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Week 16 · Final study guide

Final Exam — Study Guide

Introduction to Psychology Free sample edition

Coverage — what the final covers

The final is cumulative: it reaches back across all fifteen teaching weeks and all eight course objectives. It is given in Week 16, the finals week, which has no new material. The exam has 40 questions, and every question counts the same. Nearly all are multiple choice; one is a true/false statement, and one allows more than one correct choice. There is no time limit, and you get one attempt.

The questions were drawn from a bank in a way that puts every objective on the exam at least once. After that, the weight falls heavily on the second half of the term. Here is what this form actually contains:

The final's eight objectives, the weeks that teach each, and the number of the exam's 40 questions on each
Objective What you do Weeks Questions on this exam
Objective 1 (explain what makes psychology a science and compare its major theoretical perspectives (biological, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, sociocultural)) Explain what makes psychology a science; compare the six perspectives 1 1
Objective 2 (evaluate psychological research methods and ethics, distinguishing correlation from causation, random sampling from random assignment, and identifying sources of bias) Evaluate research designs and ethics; keep correlation apart from causation 2 1
Objective 3 (describe the biological bases of behavior: neurons and neural transmission, the major neurotransmitters, and the structures and functions of the nervous system and brain) Describe the neuron, the neurotransmitters, the nervous system, and the brain 3 1
Objective 4 (explain how humans sense and perceive the world and how sleep, dreaming, and psychoactive drugs shape states of consciousness) Explain sensation, perception, sleep, dreams, and psychoactive drugs 4, 5 1
Objective 5 (compare the major models of learning and memory and apply them to everyday behavior, including why memory is reconstructive) Compare classical, operant, and observational learning; explain how memory works and fails 6, 7 1
Objective 6 (analyze higher mental processes (cognition, judgment and its biases, language, and intelligence) and the forces of motivation and emotion) Analyze thinking, judgment, language, intelligence, motivation, and emotion 9, 10 11
Objective 7 (describe cognitive, social, and emotional development across the lifespan and compare the major families of personality theory and their assessment) Describe development across the lifespan; compare the four families of personality theory 11, 12 12
Objective 8 (apply psychological science to social behavior, stress and health, and the classification and evidence-based treatment of psychological disorders, using accurate and non-stigmatizing language) Apply psychology to social behavior, stress and health, and disorders and treatment 13, 14, 15 12

That is 35 of 40 questions on the three objectives taught in Weeks 9–15, spread fairly evenly across thinking and feeling, the person over time, and the person in the world. Put most of your review there. The Week 1–7 ideas still earn their place: each first-half objective has one question, and research design and brain structures come back inside later scenarios.

Topic-by-topic review

Each unit gives the idea in plain words first, then the course's exact definitions, then the mistake students make most often and its cure. The "deeper review" line tells you where to look in that week's materials. Units 5–11 carry the weight of the exam, so they get the most space.

Unit 1 — The science and its methods (Weeks 1, 2, and 8)

  • Key idea. Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Behavior is anything a person or animal does that someone else could observe and record. Mental processes are inner experiences, such as thinking and feeling, that psychologists infer from behavior.
  • History and perspectives. Wundt's laboratory at Leipzig opened in 1879. Structuralism (Titchener) broke experience into elements; functionalism (William James) asked what mental processes are for. The six perspectives are biological, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, and sociocultural, and the biopsychosocial model holds their levels together.
  • Theory and hypothesis. A theory is a broad explanation already backed by evidence. A hypothesis is a specific prediction stated precisely enough that data could show it to be wrong.
  • Designs. A correlational study measures variables as they occur and has no independent or dependent variable. An experiment manipulates an independent variable (IV), measures a dependent variable (DV), and uses random assignment, so only an experiment earns a causal claim.
  • The "how do we know?" checklist (Week 8). For any claim, name the design, say what that design is allowed to conclude, and name a third variable that could explain the result.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures. "This correlation proves a cause": ask whether anything was manipulated and randomly assigned. Mixing up random sampling (who is studied, so you can generalize) with random assignment (who gets which condition, so you can claim cause): ask which question each one answers.
  • Deeper review: the Week 2 and Week 8 chapters and slides.

