Key Terms And Definitions And People - Psychology

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Aaron Beck

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Cognitive therapy for depression that aims to replace negative or irrational thoughts with more reasonable, adaptive ones

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Cognitive-Behavioral Therapist

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Ablation

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A surgically induced brain lesion.

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Absolute refractory period

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The period that follows the onset of an action potential. During this period, a nerve impulse cannot be initiated.

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Absolute Threshold

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The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time.

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Accommodation

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A principle of Piaget's theory of cognitive development. It occurs when cognitive . structures are modified because new information or new experiences do not fit into existing cognitive structures.

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Acetylcholine

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A neurotransmitter found in both central and peripheral nervous systems linked to Alzheimer's disease and used to transmit nerve impulses to the muscles.

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Achievement Motivation

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A desire for significant accomplishment: for mastery of thing, people, or ideas (semicolon -insert-) for attaining a high standard.

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Achievement Test

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A test designed to assess what a person has learned.

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Acoustic Encoding

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The encoding of sound, especially the sound of words.

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Acquisition

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The initial stage in classical conditioning; the phase associating a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus comes to elicit a conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response.

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Acrophobia

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An irrational fear of heights.

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ACT model (Adaptive Control of Thought)

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A model that :describes memory in terms of procedural .and declarative memory.

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Action Potential

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A neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon. It is generated by the movement of positively charged atoms in and out of channels in the axon's membrane.

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Active Listening

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Empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies. A feature of Rogers' client-centered therapy.

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Actor-observer effect

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The tendency of actors to see observer behavior as due to external factors (situational factors) and the tendency of observers to attribute actors' behaviors .to internal characteristics (dispositional characteristics).

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Acuity

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The sharpness of vision.

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Adaptation-Level Phenomenon

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Our tendency to form judgements (of sounds, of lights, of income) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience.

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Addiction

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Compulsive drug craving and use.

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Adolescence

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The transitional period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence.

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Adrenal Glands

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A pair of endocrine glands just above the kidneys. Adrenal glands secrete the hormones epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline), which help to arouse the body in times of stress.

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Adrenaline

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A hormone that increases energy available for "fight or flight" reactions (also known as epinephrine).

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Aerobic Exercise

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Sustained exercise that increases heart and lung fitness (semicolon -insert-) may also alleviate depression and anxiety.

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Afterimage

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A visual sensation that appears after prolonged or intense. exposure to a stimulus.

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Aggression

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Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone.

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Agnosia

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Impairments in perceptual recognition,

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Agoraphobia

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An irrational fear of being in places or situations where' escape might be difficult,

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Albert Bandura

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Social learning theory that states we learn behavior through vicarious reinforcement

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Behaviorist

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Albert Ellis

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Rational-emotive therapy states that irrational beliefs about self impair goal attainment and aims to repair those beliefs

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Cognitive-Behavioral Therapist

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Algorithm

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A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier- but also more error-prone- use of heuristics.

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All-or-nothing law

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A law about nerve impulses stating that when depolarization reaches the critical threshold (–50 millivolts) the neuron is going to fire, each time, every time.

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Alpha Waves

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The relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state.

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Alternate-form method

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In psychometrics, it is the method of using two or more different forms of a test to determine the reliability of a particular test.

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Altruism

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A form of helping behavior where the animal's intent is to benefit other animals at some cost to itself.

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Alzheimer's Disease

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A progressive and irreversible brain disorder characterized by gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and, finally, physical functioning.

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Amnesia

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A dissociative disorder where individuals are unable to recall past experience, but this inability is not due to a neurological disorder.

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Amphetamines

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Drugs that stimulate neural activity, causing speeded-up body functions and associated energy and mood changes.

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Amygdala

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Two lima bean-sized neural clusters that are components of the limbic system and are linked to emotion.

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Analogy of inoculation

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McGuire's analogy that people can be psychologically inoculated against the "attack" of persuasive communications by first exposing them to a weakened attack.

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Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)

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A statistical method to compare the means of more than two groups by comparing the between-group variance to the within-group variance.

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Anima (animus)

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An archetype from Jung's theory referring to the feminine behaviors in males, and the masculine behaviors in females.

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Anorexia Nervosa

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An eating disorder in which a normal-weight person (usually an adolescent female) diets and becomes significantly (15 percent or more) underweight, yet, still feeling fat, continues to starve.

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Anterograde amnesia

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Memory loss for new information following brain injury.

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Antisocial Personality Disorder

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A personality disorder in which the person (usually a man) exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members. May be aggressive and ruthless or a clever con artist.

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Anxiety Disorders

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Psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety.

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Aphagia

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An impairment in the ability to eat.

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Aphasia

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Impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding).

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Apparent motion

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An illusion that occurs when two dots flashed in different locations on a screen seconds apart are perceived as one moving dot.

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Apraxia

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An impairment in the organization of voluntary action.

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Aptitude Test

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A test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn.

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AR Luria

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Studied numerous neurological disorders such as aphasia

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Archetypes

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The building blocks for the collective unconscious referred to in Jung's theory of personality.

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Arnoson and Linder

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gain-loss principle

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Arthur Jensen

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Argued that intelligence as measured by IQ tests is almost entirely genetic. Also focused on differences in IQ scores across race.

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Asch

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compared length of lines; four that subjectis yieled to group pressure and chose incorrect line

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Assimilation

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A principle of Piaget's theory of cognitive development. It is the process of understanding new information in relation to prior knowledge, or existing schemata.

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Association Areas

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Areas of the cerebral cortex that are not involved in primary motor or sensory functions' rather, they are involved in higher mental functions such as learning, remembering, thinking, and speaking.

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Associative Learning

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Learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning).

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Atkinson-Shiffin model

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A model of memory that involves three memory structures (sensory, short-term and long-term), and the processes that operate these memory structures.

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Attachment

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An emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation.

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Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

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A psychological disorder marked by the appearance by age 7 of one or more of three key symptoms: extreme inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.

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Attitude

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Feelings, often based on our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events.

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attractiveness stereotype

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the tendency to attribute positive qualities and desirable characteristics to attactive people

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Attribution theory

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Fritz Heider's theory that people tend to infer the causes of other people's behavior as either dispositional (related to the individual) or situational (related to the environment).

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Audition

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The sense or act of hearing.

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Authoritati parenting style

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A parenting style tending to have reasonably high demands for child compliance coupled with emotional warmth.

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Autism

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A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others' states of mind.

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autocratic group

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more hostile, more aggressive, and more dependet on their leader; greatest quantity of work

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Autokinetic effect

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An illusion that occurs when a spot of light appears to move erratically in a dark room, simply because here is no frame of reference.

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Automatic Processing

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Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.

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Autonomic Nervous System

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The part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs (such as the heart). Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms.

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Availability Heuristic

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Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory, if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common.

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Aversion therapy

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A behavioral therapy of pairing unpleasant stimuli with undesirable behavior.

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Aversive Conditioning

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A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state( such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alcohol).

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Axon

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The extension of a neuron, ending in branching terminal fibers, through which messages pass to other neurons or to muscle or glands.

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Babbling Stage

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Beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the house-hold language.

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Balance theory

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Fritz Heider's consistency theory that is concerned with balance and imbalance in the ways in which three elements are related

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Bandur's social learning theory

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aggression is learned through modelign or through reinforcement; aggressive behavior is selectively reinforced--people act aggressively because they expect some sor of reward for doing so

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Barbiturates

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Drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgement.

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Basal Metabolic Rate

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The body's resting rate of energy expenditure.

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Basic Trust

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According to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers.

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Batson's empath-altruism model

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when faced with situations in which others may need help, people might feel distress (mental pain or anguish) and/or they might feel empathy; both these states are important, since either can determine helping behavior

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Behavior Genetics

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The study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behaviour.

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Behavior Therapy

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Therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors.

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Behavioral contracts

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A therapeutic technique that is a negotiated agreement between two parties that explicitly stipulates the behavioral change that is desired and indicates consequences of certain acts.

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Behavioral Medicine

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An interdisciplinary field that integrates behavioral and medical knowledge and applies that knowledge to health and disease.

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Behavioral-stimulants

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A class of drugs that increase behavioral activity by increasing motor activity or by counteracting fatigue, and which are thought to stimulate receptors for dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin.

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Behaviorism

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The view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2).

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Bekesy's traveling wave theory

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Proposed by Von Bekesy, the theory holds that high frequency sounds ' maximally vibrate the basilar membrane near the beginning of the cochlea close to the oval window and low frequencies maximally vibrate near the apex, or tip of the cochlea.

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Belief Bias

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The tendency for one's pre-existing beliefs to distort logical reasoning, sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalid.

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Belief Perseverance

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Clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

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Between-subjects design

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An experimental design whereby each subject is exposed to only one level of each independent variable.

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Binocular Cues

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Depth cues, such as retinal disparity and convergence, that depend on the use of two eyes.

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Binocular disparity (stereopsis)

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A cue for depth perception that depends on the fact that the distance between the eyes provides two slightly disparate views of the world that, when combined, give us a perception of depth.

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Biofeedback

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A system for electronically recording, amplifying, and feeding back information regarding a subtle physiological state, such as blood pressure or muscle tension.

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Biological Psychology

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A branch of psychology concerned with the links between biology and behaviour. (Some biological psychologists call themselves behavioural neuroscientists, neuropsychologists, behaviour geneticists, physiological psychologists, biopsychologists.)

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Biological Rhythms

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Periodic physiological fluctuations.

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Biomedical Therapy

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Prescribed medications or medical procedures that act directly on the patient's nervous system.

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Bipolar Disorder

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A mood disorder in which the person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania. (Formerly called manic-depressive disorder.)

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Blind Spot

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The point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because no receptor cells are located there.

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Boomerang effect

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In theories of attitude persuasion, it is an attitude change in the opposite direction of the persuader's message.

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Borderline personality disorder

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A personality disorder characterized by an instability in interpersonal behavior, mood and self-image that borders on psychosis.

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Bottom-up processing (data-driven processing)

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Information processing that occurs when objects are recognized by the summation of the components of incoming stimulus to arrive at the whole pattern.

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Brainstem

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The oldest part and central core of the brain, beginning where the spinal cord swells as it enters the skull; it is responsible for automatic survival functions.

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Brightness

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The subjective impression of the intensity of a light stimulus.

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Brightness contrast

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In brightness perception, it refers to a when a particular luminance appears brighter when surrounded by a darker stimulus than when surrounded by a lighter stimulus.

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Broca's aphasia

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Impairments in producing spoken language associated with lesions to Broca's area..

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Broca's Area

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Controls language expression- an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.

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Bulimia Nervosa

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An eating disorder characterized by episodes of overeating, usually of high-calorie foods, followed by vomiting, laxative use, fasting, or excessive exercise.

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Bystander Effect

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The tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present.

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Cannon-Bard Theory

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The theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion.

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Carl Hovland's model

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deals with attitude change as a process of communicating a message with the intent to persuade someone

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Carl Hovland's model: three commonents of communiation of persuasion

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1) the communicator--the source; someone who has taken a position on an issue and is trying to persuade someone to adopt his or her position; produces communication 2) the communication--presentation of argument 3) the situation--the surroundings in which the communication takes place

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Case Study

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An observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles.

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Catharsis

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Emotional release. In psychology, the catharsis hypothesis maintains that "releasing" aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges.

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Central Nervous System (CNS)

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The brain and spinal cord.

