*AP Psychology Summer Assignment*

Please read the entire document. There are several important things within.

This assignment is due on the first day of class.

Psychology is defined as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

I suspect that you signed up to take this course for lots of different reasons. What I love about psychology is that it allows us to learn about ourselves. While it gives us the opportunity to study interesting things like mental disorders, it also allows us to see what kinds of things shape our behavior. I would be willing to bet that you’ve never thought about how much advertisers and businesses use psychology to motivate us.

For example…think about a grocery store. Why is milk—something that just about everyone needs—always at the back of the store? The owners want us to have to walk all the way to the back and hopefully buy something else along the way. Why are there candy bars and magazines and small items at the checkout? They are “impulse items” that the owners hope we will feel compelled to buy as we wait.

Part I of your assignment:

a)Read the article at this link

It further describes how grocery stores use psychology to affect our purchases.

b) Give me a brief (no more than a paragraph) description of what you have learned from the article.

c)Now, I want you to apply this principle to ONE other businessyou have visited. You may use ANY business EXCEPT a grocery store. (We’ve already covered several parts of this). Identify 5 examples of psychology at work in that single business.You are to write about the 5 specific examples you have found and explain how those practices are supposed to modify people’s behavior. This may be in bullets, but the bullets should be in complete sentences. I am not expecting you to do any research other than observation. Depending on the business, think about things like seating, price points, product placement, etc. Anything that is an established practice in that business has been developed for a particular reason.

Keep in mind, I am not looking for the “Great American Novel” here, but you do have the entire summer to complete it, so I will expect more than just a couple of sentences. And while it should go without saying, I want to stress that your work should be your own—no getting help from a friend at the last minute.

Remember…ANY business EXCEPT a grocery store is just fine…including anyplace you might go this summer…DisneyWorld, a hotel, an airline…anything. 

Part II of the assignment involves you creating an account and getting an introduction to a program we will be using during the school year.

Go to and click “join.” When prompted, enter the code ceiskajto join my AP Psychology class. Please use your FULL NAME as your username so I will know who you are. REMEMBER your username and password. You WILL be using this again! Watch the video that’s available and answer the questions within the program as they arise. Those answers will be submitted for part of your grade.

One final important bit of information: Though not required, I strongly suggest that you invest in an AP Psychology study guide. There are several available—5 Steps to a 5, Princeton reviews, and my personal favorite, Barron’s guides. ANY AP Psychology guide would work. They’re an excellent resource to help you through the course as well as aiding you in review for the exam. This is just something to consider in case you want to get one over the summer.