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EPPP Part 1 (Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology) Exam Cheat Sheet (2026)
A free, printable EPPP Part 1 (Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology) exam cheat sheet: the 116 highest-yield points to know, grouped into 8 sections that follow the exam's content areas, each section with its published weight.
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- Last updated: September 2026.
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Biological Bases of Behavior
10% of the exam- Broca's vs Wernicke's aphasia
- Damage near the left inferior frontal gyrus produces effortful, nonfluent speech with relatively preserved comprehension; damage in the left posterior superior temporal region produces fluent speech with poor comprehension.· Broca (1861); NIH NIDCD aphasia fact sheet
- Medial temporal lobe and new memories
- Bilateral medial temporal (hippocampal) removal in patient H.M. produced severe anterograde amnesia while motor-skill learning was spared, separating declarative from procedural memory.· Scoville & Milner (1957); Milner (1962)
- The master clock
- The suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus is the brain's master circadian clock; it uses light input from the eyes and controls melatonin production.· NIH NIGMS Circadian Rhythms fact sheet
- Thiamine and Korsakoff syndrome
- Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome results from thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency, most often with chronic heavy alcohol use; the Korsakoff phase features memory loss and confabulation.· NIH NINDS Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome page
- SSRIs
- Sertraline, fluoxetine and related drugs inhibit neuronal reuptake of serotonin.· FDA labels (e.g., Zoloft section 12.1)
- MAOIs and tyramine
- Monoamine oxidase inhibitors such as phenelzine can produce a hypertensive crisis when combined with tyramine-rich foods such as aged cheese and cured meats.· FDA label, Nardil (phenelzine)
- Lithium monitoring
- Lithium toxicity is closely related to serum concentration and can occur near therapeutic levels, which is why serum levels are monitored.· FDA lithium label, Boxed Warning
- Substance use medications
- Disulfiram blocks alcohol metabolism at the acetaldehyde stage; naltrexone is an opioid antagonist; buprenorphine is a partial mu-opioid agonist; methadone is a full agonist.· FDA labels for each product
- Autosomal dominant inheritance
- Each child of a parent with an autosomal dominant condition such as Huntington's disease has a 50% chance of inheriting the variant.· NIH MedlinePlus Genetics
- Heritability is a population statistic
- Heritability is the share of trait variance in a particular population and environment associated with genetic variance; it does not describe an individual and does not mean a trait is unchangeable.· Visscher, Hill & Wray (2008); NIH MedlinePlus Genetics
- Twin designs
- Comparing identical and fraternal twin similarity is the classic way to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to trait variance.· Visscher, Hill & Wray (2008)
- EEG and event-related potentials
- Scalp EEG records electrical activity with millisecond timing but limited spatial precision.· Standard electrophysiology methods
- fMRI and the BOLD signal
- Functional MRI tracks a hemodynamic response that unfolds over seconds, giving better spatial than temporal resolution.· Logothetis (2008) Nature
- Structural vs functional imaging
- Structural MRI and diffusion imaging describe anatomy and white-matter tracts; functional methods such as fMRI and PET describe activity.· Standard neuroimaging methods
Cognitive-Affective Bases of Behavior
13% of the exam- Negative reinforcement
- Removing an aversive stimulus after a behavior strengthens that behavior; punishment weakens behavior.· Skinner (1953) Science and Human Behavior
- Schedules of reinforcement
- Variable-ratio schedules produce high, steady responding that is highly resistant to extinction; fixed-interval schedules produce a scalloped pattern.· Ferster & Skinner (1957)
- Contingency, not contiguity
- Conditioning depends on how well the CS predicts the US; pairing alone is not enough when the US also occurs without the CS.· Rescorla (1968)
- Preparedness
- Taste is readily linked with illness and audiovisual cues with shock, but not the reverse.· Garcia & Koelling (1966)
- Latent learning and helplessness
- Learning can occur without reinforcement and appear later (Tolman & Honzik); uncontrollable aversive events can produce later failure to escape (Seligman & Maier).· Tolman & Honzik (1930); Seligman & Maier (1967)
- Serial position
- A filled delay before recall removes the recency effect but leaves the primacy effect.· Glanzer & Cunitz (1966)
- Working memory
- Baddeley and Hitch's model has a central executive, phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad; the episodic buffer was added in 2000.· Baddeley & Hitch (1974); Baddeley (2000)
- Levels of processing