Unit 2 — The brain (Week 3)

  • Key idea. A message travels through a neuron as electricity and crosses to the next cell as chemistry. At rest a neuron sits at about −70 mV, with the inside negative compared with the outside.
  • The impulse. An action potential is all-or-none: a stronger stimulus changes how often the neuron fires, never the size of each impulse. The myelin sheath insulates the axon and speeds the impulse. Reuptake clears leftover neurotransmitter from the synapse.
  • Associated, not caused. Dopamine is associated with reward, motivation, learning, and movement. Serotonin is associated with mood, sleep, and appetite. GABA is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter, and glutamate the main excitatory one.
  • Systems and structures. The sympathetic division mobilizes the body (fight-or-flight); the parasympathetic division calms it (rest-and-digest). The amygdala is central to fear, the hippocampus forms new declarative memories, and the hypothalamus helps regulate hunger, thirst, and temperature.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures. Swapping dopamine and serotonin: tie dopamine to reward and movement, serotonin to mood and sleep. "Serotonin causes depression": the evidence supports "associated with," not "causes."
  • Deeper review: the Week 3 chapter's hot-stove signal trace.

Unit 3 — Sensing and awareness (Weeks 4 and 5)

  • Key idea. Sensation is receptors detecting physical energy; perception is the brain organizing and interpreting it. Perception is constructed, which is why constancies and illusions exist.
  • Thresholds. The absolute threshold is the weakest stimulus a person detects 50 percent of the time, such as a candle flame about 30 miles away on a clear, dark night (Galanter, 1962). The difference threshold is the smallest change detected 50 percent of the time.
  • Sleep. The circadian rhythm runs about 24 hours. The first REM period arrives about 90 minutes after falling asleep, and most adults need about 7 to 9 hours. NREM-3 is the deepest sleep; REM is the most brain-active.
  • Drugs. Depressants (alcohol) slow the nervous system, stimulants (caffeine, nicotine) speed it up, and hallucinogens distort perception. Tolerance means a larger dose is needed for the same effect.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures. "REM is the deepest sleep": NREM-3 is deepest. "Alcohol is a stimulant": it is a depressant, whatever the first half-hour feels like. "Rods see color": cones do.
  • Deeper review: the Week 4 and Week 5 chapters and slides.

Unit 4 — Learning and memory (Weeks 6 and 7)

  • Key idea. Classical conditioning pairs a neutral stimulus with one that already triggers an automatic response, written UCS, UCR, CS, CR. Operant conditioning changes how often a voluntary behavior happens through its consequences.
  • Consequences. Positive means add and negative means remove. Reinforcement makes a behavior more likely; punishment makes it less likely. The variable-ratio schedule produces the highest and most extinction-resistant response rates.
  • Memory. Encoding, storage, retrieval. Short-term memory holds about 7 ± 2 items (Miller, 1956) for about 15 to 30 seconds; working memory holds about 4 ± 1 chunks (Cowan, 2010). Reconstructive memory rebuilds each recall, which is why the misinformation effect happens.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures. Calling negative reinforcement punishment: negative reinforcement removes something unpleasant and increases behavior. Reversing the interference pair: proactive is old learning disrupting new; retroactive is new learning disrupting old.
  • Deeper review: the Week 6 learning scenarios and the Week 7 forgetting curve.

Unit 5 — Thinking, language, and intelligence (Week 9)

  • Key idea. Your mind saves effort with shortcuts. An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure that guarantees a correct solution if followed completely. A heuristic is a fast mental rule of thumb that usually works but can produce predictable errors.
  • Categories. A concept is a mental category; a prototype is the most typical, best example of it.
  • Judgment. The availability heuristic judges likelihood by how easily examples come to mind. The representativeness heuristic judges by resemblance to a typical case, often ignoring the base rate (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Confirmation bias is seeking and remembering evidence that fits what you already believe. Framing is the wording of a choice; overconfidence is more certainty than accuracy supports.
  • Problem solving. Fixation is being unable to see a problem from a new angle. Mental set is reusing a method that worked before. Functional fixedness is seeing an object only in its usual job.
  • Language. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can change a word's meaning. A morpheme is the smallest unit that carries meaning. Children move from babbling, to one-word, to two-word, to telegraphic speech.
  • Intelligence. Spearman's general intelligence (g), Gardner's multiple intelligences, and Sternberg's triarchic theory (analytical, creative, practical). IQ is scaled so the mean is 100 and about 68% of people score between 85 and 115. A score is a position on one measured scale, never a measure of a person's worth.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures. Swapping availability and representativeness: availability is "what comes to mind," representativeness is "what it looks like." Calling plain confirmation bias "availability": ask whether the person is seeking agreeable evidence or recalling vivid examples.
  • Deeper review: the Week 9 chapter's IQ band and yogurt labels.

