Module 1

What is Psychology?
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. How these “schools of thought” approached psychology: structuralism, functionalism,
behaviorism, Freudian psychology (psychoanalytic), and humanistic psychology
2. What these current approaches to psychology emphasize: cognitive psychology, cognitive
neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, cross-cultural psychology, and positive
psychology
3. Differences between psychology's three levels of analysis
4. The basic difference between counselling psychologists, clinical psychologists and
psychiatrists
5. The difference between basic and applied research
Module 2
Research Strategies
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. The meaning of the term variable
2. The difference between good operational definition and bad operational definitions
3. The purpose, weaknesses, and differences between the following research methods: case
studies, naturalistic observations, surveys, and correlations
4. The difference between a sample and a population
5. How correlational results are displayed graphically
6. The difference between correlation direction and strength
7. The difference between a random sample and a non-random sample
8. How to avoid confusing correlation with causation and how correlational studies can be
influenced by hidden variables (third factors)
 Module 3

Statistics
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. The general difference between measures of central tendency and measures of variation
2. The difference between the mean and median in regard to how each is calculated
3. Under what conditions generally you would use the median rather than the mean
4. How the range is calculated
5. What the standard deviation shows about a variable
6. The percentage of scores that fall within one, two, and three standard deviations of the
mean
7. The concept of the normal curve
8. Why we try to obtain representative samples
9. Why we try to obtain large samples
10. The basic idea behind the concept of statistical significance
 Module 39
Stress and Illness
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. The difference between the three main types of stressors

Catastrophes, significant life changes, and daily hassles (including social stress) are the three
basic forms of stressors. First, catastrophes are large-scale disasters that are unpredictable, such
as earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and storms. Emotional and physical health might be severely
harmed as a result of such situations. Second, leaving home, losing a loved one, taking on
college debt, losing a job, and getting divorced are all major life changes. Even happy life
transitions, such as graduating or getting married, can be stressful in this type. Last, daily
hassles, such as dead cell phones, irritable roommates, and too many things to accomplish, can
also cause stress. This is especially true for people who wake up each day with housing issues,
inconsistent child care, tight money, and poor health.

2. How our appraisal of a stressful event impacts our response to stress

Our lives are filtered through a psychological flow. How we evaluate an event has an impact on
how much stress we feel and how well we respond.

3. What happens over the time course of general adaptation syndrome

In GAS, the body’s adaptive response to stress goes through 3 phases. Your sympathetic nervous
system is suddenly triggered in Phase 1, causing an alarm reaction. During phase 2, resistance,
your temperature, blood pressure, and breathing stay high. With no release from stress, your
body's reserves tend to diminish over time. Then there's Phase 3, which is exhaustion.
Exhaustion makes you more susceptible to disease or, in the worst-case scenario, collapse and
death.

4. Two ways in which immune system responses can go wrong

1. If it reacts too strongly, it may target the body's own tissues, resulting in an allergic reaction or
a self-attacking disease like lupus, multiple sclerosis, or some types of arthritis.
2. A bacterial infection can flare up, a dormant virus can explode, and cancer cells can expand if
the immune system underreacts.

5. Three ways that stress makes us more vulnerable to disease

a. Surgical wounds heal more slowly in stressed people.

b. Stressed people are more vulnerable to colds.
 c. Stress can hasten the course of disease

6. How stress influences conditions like coronary heart disease

Heart disease is influenced by stress and personality. People's bodies produce greater
inflammation as a result of psychological trauma, which could influence conditions like
coronary heart disease and other health issues, including depression.

7. What is a longitudinal study

In a longitudinal study, researchers analyze the same individuals over time to see if there are any
changes. Longitudinal studies are a sort of correlational research in which researchers observe
and gather data on a variety of factors without attempting to manipulate them.

8. What does it mean to be Type A or to be Type B personality

Some researchers conducted a longitudinal study with around 3000 healthy men between the
ages of 35 and 59. The researchers spoke with each individual and noted his job and eating
habits, speaking style, and other patterns of behavior. They found out that Type A people were
those that appeared to be the most reactive, competitive, hard-driving, impatient, time-conscious,
highly motivated, verbally aggressive, and easily angry. Type B referred to the about equal
number of people who were more easygoing.

