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Chapters

This textbook is organized into 16 chapters covering 387 concepts aligned with the College Board AP Psychology CED (Effective Fall 2024).

Chapter Overview

  1. Foundations of Psychology and Research Methods — Introduces psychology as a science, experimental and non-experimental research designs, statistical reasoning, ethical guidelines, and foundational biological concepts. (30 concepts)
  2. Biological Bases of Behavior: Neurons and the Brain — Covers the full nervous system from spinal cord to cortex, brain structures, hemispheric lateralization, neuroimaging, and sleep. (36 concepts)
  3. Neurochemistry and Psychopharmacology — Examines neural transmission, eight major neurotransmitters, five hormones, and psychoactive drug categories. (35 concepts)
  4. Sensation and Perception — Traces stimulus transduction through all sensory modalities to perceptual organization, depth cues, and attention. (26 concepts)
  5. Cognition and Thinking — Explores problem-solving, heuristics, cognitive biases, theories of intelligence, and standardized testing. (22 concepts)
  6. Memory: Encoding, Storage, and Models — Covers multi-store and working memory models, encoding strategies, and the biological basis of consolidation. (18 concepts)
  7. Memory: Retrieval, Forgetting, and Distortion — Addresses retrieval cues, interference, the misinformation effect, constructive memory, and amnesia. (18 concepts)
  8. Development: Prenatal Through Childhood — Surveys prenatal development, Piaget's early stages, Vygotsky's theory, language acquisition, and attachment. (19 concepts)
  9. Development: Adolescence Through Adulthood — Covers formal operations, identity, moral development, adult cognitive change, and Kübler-Ross grief stages. (18 concepts)
  10. Learning and Conditioning — Examines classical conditioning, operant conditioning, Bandura's social learning theory, and cognitive factors in learning. (28 concepts)
  11. Social Psychology: Attitudes, Attribution, and Influence — Covers attribution errors, cognitive dissonance, persuasion, conformity, obedience, and stereotype threat. (19 concepts)
  12. Social Psychology: Groups, Prejudice, and Aggression — Explores groupthink, bystander effect, prejudice, implicit attitudes, and altruism. (18 concepts)
  13. Personality and Motivation — Surveys psychodynamic, humanistic, social-cognitive, and trait theories of personality; motivation; and emotion. (31 concepts)
  14. Health Psychology and Introduction to Psychological Disorders — Covers stress, coping, positive psychology, the DSM/ICD classification systems, and an introduction to disorders. (23 concepts)
  15. Psychological Disorders — In-depth coverage of neurodevelopmental, psychotic, mood, anxiety, OCD, dissociative, eating, and personality disorders. (23 concepts)
  16. Treatment and Therapy — Surveys psychotherapies, biological treatments, culturally responsive care, stigma, and posttraumatic growth. (23 concepts)

How to Use This Textbook

Chapters are ordered so that every concept's prerequisites are covered before they are needed. Read chapters in sequence for the full AP curriculum, or use the Learning Graph to jump to a specific concept and trace its dependencies. Each chapter stub ends with TODO: Generate Chapter Content — full content is added by the chapter-content-generator skill.

Note: Each chapter index lists all concepts covered. All 387 concepts appear exactly once across the 16 chapters, with zero dependency violations.