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Centration

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A term from Piaget's theory, it is the tendency for preoperational children to be able to focus on only one aspect of a phenomenon.

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Cerebellum

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The "little brain" attached to the rear of the brainstem; its functions include processing sensory input and coordinating movement output and balance.

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Cerebral Cortex

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The intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells that covers the cerebral hemispheres; the body's ultimate control and information-processing center.

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Chi-square test

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A statistical method of testing for an association between two categorical variables. Specifically, it tests for the equality of two frequencies or proportions.

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Chlorpromazine

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An antipsychotic drug thought to block receptor sites for dopamine, making it effective in treating the delusional thinking, hallucinations and agitation commonly associated with schizophrenia.

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Chromosomes

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Threadlike structures made of DNA molecules that contain the genes.

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Chunking

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Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

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Circadian Rhythm

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The biological clock; regular bodily rhythms (for example, of temperature and wakefulness) that occur on a 24-hour cycle.

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Clark, K and Clark, M

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performed study on doll preferences in African American children; the majority of the white and black children preferred the white doll ude to the negative effects of racism and minority group status on the self-concept of black children; the results were used in the 1954 Brown v the Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court case

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Classical Conditioning

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A type of learning in which an organism comes to associate stimuli. A neutral stimulus that signals an unconditioned stimulus (US) begins to produce a response that anticipates and prepares for the unconditioned stimulus. Also called Pavlovian or respondent conditioning.

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Claustrophobia

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An irrational fear of closed places.

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Client-Centered Therapy

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A humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting, empathic, environment to facilitate clients' growth. (Also called person-centered therapy.)

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Clustering

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A technique to enhance memory by organizing items into conceptually-related categories

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Cochlea

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A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses.

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Cochlear Implant

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A device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea.

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Cognition

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The mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

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Cognitive Dissonance Theory

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The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when our awareness of our attitudes and of our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes.

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Cognitive Map

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A mental representation of the layout of one's environment. For example, after exploring a maze, rats act as if they have learned a cognitive map of it.

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cognitive theory

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involves pereption, judgement, memories, and decision making

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Cognitive Therapy

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Therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting (semicolon -insert-) based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.

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Cognitive-Behavior Therapy

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A popular integrated therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior).

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Collective Unconscious

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Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history.

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Collectivism

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Giving priority to the goals of one's group (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly.

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Color Constancy

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Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent colour, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.

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Companionate Love

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The deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined.

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Compensation

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A defense mechanism whereby something is done to make up for something that is lacking.

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Complementary and Alternative Medicine

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Unproven health care treatments not taught widely in medical schools, not used in hospitals, and not usually reimbursed by insurance companies.

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Concept

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A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

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Conception

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Takes place in the fallopian tubes where the ovum or egg cell is fertilized by the male sperm cell.

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Concrete Operational Stage

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In Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.

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Conditioned Reinforcer

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A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer; also known as secondary reinforcer.

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Conditioned Response

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In classical conditioning, the learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (CS).

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Conditioned Stimulus

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In classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response.

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Conduction Hearing Loss

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Hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.

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Cones

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Retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions. The cones detect fine detail and give rise to colour sensations.

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Confirmation Bias

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A tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.

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Conflict

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A perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas.

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Conformity

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Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

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Confounding variables

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Unintended independent variables.

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Connectionism

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Also called parallel distribution processing, it is a theory of information processing that is analogous to a complex neural network.

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Consciousness

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Our awareness of ourselves and our environment.

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Conservation

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The principle (which Piaget believed to be part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects.

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Consistency theories

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Theoretical perspectives from social psychology that hold that people prefer consistency between attitudes and behaviors, and that people will change or resist changing attitudes based upon this preference.

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Construct validity

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A type of validity that refers to how well a test measures the intended theoretical construct.

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Content Validity

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The extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest (such as a driving test that samples driving tasks).

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Continuous Reinforcement

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Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs

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Control Condition

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The condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment.

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Control group design

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A technique of treating experimental and control groups equally in all respects, except that one group is exposed to the treatment in the experiment, and the other group is not exposed to the treatment.

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Convergence

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A binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object. The greater the inward strain, the closer the object.

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Conversion disorders

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Disorders characterized by unexplained symptoms affecting voluntary motor or sensory functions. Conversion disorder used to be referred to as "hysteria."

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cooperation

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persons acts together for their mutual benefit so that all of them can obtain a goal

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Coping

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Alleviating stress using emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods.

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Coronary Heart Disease

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The clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle (semicolon -insert-) the leading cause of death in many developed countries.

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Corpus Callosum

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The large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them.

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Correlation

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A measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other. The correlation coefficient is the mathematical expression of the relationship, ranging from -1 to +1.

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Correlation coefficient

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A type of descriptive statistic that measures to what extent, if any, two variables are related.

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Counterbalancing

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A method of controlling the potential effects of unintended independent variables (e.g., order effects) by making sure that the experimental and control groups are similar in all respects expect for in the independent variable being measured.

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Counterconditioning

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A behavior therapy procedure that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors

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Countertransference

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In psychoanalysis, it occurs when the therapist experiences emotions in response to the patient's transference.

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Creativity

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The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.

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Criterion

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The behavior (such as future college grades) that a test (such as SAT) is designed to predict; thus, the measure used in defining whether the test has predictive validity.

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Criterion validity

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How well the test can predict an individual's performance on an established test of the same skill or knowledge area.

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Critical Period

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An optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development.

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Critical Thinking

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Thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions.

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Cross-sectional studies

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An experimental method used in developmental psychology to compare different groups of individuals at different ages.

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Crystallized intelligence

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Proposed by Raymond Cattell, it is a type of intelligence that uses knowledge acquired as a result of schooling or other life experiences.

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cultural trisms

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beliefs that are seldom questioned

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Culture

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The enduring behaviours, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.

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Cynophobia

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A specific phobia referring to an irrational fear of dogs.

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Darley & Latane

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Studied social influence and diffusion of responsibility in altruism/bystander intervention. Pluralistic ignorance

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Darly Bem's self-perception theory

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When your attitudes about something are weak or ambiguous, you observe your own behavior and attribute an attitude to yourself.People infer what their attitudes are based upon observation of their own behavior. A person's initial attitude is irrelevant and there is no discomfort produced by behavior.

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David McClelland

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Need for Achievement

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David Rosenhan

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Investigated effects of being labeled mentally ill by being admitted into psychiatric hospital, though otherwise normal

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Decay theory

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A theory that holds that if the information in long-term memory is not used or rehearsed it will eventually be forgotten.

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Declarative memory

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Sometimes called fact memory, it is memory for explicit information.

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Defense mechanisms

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In Freud's structural dynamic model of personality, they are unconscious mechanisms that deny, falsify, or distort reality.

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Deindividuation

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The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

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Déjà Vu

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That eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

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Delta Waves

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The large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep.

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Delusions

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False beliefs, discordant with reality, that are maintained in spite of strong evidence to the contrary.

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Demand characteristics

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Cues that suggest to subjects what, the researcher expects from research participants.

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Dementia praecox

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The word literally means "split mind," and was used to refer to what is now known as schizophrenia.

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Dementias

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A neurological disorder characterized by a loss in intellectual functioning.

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democratic groups

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moe satisfying and more cohesive than autocratic groups; had greatest work motivation and interest

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Dendrite

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The bushy, branching extensions of a neuron that receive messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body.

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Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA)

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A complex molecule containing the genetic information that makes up the chromosomes.

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Dependent Variable

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The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable.

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Depersonalization disorder

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A dissociative disorder that involves a sense of detachment from the self despite an intact sense of reality,

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Depolarization

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The second stage in the firing cycle, occurs when the membrane's electrical charge decreases—anytime the membrane's voltage moves toward a neutral charge of 0 millivolts.

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Depressants

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Drugs (such as alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates) that reduce neural activity and slow body functions.

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Depth Perception

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The ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance.

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Descriptive statistics

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Statistics concerned with organizing, describing, quantifying, and summarizing a collection of actual observations.

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Developmental Psychology

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A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.

Front 209

Deviation quotients

Back 209

A deviation IQ score that tells us how far away a person's score is from the average score for that person's particular age group.

Front 210

Diathesis-stress model

Back 210

A framework explaining the causes of mental disorders as an interaction between biological causal factors (a predisposition toward developing a specific mental disorder) and psychological causal factors (excessive stress).

Front 211

Difference Threshold

Back 211

The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference. (Also called "just noticeable difference" or jnd.)

Front 212

Diploid cells

Back 212

Cells that contain 23 pairs of chromosomes.

Front 213

Discrimination

Back 213

In classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus.

Front 214

Discriminative stimulus

Back 214

In operant conditioning, it is a stimulus condition that indicates that the organism's behavior will have consequences.

Front 215

Displacement

Back 215

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet.

Front 216

dispositional attribution

Back 216

related to the features of a person whose behavior is being considered

Front 217

Dissociation

Back 217

A split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously with others.

Front 218

Dissociative Disorders

Back 218

Disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings.

Front 219

Dissociative fugue

Back 219

A dissociative disorder that involves amnesia plus a sudden, unexpected move away from one's home or location of usual daily activities.

Front 220

Dissociative Identity Disorder

Back 220

A dissociative disorder characterized by two or more personalities that recurrently take control of a person's behavior (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder).

Front 221

Dissonance theory

Back 221

The tendency to change thoughts or behavior in response to perceived inconsistencies.

Front 222

Distal stimulus

Back 222

In perception, it is the actual object or event out there in the world, as opposed to its perceived image.

Front 223

Domain-referenced testing

Back 223

Sometimes called criterion-referenced testing, it is concerned with the question of what the test taker knows about a specified content domain.

Front 224

door-in-the-face effect

Back 224

people who refurse a large intial request are more likely to agree to a later small request

Front 225

Dopamine hypothesis

Back 225

A biochemical explanation for schizophrenia suggesting that the delusions, hallucinations and agitation associated with schizophrenia arise from an excess of dopamine activity at certain sites in the brain.

Front 226

Double-bind hypothesis

Back 226

A psychosocial theory of schizophrenia holding that people with schizophrenia received contradictory messages from primary caregivers during childhood, and that these contradictory messages led them to see their perceptions of reality as unreliable.

Front 227

Double-Blind Experiment

Back 227

An experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo. Commonly used in drug-evaluation studies.

Front 228

Down Syndrome

Back 228

A condition of retardation and associated physical disorders caused by an extra chromosome in one's genetic makeup.

Front 229

Dream

Back 229

A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind. They are notable for their hallucinatory imagery, discontinuities, and incongruities, and for the dreamer's delusional acceptance of the content and later difficulties remembering it.

Front 230

Drive-Reduction Theory

Back 230

The idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need.

Front 231

DSM-IV (The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition))

Back 231

a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders. Presently distributed in an updated "text-revision" (DSM-IV-TR).

Front 232

Dualism

Back 232

The presumption that mind and body are two distinct entities that interact.

Front 233

Duplexity, or duplicity theory of vision

Back 233

The theory holding that the retina contains two kinds of photoreceptors.

Front 234

E.H. Ross

Back 234

published the first textbooks on social psychology

Front 235

Eagly

Back 235

Gender differences not due to gender per se, but differing social roles

Front 236

Echoic Memory

Back 236

A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds.

Front 237

Eclectic Approach

Back 237

An approach to psychotherapy that, depending on the client's problems, uses techniques from various forms of therapy.

