Individual Psychology and Behavior - AP Psychology

Reuptake is a term used to describe the process of a neuron absorbing the remaining neurotransmitter back into the axon terminal for release. SSRIs used to treat depression, they function by inhibiting this reuptake process for serotonin.

Acetylcholine affects movement, learning, memory and REM sleep. It has an excitatory affect on skeletal muscle fiber and an inhibitory affect on heart muscle fibers.

The retina captures external light and converts it into visual images that are sent to the brain. The retina contains rods, which detect black and white, and cones, which detect color.

When Skinner developed the operant conditioning box, it famously became known as the Skinner box. When a stimulus was presented, the box was designed such that a reward (or punishment) could be delivered depending on the subject's reaction to the stimulus. For example, when a light was shown, a mouse could push a lever and receive food.

Type A personalities are characterized as being very competitive, goal-driven, and impatient. Additionally, Type A personalities are most likely to exhibit high levels of anger, hostility, and cynicism. While all humans will, at some point, experience lethargy, sadness, happiness, and depression these are, specifically, not characteristic of a Type A personality.

The Cannon-Bard theory states that the brain cannot rely on bodily responses to know which emotions it is experiencing. This is supported by the observation that a racing heart can indicate excitement, fear, or anger.

Edward Thorndike was a prominent American psychologist who proposed the law of effect, which posits that responses that are followed with a positive consequence are more likely to be repeated, as opposed to responses that are not reinforced. B.F. Skinner's theory of operant conditioning is primarily based on the law of effect.

Those with a fantasy-prone personality spend much time daydreaming, thus utilizing their vivid imagination. They are often able to recall their fantasies with near perfect accuracy.

Alfred Alder focused greatly on the biology behind psychology in his early career. As a child, Alder was frequently physically weak and ill. He eventually recovered and went on to become a successful psychologist. The theory that a person’s psyche can become weak due to their organs being weak was influenced by Alder’s childhood experiences.

Conservation refers to the ability to know that physical properties, like mass and volume, are the same even if the object is in a different form.

The Bobo doll experiment serves as a groundbreaking study on aggression and demonstrates that children are able to learn by behavioral observation.

In the Bobo doll experiment, children who observed an adult acting agressively towards a blow up "Bobo doll" toy would emulate and mimic that behavior. This supports the social learning theory developed by Bandura.

Gardner claimed that a person's intelligence could be measured along these eight parameters: linguistic, logic-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. These eight different abilities correspond to three overarching categories of intelligence: the ability to create things of cultural value, problem solving, and the ability to gather knowledge. He informally considers there to be two additional intelligences: existential and pedagogical.

Many criticize Gardner for his lack of evidence to support his theory, as well as potentially confusing the difference between "intelligence" and "ability." Yet he has inspired many to think about intelligence from a less rigid and more holistic point of view.

Learned helplessness occurs when a person believes that they have no power to change their life for the better. Thus, Johnny will also have an external locus of control, defined as believing that fate is controlled by external forces (e.g., luck, other people).

The Flynn Effect refers to an increasing IQ average (by about three to four points) every ten years years. The Flynn Effect is a result of today’s advanced healthcare and improved living conditions. Also, increased emphasis on the importance of education in today’s culture has impacted this rising number.

Bandura's Bobo doll experiment involved children viewing adults act aggressively toward the Bobo doll. When left alone with the Bobo doll, the children acted in the same manner toward the doll as they had observed the adults doing. This supported the idea of children observing, then imitating, a certain behavior, which are two key factors in observational learning.

Hindsight bias refers to a person's tendency to overestimate one's past abilities after gaining new information that the person did not have at the time of acting. Jen gets mad at herself after looking up how to solve the math problem because she now knows how to do it and it seems easy to her in that moment, despite the fact that she did not have this information while taking the test.

Seligman's work on learned helplessness began as a traditional classical conditioning study pairing the ringing of a bell with an electric shock. What surprised Seligman and his team was what occurred in the later part of the study, when the team changed the dogs' environment to give them a chance to escape the area administering the shock: because the dogs had been conditioned to understand that a shock would always follow the bell's ringing, they did not even try to exit the dangerous area. That is to say, they had learned helplessness.

Evolving the theory of behaviorism to include a social component, Albert Bandura introduced the concept of observational learning. He declared that humans are quite capable of learning by observing the sequence of behaviors and consequences in others. For example, if a young lad watches his older brother receive a reprimand from his mother for picking flowers from the flowerbed, he will learn that the same consequences would apply to him if he were to do the same.