9. The possible health risks associated with extreme Type A personalities

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a common affliction among type A personality, and it
has been medically recognized as a significant risk factor for most of them. The type A
personality is also at risk for heart disease.
 Module 40
Health and Coping
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. The difference between problem-focused coping strategies and emotion-focused coping
strategies

When we have a sense of control over a situation and believe we can change the circumstances,
or at the very least change ourselves to deal with the circumstances more effectively, we tend to
use problem-focused solutions. When we believe we can't change a situation, we turn to
emotion-focused coping. Emotion-focused coping can also be harmful to our health, such as
when we respond by eating comforting but calorie-dense meals.

2. What is learned helplessness and what can result from it

Animals and people learn helplessness when they have no control over a series of terrible
experiences. Learned helplessness leads to increased feelings of stress and depression.

3. The difference between external and internal locus of control

External locus control is the perception that one’s fate is controlled by chance or external
influences. On the other hand, there are those who believe they have an internal locus of control
and are in charge of their own fate.

4. The health benefits associated with self-control

People that have higher self-control are happier, healthier, and more successful in life.

5. How optimism is related to positive emotions and life expectancy

6. The link between social support and health and life expectancy
7. Three explanations for the “faith factor”

You should be able to understand the purpose, methods, results, and conclusions of the following
studies:
8. McCann & Holmes (1984): page 470
 Module 42
Social Influence
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. The concept of the social contagion

Schooling fish swim in groups. Birds flock together when they fly. Humans, too, have a
tendency to follow their peers, to think and act in the same way they do. It's easy to catch
someone else's bad habits. When one of us yawns, chuckles, coughs, scratches, stares at the sky,
or checks our phone, the rest of our group usually does the same. Yawn mimicry is also found in
other animals, such as chimps, and even between species: When dogs see their owner yawn, they
are more likely to yawn as well. This is known as social contagion.

2. How a group’s size, status, and presence affects levels of conformity

3. The difference between normative social influence and informational social influence

We often conform in order to escape rejection or earn social acceptability. In such cases, we are
responding to normative social influence. Because the cost of being different might be high, we
are sensitive to social standards. We require a sense of belonging. At other times, we conform
out of a desire to be precise.

We are responding to informational social influence when we accept other people's

perspectives on reality, for as when reading online movie and restaurant reviews.

4. Under what four conditions people showed high levels of obedience in Milgram’s study
5. How small acts of conformity can sometimes lead to destructive actions
6. What social facilitation is and why it occurs
7. What social loafing is and in which three contexts it occurs more often
8. What deindividuation is and what two things people experience that make it more likely
to occur
9. What group polarization is and how the Internet increases and decreases polarization
10. What groupthink is and under what circumstances it occurs
You should be able to understand the purpose, methods, results, and conclusions of the following
studies:
11. Chartrand & Bargh (1999): page 484
12. Asch (1955): pages 485-486
13. Milgram (1963, 1974): pages 487-490
 Module 45
Introduction to Personality
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. Why repression occurs according to Freud
2. What basic conflict occurs in the mind according to Freud
3. The function of the three parts of personality in Freud’s model
4. How the following defense mechanisms reduce anxiety according to Freud: repression,
regression, reaction formation, projection, sublimation, and displacement
5. The purpose of free association
6. What Freud and Jung believed about the content of our dreams in general
7. The basic factor that Adler and Horney emphasized that differed from Freud
8. Major criticisms of Freud’s theory today with respect to: (a) development from childhood
to adulthood; (b) his basic method of conducting observations; (c) the idea of repression
in psychology
9. What Carl Jung meant by the idea of a “collective unconscious” that includes archetypes
10. Why Carl Jung called his theory “analytical” and how that relates to his ideas about
mental health
11. Why some clinicians and researchers think projective tests are unscientific
 Module 46
Humanistic and Trait Theories
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. What conditions humanistic theory proposes are necessary to promote growth potential
2. The concepts of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and self-actualization
3. How Carl Rogers’ person-centered perspective views human nature in general
4. How self-concept relates to life satisfaction and self-actualization according to Rogers
5. The difference between actual self and ideal self in humanistic theories
6. Three major criticisms of humanistic theories
7. What traits are and how they can be used to describe personality
8. How we can describe people who are high or low on each of Big 5 personality traits
9. Whether personality traits are strong or weak predictors of people’s behaviors on average
across situations compared to specific types of situations

