Question 1 of the AP U.S. Government and Politics free-response section will always be the Concept Application prompt. This prompt will begin with a stimulus that is a short paragraph or two describing a political scenario. The paragraph(s) could be an excerpt from news media, a description of a political situation, a summary of information, […]
Sensation: The process by which sensory receptors receive information from the environment; includes vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and the vestibular and kinesthetic senses. Transduction: Conversion of one form of energy into another, as when environmental stimuli are transformed into neural signals. Receptors: Specialized structures that detect specific types of environmental stimuli and transduce them […]
Attitudes: Beliefs and feelings that predispose people to respond in particular ways to situations and other people. Central route to persuasion: A method of persuasion in which you are convinced by the content of the message. Peripheral route to persuasion: A method of persuasion in which you are convinced by something other than the message’s […]
Mental health professionals: Psychologists, medical doctors and nurses, social workers, and licensed counselors who provide psychological treatment. Psychotherapy: An ongoing relationship between a patient and a therapist, in which the two discuss the patient’s experiences and symptoms. Pharmacological treatment: When a mental health professional prescribes a drug for a patient to alleviate psychological distress. Theoretical […]
Abnormal behavior: Maladaptive actions or cognitive processes that defy social norms. Deinstitutionalization: Late twentieth-century movement to release large numbers of asylum patients and reintegrate them into their communities. Medical model: Maintains that abnormal behaviors are symptoms of an underlying disease. Psychoanalytic model: Maintains that abnormal behaviors are caused by repressed memories of childhood trauma and […]
Nature: Innate biological factors that influence development and personality. Nurture: External and environmental factors, including learning, that influence development and personality. Gestation/prenatal development: The process of development from conception to birth. Conception: Fusion of two gametes: one male sex cell (the sperm) and one female sex cell (the egg). Germinal stage: The first stage of […]
Motivation: Processes that initiate, direct, and sustain behavior. Extrinsic motivation: Motivation driven by an external reward or punishment. Intrinsic motivation: Motivation driven by internal factors such as enjoyment and satisfaction. Approach-approach conflicts: Conflicts in which you must decide between desirable options. Avoidance-avoidance conflicts: Conflicts in which you must decide between undesirable options. Approach-avoidance conflicts: Conflicts […]
René Descartes: A French philosopher and mathematician well known for his endorsement of mind-body dualism. Mind-body dualism: Maintains that the mind and the body are distinct substances, each operating according to its own set of principles. John Locke: An English philosopher and empiricist who believed that every human mind begins as a tabula rasa, or […]
Cognition: The process of thinking or mentally processing information such as concepts, language, and images. Automatic processing: The unconscious processing of incidental or well-learned information. Effortful processing: Active processing of information that requires sustained effort. Shallow processing: Processing information based on its surface characteristics. Deep processing: Processing information with respect to its meaning. Attention: The […]
Learning: A relatively permanent change in behavior based on experience. Classical conditioning: A method of learning that creates new associations between neutral stimuli and reflex-causing stimuli. Operant conditioning: A method of learning that alters the frequency of a behavior by manipulating its consequences through reinforcement or punishment. Observational learning/social learning: A form of learning that […]