Unit 6 — Motivation and emotion (Week 10)

  • Key idea. Motivation is a need or desire that energizes behavior and directs it toward a goal.
  • Four theories. Drive-reduction theory: a need creates a drive that pushes behavior until homeostasis returns. Arousal theory: people keep arousal at a comfortable level, sometimes raising it on purpose. Incentive theory: external rewards pull behavior. Maslow's hierarchy (Maslow, 1943) ranks five levels of need up to self-actualization; it is a descriptive model whose strict ordering is not well supported.
  • Arousal and performance. The Yerkes–Dodson law (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908): performance is best at a moderate level of arousal, and that best level is lower for a difficult task.
  • Hunger. Ghrelin, released mainly by the stomach, signals hunger. Leptin, released by fat cells, signals fullness.
  • Emotion. Three components: physiological arousal, expressive behavior, and cognitive appraisal. James–Lange: body first, then the feeling. Cannon–Bard: body and feeling at the same time. Two-factor theory (Schachter & Singer, 1962): arousal plus a cognitive label.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures. Blurring Cannon–Bard and two-factor: Cannon–Bard has no labeling step; two-factor needs one. Flipping James–Lange into "feeling first": in James–Lange you feel afraid because you tremble.
  • Deeper review: the Week 10 bear on the trail, told three ways.

Unit 7 — Development across the lifespan (Week 11)

  • Key idea. People change and stay the same across the whole lifespan. Nature and nurture always interact, so neither side wins a contest.
  • Piaget's four stages, in order. Sensorimotor (birth to about 2; object permanence) → preoperational (about 2 to 7; egocentrism, no conservation). Then concrete operational (about 7 to 11; conservation, concrete logic) → formal operational (about 11 onward; abstract, hypothetical reasoning).
  • Vygotsky. The zone of proximal development is the gap between what a learner can do alone and with help; scaffolding is the temporary support given inside it.
  • Attachment. Harlow's infant monkeys clung to a soft cloth surrogate rather than a wire one that held the bottle (contact comfort). Ainsworth's Strange Situation classifies a toddler's attachment as secure or insecure.
  • Erikson. Trust vs. mistrust (infancy), identity vs. role confusion (adolescence), integrity vs. despair (late adulthood).
  • Aging. Fluid intelligence tends to decline in later adulthood; crystallized intelligence tends to hold steady or grow.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures. Putting object permanence in the preoperational stage: it is the sensorimotor hallmark. Placing abstract reasoning before about age 11: that is formal operational thought.
  • Deeper review: the Week 11 chapter's four children.

Unit 8 — Personality (Week 12)

  • Key idea. Personality is a person's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving, fairly consistent across situations and over time.
  • The four families. Psychodynamic (id, ego, superego; defense mechanisms such as repression, denial, rationalization, projection, and displacement). Humanistic (self-concept and Rogers's unconditional positive regard). Trait (the Big Five: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, as continuous dials). Social-cognitive (Bandura's reciprocal determinism and self-efficacy).
  • Assessment. A self-report inventory such as the MMPI is objectively scored, with well-established reliability and validity. A projective test such as the Rorschach or the TAT asks for descriptions of ambiguous images.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures. Offering intelligence, honesty, or self-efficacy as a Big Five trait: the list is exactly OCEAN. Reading traits as types: a dial has a whole range, while a type quiz has two boxes.
  • Deeper review: the Week 12 chapter's two roommates on five dials.