You should be able to understand the purpose, methods, results, and conclusions of the following
studies:
10. Barrick et al (2001): page 544
11. Roberts & DelVecchio (2000): page 548 & Figure 46.3
12. DePaulo et al (1992): page 549
 Module 47
Social Cognitive Theories
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. How the social cognitive perspective views personality development
2. The concept of reciprocal determinism and the three ways in which individuals and
environments interact
3. The best way to predict future behavior, according to social-cognitive psychologists
4. The main criticism of social cognitive theory by trait theorists
5. The assumptions, views, and assessment methods used by the five major personality
theories
6. What is the spotlight effect
7. The difference between self esteem and self efficacy and how these concepts influence
wellbeing
8. Factors that determine self efficacy
9. The concepts of excessive optimism, blindness to one’s incompetence, and self serving
bias
10. The difference between fragile and secure self-esteem
 Module 48
Introduction to Psychological Disorders
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. How the concepts of maladaptive and distressed relate to to psychological disorders
2. How the medical model differed from earlier approaches to mental illness
3. How the biopsychosocial approach explains the causes of psychological disorders
4. The benefits provided by classifying psychological disorders
5. What the DSM-5 is and what it attempts to do
6. Two major criticisms of the DSM
7. Why some psychologists believe ADHD is a widespread problem, and why others are
skeptical

You should be able to understand the purpose, methods, results, and conclusions of the following
studies:
8. Rosenhan (1973): page 568
 Module 49
Anxiety Disorders, OCD, and PTSD
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. The signs and symptoms of each type of anxiety disorder, and how the disorders are
different from each other: generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, specific phobia,
obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder
2. The three most common types of obsessions and compulsions
3. What influences the likelihood of someone developing PTSD after trauma exposure
4. How stimulus generalization and reinforcement explain the development of some anxiety
disorders
5. The neurotransmitters associated with anxiety disorders
6. How evolution can explain why we have some widespread fears
 Module 50
Depressive Disorders, Bipolar Disorder, Suicide, and Self-Injury
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. The signs and symptoms of major depressive disorder, persistent depressive disorder
(dysthymia), and bipolar disorder
2. How being sad or depressed can actually be adaptive at times
3. The types of stressful events that can lead to major depressive disorder
4. How levels of norepinephrine and serotonin relate to mood disorders
5. The relationship between depression and each of the following: exercise, nutrition, and
alcohol
6. How self-defeating beliefs, negative explanatory style, and rumination influence
depression
7. What it means to interpret negative events in terms that are global, internal and stable
8. What it means to say that depression can be a vicious cycle
9. Factors that increase the risk of suicidal behavior
10. The difference between NSSI and suicidal behavior
11. Who is most at risk of NSSI

You should be able to understand the purpose, methods, results, and conclusions of the following
studies:
12. Bienvenu, Davydow, & Kendler (2011): page 585 and Figure 50.2
 Module 51
Schizophrenia
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. The meaning of the word psychosis
2. Why schizophrenia is an important mental disorder despite its relatively low prevalence
rate
3. The basic reason why schizophrenia is considered a “spectrum” disorder
4. The distinction between the following positive symptoms: delusions, hallucination,
paranoid perception, disorganized speech, disorganized thought, disorganized behavior,
and cognitive attentional deficits
5. The distinction between the following negative symptoms: flat affect, inappropriate
affect, lack of movement (catatonia), and lack of motivation
6. How we know that genes matter in the development of schizophrenia
 Module 52
Dissociative, Personality, and Eating Disorders
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. What makes personality disorders different from other types of disorders
2. Why personality disorders are often hard to diagnose and treat
3. The difference between cluster A, B and C of personality disorders
4. The signs and symptoms associated with the following personality disorders: avoidant
PD, antisocial PD, borderline PD, paranoid PD and narcissistic PD
5. How we know that psychopathy is partly genetic
6. The basic differences between anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating
disorder
7. How the following factors relate to eating disorders: self esteem, perfectionism, social
perception, and cultural standards
 Module 53
Introduction to Therapy and the Psychological Therapies
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. How psychotherapy is different from biomedical therapy
2. How psychoanalysis differs from psychodynamic therapy
3. The basic themes of humanistic therapy and the three conditions required for growth
4. The goals and techniques used in active listening and unconditional positive regard
5. The basic idea behind counter conditioning and exposure therapy techniques
6. The cognitive perspective on psychological disorders, including Beck’s theory for
depression
7. The benefits of cognitive-behavioral therapy and which disorders especially respond to it
8. The presumed problems, aims, and techniques of psychodynamic, client-centered,
behavior, cognitive-behavioral, and group and family therapies
 Module 54
Evaluating Therapies
You should be able to recognize (conceptually) and apply (to specific examples) the following
outcomes:
1. Four reasons why clients' perception of therapy is not sufficient evidence of its
effectiveness