Front 238

Ecstasy

Back 238

A synthetic stimulant and mild hallucinogen. Produces euphoria and social intimacy, but with short-term health risks and longer-term harm to serotonin-producing neurons and to mood and cognition.

Front 239

Edward Hall

Back 239

Studied proxemics, the measureable distance between people as they interacted

Front 240

Edward Titchener

Back 240

Broke consciousness down into elements or specific mental structures. Sensations and thoughts are structures as well

Hint 240

Structuralist

Front 241

Effortful Processing

Back 241

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Front 242

Ego

Back 242

The largely conscious, "executive" part of the personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. It operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.

Front 243

Ego psychology

Back 243

A branch of psychoanalytic theory that emphasizes the role of the ego as autonomous.

Front 244

Egocentrism

Back 244

In Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view.

Front 245

Eidetic memory

Back 245

Memory, for images.

Front 246

Elaborative rehearsal

Back 246

The process of organizing information and associating it with what you already know to get information into long-term memory.

Front 247

Electrocephalogram (EEC)

Back 247

An amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity that sweep across the brain's surface. These waves are measured by electrodes placed on the scalp.

Front 248

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Back 248

A biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetised patient.

Front 249

Electroencephalograph (EEG)

Back 249

It records a gross average of the electrical activity in different parts of the brain.

Front 250

Embryo

Back 250

The developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month.

Front 251

Embryonic stage

Back 251

The third stage during prenatal development, it refers to the period during which the embryo increases in size dramatically, begins to develop a human appearance with limb motion, produces androgen in the testes of male embryos, and develops nerve cells in the spine.

Front 252

Emmert's law

Back 252

A law describing the relationship between size constancy and apparent distance—the farther away the object appears to be, the more the scaling device in the brain will compensate for its retinal size by enlarging our perception of the object.

Front 253

Emotion

Back 253

A response of the whole organism, involving (1) physiological arousal, (2) expressive behaviours, and (3) conscious experience.

Front 254

Emotional Intelligence

Back 254

The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.

Front 255

Emotion-Focused Coping

Back 255

Attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to one's stress reaction.

Front 256

Empathy

Back 256

The ability to vicariously experience the emotions of another,. Mad it is thought some social psychologists to be a strong influence oil helping behavior.

Front 257

Empirically Derived Test

Back 257

A test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.

Front 258

Encoding

Back 258

The processing of information into the memory system- for example, by extracting meaning.

Front 259

Encoding specificity theory

Back 259

A theory that recall is best if the context at recall approximates the context during the original encoding.

Front 260

Endocrine System

Back 260

The body's "slow" chemical communication system; a set of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream.

Front 261

Endorphins

Back 261

"morphine within"- natural, opiate like neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure.

Front 262

Environment

Back 262

Every nongenetic influence, from prenatal nutrition to the people and things around us.

Front 263

Episodic memory

Back 263

A type of declarative memory, episodic memory refers to memories for particular events, or episodes, from personal experience.

Front 264

Equity

Back 264

A condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it.

Front 265

Equity theory

Back 265

A theory stating that individuals strive for fairness and feel uncomfortable when there is a perception of a lack of fairness.

Front 266

Erik Erickson

Back 266

In a psychoanalytic and psychosocial framework, he expanded Freud's theories to cover entire lifespan

Hint 266

Ego Psychologist

Front 267

Eros

Back 267

In Freud's structural dynamic model of personality, it refers to the life instincts that serve the purpose of individual survival (hunger, thirst, and sex).

Front 268

Estrogen

Back 268

A sex hormone, secreted in greater amounts by females than by males. In nonhuman female mammals, estrogen levels peak during ovulation, promoting sexual receptivity.

Front 269

Ethology

Back 269

The study of animals in their natural environment.

Front 270

Evolutionary Psychology

Back 270

The study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principle of natural selection.

Front 271

Ewald Hering

Back 271

Opponent-process theory of color vision

Front 272

Exchange theory

Back 272

The tendency to evaluate interactions and. relationships in terms of relative costs and benefits.

Front 273

Experiment

Back 273

A research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factor (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). By random assignment of participants, the experimenter aims to control other relevant factors.

Front 274

Experimental Condition

Back 274

The condition of an experiment that exposes participants to the treatment, that is, to one version, of the independent variable.

Front 275

Explicit Memory

Back 275

Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare." (Also called declarative memory.)

Front 276

Exposure Therapies

Back 276

Behavioural techniques, such as systematic desensitization, that treat anxieties by exposing people (in imagination or actuality) to the things they fear and avoid.

Front 277

External Locus of Control

Back 277

The perception that chance or outside forces beyond one's personal control determine one's fate.

Front 278

External validity

Back 278

In research methodology, it refers to how generalizable the results of an experiment are.

Front 279

Extinction

Back 279

In operant conditioning, it is when a conditioned stimulus is repeatedly not reinforced and as a result, the conditioned response is no longer produced as consistently. .

Front 280

Extirpation

Back 280

A process of removing various parts of the brain, and then observing the behavioral consequences.

Front 281

Extrasensory Perception (ESP)

Back 281

The controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input. Said to include telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.

Front 282

Extrinsic Motivation

Back 282

A desire to perform a behavior due to promised rewards or threats of punishment.

Front 283

Face validity

Back 283

A type of validity that refers to whether test items appear to measure what they are supposed to measure.

Front 284

Factor Analysis

Back 284

A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie one's total score.

Front 285

False Consensus Effect

Back 285

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors.

Front 286

Family Therapy

Back 286

Therapy that treats the family as system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by or direct at other family members; attempts to guide family members toward positive relationships and improved communication.

Front 287

Farsightedness

Back 287

A condition in which far-away objects are seen more clearly than near objects because the image of near objects is focused behind the retina.

Front 288

Feature Detectors

Back 288

Nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement.

Front 289

Fechner's law

Back 289

A law that expresses the relationship between the intensity of the sensation and the intensity of the stimulus, and states that sensation increases more slowly as intensity increases.

Front 290

Feel-good, Do-good Phenomenon

Back 290

People's tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood.

Front 291

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Back 291

Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases, symptoms include noticeable facial disproportions.

Front 292

Fetal period

Back 292

The last stage of prenatal development, its onset is marked by the beginning of measurable electrical activity in the brain.

Front 293

Fetus

Back 293

The developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth.

Front 294

Fictional finalism

Back 294

A concept in Alfred Adler's theory of personality, it is the notion that an individual is motivated more by his or her expectations of the future based on a subjective or fictional estimate of life's values, than by past experiences.

Front 295

Field independence-field dependence

Back 295

A personality style characterized by an ability/inability to distinguish experience from its context.

Front 296

Fight or flight responses

Back 296

The emotional experience associated with the sympathetic nervous system and managed by the hypothalamus during high arousal.

Front 297

Figure

Back 297

A concept in visual perception referring to the integrated visual experience that stands out at the center of attention.

Front 298

Figure-Ground

Back 298

The organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground).

Front 299

Fixation

Back 299

From psychoanalytic theory, it is an inability to successfully proceed through a stage in development because of an overindulgence or frustration.

Front 300

Fixation

Back 300

The inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an impediment to problem solving.

Front 301

Fixation

Back 301

According to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.

Front 302

Fixed action pattern

Back 302

A behavior that is relatively stereotyped and appears to be species-typical.

Front 303

Fixed-interval (FI)

Back 303

In operant Conditioning, it is when behavior is reinforced on the first response after a fixed period of time has elapsed since the last reinforcement.

Front 304

Fixed-ratio (FR)

Back 304

In operant conditioning, it is when behavior is reinforced after a fixed number of responses.

Front 305

Flashbulb Memory

Back 305

A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Front 306

Flooding

Back 306

A behavioral modification technique used to treat anxiety disorders by exposing the client to the anxiety-producing stimulus.

Front 307

Flow

Back 307

A completely involved, focused state of consciousness, with diminished awareness of self and time, resulting from optimal engagement of one's skills.

Front 308

Fluid intelligence

Back 308

Proposed by Raymond Cattell, it is a type of intelligence that has the ability to quickly grasp relationships in novel situations and make correct deductions from them (e.g., solving analogies).

Front 309

Follicle stimulating hormone

Back 309

A hormone that is secreted by the pituitary gland to stimulate the growth of an ovarian follicle, which is a small protective sphere surrounding the egg or ovum.

Front 310

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon

Back 310

The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.

Front 311

forced-compliance dissonance

Back 311

occurs when an individual is forced into having a maner that is inconsistent with his or her beliefs or attitudes; the force may come from either anticipated punishment or reward

Front 312

Formal Operation Stage

Back 312

In Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.

Front 313

Fovea

Back 313

The central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster.

Front 314

Framing

Back 314

The way an issue is posed, how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Front 315

Fraternal Twins

Back 315

Twins who develop from separate fertilized eggs. They are genetically no closer than brothers and sisters, but they share a fetal environment.

Front 316

Free Association

Back 316

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.

Front 317

free-choice dissonant

Back 317

occurs in a situation where a person makes a choice between several desirable alternatives.

Front 318

Frequency

Back 318

In sound perception, it is the number of sound wave cycles per second.

Front 319

Frequency

Back 319

The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second).

Front 320

Frequency Theory

Back 320

In hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch.

Front 321

Fritz Heider

Back 321

one of the founding fathers of attributed theory; says that we are all naive amateur psychologists who attempt to discover causes and effects in events: dipositional causes and situational causes

Front 322

Fritz Heider's balance theory

Back 322

concered with the way three elements are related: the person whom we are talking to (P), some other person (O), and a thing, idea, or some other person (X). Balance exists when all three fit together harmoniously. When there isn't balance, there will be stress, and a tendency to remove this stress by achieving balance. Imbalance occurs when somone agrees with someon he or she dislikes, or disagrees ith someone he or she lies.

Front 323

Frontal Lobes

Back 323

The portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead; involved in speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgments.

Front 324

Frustration-Aggression Principle

Back 324

The principle that frustration- the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal- creates anger, which can generate aggression.

Front 325

Functional autonomy

Back 325

A given activity or form of behavior may become an end or a goal in itself, regardless of its original reason for existence.

Front 326

Functional Fixedness

Back 326

The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.

Front 327

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI)

Back 327

A technique for revealing blood flow and, therefore, brain activity by comparing successive MRI scans. MRI scans show brain anatomy; these scans show brain function.

Front 328

Functionalism

Back 328

A system of thought in psychology that was concerned with studying how mental processes help individuals adapt to their environments.

Front 329

Fundamental Attribution Error

Back 329

The tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

Front 330

g

Back 330

Proposed by Charles Spearman, this is an individual difference in intelligence that refers to a general, unitary factor of intelligence.

Front 331

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)

Back 331

A neurotransmitter that produces inhibitory postsynaptic potentials and is thought to play an important role in stabilizing neural activity in the brain.

Front 332

gain-loss principle

Back 332

An evaluation that hcanges will have more of an impact than an evaluation that remains constant. Thus, we will like someone more if their liking for us has increased (showing a gain) than someone who has consistently liked us. Similarity, we will generally dislike someone more whose liking for us has decreased (shown a loss)than someon who has consistently disliked us.

Front 333

Garcia effect

Back 333

Named after researcher John Garcia, it is basically food aversion that occurs when people attribute illness to a particular food.

Front 334

Gate theory of pain

Back 334

A theory that proposes that there is a special "gating" mechanism located in the spine that can turn pain signals on or off, thus affecting whether we perceive pain.