Unit 9 — Social psychology (Week 13)

  • Key idea. Situations shape behavior more than people expect, in others and in yourself.
  • Attribution. A dispositional attribution points to the person; a situational attribution points to the circumstances. The fundamental attribution error over-credits other people's character. The self-serving bias takes credit for your own successes and blames your failures on the situation.
  • Attitudes. Cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) is the tension of acting against your attitude. The foot-in-the-door phenomenon is agreeing more readily to a large request after a small one. The central route persuades through arguments; the peripheral route through surface cues.
  • Conformity and obedience. In Asch's line studies (Asch, 1951), confederates gave a unanimous wrong answer on 12 of 18 trials. Normative influence is going along to be accepted; informational influence is going along because the group seems to know better. In Milgram's baseline study (Milgram, 1963), 65% of participants (26 of 40) continued to the 450-volt switch.
  • Groups and helping. Social facilitation, social loafing, groupthink, group polarization, and deindividuation. In Darley and Latané's intercom study (Darley & Latané, 1968), 85% reported the emergency as the only listener, 62% with one other, and 31% with four others: diffusion of responsibility.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures. Blurring the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias: ask whose behavior is being explained. "More bystanders means more help": Darley and Latané found the reverse.
  • Deeper review: the Week 13 chapter's two experiments and their design check.

Unit 10 — Stress, health, and coping (Week 14)

  • Key idea. Stress is the response of body and mind to an event a person appraises as threatening or challenging. What counts is how the event is perceived.
  • Stressors and appraisal. Catastrophes, significant life changes, and daily hassles. Eustress energizes; distress drains. In Lazarus's model, primary appraisal asks "is this a threat?" and secondary appraisal asks "can I cope?"
  • The body. Selye's general adaptation syndrome: alarm → resistance → exhaustion, always in that order. Cortisol, released through the HPA axis, suppresses immune function when it stays high for long periods. Tend-and-befriend is an alternative to fight-or-flight. Hostility is the part of the Type A pattern most consistently associated with heart disease.
  • Coping. Problem-focused coping tackles the stressor itself; emotion-focused coping manages the feelings without changing the stressor.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures. Scrambling the GAS order: alarm, then resistance, then exhaustion. Calling emotion-focused coping a change to the stressor: only problem-focused coping changes the stressor. "All stress is bad": eustress can energize you.
  • Deeper review: the Week 14 chapter's exam, caregiver, and laptop scenes.

Unit 11 — Psychological disorders and treatment (Week 15)

  • Key idea. A psychological disorder is a pattern of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that causes significant distress or dysfunction and departs from cultural norms, judged in context. The three D's are distress, dysfunction, and deviance, weighed together.
  • Classification, not labels. The DSM-5-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2022) is a shared classification system. A diagnosis is a trained professional's conclusion after a full evaluation; it describes a condition, never a person's worth. Person-first language names the person before the condition: "a person living with depression."
  • Categories surveyed. Anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depressive disorders, bipolar disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, and the schizophrenia spectrum, which does not involve a split or multiple personality.
  • Causes and care. The diathesis–stress model: an underlying vulnerability interacts with stress. The therapy families are psychodynamic, client-centered, behavior therapy (including exposure therapy), cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and biomedical therapy. Stigma is one of the main barriers that keep people from care.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures. Deviance alone treated as a disorder: unusual is not the same as disordered. Using a condition as a label for a person: put the person first. "Therapy is only for severe conditions": many people use counseling for stress, grief, and change.
  • Deeper review: the Week 15 chapter's three composite scenes.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you do not have to handle it alone. Your campus counseling or health center, or a health professional you trust, is a good place to start. In the United States, you can also call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at any hour.

Representative practice

These are fresh variants, not the exam's questions. Several worked examples reuse the course's classic studies with a new question, so the numbers stay pinned while the task changes; the rest use new everyday scenes. Work each one, then check it.

Worked example 1 — reading a classic experiment (Units 1 and 9)

In Darley and Latané's intercom study (Darley & Latané, 1968), 62% of participants reported the emergency when they believed one other listener was present, and 31% did so with four others. Read the design and the drop.

