AP Psychology — Cognition, Development, Personality, Disorders, Social flashcards
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Memory, thinking and intelligence; Piaget, Erikson, Vygotsky, attachment and parenting styles; motivation, emotion and stress; personality theories; the major disorders and treatment approaches; and the classic social-psychology studies, with applied scenarios in the style of the AP Psychology exam.
Learn deck · part of AP Psychology · written against: College Board AP Psychology Course and Exam Description (2024 five-unit revision). Updated 2026-10-10.
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What are the three stores in the Atkinson–Shiffrin model of memory, and roughly how long does each hold information?Sensory memory keeps a raw record for under a second (iconic) to a few seconds (echoic); short-term memory holds about seven items for roughly 20 seconds without rehearsal; long-term memory keeps information for hours to a lifetime and has a vast capacity. Seven is Miller's classic 1956 estimate; more recent research puts short-term capacity nearer four chunks.Cognition › Memory
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How does working memory differ from the older idea of short-term memory?Working memory is an active workspace rather than a passive holding bin: a central executive directs attention while a phonological loop (verbal) and a visuospatial sketchpad (visual) process information and link it with long-term memory.Cognition › Memory
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What is the difference between encoding, storage and retrieval?Encoding gets information into memory, storage keeps it over time, and retrieval pulls it back out; a forgotten name can fail at any of the three stages.Cognition › Memory
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In what order do infants pass through the babbling, one-word and two-word stages, and at about what ages?Babbling begins around 4 months, the one-word (holophrastic) stage around the first birthday, and the two-word telegraphic stage around age 2 — the sequence is the same across languages.Development and Learning › Language
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A child says 'I goed to the park.' What does this error tell you about how language is learned?It is overgeneralization of a grammar rule the child has worked out; since no adult says 'goed', it shows that children extract rules rather than merely imitating what they hear.Development and Learning › Language
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A six-month-old stops looking for a toy once a cloth is placed over it. Which concept, in Piaget's terms, has the infant not yet developed?Object permanence — understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight; it emerges during the sensorimotor stage, typically around eight months. That age comes from Piaget's hidden-object tests; later looking-time studies suggest infants grasp object permanence earlier, from about 3 to 4 months.Development and Learning › Cognitive Development
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What does drive-reduction theory say motivates behavior?A physiological need creates an aroused state (a drive) that pushes the organism to act and restore homeostasis — hunger drives eating until the need is met. The theory cannot explain why we seek stimulation when no need exists.Social Psychology and Personality › Motivation and Emotion
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What does the Yerkes–Dodson law predict about arousal and performance?Performance is best at a moderate level of arousal; the optimal level is lower for difficult tasks and higher for easy ones.Social Psychology and Personality › Motivation and Emotion
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What are the three stages of Selye's general adaptation syndrome?Alarm (the sympathetic nervous system mobilizes), resistance (the body stays on alert to cope) and exhaustion (reserves run down and illness becomes likely if the stressor continues).Mental and Physical Health › Stress
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How does problem-focused coping differ from emotion-focused coping, and when does each fit?Problem-focused coping tackles the stressor itself (making a study plan) and suits situations you can change; emotion-focused coping manages your reaction (seeking support, reframing) and suits situations you cannot control.Mental and Physical Health › Stress
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About these cards
Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.
Checked against:
- Checked against Myers' Psychology for the AP Course (reference only; no text copied).
- Disorder descriptions follow the DSM-5-TR criteria at the level of detail taught in the AP course (reference only; no text copied).
- Topic coverage follows the five-unit AP Psychology course framework taught from 2024–25 (the AP name is used nominatively; no exam or course material reproduced).
- Facts also checked against the American Psychiatric Association's patient pages summarizing DSM-5-TR, NIMH and NIDCD health information pages (public domain U.S. government works), and the published research the cards draw on, including Loftus and Palmer (1974), Festinger and Carlsmith (1959), Dutton and Aron (1974), Fischer et al. (2011) and Philpot et al. (2020) (reference only; no text copied).
- APA Dictionary of Psychology (dictionary.apa.org), the MSD Manual Professional Version, PubMed records and the original studies, consulted as references; no text copied.
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