CSCredit Sprint
Sign upStart free

Credit Sprint / Study guides / Psychology Unit 3

Credit Sprint's Guide to AP® Psychology, Unit 3: Development and Learning

AP® weight 15–25%CLEP® Development, learning

Unit 3 follows people from conception to old age and explains how experience changes behavior through classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning. Learning questions are among the most predictable on the exam, so learn the vocabulary well.

Classical conditioning in three stepsBeforeUCS (food) → UCR (salivate) Duringneutral bell + UCS → UCR AfterCS (bell) → CR (salivate) Extinction: the CS is presented without the UCS

What you need to know

  • Development is studied with cross-sectional, longitudinal and cross-sequential designs. Core debates include nature versus nurture, continuity versus stages, and stability versus change. Prenatal risks include teratogens such as alcohol, which can cause fetal alcohol syndrome.
  • Piaget's cognitive stages are sensorimotor (object permanence), preoperational (egocentrism, centration, lack of conservation), concrete operational (conservation, logic about concrete things) and formal operational (abstract and hypothetical thinking). Assimilation fits new information into existing schemas; accommodation changes the schemas. Vygotsky stressed culture, scaffolding and the zone of proximal development.
  • Attachment research includes Harlow's monkeys (contact comfort) and Ainsworth's Strange Situation (secure, avoidant and anxious-ambivalent attachment). Baumrind's parenting styles are authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and neglectful. Erikson's eight psychosocial stages run from trust versus mistrust to integrity versus despair, and Kohlberg's moral levels are preconventional, conventional and postconventional.
  • Adolescence brings puberty, identity formation and a still-developing prefrontal cortex. Adults face physical decline, but crystallized intelligence stays stable, and many older adults remain socially and cognitively active. Kübler-Ross proposed five stages of grief, although many researchers say grief does not follow a fixed order.
  • Classical conditioning pairs a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) that triggers an unconditioned response (UCR); after pairing, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) that triggers a conditioned response (CR). Pavlov's dogs and Watson's Little Albert are the standard examples. Know acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, discrimination and higher-order conditioning.
  • Operant conditioning (Thorndike, Skinner) changes behavior through consequences. Reinforcement increases behavior (positive adds something, negative removes something unpleasant) and punishment decreases it (positive adds something, negative removes something pleasant). Shaping reinforces successive approximations. Fixed-ratio, variable-ratio, fixed-interval and variable-interval schedules differ, and variable-ratio schedules produce the highest, most extinction-resistant responding.
  • Observational learning (Bandura's Bobo doll studies) shows that people learn by watching models, with attention, retention, reproduction and motivation involved. Cognitive learning also includes latent learning (Tolman), insight learning (Köhler), learned helplessness (Seligman) and biological constraints such as taste aversion (Garcia).

Exam traps

Watch forNegative reinforcement is not punishment. It removes something unpleasant to increase a behavior (taking an aspirin and the headache disappears). Punishment always decreases behavior.
Watch forIn classical conditioning, the response before learning is unconditioned and the stimulus before learning is neutral. The same response after learning is conditioned. Label the order carefully.
Watch forSchedules: ratio depends on number of responses, interval depends on time. Variable is unpredictable. Slot machines are variable-ratio.
Watch forAssimilation fits new information into an old schema; accommodation changes the schema. Piaget's conservation appears at the concrete operational stage.

Key terms

  • Teratogen: A harmful agent, such as alcohol or a virus, that can damage an embryo or fetus.
  • Cross-sectional study: A study that compares people of different ages at one point in time.
  • Longitudinal study: A study that follows and retests the same people over a long period.
  • Schema: A mental framework that organizes and interprets information.
  • Assimilation: Fitting new information into existing schemas.
  • Accommodation: Adjusting existing schemas to fit new information.
  • Object permanence: The awareness that things continue to exist even when out of sight.
  • Conservation: Understanding that amount stays the same even when its shape changes.
  • Egocentrism: Difficulty seeing a situation from another person's point of view, typical of the preoperational stage.
  • Zone of proximal development: Vygotsky's range of tasks a child can do with help but not yet alone.
  • Scaffolding: Temporary support from a more skilled person that helps a learner reach a higher level.
  • Attachment: A strong emotional bond between a child and a caregiver.
  • Contact comfort: The comfort of touch, shown by Harlow to matter more than feeding for attachment.
  • Strange Situation: Ainsworth's procedure for observing a child's attachment style.
  • Authoritative parenting: A parenting style that combines warmth with firm rules and explanations.
  • Authoritarian parenting: A parenting style that demands obedience with strict rules and little warmth.

Practice questions

Five of the 118 Unit 3 questions in Credit Sprint. Every choice is explained in the app.

1. Which term best fits this description: thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely?
  1. Law of effect
  2. Strange Situation
  3. Assimilation
  4. Critical period
Show answer

Law of effect. Law of effect fits this description: Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely.

2. Which statement best defines the term Learned helplessness?
  1. Learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus that triggers an automatic response
  2. A mental framework that organizes and interprets information
  3. Reinforcement after an unpredictable number of responses, which produces high and steady responding
  4. Passive behavior after repeated exposure to uncontrollable events
Show answer

Passive behavior after repeated exposure to uncontrollable events. Learned helplessness is defined this way: Passive behavior after repeated exposure to uncontrollable events.

3. Which term best fits this description: a strong dislike for a food associated with illness, learned after a single pairing?
  1. Stimulus generalization
  2. Taste aversion
  3. Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
  4. Critical period
Show answer

Taste aversion. Taste aversion fits this description: A strong dislike for a food associated with illness, learned after a single pairing.

4. Which statement best defines the term Contact comfort?
  1. A time window when exposure to certain stimuli is needed for normal development
  2. The comfort of touch, shown by Harlow to matter more than feeding for attachment
  3. Removing an unpleasant stimulus after a behavior to increase it
  4. A study that compares people of different ages at one point in time
Show answer

The comfort of touch, shown by Harlow to matter more than feeding for attachment. Contact comfort is defined this way: The comfort of touch, shown by Harlow to matter more than feeding for attachment.

5. Which finding is most closely associated with Pavlov?
  1. Preschoolers who could delay gratification in the marshmallow test tended to show better later outcomes in follow-up studies
  2. Recorded cat visual cortex neurons and found feature detectors that respond to lines of specific orientation
  3. Split-brain patients showed that the left and right hemispheres process information differently when the corpus callosum is cut
  4. Dogs learned to salivate to a neutral tone that had been paired with food, demonstrating classical conditioning
Show answer

Dogs learned to salivate to a neutral tone that had been paired with food, demonstrating classical conditioning. Pavlov, 1902: Dogs learned to salivate to a neutral tone that had been paired with food, demonstrating classical conditioning.