  1. Design: the researchers manipulated how many other listeners participants believed were present. That is the IV. The DV is the percentage who reported the emergency before the recording ended.
  2. The drop from one other listener to four: 62 − 31 = 31 percentage points.
  3. Compare: half of 62 is 62 ÷ 2 = 31, so moving from one other listener to four cut the reporting rate in half.
  4. What it may claim: the group size was manipulated, so the design is an experiment, and "more listeners reduced helping" is a causal claim it supports. The explanation the course names is diffusion of responsibility.

Why it matters: the checklist question "what design produced it?" decides whether a drop like this may be called a cause.

Worked example 2 — the verb and the speed (Units 1 and 4)

In Loftus and Palmer's Experiment 1 (Loftus & Palmer, 1974), mean speed estimates were 40.8 mph for "smashed," 39.3 for "collided," 38.1 for "bumped," 34.0 for "hit," and 31.8 for "contacted." Everyone watched the same kinds of films.

  1. IV and DV: the verb in the question is the IV; the speed estimate is the DV.
  2. The gap from "hit" to "smashed": 40.8 − 34.0 = 6.8 mph.
  3. The gap from "contacted" to "hit": 34.0 − 31.8 = 2.2 mph.
  4. Read it: the more violent the verb, the higher the estimate, even though the films did not change. One word in a question reshaped what people reported.

Why it matters: this is the misinformation effect, the evidence for reconstructive memory, and a clean experiment to run through Unit 1's checklist.

Worked example 3 — shortcuts and a framing pair (Unit 5)

  1. Framing. A phone plan advertises "coverage on 92% of the map." A rival ad for the same plan says "no signal on 8% of the map." Check: 100 − 92 = 8, so the two ads state the same fact. Any difference in how they feel comes from the wording.
  2. Availability. A store clerk is sure that most complaints arrive on Mondays because she vividly remembers last Monday's angry caller. She is judging how common something is by how easily an example comes to mind.
  3. Functional fixedness. A traveler has no phone stand and does not think to prop the phone on an open sunglasses case until a friend suggests it. Seeing the case only in its usual job hid another use.
  4. The IQ band. A score of 85 sits 100 − 85 = 15 points below the mean of 100, one step of spread. About 68% of people score between 85 and 115.

Why it matters: each label names a kind of judgment, so look for the mechanism, not the topic.

Worked example 4 — three motives and one thunderclap (Unit 6)

  1. Arousal theory. A person rides roller coasters every weekend for the rush. No bodily need is being reduced; she is seeking arousal.
  2. Incentive theory. A cashier picks up extra shifts because the store pays a holiday bonus. An external reward pulls the behavior.
  3. Leptin. After a large dinner, a hormone released by fat cells signals fullness to the brain. That hormone is leptin.
  4. A thunderclap at night, three ways. James–Lange: you jolt and your heart pounds, and then you feel afraid as you notice your body's reaction. Cannon–Bard: the pounding heart and the fear arrive at the same time. Two-factor: your heart pounds, you notice the storm, and you label the arousal "fear."
  5. Tally: 3 motivation moves + 3 emotion theories = 6 labeled moves.

Why it matters: the emotion theories differ only in the order and the labeling step, so trace the sequence every time.

Worked example 5 — placing four children (Unit 7)

Use the course's boundary ages: about 2, 7, and 11.

  1. A 10-month-old lifts a blanket to find a toy she watched you hide. Two years is 2 × 12 = 24 months, and 10 is below 24, so she is sensorimotor. Searching shows object permanence.
  2. A 3-year-old picks a toy truck as a birthday gift for her grandmother, because she herself loves trucks. Since 3 is between 2 and 7, she is preoperational, and the gift shows egocentrism.
  3. A 9-year-old watches a clay ball rolled into a long snake and says it is still the same amount of clay. Since 9 is between 7 and 11, he is concrete operational, and he shows conservation.
  4. A 13-year-old argues about whether a law that is unfair should still be obeyed. Since 13 is above 11, the teen is formal operational: abstract, hypothetical reasoning.

Why it matters: the order never changes, sensorimotor → preoperational → concrete operational → formal operational, and each hallmark belongs to one stage.

Worked example 6 — four families, one habit (Unit 8)

Amara often leaves the dishes until morning. Each family of personality theory explains the same habit differently.

