for suspicious-looking persons of Middle Eastern or Arabic
descent. The prevailing notion was that Muslim extremists were at fault for the devastating act of terror. However,
the perpetrator was a white male, Timothy McVay, who was disgruntled at the government’s involvement with the
events in Wacco, Texas five years earlier.
Note that the term confirmation bias is not used in this unit, but it will be used in later units regarding Thinking.
Table 2.1 provides a great opportunity to discuss confirmation bias, a phenomenon in which people look for evidence
that confirms their beliefs and ignore evidence that disputes their beliefs.
Another way to test yourself is to predict what grade you will get on your next quiz or test. Also rate your confidence
in your prediction on a scale of 1 to 10 that your prediction will be correct. Then, after the quiz or test, compare your
original prediction with your actual score. Did you fall victim to overconfidence or hindsight bias?
James Randi, also known as the Amazing Randi, maintains a web site devoted to critical thinking and skepticism
about all manner or phenomena: www.randi.org/site/
This text does not use the term generalizability which is often used on the AP Exam. Generalizability refers to what
degree the results of a study can be applied to different types of populations.
People often learn that a hypothesis is an “educated guess” or “testable question.” In psychology, a hypothesis is a
statement of relationship between or among variables. Psychologists generate these statements after researching
what other scientists have learned and observing variables in the environment.
Also, people have the misconception that theories are as much the product of guesswork as hypotheses are.
Theories are generally highly researched, rigorously tested frameworks that organize multiple studies under one
umbrella of ideas.
Operational definitions are often tough to understand. The operational definition is perhaps the most important
part of the research study because it defines what the researcher will be observing and manipulating. Operational
definitions need to be 1.) measurable and 2.) manageable. If they are not measurable and manageable, the
research will be difficult to conduct.
Try to generate operational definitions for the following variables:
 Happiness
 A smile
 Intelligence
 Popularity
 Good music
Replication is the main goal of all good research. Replication allows researchers to test hypotheses with other
samples from other populations so that results can be generalized. If results work for many different types of
populations, then scientists can be reasonably comfortable that those results would apply to most people.
The APA Ethics Code requires that institutions that allow animal experimentation to take place establish an Animal
Care and Use Committee to review whether the studies done on animals follow ethical standards.
Some famous studies in Social Psychology spurred a tightening of ethical standards. Stanley Milgram’s obedience
study and Philip Zimbardo’s prison-guard study forced researchers to consider the long-term psychological effects on
participants who may commit acts they didn’t realize they were capable of.
Additionally, there are the ethical considerations of confidentiality and anonymity:
 Confidentiality refers to keeping participant information private. If a researcher collects identifying
information, that information must not be released and the data must not be presented so that the
individual participants can be identified through any kind of process of elimination.
 Anonymity refers to participating in a study without providing identifying information. Many studies do not
require participants to identify themselves at all. For some research, the guarantee of anonymity might help
participants respond more truthfully.
The picture of Kenneth Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark highlights the contributions of people of color to psychology.
The Clarks conducted some of the most famous studies in psychology. Their work was the first psychological
research to be cited in a Supreme Court decision. Their work highlighted the importance of examining controversial
and societal issues with scientific methodology.