Front 335

Gate-Control Theory

Back 335

The theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. The "gate" is opened by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers or by information coming from the brain.

Front 336

Gender

Back 336

In psychology, the biologically and socially influenced characteristics by which people define male and female.

Front 337

Gender Identity

Back 337

One's sense of being male or female.

Front 338

Gender Role

Back 338

A set of expected behaviors for males and for females.

Front 339

Gender Schema Theory

Back 339

The theory that children learn from their cultures a concept of what it means to be male and female and that they adjust their behavior accordingly.

Front 340

Gender-Typing

Back 340

The acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role.

Front 341

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

Back 341

Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three stages- alarm, resistance, exhaustion (ARE).

Front 342

General Intelligence

Back 342

A general intelligence factor that according to Spearman and others underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.

Front 343

Generalization

Back 343

The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses.

Front 344

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Back 344

An anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal.

Front 345

Generation-recognition model

Back 345

Model that proposes that recall tasks tap the same basic process of accessing information in memory as recognition tasks, but also require an additional processing step.

Front 346

Genes

Back 346

The biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes; a segment of DNA capable of synthesizing a protein.

Front 347

Genome

Back 347

genome: The complete instructions for making an organism, consisting of all the genetic material in that organism's chromosomes.

Front 348

George Sperling

Back 348

Devised partial-report procedure for studying the limits of memory and recall

Front 349

Germinal period

Back 349

A period of rapid cell division during prenatal development that lasts approximately two weeks, and ends with the implantation of the cellular mass into the uterine wall.

Front 350

Gestalt

Back 350

An organized whole. These psychologists emphasize our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

Front 351

Glial Cells

Back 351

Cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons.

Front 352

Glucose

Back 352

The form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides the major source of energy for body tissues. When its level is low, we feel hunger.

Front 353

Gonadoptropic hormones

Back 353

Hormones produced by the pituitary gland during puberty that activate a dramatic increase in the production of hormones by the testes or ovaries.

Front 354

Gordon Allport

Back 354

Cardinal, central, and secondary traits are responsible for behavior and personality. Functional Autonomy. Idiographic vs. nomothetic

Hint 354

Trait Theorist

Front 355

Grammar

Back 355

In a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

Front 356

GRIT: Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction

Back 356

a strategy designed to decrease international tensions.

Front 357

Ground

Back 357

A concept in visual perception that refers to the background against which the figures appear.

Front 358

Group polarization

Back 358

A tendency for group discussion to enhance the group's initial tendencies towards riskiness or caution.

Front 359

Grouping

Back 359

The perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups.

Front 360

Groupthink

Back 360

A tendency of decision-making groups to strive for consensus at the expense of not considering discordant information.

Front 361

Habituation

Back 361

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.

Front 362

Hallucinations

Back 362

False sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus.

Front 363

Hallucinogens

Back 363

Psychedelic ("mind manifesting") drugs, such as LSD, that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input.

Front 364

Halo effect

Back 364

In social psychology, it is the tendency to generalize from one attribute or characteristic to a person's entire personality.

Front 365

Haloperidol (Haldol)

Back 365

An antipsychotic drug thought to block receptor sites for dopamine, making it effective in treating the delusional thinking, hallucinations, and agitation commonly associated with schizophrenia.

Front 366

Haploid cells

Back 366

Cells that contain 23 single chromosomes. The gametes (sperm and egg cells) are haploid.

Front 367

Hawthorne effect

Back 367

The tendency of people to behave differently if they know that they are being observed.

Front 368

Health Psychology

Back 368

A subfield of psychology that provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine.

Front 369

helping behavior

Back 369

includes altruistic motiviations and behaviors that may be motivated by egoism or selfishness

Front 370

Heritability

Back 370

The proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied.

Front 371

Herman Ebbinghaus

Back 371

Method of Savings

Front 372

Herman Witkin

Back 372

Field dependence

Front 373

Heuristic

Back 373

A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solves problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

Front 374

Hierarchy of Needs

Back 374

Maslow's pyramid of human needs, beginning at the base with physiological needs that must first be satisfied before higher-level safety needs and then psychological needs become active.

Front 375

Hindsight Bias

Back 375

The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it. (Also known as the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon.)

Front 376

Hippocampus

Back 376

A neural center that is located in the limbic system and helps process explicit memories for storage.

Front 377

Homeostasis

Back 377

A tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as blood glucose, around a particular level.

Front 378

Hormones

Back 378

Chemical messengers, mostly those manufactured by the endocrine glands, that are produced in one tissue and affect another.

Front 379

Howard Gardner

Back 379

Theory of multiple intelligences: linguistic, logical/math, spatial, musical, bodily, interpersonal, and intrapersonal

Front 380

Hue

Back 380

The dimension of colour that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the colour names blue, green, and so forth.

Front 381

Human Factors Psychology

Back 381

A branch of psychology that explores how people and machines interact and how machines and physical environments can be made safe and easy to use.

Front 382

Humanism

Back 382

A system of thought that arose in opposition to both psychoanalysis and behaviorism, . and is characterized by a belief in the notion of free will and the idea that people should be considered .as wholes rather than in terms of stimuli and- responses (behaviorism) or instincts (psychoanalysis).

Front 383

Hyperpolarization

Back 383

An increase in the membrane potential that decreases the possibility of generating a nerve impulse.

Front 384

Hypnosis

Back 384

A social interaction in which one person suggests to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur.

Front 385

Hypochondriasis

Back 385

A disorder that causes an individual to be preoccupied with fears that he or she has a serious disease, based on a misinterpretation of one or more bodily signs or symptoms.

Front 386

Hypothalamus

Back 386

A neural structure lying below (hypo) the thalamus; it directs several maintenance activities (eating, drinking, body temperature), helps govern the endocrine system via the pituitary gland, and is linked to emotion.

Front 387

Hypothesis

Back 387

A tentative and testable explanation of the relationship between two or more variables.

Front 388

Iconic Memory

Back 388

A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.

Front 389

Id

Back 389

Contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. It operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.

Front 390

Identical Twins

Back 390

Twins who develop from a single fertilized egg that splits in two, creating two genetically identical organisms.

Front 391

Identification

Back 391

The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos.

Front 392

Identity

Back 392

One's sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent's task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles.

Front 393

Idiographic

Back 393

An approach to studying personality that focuses on individual case studies.

Front 394

Illumination

Back 394

A physical, objective measurement that is simply the amount of light falling on a surface.

Front 395

Illusory correlation

Back 395

An apparent correlation that is perceived, but does not really exist.

Front 396

Imagery

Back 396

Mental pictures; a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding.

Front 397

Implicit Memory

Back 397

Retention independent of conscious recollection. (Also called procedural memory.)

Front 398

Imprinting

Back 398

The process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.

Front 399

Inattentional Blindness

Back 399

Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.

Front 400

Incentive

Back 400

A positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior.

Front 401

Independent Variable

Back 401

The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied.

Front 402

Individualism

Back 402

Giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.

Front 403

Induced motion

Back 403

An illusion of movement occurring when everything around the spot of light is moved.

Front 404

Industrial-Organizational Psychology

Back 404

The application of psychological concepts and methods to optimizing human behavior in workplaces.

Front 405

Inferential statistics

Back 405

Statistics concerned with making an inference from the sample involved in the research to the population of interest in order to provide an estimate of popular characteristics.

Front 406

Informational Social Influence

Back 406

Influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality.

Front 407

Ingroup

Back 407

"Us"- people with whom one shares a common identity.

Front 408

Ingroup bias

Back 408

The tendency to favor one's own group.

Front 409

Innate releasing mechanism (IRM)

Back 409

A mechanism in the animal's nervous system that serves to connect the stimulus with the right response.

Front 410

Inner Ear

Back 410

The innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs.

Front 411

Insight

Back 411

A sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

Front 412

Insomnia

Back 412

A disturbance affecting the ability to fall asleep and/or stay asleep.

Front 413

Instincts

Back 413

In Freud's structural dynamic model of personality, these are inner representations of a psychological excitation or wish, and are the propelling aspects of Freud's dynamic theory of personality.

Front 414

Intelligence

Back 414

mental qualities consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

Front 415

Intelligence Quotient

Back 415

Defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100. On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100.

Front 416

Intelligence Test

Back 416

A method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

Front 417

Intensity

Back 417

The amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude.

Front 418

Interaction

Back 418

The effect of one factor (such as environment) depends on another factor (such as heredity).

Front 419

Internal Locus of Control

Back 419

The perception that one controls one's own fate.

Front 420

Interneurons

Back 420

Neurons located in the spinal cord that connect sensory neurons with motor neurons to form the reflex arc.

Front 421

Interposition

Back 421

Also called overlap, it refers to the cue for depth perception when one object (A) covers or overlaps another object (B), and we see object (A) as being in front.

Front 422

Interpretation

Back 422

In psychoanalysis, the analyst's noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events in order to promote insight.

Front 423

Interval scale

Back 423

A scale of measurement using actual numbers (not ranks).

Front 424

Intimacy

Back 424

In Erikson's theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in late adolescence and early adulthood.

Front 425

Intrinsic motivation

Back 425

Motivation by some reward that is inherent to the task.

Front 426

IQ

Back 426

A well-known measure of intelligence aptitude using an equation comparing mental age to chronological age.

Front 427

Iris

Back 427

A ring of muscle tissue that forms the coloured portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening.

Front 428

Irving Janis

Back 428

Groupthink: tendency of decision making groups to strive for consensus by ignoring discordant info. Risky shift: group decisions are riskier than the average of individual choices. Value hypothesis

Front 429

Isomorphism

Back 429

A theory that suggests that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the object in the perceptual field and the pattern of stimulation in the brain.

Front 430

James Stoner

Back 430

Group polarization: tendency for group discussion to enhance group's initial tendencies towards riskiness or caution

Front 431

James-Lange Theory

Back 431

The theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli.

Front 432

John Darley and Bibb Lantané

Back 432

research on bystander intervention

Front 433

John Garcia

Back 433

The Garcia Effect states that different species have innate predispositions to learn different thing in different ways

Front 434

John Locke

Back 434

Tabula rasa: the mind is a blank slate at birth

Front 435

Julian Rotter

Back 435

Internal/external loci of control

Hint 435

Trait Theorist

Front 436

Just-World Phenomenon

Back 436

The tendency of people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

Front 437

Karen Horney

Back 437

Devised theory that personality governed by one of ten needs

Hint 437

Psychoanalytic Theorist

Front 438

Keller & Breland

Back 438

Instinctual Drift

Hint 438

Behaviorists

Front 439

Kinesthesis

Back 439

The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.

Front 440

Klein, Winnicott, Mahler & Kernberg

Back 440

Object-relations theory

Front 441

Klinefelter's syndrome

Back 441

The possession of an extra X chromosome in males that leads to sterility and often to mental retardation.

Front 442

Kurt Lewin

Back 442

divided leadership styles into 3 categories: autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire

Front 443

laissez-faire group of leaders

Back 443

less effificent, less organized, and less satisfying than the democratic group

Front 444

Language

Back 444

Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Front 445

Language acquisition device (LAD)

Back 445

Proposed by Noam Chomsky, this is an innate, biologically-based mechanism that helps us understand rule structures in language.

Front 446

Latent Content

Back 446

According to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream (as distinct from its other content). Freud believed that a dream's ______content functions as a safety valve.

Front 447

Latent Learning

Back 447

Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.