  1. Psychodynamic: a conflict outside awareness, perhaps resentment of rules set in childhood, shows up in the habit. When she says the dishes "soak better overnight," she may be using rationalization, replacing the real reason with an acceptable-sounding excuse.
  2. Humanistic: the chore feels disconnected from who she wants to become; acceptance without conditions would help her grow.
  3. Trait: she reads low on the conscientiousness dial, one of the five.
  4. Social-cognitive: her low self-efficacy for keeping a schedule, her roommates' habits, and the habit itself feed one another (reciprocal determinism).
  5. Tally: 4 families, 1 habit, 1 explanation each.

Why it matters: exam scenes often hand you one behavior and ask which family a given explanation belongs to.

Worked example 7 — situations, groups, and blame (Unit 9)

  1. Milgram's situations. The baseline was 65% (Milgram, 1963). When the teacher had to press the learner's hand onto the plate, obedience fell to 30%: a drop of 65 − 30 = 35 percentage points. The 65% baseline is the figure to know exactly; the variations tell the story.
  2. Asch's pressure. Pressure was present on 12 of 18 trials, and 12 ⁄ 18 = 2 ⁄ 3 ≈ 0.67, about two trials in every three.
  3. Attribution. A teammate misses a deadline, and you think "she is careless": the fundamental attribution error. You miss one, and you say "the printer broke": the self-serving bias.

Why it matters: the same ordinary people behaved very differently in different situations, which is the real finding.

Worked example 8 — stress scenes and the sleep data (Unit 10)

  1. GAS. Road construction blocks a bakery's storefront for months. In the first days the owner cannot sleep and her heart races (alarm). For months she adjusts her hours on a steady flow of stress hormones (resistance). After a long stretch with no break, she catches one cold after another (exhaustion).
  2. Coping. A cyclist's bike is stolen the morning of a shift. Booking a ride and filing a theft report change the stressor: problem-focused (2 moves). Slow breathing and texting a friend to vent manage the feelings: emotion-focused (2 moves). Tally: 2 + 2 = 4 moves.
  3. The sleep data. In the course's illustrative ten-student dataset, the 7 students who slept 7 to 9 hours slept 7, 7, 7.5, 8, 8, 8.5, and 9 hours. Their mean is 55 ÷ 7 ≈ 7.86 hours, and their mean quiz score was 110 ÷ 7 ≈ 15.7 out of 20.
  4. Read it: r = 0.8457, so in this sample students who slept more tended to score higher. Stress is a third variable that could lower both sleep and score. Nothing was manipulated, so the data support "associated with," not a cause.

Why it matters: the GAS order and the two coping styles are classic traps, and every correlation needs its third variable.

Worked example 9 — three D's and a therapy match (Unit 11)

These scenes are composites. No real person is described, and nobody is being diagnosed.

  1. Night-shift worker. An adult works nights and sleeps from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., content and doing well at work. Distress no, dysfunction no, deviance yes: 1 of 3. Unusual is not disordered.
  2. New student. A first-year student who moved far from home is tearful for two weeks but attends class and is making friends. Distress yes, dysfunction no, deviance no: 1 of 3. Homesickness after a move is an expected response.
  3. Composite pattern. For months, a person checks the front-door lock many times before leaving, arrives late to work most days, and feels intense anxiety if she does not check. Distress yes, dysfunction yes, deviance yes: 3 of 3. It fits the description of obsessive-compulsive disorder, a pattern a trained professional would want to evaluate.
  4. Tally: 3 scenes × 3 D's = 9 checks, and 1 + 1 + 3 = 5 marked yes.
  5. Matching therapies. "This week, let's leave after one check and sit with the worry" is exposure therapy, a behavior therapy. "What evidence do you have that the door is unlocked?" is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).

Why it matters: placing a described pattern in a category is not a diagnosis; only a professional, after a full evaluation, decides whether one fits.