- Semantic processing yields better retention than phonemic or structural processing.· Craik & Lockhart (1972); Craik & Tulving (1975)
- Context and interference
- Recall is better when retrieval context matches learning context; old learning disrupting new is proactive interference, new disrupting old is retroactive.· Godden & Baddeley (1975); Underwood (1957)
- Fluid vs crystallized
- Crystallized knowledge holds up or grows into later adulthood; fluid reasoning and speed decline from early adulthood.· Horn & Cattell (1967)
- Two-factor theory of emotion
- Emotion follows from physiological arousal plus a cognitive label drawn from the situation.· Schachter & Singer (1962)
- Arousal and performance
- Performance rises with arousal to an optimum and then falls, with a lower optimum for difficult tasks.· Yerkes & Dodson (1908)
- Overjustification
- Expected tangible rewards for an already enjoyed activity can reduce later intrinsic interest; unexpected rewards did not.· Lepper, Greene & Nisbett (1973)
- Weber's law
- The just-noticeable difference is a constant proportion of the starting stimulus.· Weber (1834); Fechner (1860)
- Signal detection
- Sensitivity (d') and response criterion are separate; a more liberal criterion raises both hits and false alarms.· Green & Swets (1966)
- Judgment heuristics
- Availability, representativeness and anchoring are shortcuts that produce predictable errors.· Tversky & Kahneman (1974)
Social and Cultural Bases of Behavior
11% of the exam- Conformity
- In Asch's line studies, one dissenting ally sharply reduced conformity, while enlarging a unanimous majority beyond three or four added little.· Asch (1956)
- Obedience
- In Milgram's original study, 26 of 40 participants (65%) continued to the maximum 450-volt level.· Milgram (1963)
- Compliance techniques
- Foot-in-the-door starts with a small request; door-in-the-face starts with a large request that is refused.· Freedman & Fraser (1966); Cialdini et al. (1975)
- Persuasion routes
- With low motivation or ability to elaborate, attitudes shift through peripheral cues and the change is less durable.· Petty & Cacioppo (1986)
- Cognitive dissonance
- Participants paid $1 to call a dull task fun later rated it more enjoyable than those paid $20.· Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)
- Fundamental attribution error
- Observers overweight dispositions and underweight situational constraints, even when told a position was assigned.· Jones & Harris (1967); Ross (1977)
- Bystander effect
- More bystanders made help less likely and slower; the seizure study attributed this to diffusion of responsibility.· Darley & Latane (1968)
- Social facilitation
- The presence of others raises arousal and strengthens dominant responses, improving well-learned performance and impairing new performance.· Zajonc (1965)
- Superordinate goals
- Intergroup hostility fell when groups had to cooperate toward goals neither could reach alone; pleasant contact alone did not do it.· Sherif et al. (1961)
- Big Five personality
- The five-factor model comprises neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.· Costa & McCrae (1992)
- Acculturation strategies
- Integration keeps the heritage culture while participating in the larger society; assimilation, separation and marginalization are the other three strategies.· Berry (1997)
- Intersectionality
- Overlapping identities such as race and gender produce experiences of discrimination that single-axis analysis misses.· Crenshaw (1989)
- Minority stress
- Distal stressors are external prejudice events; proximal stressors include expecting rejection, concealment and internalized stigma.· Meyer (2003)
Growth and Lifespan Development
12% of the exam- Preoperational thought
- Children about 2 to 7 center on one dimension and fail conservation tasks; conservation arrives in concrete operations.· Piaget & Inhelder (1969)
- Zone of proximal development
- The gap between independent and assisted performance; adjustable, gradually withdrawn support is called scaffolding.· Vygotsky (1978); Wood, Bruner & Ross (1976)
- Theory of mind
- Passing a false-belief task shows understanding that others can hold beliefs that differ from reality.· Wimmer & Perner (1983); Baron-Cohen et al. (1985)
- Attachment classifications
- Secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant patterns come from the Strange Situation; a disorganized category was added later.· Ainsworth et al. (1978); Main & Solomon (1990)
- Temperament
- Thomas and Chess described easy, difficult and slow-to-warm-up children.· Thomas & Chess (1977)
- Parenting styles
- Authoritative parenting combines high demands with warmth and explanation; authoritarian is demanding but cold; permissive is warm but undemanding.· Baumrind (1966); Maccoby & Martin (1983)
- Adolescent identity
- Foreclosure is commitment without exploration; moratorium is exploration without commitment. Elkind described the imaginary audience and personal fable.· Marcia (1966); Elkind (1967)
- Erikson's adult stages
- Intimacy versus isolation in young adulthood, generativity versus stagnation in middle adulthood, integrity versus despair in late life.· Erikson (1950)