Front 448

Lateral inhibition

Back 448

In visual perception, it is the process of inhibiting the response of adjacent retinal cells resulting in the sharpening and highlighting of the borders between dark and light areas.

Front 449

Law of closure

Back 449

From Gestal psychology, it is the tendency for people to perceive complete figures even when the actual figures are not complete.

Front 450

Law of Effect

Back 450

Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely.

Front 451

Law of good continuation

Back 451

From Gestalt psychology, it is the tendency for elements appearing to follow in the same direction (such as a straight line or a simple . curve) to be grouped together.

Front 452

Law of pragnanz

Back 452

From Gestalt psychology, it is the tendency for perceptual organization to be as "good" —as regular, simple and symmetric—as possible.

Front 453

Law of proximity

Back 453

From Gestalt psychology, it is the tendency for elements close to each other to be perceived as a unit.

Front 454

Law of similarity

Back 454

From Gestalt psychology, it is the tendency for similar objects to be grouped together.

Front 455

Law of specific nerve energies

Back 455

Proposed by Johannes Mtiller, this law states that each sensory nerve is excited by only one kind of energy (e.g,, light or air vibrations), and that the brain interprets any stimulation of that nerve as being that kind of energy.

Front 456

L-dopa

Back 456

A synthetic substance that increases dopamine levels in the brain and is used to treat motor disturbances in Parkinson's disease. When L-dopa leads to an oversupply of dopamine in the brain, it can produce psychotic symptoms in Parkinson's patients.

Front 457

leadership

Back 457

leaders of groups engage in more communication than nonleader; research shows that by artificially increasing the amount a person speaks, that person's perceived leadership status also increases.

Front 458

Learned Helplessness

Back 458

The hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.

Front 459

Learning

Back 459

A relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience.

Front 460

Lens

Back 460

The transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina.

Front 461

Leon Festinger

Back 461

Cognitive Dissonance--conflict when attitudes not in sync with behavior. Minimal justification effect

Front 462

Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory

Back 462

Cognitive dissoance is the conflic that u feel when your attitudes are not in synch with your behaviors. Engaging in behaviors that conflicts with an attitude may result in changing one's attitude so that it is consistent with the behavior.

Front 463

Leon Festinger's social comparison theory: three principles

Back 463

1) People prefer to evaluate themselves by ojbective, nonsocial means. However, when this is not possible, people evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing them to those of other people. 2) The less similarity of opinions and abilities between two people, the less the tendency to make these comparisons. 3)When a discrepancy exists with respect to opinions and abilities, there is a tendency to change one's position so as to move it in line with the group.

Front 464

Lesion

Back 464

Tissue destruction. A brain lesion is a naturally or experimentally caused destruction of brain tissue.

Front 465

Levels-of-processing theory (depth-of-processing theory)

Back 465

Proposed by Craik and Lockart, the theory suggests that there is only one memory system, and that items entering the memory are analyzed in one of three stages: physical (visual), acoustical (sound), or semantic (meaning).

Front 466

Libido

Back 466

From psychoanalytic theory, it refers to the life drive present at birth.

Front 467

Lightness constancy

Back 467

Refers to the fact that, despite changes in the amount of light falling on an object (illumination), the apparent lightness of the object remains unchanged.

Front 468

Limbic System

Back 468

A doughnut-shaped system of neural structures at the border of the brainstem and cerebral hemispheres; associated with emotions such as fear and aggression and drives such as those for food and sex. Includes the hippocampus, amygdala, and hypothalamus.

Front 469

Linear perspective

Back 469

A cue for depth perception that refers to the perception of parallel lines converging in the distance.

Front 470

Linguistic Determinism

Back 470

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think.

Front 471

Linguistic relativity hypothesis

Back 471

The theory proposing that our perception of reality is determined by the content of language. Also called the Whorfian hypothesis.

Front 472

Lithium

Back 472

A drug used to treat bipolar disorder.

Front 473

Lobotomy

Back 473

A now-rare psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. The procedure cut the nerves that connect the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain.

Front 474

Longitudinal studies

Back 474

An experimental method used in developmental psychology to compare the same group of individuals repeatedly over time.

Front 475

Longitudinal Study

Back 475

Research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period.

Front 476

Long-Term Memory

Back 476

The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

Front 477

Long-Term Potentiation

Back 477

An increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.

Front 478

Loudness

Back 478

The subjective experience of the magnitude or intensity of sound.

Front 479

Louis Thurstone

Back 479

Identified 7 primary mental abilities as measure of intelligence

Front 480

LSD

Back 480

A powerful hallucinogenic drug; also known as acid (lysergic acid diethylamide).

Front 481

Luteinizing hormone

Back 481

A hormone associated with ovulation.

Front 482

Lymphocytes

Back 482

The two types of white blood cells that are part of the body's immune system: B lymphocytes form in the bone marrow and release antibodies that fight bacterial infections (semicolon -insert-) T lymphocytes form in the thymus and other lymphatic tissue and attack cancer cells, viruses, and foreign substances.

Front 483

M.J.Lerner

Back 483

studied the tendency of indivduals to believe in a just world

Front 484

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

Back 484

A technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer=generated images that distinguish among different types of soft tissue; allows us to see structures within the brain.

Front 485

Maintenance rehearsal

Back 485

The process of rehearsing information so that items remain in short term memory for a longer duration than usual.

Front 486

Major Depressive Disorder

Back 486

A mood disorder in which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or a medical condition, two or more weeks of significantly depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished interest or pleasure in most activities.

Front 487

Mania

Back 487

A sympton of bipolar disorders, it is characterized by an .abnormally elevated mood, accompanied by a speeding up of thought processes and activities and an abnormally decreased need for sleep.

Front 488

Manifest Content

Back 488

According to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream (as distinct from its hidden content).

Front 489

MAO inhibitors

Back 489

Behavioral stimulants that reduce depression by inhibiting the action of an enzyme called MAO, which normally breaks down and deactivates norepinephrine and serotonin.

Front 490

Martin Seligman

Back 490

Learned helplessness theory of depression

Hint 490

Behaviorist

Front 491

Matched-subjects design

Back 491

In research methodology, it is a technique of matching subjects on the basis of the variable that he or she wants to control.

Front 492

Maturation

Back 492

Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behaviour, relatively uninfluenced by experience.

Front 493

McClelland & Rumelhart

Back 493

Parallel distributed processing views cognition and behavior as an interconnected network of simple units

Front 494

Mean

Back 494

The numerical halfway point between the highest score and the lowest score, the arithmetic average.

Front 495

Median

Back 495

The middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it.

Front 496

Medical Model

Back 496

The concept that diseases have physical caused that can be diagnosed, treated, and, in most cases, cured. When applied to psychological disorders, the medical model assumes that these mental illnesses can be diagnosed on the basis of their symptoms and cured through therapy, which may include treatment in a psychiatric hospital.

Front 497

Medulla

Back 497

The base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat and breathing.

Front 498

Memory

Back 498

The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information.

Front 499

Menarche

Back 499

The first menstrual period.

Front 500

Menopause

Back 500

The time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines.

Front 501

Mental Age

Back 501

A measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8.

Front 502

Mental chronometry

Back 502

A cognitive psychology research method of measuring the time elapsed between a stimulus presentation and the subject's response to it.

Front 503

Mental Retardation

Back 503

A condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life; varies from mild to profound.

Front 504

Mental Set

Back 504

A tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

Front 505

Mere Exposure Effect

Back 505

The phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them.

Front 506

mere exposure hypothesis

Back 506

mere repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to enhanced liking for it; the more you see something, the more you like it

Front 507

Meta-analysis

Back 507

A statistical procedure that can be used to make conclusions on the basis of data from different studies.

Front 508

Metacognition

Back 508

The ability to think about and monitor cognition.

Front 509

Metamemory

Back 509

The ability to think about and monitor memory.

Front 510

Methamphetamine

Back 510

A powerfully addictive drug that stimulates the central nervous system, with speeded-up body functions and associated energy and mood changes; over time, appears to reduce baseline dopamine levels.

Front 511

Method of loci

Back 511

A mnemonic device of associating information with some sequence of familiar places.

Front 512

Method of savings

Back 512

A research technique for studying memory by measuring the amount of time it takes to learn material and comparing it to the amount of time it takes to relearn material later. The decrease in time represents an indication of original learning.

Front 513

Methylphenidate

Back 513

A behavioral stimulant that increases alertness and decreases motor activity, and is used to treat hyperactive children who suffer from attention deficit disorder. Also known as Ritalin.

Front 514

Middle Ear

Back 514

The chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window.

Front 515

Milgram

Back 515

experimenter podded suject to give electric shock to other person; subjects shocekd person; majority continued shocking up to maximum voltage

Front 516

minimal justification effect

Back 516

When behavior can be justified by means of external inducements, there is no need to change internal cognition. However, when the external justification is minimal, you will reduce your dissonace by changing internal cognitions; this is sometimes called insufficient justification effec.t

Front 517

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

Back 517

The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality test. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes.

Front 518

Mirror Neurons

Back 518

Frontal lobe neurons that fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. The brain's mirroring of another's action may enable imitation, language learning, and empathy.

Front 519

Misinformation Effect

Back 519

Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.

Front 520

Mnemonic devices

Back 520

Techniques used to improve the likelihood that we will remember something.

Front 521

Mnemonics

Back 521

Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Front 522

Mode

Back 522

The value of the most frequent observation in a set of scores.

Front 523

Mode

Back 523

The most frequent occurring score(s) in a distribution.

Front 524

Modeling

Back 524

A therapeutic technique in which the client learns appropriate behavior through imitation of someone else.

Front 525

Molecular Genetics

Back 525

The subfield of biology that studies the molecular structure and function of genes.

Front 526

Monism

Back 526

The presumption that mind and body are different aspects of the same thing.

Front 527

Monoamine theory of depression

Back 527

A theory that holds that too much norepinephrine and serotonin leads to mania, while too little leads to depression. It is also sometimes called the catecholamine theory of depression.

Front 528

Monocular Cues

Back 528

Depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone.

Front 529

Mood Disorders

Back 529

Psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes.

Front 530

Mood-Congruent Memory

Back 530

The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood.

Front 531

Morpheme

Back 531

In a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning, may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).

Front 532

Motion aftereffect

Back 532

An illusion that occurs when you first view moving pattern, such as stripes moving off to the right (or a waterfall), and then you view a spot of light—the spot of light will appear to move in the opposite direction.

Front 533

Motion parallax

Back 533

A cue for depth perception that occurs during movement when objects that are closer move.

Front 534

Motivation

Back 534

A need or desire that energizes and directs behavior.

Front 535

Motor Cortex

Back 535

An area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements.

Front 536

Motor Neurons

Back 536

Neurons that carry outgoing information from the central nervous system to the muscles and glands.

Front 537

Mutation

Back 537

A random error in gene replication that leads to a change.

Front 538

Muzafer Sherif

Back 538

Robber's Cave Experiment: Goals best obtained thru intergroup cooperation. Dramatically improves intergroup relations.

Front 539

Myelin Sheath

Back 539

A layer of fatty tissue segmentally encasing the fibers of many neurons; enables vastly greater transmission speed of neural impulses as the impulse hops from one node to the next.

Front 540

Narcissistic personality disorder

Back 540

A personality disorder characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance or uniqueness, preoccupation with fantasies of success, an exhibitionistic need for constant admiration and attention, and characteristic disturbances in interpersonal relationships such as feelings of entitlement.

