Is This a Comprehensive Introduction to Psychology?

This class is based on the idea that you can learn more about psychology by looking in depth at a few things than by looking at lots of things quickly. But for those who are concerned that this class will not give you good "coverage" of the topics in psychology, I provide this list of terms that you will encounter in this class compared with the most important terms in psychology. The list of terms is taken from Boneau (1990). Some areas (like Methodology) have many more terms than others (like Cognitive). This is simply because there is more agreement in those areas about what is important. Those terms listed in bold are ones you can expect to know something about by the time you are finished with this class. As you can see, we do not cover Perception. The basic stuff in all the other categories is covered, though.

Reference

Boneau, C.A. (1990). Psychological Literacy: A first approximation. American Psychologist, 47(7), 891-900.

Abnormal

• Anxiety
• Etiology
• Psychotherapy
• Anxiety Disorder
• Mental Illness
• Psychosis
• Psychosomatic Disorders
• Depression
• Placebo Effect
• Acute Schizophrenia
• Affective Disorder
• Antisocial Personality
• Ego
• Primary Prevention
• Defense Mechanism
• Delusion
• DSM II, III, & IV
• Hallucination
• Medical Model
• Paranoia
• Prognosis
• Symptom
• Systematic Desensitization
• Chronic Schizophrenia
• Desensitization
• Epidemiology
• Manic-Depressive Disorder
• Neurosis
• Paraniod Schizophrenia
• Projection
• Psychogenic
• Syndrome
• Tranquilizer

Behavior

• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Reinforcement
• Positive Reinforcement
• Extinction
• Instrumental Behavior
• Punishment
• Law of Effect
• Aviodance Learning
• Origin of Species
• Conditioned Stimulus
• Discrimination Learning
• Experimental Extinction
• Unconditioned Response
• Unconditioned Stimulus
• Contingencies of Reinforcement
• Reflex
• Schedules of Reinforcement
• Behavior Modification
• Empirical Law of Effect
• Habituation
• Stimulus generalization
• Pavlovian vs Thorndikean learning
• Conditioned Fear
• Homeostasis
• Generalization Gradient
• Stimulus control

Biological

• Central Nervous System
• Neurotransmitter
• Cerebral Cortex
• Cerrebral Hemispheres
• Action Potential
• Cerebellum
• Dendrite
• Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
• Electroencephalograph
• Neocortex
• Right Hemisphere
• Gene
• Hormones
• Parietal Lobe
• REM Sleep
• Estrogen
• Frontal Lobe
• Hypothalamus
• Occipital Lobe
• Parasympathetic nervous system
• Sympathetic nervous system
• Autonomic nervous system
• Chromosome
• Gonads
• Left hemisphere
• Synaptic junction

Cognitive

• Long-term memory
• Forgetting curve
• Short-term memory
• Consciousness
• Artificial intelligence
• Free recall
• Information processing approach
• Serial position function

Developmental

• Attachment
• Developmental stages
• Socialization
• Cognitive development
• Nature-nurture controversy
• Aggression
• Childhood (characteristics)
• Infant-mother attachment
• Intelligence
• Longitudinal research
• Socioeconomic status
• Chronological age
• Critical periods
• Cross-sectional research
• Formal operational stage
• Maturation
• Psychoanalytic theory

History & Systems

• Conditioned reflex
• Classical conditioning
• Reinforcement
• Associationism
• Consciousness
• Determinism
• Empiricism
• Evolution and functionalism
• Gestalt psychology
• Intelligence quotient
• Scientific method
• Environmentalism
• Functionalism
• Psychophysics
• Mind-body problem
• Introspection
• Fechner's law
• Localization of function
• Nativism vs empiricism

Methods & Statistics

• Control group
• Correlation coefficient
• Dependent variable
• Experimental group
• Hypothesis testing
• Independent variable
• Normal distribution
• Sample
• Significance level
• Significant difference
• Central tendency
• Correlation vs causation
• Descriptive statistics
• Inferential statistics
• Mean
• Null hypothesis
• Randomization
• Median
• Random sampling
• Standard deviation
• Interaction
• Statistic
• Mode
• Operational definition
• Reliability
• Validity
• Alpha
• Alternative hypothesis
• Confidence intervals
• Experimental control
• Population
• Population mean
• Population variance
• Scatterplot
• t ratio
• variance
• frequency distribution
• product-moment correlation
• t distribution
• Type I error
• Type II error
• Z score
• Critical region
• generalizability of results
• sample size
• standard normal distribution

Perception

• Gestalt principles of organization
• Absolute threshold
• Depth perception
• Binocular depth cues
• Frequency (audition)
• Just noticeable difference
• Visual depth perception
• Distance cues
• Visual angle
• Contrast
• Binocular disparity
• Color blindness
• Dark adaptation
• Differential threshold
• Hue
• Perceptual set
• Stereopsis
• Visual receptive fields
• Linear perspective
• Pure tone
• Opponent process & color vision
• Apparent motion
• Cone
• Distance perception
• Lens
• Loudness
• Photopic vision
• Retina
• Retinal disparity
• Simultaneous contrast
• Weber's fraction
• Afterimage
• Brightness
• Perceptual organization

Personality

• Ego
• Personality
• Psychoanalytic theory
• Unconscious
• Free association
• Id
• Traits
• Unconscious motivation
• Introversion-extraversion
• Depression
• Modeling
• Observational learning
• Personality assessment
• Reaction formation
• Defense mechanisms
• Instincts in Freudian theory
• Oedipal conflict
• Oral stage
• Projection
• Repression
• Sublimation
• Intelligence
• Nature-nurture controversy
• Projective techniques
• Self-concept

Social

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Prosocial behavior
• Attitude change
• Prejudice
• Attitudes and behavior
• Social Influence
• Attribution theory
• Conformity
• Correlational method
• Milgram's obedience experiment
• Social comparison theory
• Causal attribution
• Debriefing

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