Psychology

Introduction to Psychology

Biological Basis of Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

Clinical Psychology

Trace the development of psychology as a scientific discipline, including its evolution from other fields of study.*

Describe methodologies, research tools, and strategies used by researchers in psychological studies.*

Describe various careers pursued by psychologists, including medical and mental health care fields, the business world, education, law and criminal justice, and research.*

Compare the effects of heredity and environment on development and behavior.*

Describe the structure, biochemistry, and circuitry of the brain and nervous system, and explain their roles in human behavior and mental processes.*

Explain how behavior genetics has contributed to the understanding of behavior and mental processes, including differentiating among deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), chromosomes, and genes and identifying effects of chromosomal abnormalities.

Describe the interconnected processes of sensation and perception.

Compare theories about the functions of sleep and of dreaming.

Describe cognitive, physical, and social development across the human lifespan, citing theories of Carol Gilligan, Erik H. Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Lawrence Kohlberg.

Explain the importance and processes of memory, including how information is encoded and stored, the use of mnemonic devices, and how schemas influence memory construction and retrieval.

Describe ways in which organisms learn, including the processes of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning.*

Explain processes involved in problem-solving and decision-making, including cognitive processes related to thinking and concept formation.

Describe methods of assessing individual differences and theories of intelligence, including Charles E. Spearman's general (g) factor of intelligence, Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences, and Robert J. Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence.

Explain the role of personality development in human behavior and differentiate among theories that seek to explain this development.

Explain the role of motivation and emotion in human behavior.*

Describe major psychological disorders and their treatments and explain how examples of abnormal behavior differ from normal behavior.*

Describe how attitudes, conditions of obedience and conformity, and other influences affect actions and shape human behavior, including actor-observer, self-server, social facilitation, social loafing, bystander effect, groupthink, and group polarization.

Summarize ways to promote psychological wellness.*

Describe different types of biomedical and psychological treatments for mental disorders.

Investigate and describe the history of psychology from its beginning to the modern era, including key contributors to the field.*

Differentiate among various schools of thought and perspectives that have developed in psychology since 1879.*

Describe how modern psychologists utilize multiple perspectives to understand behavior and mental processes, citing examples.*

Contrast the roles of independent, dependent, and confounding variables and the functions of control and experimental groups within the scientific method.

Identify and explain systematic procedures necessary for conducting an experiment and improving the validity of results.*

Describe the role of the American Psychological Association in setting ethical guidelines regarding the use of human and animal subjects in psychological research.*

Describe communication between neurons and the electrochemical process, including the role of neurotransmitters in behavior.*

Explain the effect of neurotransmitters on human behavior and compare the effects of drugs and toxins on the brain.

Describe the specialized and interdependent functions of sections of the brain, including the lobes and hemispheres of the cerebral cortex.

Describe technologies used to study the brain and nervous system.*

Explain how psychoactive drugs affect people, including the mechanisms of addiction, tolerance, and withdrawal.

Explain the role of sensory systems in human behavior.

Explain how perceiving can differ from sensing, including how attention and environmental cues can impact what is perceived and what is sensed.

Explain perception in terms of Gestalt principles and concepts.

Compare ways memories are stored in the brain, including episodic and procedural, and explain how information is retrieved, reconstructed, or misremembered.

Identify and describe unconditioned stimuli, conditioned stimuli, unconditioned responses, and conditioned responses.

Explain the law of effect, and differentiate between reinforcement and punishment, positive and negative reinforcement, and various schedules of reinforcement.

Describe original experiments conducted by Albert Bandura, B. F. Skinner, Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, Kenneth and Mamie Clark, and Rosalie Rayner.

Explain the role of mental images and verbal symbols in the thought process.

Describe different types of intelligence tests and explain the Flynn effect.

Summarize concerns regarding the reliability and validity of intelligence test scores and describe the historical use and misuse of intelligence tests.

Describe different measures of personality, including the Neuroticism-Extroversion-Openness Personality Inventory (NEO-PI), the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), and projective tests.

Describe theories that explain how biological, cognitive, and social factors influence motivation, including Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, arousal theory, and the theory drive for hunger (homeostasis).

Describe situational cues that cause emotions, including anger, curiosity, and anxiety.

Describe various approaches for explaining mental illness, including biological and medical, cognitive, and sociocultural models.

Differentiate among types of mental illness, including mood, anxiety, somatoform, schizophrenic, dissociative, and personality disorders.

Critique the ethical issues found in Stanley Milgram's work with obedience and S. E. Asch's work with conformity.

Identify sources of stress across the human lifespan and explain the physiological and psychological consequences of stress for health and wellness.*

Explain physiological, cognitive, and behavioral strategies to deal with stress, and contrast positive and negative ways of coping with stress.

Explain how mental health professionals determine the appropriate treatment from the variety of psychological treatments available for various mental health issues and disorders.*

Identify differences among licensed mental health providers and outline legal and ethical requirements for mental health providers.

Explain the significance of Wyatt v. Stickney (1972) and explain how the Wyatt Standards improved mental health codes and federal regulations regarding the treatment of mental disorders.