Front 541

Narcolepsy

Back 541

A sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks. The sufferer may lapse directly into REM sleep, often at inopportune times.

Front 542

Natural Selection

Back 542

The principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those that lead to increased reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations.

Front 543

Naturalistic Observation

Back 543

Observing and recording behaviour in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation.

Front 544

Near-Death Experience

Back 544

An altered state of consciousness reported after a close brush with death (such as through cardiac arrest); often similar to drug-induced hallucinations.

Front 545

Nearsightedness

Back 545

A condition in which nearby objects are seen more clearly than distant objects because distant objects focus in front of the retina.

Front 546

need complementarity

Back 546

people choose relationships so that they mutually satisfy each other's needs; the person who likes to talk is completemented by the person who likes to listen

Front 547

Negative Reinforcement

Back 547

Increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli, such as shock. A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response. (Note: this is different from punishment.)

Front 548

Neologisms

Back 548

Newly invented words.

Front 549

Nerves

Back 549

Neural "cables" containing many axons. These bundled axons, which are part of the peripheral nervous system, connect the central nervous system with muscles, glands, and sense organs.

Front 550

Nervous System

Back 550

The body's speedy, electrochemical communication network, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous systems.

Front 551

Neural Networks

Back 551

Interconnected neural cells. With experience, networks can learn, as feedback strengthens or inhibits connections that produce certain results. Computer simulations of neural networks show analogous learning.

Front 552

Neuron

Back 552

A nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system.

Front 553

Neurotransmitters

Back 553

Chemical messengers that traverse the synaptic gaps between neurons. When released by the sending neuron, neurotransmitters travel across the synapse and bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron, thereby influencing whether that neuron will generate a neural impulse.

Front 554

Night Terrors

Back 554

A sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified; unlike nightmares, these occur during Stage 4 sleep, within two or three hours of falling asleep, and are seldom remembered.

Front 555

Niko Tinbergen

Back 555

Introduced experimental methods into natural animal habitats

Front 556

Noam Chomsky

Back 556

Best known for work on generative and transformational grammar

Hint 556

Linguist

Front 557

Nominal scale

Back 557

A scale of measurement (also called a categorical scale), that labels observations rather than quantifying observations.

Front 558

Nomothetic

Back 558

An approach to personality that focuses on groups of individuals and tries to find the commonalities between individuals.

Front 559

Nonequivalent group design

Back 559

An experimental design whereby the researcher doesn't use random assignment, so the control group is not necessarily equivalent to the experimental group.

Front 560

Norepinephrine

Back 560

Also known as noradrenaline, it is involved in controlling alertness and wakefulness and is implicated in mood disorders such as depression and mania.

Front 561

Norm

Back 561

An understood rule for accepted and expected behaviour. Norms prescribe "proper" behaviour.

Front 562

Normal Curve

Back 562

The symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes.

Front 563

Normal distribution

Back 563

A distribution that is symmetrical and has its greatest frequency in the middle.

Front 564

Norman Triplett

Back 564

investigated the effect of competition on performance;found that people perform better on familiar tasks when in the presence of others than when alone

Front 565

Normative Social Influence

Back 565

Influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval.

Front 566

Norm-referenced testing

Back 566

Comparing the test-taker's performance to that test's norms that are derived from standardized samples.

Front 567

Object permanence

Back 567

From Piaget's theory, it is the capacity for representational thought.

Front 568

Observational Learning

Back 568

Learning by observing others.

Front 569

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)

Back 569

A disorder characterized by repeated obsessions (persistent irrational thoughts) and/or compulsions (irrational and repetitive impulses to perform certain acts) that cause significant impairment in a person's life.

Front 570

Occipital Lobes

Back 570

The portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head; includes the visual areas, which receive visual information from the opposite visual field.

Front 571

Oedipus Complex

Back 571

According to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.

Front 572

One-Word Stage

Back 572

The stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Front 573

Operant Behavior

Back 573

Behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences.

Front 574

Operant Chamber

Back 574

: A chamber also known as a Skinner box, containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer, with attached devices to record the animal's rate of bar pressing or key pecking. Used in operant conditioning research.

Front 575

Operant Conditioning

Back 575

A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher.

Front 576

Operational Definition

Back 576

A statement of the procedures (operations) used to define research variables. For example, human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures.

Front 577

Operational definitions

Back 577

Measurable definitions of variables in research.

Front 578

Opiate receptors

Back 578

Receptor that respond to the body's own naturally produced pain killers (endorphins) as well as narcotics such as heroin and morphine.

Front 579

Opiates

Back 579

Opium and its derivatives, such as morphine and heroin; they depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety.

Front 580

Opponent-process theory of color vision

Back 580

Ewald Hering's theory that there are four primary colors in additive color mixing (red, blue) green and yellow), and that the primary colors are arranged in opposing pairs.

Front 581

Optic Nerve

Back 581

The nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain.

Front 582

Order effects

Back 582

A problem in research design when the results of the study are attributed to the sequence of tasks in the experiment rather than to the independent variable.

Front 583

Ordinal scale

Back 583

A scale of measurement using ranks rather than actual numbers.

Front 584

Organizational Psychology

Back 584

A subfield of industrial-organizational psychology (I/O psychology) that examines organizational influences on worker satisfaction and productivity and facilitates organizational change.

Front 585

Osmoreceptors

Back 585

Receptors in the hypothalamus that control the maintenance of water balance in the body.

Front 586

Outgroup

Back 586

"Them"- those perceived as different or apart from one's ingroup.

Front 587

Outliers

Back 587

Scores falling far outside the main cluster of scores.

Front 588

Overconfidence

Back 588

The tendency to be more confident than correct, to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs and judgments.

Front 589

Overjustification effect

Back 589

The tendency of people to stop liking something that they previously enjoyed because of receiving a reward for the behavior.

Front 590

Paivio's dual-code hypothesis

Back 590

According to this theory, information can be stored (or encoded) in two ways: visually and verbally. Abstract information tends to be encoded verbally, whereas concrete information tends to be encoded visually (i.e., as an image) and verbally.

Front 591

Panic Disorder

Back 591

An anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations.

Front 592

Paradoxical intervention

Back 592

A therapeutic technique that appears to contradict the therapeutic needs.

Front 593

Parallel Distributed Processs (PDP)

Back 593

This theory holds that information processing is distributed across the brain (across nodes in a network) and is done in a parallel fashion.

Front 594

Parallel Processing

Back 594

The processing of several aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision. Contrasts with the step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving.

Front 595

Parapsychology

Back 595

The study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis.

Front 596

Parasympathetic Nervous System

Back 596

The division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy.

Front 597

Parietal Lobes

Back 597

The portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top of the head and toward the rear; receives sensory input for touch and body position.

Front 598

Partial Reinforcement

Back 598

Reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement.

Front 599

Passionate Love

Back 599

An aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship.

Front 600

Perception

Back 600

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.

Front 601

Perceptual Adaptation

Back 601

In vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.

Front 602

Perceptual Constancy

Back 602

Perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change.

Front 603

Perceptual sets

Back 603

Expectations we have about perception due to past experiences.

Front 604

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

Back 604

The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body.

Front 605

Permissive parenting style

Back 605

A parenting style referring to the tendency to score very low on control/demand measures.

Front 606

Persona

Back 606

An archetype from Jung's theory referring to a mask that is adopted by the person in response to the demands of social convention.

Front 607

Personal Control

Back 607

Our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless.

Front 608

Personal Space

Back 608

The buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies

Front 609

Personality

Back 609

An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Front 610

Personality Disorders

Back 610

Psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behaviour patterns that impair social functioning.

Front 611

Personality Inventory

Back 611

A questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors (semicolon -insert-) used to assess selected personality traits.

Front 612

Personnel Psychology

Back 612

A subfield of industrial-organizational psychology (I/O psychology) that focuses on employee recruitment, selection, placement, training, appraisal, and development.

Front 613

Petty and Cacioppo's elaboration likelihood model of persuasion

Back 613

There are two routes to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route. If the issue is very important to us, we're dealing with the central route to persuasion. If the issue is not very important to us or if we cannot clearly hear the message, we're dealing with the peripheral route to persuasion.

Front 614

Phelogeny

Back 614

The term for evolutionary development in humans.

Front 615

Phenothiazine

Back 615

Anti-psychotic drugs thought to block receptor sites for dopamine, making it effective in treating the delusional thinking, hallucinations and agitation commonly associated with schizophrenia.

Front 616

Phenylketonuria (PKU)

Back 616

A degenerative disease of the nervous system occurring when a child lacks the enzyme needed to digest phenylalanine, an amino acid found in milk and other foods.

Front 617

Phi Phenomenon

Back 617

An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession.

Front 618

Philip Zimbardo

Back 618

Prison simulation. Found that people are more likely to commit antisocial acts if they feel anonymous. Deindividuation

Front 619

Phobia

Back 619

An anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object or situation.

Front 620

Phoneme

Back 620

In a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Front 621

Phrenology

Back 621

The study of the psychological functions of areas in the brain.

Front 622

Physical Dependence

Back 622

A physiological need for a drug, marked by unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the drug is discontinued

Front 623

Physiological zero

Back 623

The temperature of the skin.

Front 624

Pitch

Back 624

The subjective experience of the frequency of the sound.

Front 625

Pituitary Gland

Back 625

The endocrine system's most influential gland. Under the influence of the hypothalamus, [it] regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands.

Front 626

Place theory

Back 626

Proposed by Helmhotlz and Young, the theory holds that each different pitch causes a different place on the basilar membrane of the ear to vibrate.

Front 627

Placebo Effect

Back 627

Experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behaviour caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which is assumed to be an active agent.

Front 628

Plasticity

Back 628

The brain's capacity for modification, as evident in brain reorganisation following damage (especially in children) and in experiments on the effects of experience on brain development.

Front 629

Pleasure principle

Back 629

In Freud's structural dynamic model of personality, it is the id's operating principal, which is to immediately discharge any energy buildup.

Front 630

pluralistic ignorance

Back 630

leading others to a defintion of an event as a nonemergency

Front 631

Polygraph

Back 631

A machine, commonly used in attempts to detect lies, that measures several of the physiological responses accompanying emotion (such as perspiration and cardiovascular and breathing changes).

Front 632

Population

Back 632

All the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study. (Note: Except for national studies, this does not refer to a country's whole population.)

Front 633

Positive Psychology

Back 633

The scientific study of optimal human functioning (semicolon -insert-) aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Front 634

Positive Reinforcement

Back 634

Increasing behaviors by presenting positive stimuli, such as food. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response.

Front 635

Positron Emmision Topography Scan (PET Scan)

Back 635

A visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task.

Front 636

post-decisional dissonance

Back 636

dissonance that emerges after a choice has been made

Front 637

Posthypnotic Suggestion

Back 637

A suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors.

Front 638

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Back 638

An anxiety disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, and / or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience.

Front 639

Predictive Validity

Back 639

The success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior. (Also called criterion-related validity.)

Front 640

Prejudice

Back 640

An unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members. It generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action.

Front 641

Premack principle

Back 641

A more preferred activity can be used to reinforce a less preferred activity.

Front 642

Preoperational Stage

Back 642

In Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.

Front 643

Preparedness

Back 643

Inborn tendency to associate certain stimuli with certain consequences.

Front 644

Primacy effect

Back 644

A social psychology term that refers to those occasions when first impressions are more important than subsequent impressions.