- Kohlberg's levels
- Moral level depends on the reasoning given: punishment and exchange (preconventional), social order (conventional), or principles (postconventional).· Kohlberg (1969, 1981)
- Aging well
- Selective optimization with compensation and socioemotional selectivity describe how older adults adapt goals and relationships.· Baltes & Baltes (1990); Carstensen et al. (1999)
- Ecological systems
- A parent's workplace is part of a child's exosystem; the microsystem is the child's own settings.· Bronfenbrenner (1979)
- Adverse childhood experiences
- The number of ACE categories showed a graded relationship with adult health risks.· Felitti et al. (1998); CDC
- Alcohol in pregnancy
- CDC states there is no known safe amount or safe time to drink alcohol during pregnancy.· CDC About Alcohol Use During Pregnancy
- Cohort effects
- Cross-sectional age differences can reflect cohort differences rather than aging.· Schaie (1965)
Assessment and Diagnosis
16% of the exam- Standard error of measurement
- SEM equals the SD times the square root of (1 minus reliability); a 95% band is about the obtained score plus or minus 1.96 SEM.· AERA/APA/NCME Standards (2014)
- Spearman-Brown
- Corrects a split-half correlation to full length: 2r / (1 + r).· Spearman (1910); Brown (1910)
- Standard scores
- T-scores have mean 50 and SD 10; one SD above the mean is about the 84th percentile.· Standard normal distribution
- Construct validity
- Convergent and discriminant correlations together support construct validity.· Campbell & Fiske (1959); Cronbach & Meehl (1955)
- Criterion-related validity
- Predictive validity uses a criterion measured later; concurrent validity uses one measured at the same time.· AERA/APA/NCME Standards (2014)
- Standard error of estimate
- SD of the criterion times the square root of (1 minus r squared).· Linear regression
- Base rates
- Positive predictive value falls as the base rate falls, even with good sensitivity and specificity.· Meehl & Rosen (1955)
- Item difficulty
- Item variance p(1 - p) is largest at p = .50, which allows maximum discrimination when guessing is not a factor.· Classical test theory
- Item response theory
- The a, b and c parameters describe discrimination, difficulty and the lower asymptote (pseudo-guessing).· Lord (1980)
- Differential prediction
- A test-criterion relationship that differs across groups is predictive bias, separate from mean differences or item-level DIF.· AERA/APA/NCME Standards (2014), ch. 3; Cleary (1968)
- MMPI-2 validity scales
- F elevations suggest overreporting or random responding; L reflects naive virtuous self-presentation; K reflects defensiveness.· MMPI-2 Manual (Butcher et al., 2001)
- RDoC
- NIMH's Research Domain Criteria is a dimensional research framework and is not meant as a diagnostic guide.· NIMH About RDoC
- Incidence vs prevalence
- Incidence counts new cases in a period among those at risk; prevalence counts all existing cases.· CDC Principles of Epidemiology
- Clinical vs statistical prediction
- Mechanical prediction has generally equaled or outperformed clinical judgment.· Meehl (1954); Grove et al. (2000)
- Judgment errors
- Availability and illusory correlation lead clinicians to see frequencies and relationships the data do not support.· Tversky & Kahneman (1974); Chapman & Chapman (1967)
Treatment, Intervention, Prevention, and Supervision
15% of the exam- Stages of change
- Precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance; contemplation is awareness without commitment to act.· Prochaska & DiClemente (1983)
- Motivational interviewing
- Reflects ambivalence and evokes the client's own reasons for change instead of arguing.· Miller & Rollnick (2013)
- Cognitive models
- Beck's cognitive triad covers negative thinking about oneself, one's world and what lies ahead; in REBT the belief about the event is what gets disputed.· Beck et al. (1979); Ellis (1962)
- Person-centered conditions
- Congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathic understanding.· Rogers (1957)
- Exposure and response prevention
- Facing obsession triggers while refraining from compulsions reduces compulsive behavior in OCD.· NIMH OCD publication
- Dialectical behavior therapy
- Developed for chronically suicidal clients with borderline personality disorder; balances acceptance and change.· Linehan (1993)
- Systematic desensitization
- Relaxation paired with a graded hierarchy works through reciprocal inhibition.· Wolpe (1958)
- Interpersonal psychotherapy
- Four problem areas: grief, role disputes, role transitions and interpersonal deficits.· Weissman, Markowitz & Klerman (2000)
- Structural vs Bowen
- Structural therapy works on boundaries and subsystems; Bowen therapy on differentiation of self and triangles.· Minuchin (1974); Bowen (1978)
- Expressed emotion
- Relatives' criticism, hostility and emotional overinvolvement predict relapse in schizophrenia.· Vaughn & Leff (1976)
- Group therapeutic factors
- Universality is discovering others share one's problems.· Yalom & Leszcz (2020)
