Congratulations on choosing Psychology for your CLEP exam! It is a beautiful science which aims to improve the lives of humans through understanding of behavior and mental processes that goes beyond speculations, anecdotal evidence, and common sense.
The exam is structured to take you through the material typical for an undergraduate level one-semester introductory course. You’ll start by revising the basic approaches to the study of the human mind, as well as the influences which other disciplines (like ethology and biology) have brought to this field. Afterwards, you’ll go into more in-depth understanding of the main mental processes identified in humans, like emotion, thought, memory, learning, and the interactions between them. You will further look into higher order behavior concepts like personality, the executive function, and psychopathology (the types of psychological dysfunctions) and its treatment.
If you find yourself often wondering about the behavior of those around you and even yourself and what drives it, you’ll likely love learning about psychology and enjoy this test. Many of the findings in psychology are counterintuitive and have brought a great deal of understanding to how us humans develop and what shapes our behavior and thoughts.
The exam will be divided into thirteen major chunks:
Precisely because much of what we know now was possible only by scratching beneath the surface of our minds, it is important to understand the history of psychology and the approaches and methods that were taken to studying it. Since it is not a “hard” science, meaning that many of the tools used to study it aren’t as exact as in physics, there is debate regarding which is the best approach. Generally, most psychological researchers and practitioners use a mix of approaches, but the main paradigms of studying psychology are: biological, the behavioral (notable theorists: Watson and Skinner), cognitive (which views the human mind mainly from the perspective of information processing systems), humanistic (notable theorists: Rogers and Maslow), and psychodynamic (notable theorist: Freud). The beginning of psychology as a science is considered to come with the first experimental laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig, established by Wundt. Since then, many studies were performed, some even with questionable methods (see Stanford Prison Experiment or Milgram’s Experiment). That is why the question of ethical research is also important in this topic.
As said earlier, one of the main approaches is biological, meaning that it looks at how biological processes determine behavior, especially through the body’s nervous system. As such, basic knowledge of the nervous system, the endocrine system, and genetics are needed as these are clear determinants of at least a portion of specific human behavior and mental activity. For example, many psychological disorders have a significant genetic component, meaning that they tend to appear in related individuals which share a significant amount of DNA configuration.
This section deals with the funda-“mental” processes involved in how our minds take in sensory information from the environment through our senses and use it to construct our awareness of the physical and social world around us. These were the first aspects of our minds to be studied experimentally and we have learned a great deal through them. These processes have important implications for higher order functions (like attitudes) since our perceptions shape our view of the world. “The map is not the territory” is a common saying in psychology and it refers to both these elemental processes and how they are sometimes skewed by their nature (see illusions), and also to how our frame of reference about reality is rarely 100% objective.
Here you get to learn about what defines the usual states our minds are in (the two most common being sleep and wakefulness) but also what and how our normal wakeful state is altered through several methods or substances, and how these altered states can be used to solve certain problems, but also the myths and misconceptions regarding the use of such states. The most frequent and studied methods of altering our states of consciousness are hypnosis, meditation, and psychoactive drugs.
Learning is something we do our entire lives and often, in order to improve, we have to unlearn what we once needed to learn. Don’t worry though, this chapter isn’t about studying, it is about the principles that guide how we acquire skills and information, often without intending to do so (as in operant conditioning or in social learning). The principles and processes learned here have expanded our understanding of many seemingly irrational processes that happen in human behavior (e.g. in gambling).
The superior and most complex functions of the mind are reunited under the umbrella-term cognition (from Latin cognosco = to know), referring to how we think and decide, our intelligence, creativity, language, memory, and problem solving. Even though in common language when we refer to someone as smart or intelligent, most people understand what is meant, defining intelligence has proven quite tricky and many differing approaches are supported. The above processes have clear interdependencies, meaning that one influences the other (e.g. a good memory will result in an increased level of measured intelligence) so these processes should be understood together, whereas they are separated in theory only in order to more efficiently study and analyze them.