a. People often enter therapy in crisis: when the crisis passes, people may attribute their
improvement to the therapy. Depressed people often get better no matter what they do.
b. Clients believe that treatment will be effective: the placebo effect is the healing power of
positive expectations.
c. Clients generally speak kindly of their therapists.
d. Clients want to believe the therapy was worth the effort.

2. What are randomized clinical trials and why they are important

Randomized clinical trials: when researchers randomly assign people on a waiting list to therapy
or to no therapy. Later, they evaluate everyone and compare outcomes, with tests and
assessments by others who don’t know whether therapy was given.

Why important? The main purpose of random assignment is to prevent selection bias by
distributing the characteristics of patients that may influence the outcome randomly
between the groups, so that any difference in outcome can be explained only by the treatment.
It is the most rigorous way of determining whether a cause-effect relation exists between
treatment and outcome and for assessing the cost effectiveness of a treatment

3. The purpose of a meta-analysis

Meta-analysis: a statistical procedure that combines the conclusions of a large number of

different studies.
Purpose: meta-analyses give us the bottom-line result of lots of studies. Therapists welcomed the
first meta-analysis of some 475 psychotherapy outcome studies. It showed that the average
therapy client ends up better off than 80 percent of the untreated individuals on waiting lists

4. Which psychotherapies are more effective than others for anxiety and depression

Cognitive and cognitive-behavioral therapies—anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, insomnia,

and depression
Psychodynamic therapy—depression and anxiety

5. What three elements encompass evidence based practice

a. Patient’s values, characteristics, preference, circumstances

b. Clinical expertise
 c. Best available research evidence

6. How effective EMDR and light exposure therapy are

EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) is a therapy adored by thousands and
dismissed by thousands more as a sham.
Does EMDR work? Shapiro believes it does, and she cites four studies in which it worked for 84
to 100 percent of single-trauma victims. Other studies have confirmed its benefits with trauma
survivors. Skeptics acknowledge that EMDR does work better than doing nothing. But they
suspect that what is therapeutic is the combination of exposure therapy—repeatedly calling up
traumatic memories and reconsolidating them in a safe and reassuring context—and perhaps
some placebo effect.
Light therapy: One study exposed some people with a seasonal pattern in their depression
symptoms to 90 minutes of bright light and others to a sham placebo treatment—a hissing
“negative ion generator” about which the staff expressed similar enthusiasm (but which was not
even turned on). After four weeks, 61 percent of those exposed to morning light had greatly
improved, as had 50 percent of those exposed to evening light and 32 percent of those exposed to
the placebo.
Brain scans help explain the benefit: Light therapy sparks activity in a brain region that
influences the body’s arousal and hormone levels.

7. The three elements shared by all forms of psychotherapy

a. Hope for demoralized people

b. A new perspective: every therapy offers people a plausible explanation of their
symptoms.
c. An empathic, trusting, caring relationship

8. What the therapeutic alliance is and what is proposed by common factors theory

9. How culture and values influence the therapist-client relationship

10. What a person should look for when selecting a psychotherapist

You should be able to understand the purpose, methods, results, and conclusions of the following
studies:
11. Smith et al (1980): page 627 and Figure 54