Quarter 2

Chapter 7: Memory

Essential Questions:

  1. How does information get into the memory system?
  2. Why do we forget?
  3. How can I improve my memory?

"I Can"

  1. Define memory, and explain how information-processing models help us study memory.
  2. Describe the three-stage information-processing model of memory, and identify how later research has updated this model.
  3. Contrast explicit and implicit memories.
  4. Identify what information we automatically process.
  5. Explain how sensory memory works.
  6. Assess the capacity of our short-term and working memory.
  7. Categorize effortful processing strategies that can help remember new information.
  8. Explain why cramming is ineffective.
  9. Describe the testing effect.
  10. Identify the capacity of long-term memory.
  11. Indicate whether our long-term memories are processed and stored in specific locations.
  12. Distinguish the role of the hippocampus and frontal lobes in memory processing.
  13. Distinguish the roles of the cerebellum and basal ganglia in memory processing.
  14. Describe how emotions affect our memory processing.
  15. Describe how changes at the synapse level affect our memory processing.
  16. Analyze how psychologists assess memory with recall, recognition, and relearning.
  17. Discriminate how external events, internal moods, and order of appearance affect memory retrieval.
  18. Discuss why we forget.
  19. Identify how misinformation, imagination, and source amnesia influence our memory construction.
  20. Assess how reliable young children's eyewitness descriptions.
  21. Discuss why reports of repressed and recovered memories are so hotly debated.
  22. Appraise how I can use memory research findings to do better in school.


Wisconsin Standards for Social Studies

  1. SS.BH1.a.h
  2. SS.BH1.b.h
  3. SS.BH2.a.h

Chapter 8: Thinking, Language, and Intelligence

Essential Questions:

  1. How do we think and solve problems?
  2. How are thinking and language related?
  3. What is intelligence?

"I Can"

  1. Define 'cognition'.
  2. Describe strategies that help us solve problems and what tendencies work against us.
  3. Define intuition.
  4. Explain how the availability heuristic, overconfidence, belief perseverance, and framing influence our decisions and judgments.
  5. Analyze how smart thinkers use intuition.
  6. Define creativity and identify what fosters it.
  7. Distinguish what we know about thinking in other species.
  8. Define the milestones in language development.
  9. Describe how we acquire language.
  10. Identify what brain areas are involved in language processing and speech.
  11. Distinguish how thinking in images can be useful.
  12. Indicate what we know about other species' capacity for language.
  13. Define 'intelligence' as used in psychology.
  14. Analyze the arguments for 'general intelligence' (g).
  15. Contrast the two theories of multiple intelligences and appraise the criticisms of each.
  16. Explain the four abilities that make up emotional intelligence.
  17. Explain when and why intelligence tests were created.
  18. Contrast contemporary intelligence tests from early intelligence tests.
  19. Describe the 'normal curve' and explain what it means to say that a test has been standardized and it reliable and valid.
  20. Summarize the traits of those at the low and high intelligence extremes.
  21. Discuss how intelligence is influenced by nature and nurture.
  22. Assess what it means when we say that a trait it 'heritable'.
  23. Analyze how stable intelligence scores are across the lifespan.
  24. Define 'crystallized' and 'fluid' intelligence and summarize how aging affects each.
  25. Appraise how and why the geners differ in mental ability scores.
  26. Discuss how and why racial and ethnic groups differ in mental ability scores.
  27. Assess whether intelligence tests are biased and/or discriminatory.


Wisconsin Standards for Social Studies

  1. SS.BH1.a.h
  2. SS.BH1.b.h
  3. SS.BH2.a.h

Chapter 9: Motivation and Emotion

Essential Questions:

  1. What motivates behavior?
  2. How do emotions, cognition, and behaviors interact?

"I Can"

  1. Define motivation and identify three key perspectives that help us understand motivated behavior.
  2. Identify the physiological factors that cause us to feel hungry.
  3. Discuss how psychological, biological, cultural, and situational factors affect our taste preferences and eating habits.
  4. Indicate what factors predispose some people to become and remain obese.
  5. Analyze what evidence points to our human need to belong.
  6. Assess how social networking influences behavior.
  7. Identify the three parts of an emotion.
  8. Discuss what theories help us to understand our emotions.
  9. Indicate some basic emotions.
  10. Assess the link between emotional arousal and the autonomic nervous system.
  11. Explain how our body states relate to specific emotions.
  12. Indicate how effective polygraph testing is in using body states to detect lies.
  13. Summarize how we communicate nonverbally.
  14. Contrast how men and women differ in nonverbal communication skills.
  15. Differentiate how nonverbal expressions of emotion are understood within and across cultures.
  16. Appraise how facial expressions influence our feelings.


Wisconsin Standards for Social Studies

  1. SS.BH1.a.h
  2. SS.BH1.b.h
  3. SS.BH2.a.h

Chapter 10: Stress, Health, and Human Flourishing

Essential Questions:

  1. How does stress affect health?
  2. What are effective ways to cope with stress?

"I Can"

  1. Discuss how our appraisal of an event affects our stress reaction.
  2. Identify three main types of stressors.
  3. Express how stress influences our immune system.
  4. Appraise the relationship between stress and the risk of coronary heart disease.
  5. Summarize the two basic ways that people cope with stress.
  6. Evaluate how our sense of control influences stress and health.
  7. Contrast optimists and pessimists.
  8. Assess how social support and finding meaning in life influence health.
  9. Appraise how well aerobic exercise helps to manage stress and improve well-being.
  10. Describe the ways in which relaxation and meditation may influence stress and health.
  11. Assess how religious involvement may relate to health.
  12. Discuss the causes and consequences of happiness.


Wisconsin Standards for Social Studies

  1. SS.BH1.a.h
  2. SS.BH1.b.h
  3. SS.BH2.a.h

Chapter 11: Personality

Essential Questions:

  1. What determines personality?

"I Can"

  1. Explain how Sigmund Freud's treatment of psychological disorders lead to his view of the unconscious mind.
  2. Describe Freud's view of personality
  3. Summarize the developmental stages proposed by Freud.
  4. Indicate how Freud thought people defended themselves against anxiety.
  5. Categorize which Freudian ideas his followers accepted and rejected.
  6. Describe projective tests and identify how they are used what how they are criticized.
  7. Assess how today's psychologists view Freudian psychoanalysis.
  8. Identify how modern research has developed our understanding of the unconscious.
  9. Summarize how humanistic psychologists view personality.
  10. Identify how humanistic psychologists assess a person's sense of self.
  11. Distinguish how humanistic theories how influenced psychology and the criticisms they have faced.
  12. Explain how psychologists use traits to describe personality.
  13. Describe personality inventories.
  14. Appraise what traits seem to provide the most useful information about personality variation.
  15. Appraise if research supports the consistency of personality traits over time and across situations.
  16. Explain how social-cognitive theorists view personality development and explore behavior.
  17. Summarize the criticisms social-cognitive theorists have faced.
  18. Identify why psychology has generated so much research on the self.
  19. Assess the importance of self-esteem to psychology and our well-being.
  20. Evaluate what evidence reveals self-serving bias.
  21. Contrast defensive self-esteem and secure self-esteem.
  22. Summarize how individualist and collectivist cultures influence people.


Wisconsin Standards for Social Studies

  1. SS.BH1.a.h
  2. SS.BH1.b.h
  3. SS.BH2.a.h