No matter how much some of us would wish so, humans are not strictly logical organisms which process information from the environment. Our emotions have evolved as a consequence of adapting to a changing and often ambiguous environment and they are intrinsically tied with motivation. As such, emotions reflect the extent to which are needs and desires are met. When our efforts are rewarded, we feel positive emotions and when they are not we feel negative emotions. This serves also to drive us further into achieving that which motivates us and to better adapt to our environment. Therefore, the best thing is to understand our emotions and accept them in order to be in touch with our authentic selves.
By studying how humans evolve mentally from the moment they are born much knowledge was acquired about the manner in which we think and feel, as well as about what are some of the key factors in ensuring a child grows up into a well-rounded individual. Human development has multiple dimensions (physical, cognitive, as well as social) and longitudinal studies (which follow participants throughout a given period of time) are very informative in terms of how these dimensions vary consistently with certain ages.
Generally speaking, personality in psychology refers to the patterns of behavior, attitudes, and mentality which are stable in time. These patterns have been conceptualized in many ways with each major paradigm having its own take on human personality. One major categorization of approaches in personality is that of type versus trait. Some theories, especially earlier ones, talk of personality types, with each individual being part of one or the other of several mutually exclusive types. Other theories talk about major traits which can be understood as dimensions of personality with people being placed somewhere between one end or the other of each dimension in terms of their preferences or tendencies.
Psychological disorders (also called mental disorders or psychopathology) refers to a wide spectrum of disruptions in the normal functioning of human behavior and mental processes. Abnormal is mainly defined as that which impairs human functioning and causes personal distress, while also partially considering the statistical criterion (what is normal according to the majority) and the cultural criterion (what is normal according to cultural norms). There are many forms of disorders and most of them are considered to be determined by more than one factor.
Similarly to personality theories, most major paradigms have their own approach to the psychological treatment of mental disorders (named psychotherapy). The original form of psychotherapy was psychoanalysis. Some of the conceptual limitations of psychoanalysis and the results of different studies have determined other psychotherapists to develop their own take on how to treat mental disorders. To date, there are over 200 schools of psychotherapies, but most fall under the following typology: psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic-existential.
No man is an island. That is the main train of thought that stood behind the motivation of social psychologists to look at how humans behave and construct their social reality in their groups of affiliation. Consequently, many behaviors were more pertinently explained when they were put in a social context than when researchers only looked at individual mental processes. Some of the most interesting and intriguing studies and theories came from the social psychology school (see Asch’s experiments on conformity or Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory).
As a science, statistical techniques are very important for psychology. This is true for both researchers and practitioners in order to become critical consumers of research. Since there are many studies performed yearly, often with contradicting results, it is important to assess which studies are more valuable in terms of the techniques used. Additionally, the instruments used are often self-report measures and the validity (how good it measures what it sets out to measure) and reliability (how consistently it measures what it sets out to measure) of these standardized instruments is also critical. Thankfully, we have statistical techniques for assessing these two important criteria.
So, are you ready to test the waters? Take this practice quiz and judge your preparation level before diving into deeper study. All test questions are in a multiple-choice format, with one correct answer and four incorrect options. The following are samples of the types of questions that may appear on the exam.
Note: Please do keep in mind that we can’t guarantee the accuracy of this quiz, so we do recommend you also run through a full-length practice exam. The CollegeBoard offers a good one that we’ll share in the resources section below.
Correct Answer: A. A combination of psychopharmaceutic drugs AND psychotherapy.
Explanation: For disorders like major depression, the most increased reduction in depression is usually registered when both drugs and psychotherapy is administered. The same holds for most mental disorders for which there are drug options.
Correct Answer: C. All of the above
Explanation: The biopsychosocial model for the etiology of mental disorders is the most accepted model and it states that all three classes of factors and their interactions are relevant in the formation of mental disorders, with certain types of disorders being impacted more by one or the other.
Correct Answer: D. Conscientiousness
Explanation: Conscientiousness is defined as the tendency to be well-organized, punctual, and disciplined. Increased levels of this trait have been associated with increased performance across multiple workplace environments and jobs, making it the most reliable personality related predictor of performance.
Correct Answer: C. False. There is no relationship between performance and motivation.
Explanation: According to the Yerkes–Dodson law, too little arousal (a commonly used indicator for motivation) as well as too much arousal will lead to lower performance, especially in complex tasks, while an optimum level of motivation is found around the middle point of arousal.