Self-check questions

  1. After a surprising election result, a neighbor says, "I saw that coming all along." What is this? Self-check: hindsight bias. Why: the outcome feels predictable only after it is known.
  2. A survey finds that adults who own more houseplants report lower stress, r about −0.30. What may it claim? Self-check: a weak negative association, nothing more. Why: nothing was manipulated, and more free time at home could raise plant-keeping and lower stress.
  3. Which neurotransmitter is the brain's main inhibitory messenger, associated with calming? Self-check: GABA. Why: glutamate is the main excitatory one.
  4. "Alcohol is a stimulant because the first drink feels lively." True to the course? Self-check: no; alcohol is a depressant. Why: it slows the nervous system, including reaction time and judgment.
  5. A teen's phone is taken away for an evening after she misses curfew, and she misses curfew less often. Which consequence is this? Self-check: negative punishment. Why: something valued is removed, and the behavior decreases.
  6. After a year of learning Spanish, you mix up French words you learned years ago. Which kind of forgetting? Self-check: retroactive interference. Why: newer learning is disrupting older learning.
  7. How many morphemes are in "unhappiness"? Self-check: 3: un + happy + ness. Why: each part carries meaning of its own.
  8. For a difficult task, such as a first attempt at a hard calculus quiz, which level of arousal works best? Self-check: a moderate level, lower than for an easy task. Why: that is the Yerkes–Dodson law (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908).
  9. A 78-year-old looks back on her life and feels it mattered. Which Erikson stage? Self-check: integrity vs. despair. Why: it is the late-adulthood stage of looking back.
  10. Friends who already lean toward a risky road trip talk it over and choose an even riskier route. What is this? Self-check: group polarization. Why: discussion pushed a shared leaning to a more extreme position.
  11. After a storm, a neighbor organizes a meal chain and checks on everyone on the block. Which stress pattern? Self-check: tend-and-befriend. Why: she responds by caring for others and reaching out.
  12. If a described pattern meets all three D's, is that a diagnosis? Self-check: no. Why: the three D's are signs to weigh in context; only a trained professional, after a full evaluation, reaches a diagnosis.

Check yourself — choose one. (a) Which unit in this guide felt least familiar, and which worked example would you redo first? (b) Pick two units that connect, such as research methods and social psychology, and explain the link in two sentences. Either choice is a good use of ten minutes.

Watch before the exam

These seven videos come from the course's own weekly readings. Use them for review and for connecting weeks, not for new material.

Study plan

A short countdown sized to a course that meets two or three times a week. Count backward from the day the final opens in Week 16.

  • Two weeks out: review Units 1–4 in one sitting and redo Worked examples 1 and 2 from scratch. These ideas return inside later questions.
  • Ten days out: review Units 5 and 6. Redo Worked examples 3 and 4 until each label comes with its reason.
  • One week out: review Units 7 and 8. Redo Worked examples 5 and 6 without looking.
  • Five days out: take the paired practice exam once, closed-book and under exam-like conditions, then sort every miss by unit. Remember that it leans on Weeks 1–7 far more than the final does.
  • Four days out: review Units 9–11 and redo Worked examples 7, 8, and 9.
  • Three days out: run the paired exam-prep tutorial (the copy/paste chatbot tutor, or its no-AI route) on the two units that felt weakest, with at least one from Units 5–11.
  • Two days out: answer the twelve self-check questions cold, then retake the practice exam.
  • The day before: skim the "Predictable mistakes → cures" lines in every unit and watch one video from the list above. Sleep.

Use the exam-prep tutorial and the practice exam for active recall; this guide is for review, and those two are where you rehearse. Rereading alone moves scores less than retrieval practice does.

Exam format and scoring

The final is scored automatically, and all 40 questions count the same. The questions appear one at a time, and you cannot go back to an earlier question once you move on. You have one attempt and no time limit. AI tools are not permitted on the final.

Test-taking strategies for this material:

  • For any study, name the design first: what was manipulated, what was measured, and what the design may conclude.
  • Read every "associated with" as a correlation and look for the third variable.
  • For a learning scene, ask two questions: was something added or removed, and did the behavior increase or decrease?
  • For a stage or a sequence, say the canonical order before you choose: alarm, resistance, exhaustion; sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational.
  • For an attribution, ask whose behavior is being explained, someone else's or your own.
  • For a disorder scene, check all three D's in context, and never treat a category as a label for a person.
  • Since you cannot go back, settle each question before you move on.

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