- Prevention levels
- Universal targets everyone, selective targets higher-risk subgroups, indicated targets individuals with early signs.· Institute of Medicine (1994)
- Caplan's consultation types
- Client-centered case, consultee-centered case, program-centered administrative and consultee-centered administrative.· Caplan (1970)
- Holland's hexagon
- RIASEC order places Realistic opposite Social, Investigative opposite Enterprising, Artistic opposite Conventional.· Holland (1997)
- Super's theory
- Career development implements a developing self-concept across life stages and roles.· Super (1953, 1980)
- Discrimination model
- The supervisor moves among teacher, counselor and consultant roles.· Bernard (1979)
- Working alliance
- Agreement on goals, agreement on tasks, and the bond.· Bordin (1979)
Research Methods and Statistics
7% of the exam- Random assignment
- Strengthens internal validity; how the sample is drawn governs external validity.· Shadish, Cook & Campbell (2002)
- Regression toward the mean
- Participants selected for extreme scores tend to score closer to the mean on retest.· Campbell & Stanley (1963)
- Solomon four-group
- Adds unpretested groups to detect pretest sensitization.· Solomon (1949)
- Single-case designs
- Multiple-baseline designs stagger an intervention across settings, behaviors or people without withdrawing it.· Baer, Wolf & Risley (1968)
- Type I and Type II errors
- Type I rejects a true null (alpha); Type II fails to reject a false null.· Neyman & Pearson (1933)
- Power
- Increases with sample size, effect size, a more lenient alpha and a one-tailed test; decreases with error variance.· Cohen (1988)
- Chi-square
- Tests relationships between nominal variables using frequencies.· Pearson (1900)
- Cohen's d
- Mean difference divided by the pooled SD; 0.20, 0.50 and 0.80 are conventional small, medium and large values.· Cohen (1988)
- Shared variance
- r squared gives the proportion of variance two variables share.· Standard statistics
- Association vs causation
- A correlation alone does not establish causation; design determines causal inference.· Shadish, Cook & Campbell (2002)
Ethical, Legal, and Professional Issues
16% of the exam- Principles vs Standards
- General Principles A to E are aspirational and not a basis for sanctions; the Ethical Standards are enforceable.· APA Ethics Code, General Principles
- Informal resolution first
- When appropriate and confidentiality allows, raise a possible violation with the colleague (1.04); formal reporting is for substantial harm or failed informal resolution (1.05).· APA Standards 1.04, 1.05
- Confidentiality limits reporting
- The 1.05 reporting duty does not apply when intervening would violate confidentiality rights.· APA Standard 1.05
- Multiple relationships
- Not unethical unless they could reasonably be expected to impair objectivity or effectiveness or risk exploitation or harm.· APA Standard 3.05
- Former clients
- A two-year minimum after therapy ends; after that, still barred except in very rare cases, and the psychologist must show there was no exploitation.· APA Standard 10.08
- Students and supervisees
- No sexual relationships with students or supervisees in one's department or over whom one has or may have evaluative authority.· APA Standard 7.07
- Barter
- Permitted only if not clinically contraindicated and not exploitative.· APA Standard 6.05
- Assent and permission
- For persons legally unable to consent, explain, seek assent, consider best interests and obtain permission from a legally authorized person.· APA Standard 3.10(b)
- Trainees
- Clients of a trainee are told the therapist is supervised and given the supervisor's name.· APA Standard 10.01(c)
- Consultation
- Share only what is needed, without identifying information unless the client consents or it cannot be avoided.· APA Standard 4.06
- Records and nonpayment
- Records needed for emergency treatment may not be withheld because of unpaid fees.· APA Standard 6.03
- Psychotherapy notes under HIPAA
- Notes analyzing session conversation kept separate from the record; most uses and disclosures need a specific authorization.· 45 CFR 164.501, 164.508(a)(2)
- Test data vs test materials
- With a client release, test data are provided unless substantial harm or misuse is likely; manuals and items are test materials kept secure.· APA Standards 9.04, 9.11
- Deception and debriefing
- Disclose built-in deception promptly, by the close of data collection at the latest, and let participants remove their data.· APA Standard 8.07(c)
- Research consent
- Consent may be waived for no-risk anonymous questionnaires and similar cases; course-required participation needs equitable alternatives.· APA Standards 8.04(b), 8.05
- Publication credit
- A student is principal author on an article substantially based on the student's dissertation, except in exceptional circumstances.· APA Standard 8.12(c)
- Testimonials
- Do not solicit testimonials from current therapy clients.· APA Standard 5.05
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