Front 645

Primary circular reactions

Back 645

From Piaget's theory, it is reflex activities characteristic of behavior during the sensorimotor phase.

Front 646

Primary prevention

Back 646

Efforts to correct the conditions that foster mental illness and establish the conditions that foster mental health.

Front 647

Primary process

Back 647

In Freud's structural dynamic model ,of personality, it is the id's response :to frustration—"obtain satisfaction now, not later."

Front 648

Primary Reinforcer

Back 648

An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.

Front 649

Primary Sex Characteristics

Back 649

The body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible.

Front 650

Priming

Back 650

The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory. Ask a friend two rapid-fire questions: (a) How do you pronounce the word spelled by the letters s-h-o-p? (b) What do you do when you come to a green light? If your friend answers "stop" to the second question, you have demonstrated priming.

Front 651

Prisoner's dilemma

Back 651

A classic method of investigating people's choices to compete or cooperate using a hypothetical case where two men have been taken into custody, separated, and can choose either to confess or not to confess.

Front 652

prisoner's dilemma

Back 652

A given person gains most if he or she chooses to cooperate, and the other competes. Together, they lose the most if both compete. a given indivual loses the most if he or hse competes and the other cooperates.

Front 653

Proactive inhibition

Back 653

When what you learned earlier interferes with what you learn later.

Front 654

Proactive Interference

Back 654

The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.

Front 655

Problem-Focused Coping

Back 655

Attempting to alleviate stress directly- by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor.

Front 656

Procedural memory

Back 656

Memory for how things are done.

Front 657

Prodromal phase

Back 657

The phase before schizophrenia is actually diagnosed, characterized by poor adjustment,

Front 658

Progesterone

Back 658

A hormone produced and secreted by the ovary to prepare the uterus for implantation of the fertilized egg.

Front 659

Projection

Back 659

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

Front 660

Projection area

Back 660

Areas in the brain receiving incoming sensory information or sending out motor-impulse commands.

Front 661

Projective Test

Back 661

A personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.

Front 662

Proprioception

Back 662

A general term for our sense of bodily position, including aspects of both the vestibular and kinesthetic senses.

Front 663

Prosocial Behavior

Back 663

Positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior.

Front 664

Protection-motivation theory

Back 664

A social psychology theory proposing that an appeal to fear produces attitude change under particular conditions.

Front 665

Prototype

Back 665

A mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to the it provides a quick and easy method for including items in a category (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin).

Front 666

proxemics

Back 666

the study of how individuals space themselves in relation to others

Front 667

Proximal stimulus

Back 667

In perception, it is the information our sensory receptors receive about the object.

Front 668

Psychoactive Drug

Back 668

A chemical substance that alters perceptions and mood.

Front 669

Psychoanalysis

Back 669

Sigmund Freud's therapeutic technique. Freud believed the patient’s free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences- and the therapist's interpretations of them- released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight.

Front 670

Psychodynamic, or psychoanalytic theory

Back 670

A system of thought that postulates the existence of unconscious internal states that motivate the overt actions of individuals and determine personality.

Front 671

Psychological Dependence

Back 671

A psychological need to use a drug, such as to relieve negative emotions.

Front 672

Psychological Disorder

Back 672

Deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional behavior patterns.

Front 673

Psychopharmacology

Back 673

The study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.

Front 674

Psychophysics

Back 674

A branch of psychology concerned with measuring the relationship between physical stimuli and psychological responses to the stimuli.

Front 675

Psychophysiological Illness

Back 675

Literally, "mind-body" illness; any stress-related physical illness, such as hypertension and some headaches. (Note: This is distinct from hypochondriasis- misinterpreting normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease.)

Front 676

Psychosexual Stages

Back 676

The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.

Front 677

Psychosurgery

Back 677

Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behaviour.

Front 678

Psychotherapy

Back 678

An emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and someone who suffers from psychological difficulties.

Front 679

Puberty

Back 679

The period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing.

Front 680

Punishment

Back 680

The probability that a response will be made is decreased by giving the organism something undesirable whenever the response is made.

Front 681

Pupil

Back 681

The adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters.

Front 682

Random Assignment

Back 682

Assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing pre-existing differences between those assigned to the different groups.

Front 683

Random Sample

Back 683

A sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion.

Front 684

Range

Back 684

The difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution.

Front 685

Ratio scale

Back 685

A scale of measurement using actual numbers where there is a true zero point that indicates the total absence of the quantity being measured.

Front 686

Rational emotive behavioral therapy

Back 686

A therapeutic –Approach that focuses on changing irrational belief systems.

Front 687

Rationalization

Back 687

A defense mechanism that refers to the process of developing socially acceptable explanations for inappropriate behavior or thoughts.

Front 688

Raymond Cattell

Back 688

Theorized fluid versus crystallized intelligence

Front 689

Reactance

Back 689

When social pressure to behave in a particular way becomes so blatant that the person's sense of freedom is threatened, the person will tend to act in. a way to reassert that sense of freedom,

Front 690

Reaction Formation

Back 690

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings.

Front 691

Reality principle

Back 691

In Freud's structural dynamic model of personality, it is the ego's response to frustration that takes into account objective reality as it guides or inhibits the activity of the id and the id's pleasure principle.

Front 692

Recall

Back 692

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Front 693

Recency effect

Back 693

In social psychology, it refers to those occasions when the most recent information we have about an individual is most important in forming our impressions. In cognitive psychology, it is the tendency for items that are presented last to be remembered the best.

Front 694

Reception

Back 694

The first step in all sensory information processing; each sensory system has receptors to react to the physical external energy.

Front 695

Reciprocal Determinism

Back 695

The interacting influences between personality and environment factors.

Front 696

Reciprocity hypothesis

Back 696

The hypothesis that we tend to like those who seem to like us, and dislike those who dislike us.

Front 697

Reciprocity Norm

Back 697

An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them.

Front 698

Recognition

Back 698

A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple choice test.

Front 699

Reflex

Back 699

A simple, automatic, inborn response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee-jerk response.

Front 700

Refractory period

Back 700

The period following the firing of a neuron just before the neuron is able to fire again.

Front 701

refuted couterarguments

Back 701

inoculation against attacks on cultural truisms by first presenting arguments against the truism and then refuting the arguments

Front 702

Regional cerebral blood flow (rcbf)

Back 702

A noninvasive procedure that detects broad patterns of neural activity based on increased blood flow to different parts of the brain.

Front 703

Regression

Back 703

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.

Front 704

Regression Toward the Mean

Back 704

The tendency for extremes of unusual scores to fall back (regress) toward their average.

Front 705

Rehearsal

Back 705

The conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage.

Front 706

reinforcement theory

Back 706

behavior is motivated by anticipated rewards

Front 707

Reinforcer

Back 707

In operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.

Front 708

Relative Deprivation

Back 708

The perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself.

Front 709

Relative refractory period

Back 709

The period following the absolute refractory period. During this time, the neuron will fire in response to a strong stimulus.

Front 710

Relative size

Back 710

A cue for depth perception that occurs when as an object gets farther away and its image on the retina gets smaller. People can tell how far away something is relative to another object by comparing the size of the images on the retina with what is known about actual sizes.

Front 711

Relearning

Back 711

A memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time.

Front 712

Reliability

Back 712

The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting.

Front 713

REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep

Back 713

A recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur. Also known as paradoxical sleep, because the muscles are relaxed (except for minor twitches) but other body systems are active.

Front 714

REM Rebound

Back 714

The tendency for REM sleep to increase REM sleep deprivation (created by repeated awakenings during REM sleep).

Front 715

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Back 715

The application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain (semicolon -insert-) used to stimulate or suppress brain activity.

Front 716

Replication

Back 716

Repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances.

Front 717

Representativeness heuristic

Back 717

A decision-making short-cut that people tend to use when trying to decide how likely something is by categorizing on the basis of whether it fits the prototypical, stereotypical or representative image of the category.

Front 718

Repression

Back 718

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defence mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Front 719

Reproductive isolating mechanisms

Back 719

Behaviors that prevent animals of one species from attempting to mate with animals of a closely-related species.

Front 720

Resistance

Back 720

An unwillingness or inability to relate to certain thoughts, motives or experiences, it is a major part of psychoanalysis.

Front 721

Respondent Behavior

Back 721

Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus; Skinner's term for behavior learned through classical conditioning.

Front 722

Response bias

Back 722

The tendency for research participants to respond to sensory perception in a particular way, due to nonsensory factors.

Front 723

Resting potential

Back 723

A slight electrical charge (-70 mV) stored inside the neuron's cell membrane--a charge just waiting to be transformed into a nerve impulse.

Front 724

Reticular Formation

Back 724

A nerve network in the brainstem that plays an important role in controlling arousal.

Front 725

Retina

Back 725

The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information.

Front 726

Retinal Disparity

Back 726

A binocular cue for perceiving depth: By comparing images from the two eyeballs, the brain computes distance- the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the clearer the object.

Front 727

Retrieval

Back 727

Process of recovering stored material in memory.

Front 728

Retroactive inhibition

Back 728

Learning something new that interferes with what was learned earlier.

Front 729

Retroactive Interference

Back 729

The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information.

Front 730

Retrograde amnesia

Back 730

Memory loss for events that occurred before brain injury.

Front 731

Rhodopsin

Back 731

The only photopigment in the rods, it is made up of a vitamin A derivative, called retinene, and a protein, called opsin.

Front 732

Risky shift

Back 732

It refers to the finding that group decisions are riskier than the average of the individual choices (and, this average riskiness of the individual choices can be considered to be an estimate of the group's original riskiness).

Front 733

Robert Zajonc

Back 733

key figure in mere exposure research

Front 734

Rods

Back 734

Located in the periphery of the retina, these are sensory receptors for vision that work best in reduced illumination, and only allow perception of achromatic colors, low sensitivity to detail and are not involved in color vision.

Front 735

Role

Back 735

A set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.

Front 736

Role theory

Back 736

A theoretical perspective from social psychology that holds that people are aware of the social roles they are expected to fill, and behavior can be understood and attributed to the adoption of those social roles,

Front 737

Rooting Reflex

Back 737

: A baby's tendency, when touched on the cheek, to turn toward the touch, open the mouth, and search for the nipple.

Front 738

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Back 738

The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach (semicolon -insert-) seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.

Front 739

Sample

Back 739

In research design, it is a subset of the population.

Front 740

Savant Syndrome

Back 740

A condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.

Front 741

Scapegoat Theory

Back 741

The theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.

Front 742

Scatterplot

Back 742

A graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables. The slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship between the two variables. The amount of scatter suggests the strength of the correlation (little scatter indicates high correlation).

Front 743

Schema (schemata)

Back 743

Conceptual frameworks used to organize knowledge.

Front 744

Schizoid personality disorder

Back 744

A personality disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of emotional expression.

Front 745

Schizophrenia

Back 745

A disorder characterized by any or all of the following symptoms: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thought, inappropriate affect, and catatonic behavior.

Front 746

Secondary process

Back 746

In Freud's structural dynamic model of personality, it is the ego's mode of functioning, which is to postpone the discharge of energy until the actual object that will satisfy the need has been discovered or produced.

Front 747

Secondary sex characteristics

Back 747

Physical sex characteristics that do not appear until puberty—for females, enlarged breasts and widened hips, for males facial hair and deeper voices.

Front 748

Sedative-hypnotic drugs

Back 748

A class of drugs that slow down the functioning of the central nervous system by facilitating the action of GABA.

