2009 AP Summer Assignment
The following activities will help you prepare for a year in AP psychology. There are two parts to this
assignment. Part one is reading and outlining articles from The Forty Studies that Changed Psychology and
Part two is a test you will be given on the material.
PART I: reading selected articles from The Forty Studies that Changed Psychology. By Roger Hock.
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-603599-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-603599-2
You must get the sixth edition
YOU SHOULD SECURE A COPY OF THIS BOOK BY JULY 1ST. YOU
WILL NOT BE EXCUSED FROM THE EXAM ON THE 1ST DAY OF
SCHOOL BECAUSE YOU COULD NOT GET A BOOK.
Do not purchase a brand new book. There are many used textbooks sites on the web that offer this book
between $25-35. Check these sites out first before hitting the bookstore. We will be using these studies
throughout the course for group projects and individual assignments.
www.barnesandnoble.com (used books)
www.half.com
www.Bestwebbuys.com
www.amazon.com (used book marketplace)
www.ecampus.com
Your outline for each article should be formatted like the example below.
1 page for each article. Articles should be numbered in order.
THESE WILL BE COLLECTED ON THE FIRST DAY.
I will not accept articles that are NOT typed and bound in a folder or 3 ring binder.
WHAT YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND: As you read, pay close attention to:
 What did the researcher want to find out? (e.g. what was the hypothesis or theoretical proposition)
 What were the results?
 Why are these results significant? (in other words, what did we learn about human behavior?)
 What conclusions can we make about human behavior because of this study?
FOR EXAMPLE:
From the article: You're getting Defensive Again
Hypothesis:
-Hypothesis- The body uses defensive mechanisms to rid the body of anxiety
Results:
- Freud proposed that the body uses a total of ten defensive mechanisms.
- A. Freud only discusses five of the most commonly accepted defense mechanisms
o Repression, pushing anxiety-causing thoughts to the unconscious, is the most common.
o Regression is when one moves back to the mindset of a previous development stage
o Projection is seeing the urges causing the anxiety in others behaviors and pointing them out.
o Reaction formation is when a person performs the opposite behavior of the urge causing the
aggression.
o Sublimation is transforming the urge into a more acceptable action by doing something that
displaces the urge. (Ex. A boxer uses anger for fuel in his next fight)
Key terminology defined: (note not all required terms are illustrated below)
a. Ego defense mechanisms: tools the mind uses to protect you from a conscious awareness of anxiety.
b. Id: part of personality that demand instant gratification
Significance of Experiment:
- Defense mechanisms, used by nearly everyone throughout the course of their lives, help reduce
anxiety and help people create a positive self image.
o Helps us understand how we, as people, are motivated by reasons that are not directly
observable.
o This theory also offers explanations for various phobias, anxiety attacks, and obsessivecompulsive disorders
o Repression of anxiety is believed to be the source of these problems.
Conclusions:
 Defense mechanisms provide us a useful tool to obtain insightful information in to the causes of
people’s behavior.
You should have an outline for the following articles:
Use reading to define key terms that are identified within the articles
Chapter 1:
1. One Brain or Two
a. Corpus callosum
2. More Experience = Bigger Brain
a. Cerebral cortex
b. Neurons
c. Synapse
3. Are you a Natural
a. Behaviorism theory
b. Monozygotic twins
c. Dizygotic twins
4. Watch out for the visual cliff.
a. Nativist position
b. Social referencing
Chapter 2:
5. Take a long look
a. habituation
6. To Sleep no doubt to dream
a. REM-rebound effect
7. Unromancing the dream
a. Latent content
b. Manifest content
8. Acting if you were hypnotized
a. Hypnotic behaviors
Chapter 3:
9. It's not just about salivating dogs
a. Unconditioned response
b. Conditioned response
c. Unconditioned stimulus
d. Conditioned stimulus
10. Little Emotional Albert
a. Generalization
b. Extinction
11. Knock wood
a. Radical behaviorist
12. See aggression…do aggression
a. Social learning theory
Chapter 4:
13. What you expect is what you get.
a. Pygmalion effect-self fulfilling
prophecy
14. Just how are you intelligent
15. Maps in your mind
a. Cognitive maps
16. Thanks for the memories
a. reconstruction
Chapter 5:
17. Discovering love
18. Out of sight, but not out of mind
a. Object permanence
19. How moral are you?
a. Care orientation
20. In control and glad of it
Chapter 6:
21. Sexual motivation
22. I can see it all over your face
a. Facial feedback theory
23. Life, change, stress
a. Stress
b. Health psychologists
c. Hypochondriacs
d. Social Readjustment Scale
24. Thoughts out of tune
a. Cognitive dissonance
Chapter 7:
25. Are you a master of your fate?
26. Masculine or Feminine or both?
a. Gender identity
b. Androgynous
c. Reliability
d. Validity
27. Racing against your heart
a. Type A personality
28. The one, the many
Chapter 8:
29. Who's crazy here, anyway?
30. You’re getting defensive again
a. Ego defensive mechanisms
b. Id
c. Ego
d. Superego
e. Pleasure principle
31. Learning to be depressed
a. Learned helplessness
32. Crowding in the Behavioral sink
Chapter 9:
33. Choosing your psychotherapist.
a. Meta-analysis
34. Relaxing your fears away
a. Anxiety disorders
b. Systematic desensitization technique
35. Projections of who you are
a. Projective test
36. Picture this!
Chapter 10:
37. A prison by any other name
38. The power of conformity
a. Social norms
b. Perceptual conformity
39. To help or not to help
a. Prosocial behavior
b. Bystander intervention (bystander
effect)
c. Diffusion of responsibility
40. Obey at any cost.
PART II: Assessment 50pts
On the FIRST day of class, you will take a multiple choice test on the studies. You must have the readings
(with outlines) completed prior to this class. You can use your notes on the test.
NO EXCEPTIONS WILL BE MADE.
YOU WILL TAKE THIS TEST ON YOUR
FIRST DAY BACK.
Email me over the summer, if you have any questions about this
assignment.
Brooke.Fisher@hcps.org