Front 749

Selective Attention

Back 749

The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus, as in the cocktail party effect.

Front 750

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI)

Back 750

Behavioral stimulants that reduce depression by blocking the reuptake of serotonin, and increases serotonin in the synapse.

Front 751

Self actualization

Back 751

From Abraham Maslow's theory, it is the need to realize one's fullest potential.

Front 752

Self disclosure theory

Back 752

A theory that refers to those conditions that prohibit or facilitate the process of revealing personal or intimate aspects of oneself.

Front 753

Self-Actualization

Back 753

According to Maslow, the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved (semicolon -insert-) the motivation to fulfill one's potential.

Front 754

Self-awareness theory

Back 754

The theory that our behavior is influenced by an awareness of the self, and that there are certain situations that trigger a focus on ourselves (mirrors, cameras, recording devices).

Front 755

Self-Concept

Back 755

A sense of one's identity and personal worth.

Front 756

Self-Disclosure

Back 756

Revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others.

Front 757

Self-Esteem

Back 757

One's feelings of high or low self-worth.

Front 758

Self-perception theory

Back 758

Daryl Gem's theory that when attitudes about something are weak or ambiguous, people observe their own behavior and then attribute attitudes to themselves.

Front 759

Self-Serving Bias

Back 759

A readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

Front 760

Semantic Encoding

Back 760

The encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.

Front 761

Semantic feature-comparison model

Back 761

The model, proposed by Smith, Shoben and Rips suggests that concepts are represented by sets of features, some of which are required for that concept, and some of which are typical of that concept.

Front 762

Semantic memory

Back 762

A type of declarative memory, semantic memory has to do with remembering general knowledge, especially the meanings of words and concepts.

Front 763

Semantics

Back 763

The set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning.

Front 764

Sensation

Back 764

The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.

Front 765

Sensorimotor Stage

Back 765

In Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.

Front 766

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Back 766

Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness.

Front 767

Sensory Adaptation

Back 767

Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.

Front 768

Sensory Cortex

Back 768

The areas at the front of the parietal lobes that registers and processes body touch and movement sensations.

Front 769

Sensory Interaction

Back 769

The principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste.

Front 770

Sensory memory

Back 770

Part of the stage theory of memory that contains the fleeting impressions of sensory stimuli.

Front 771

Sensory Neurons

Back 771

Neurons that carry incoming information from the sense receptors to the central nervous system.

Front 772

Sequential cohort studies

Back 772

An experimental method used in developmental psychology to study groups of subjects at different ages, repeatedly over time.

Front 773

Serial Position Effect

Back 773

Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.

Front 774

Serotonin

Back 774

A neurotransmitter loosely classified as a monoamine or biogenic-amine transmitter generally thought to play roles in regulating mood, eating, sleeping and arousal—an oversupply of serotonin is thought to produce manic states; an undersupply is thought to produce depression.

Front 775

Set Point

Back 775

The point at which an individual's "weight thermostat" is supposedly set. When the body falls below this weight, an increase in hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may act to restore the lost weight.

Front 776

Sexual Disorder

Back 776

A problem that consistently impairs sexual arousal or functioning.

Front 777

Sexual Orientation

Back 777

An enduring sexual attraction toward members of either one's own sex (homosexual orientation) or the other sex (heterosexual orientation).

Front 778

Sexual Response Cycle

Back 778

The four stages of sexual responding described by Masters and Johnson- excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution (EPOR, rope backwards).

Front 779

Shadow

Back 779

An archetype from Jung's theory referring to the animal instincts which humans inherited in their evolution from lower forms of life.

Front 780

Shaping

Back 780

An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.

Front 781

Short term memory

Back 781

A memory system that has a limited capacity (7 ± 2 items) and a relatively short duration (approx. 30 sec.).

Front 782

Sign stimulus

Back 782

A feature of a stimulus that is sufficient to bring about a particular fixed-action pattern.

Front 783

Signal Detection Theory

Back 783

A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus ("signal") amid background stimulation ("noise"). Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and level of fatigue.

Front 784

Significance test

Back 784

A statistical technique used in inferential, statistics to test the probability of an observed difference.

Front 785

Single-Blind Experiment

Back 785

An experimental procedure in which the research participants are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo, but the experimenters know which is which.

Front 786

Single-cell recording

Back 786

A method of study in sensory perception that records the response cell by placing a microelectrode in the cortex.

Front 787

situational attibution

Back 787

external and those that related to featurs of the surroundings

Front 788

Size constancy

Back 788

When an object appears to retain its size despite the fact that its image on the retina has changed in size.

Front 789

Sleep

Back 789

Periodic, natural, reversible loss of consciousness - as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anaesthesia, or hibernation.

Front 790

Sleep Apnea

Back 790

A sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary reawakenings.

Front 791

sleeper effect

Back 791

The persuasive impact of the high credibility decreases over time, while the persuasive impact of the the low credibility source increases over time.

Front 792

Social Clock

Back 792

The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.

Front 793

Social comparison theory

Back 793

Leon Festinger's theory that the tendency to evaluate the self in comparison to other people drives affiliation.

Front 794

Social exchange theory

Back 794

The theory that we are motivated to affiliate with others based upon the rewards and costs of affiliation—the more the rewards outweigh the costs, the greater the attraction to the other person.

Front 795

Social facilitation

Back 795

The idea that being in a group enhances performance.

Front 796

Social influence

Back 796

The notion that the presence of other people affects an individual's judgment about an event.

Front 797

Social Leadership

Back 797

Group-oriented leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support.

Front 798

Social Learning Theory

Back 798

The theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished.

Front 799

Social loafing

Back 799

A group phenomenon referring to the tendency for people to put forth less effort when part of a group effort than when acting individually.

Front 800

social perception

Back 800

the ways in which we form impressions about the characteristics of individuals and of groups of people

Front 801

Social Psychology

Back 801

The scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Front 802

Social Trap

Back 802

A situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in a mutually destructive behaviour.

Front 803

Social-Cognitive Perspective

Back 803

Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between persons (and their thinking) and their social context.

Front 804

Social-Responsibility Norm

Back 804

An expectation that people will help those dependent upon them.

Front 805

Somatic Nervous System (SNS)

Back 805

The division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body's skeletal muscles. Also called the skeletal nervous system.

Front 806

Somatoform disorders

Back 806

Disorders that are characterized by the presence of physical symptoms not fully explained by a medical condition.

Front 807

Source Amnesia

Back 807

Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. (Also called source misattribution.) It, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories.

Front 808

Spacing Effect

Back 808

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.

Front 809

Spermarche

Back 809

The first ejaculation.

Front 810

Split Brain

Back 810

A condition in which the two hemispheres of the brain are isolated by cutting the connecting fibers (mainly those of the corpus callosum) between them.

Front 811

Split-half consistency

Back 811

Dividing a test into equal halves and correlating scores on one half with the scores on the other half.

Front 812

Spontaneous Recovery

Back 812

The reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response.

Front 813

Spotlight Effect

Back 813

Overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us).

Front 814

spreading of alternatives

Back 814

the relative worth of the two alternatives is spread apart

Front 815

Standard Deviation

Back 815

A computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score.

Front 816

Standard error of measurement (SEM)

Back 816

An index of how much, on average, we expect a person's observed score to vary from the score the person is capable of receiving based on actual ability.

Front 817

Standardization

Back 817

Defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested standardization group.

Front 818

Stanford-Binet

Back 818

The widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test.

Front 819

Stanly Schatcher

Back 819

found that greater anxiety does lead to greater desire to affiliate; a situation that provokes littely anxiety typially doe snot lead to a desire to affiliate.

Front 820

State-dependent learning

Back 820

When recall is better if the psychological or physical state at the time of recall is the same as the state when original learning occurred.

Front 821

Statistical Significance

Back 821

A statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance.

Front 822

Stereotype

Back 822

A generalized (sometimes accurate but often over generalized) belief about a group of people.

Front 823

Stereotype Threat

Back 823

A self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.

Front 824

Steven's power law

Back 824

A law that relates the intensity of the stimulus to the intensity of the sensation.

Front 825

Stimulants

Back 825

Drugs (such as caffeine, nicotine, and the more powerful amphetamines, cocaine, and Ecstasy) that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.

Front 826

Storage

Back 826

Process of retaining the information in memory over time.

Front 827

Strange situation

Back 827

A laboratory study designed to measure the quality of the caregiver-child attachment relationship.

Front 828

Stranger Anxiety

Back 828

The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.

Front 829

Stress

Back 829

The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging.

Front 830

Structuralism

Back 830

System of thought that refers to breaking consciousness down to its elements.

Front 831

Structured Interviews

Back 831

Interview process that asks the same job-relevant questions of all applicants, each of whom is rated on established scales.

Front 832

Subjective Well-Being

Back 832

Self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life. Used along with measures of objective well-being (for example, physical and economic indicators) to evaluate people's quality of life.

Front 833

Sublimation

Back 833

A defense mechanism that refers to the process of transforming unacceptable urges into socially acceptable behaviors.

Front 834

Subtractive color mixture

Back 834

Occurs when we mix pigments; yellow, blue and red are the primary colors.

Front 835

Superego

Back 835

The part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.

Front 836

Supernormal stimulus

Back 836

A stimulus that is more effective at triggering the fixed action pattern than the actual stimulus found in nature.

Front 837

Superordinate Goals

Back 837

Shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation.

Front 838

superordinate goals

Back 838

goals best obtained through intergroup cooperation

Front 839

Suppression

Back 839

A defense mechanism that refers to a deliberate, conscious form of forgetting.

Front 840

Survey

Back 840

A technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of them.

Front 841

Sympathetic Nervous System

Back 841

The division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations.

Front 842

Synapse

Back 842

The tiny gap between neurons.

Front 843

Synapse

Back 843

The junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. The tiny gap at this junction is called the synaptic gap or cleft.

Front 844

Syntax

Back 844

The grammatical arrangement of words in sentences.

Front 845

Syntax

Back 845

The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.

Front 846

Systematic Desensitization

Back 846

A type of counterconditioning that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias.

Front 847

Tabula rasa

Back 847

The idea that all knowledge is gained through experience.

Front 848

Tardive Dyskinesia

Back 848

Involuntary movements of the facial muscles, tongue, and limbs (semicolon -insert-) a possible neurotoxic side effect of long-term use of antipsychotic drugs that target D2 dopamine receptors.

Front 849

Task Leadership

Back 849

Goal-oriented leadership that sets standards, organizes work, and focuses attention on goals.

Front 850

Telegraphic Speech

Back 850

Early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram- "go car"- using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting auxiliary words.

Front 851

Temperament

Back 851

Individual differences thought to have a genetic basis, and thought to form the foundation of personality.

Front 852

Temporal Lobes

Back 852

The portion of the cerebral cortex lying roughly above the ears; includes the auditory areas, each of which receives auditory information primarily from the opposite ear.

Front 853

Teratogens

Back 853

Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

Front 854

Terror-Management Theory

Back 854

Proposes that faith in one's worldview and the pursuit of self-esteem provide protection against a deeply rooted fear of death.

Front 855

Testosterone

Back 855

The most important of the male sex hormones. Both males and females have it, but the additional testosterone in males stimulates the growth of the male sex organs in the fetus and the development of the male sex characteristics during puberty.

Front 856

Test-retest method

Back 856

To estimate the inter-individual stability of test scores over time, the same test is administered to the same group of people twice.

Front 857

Texture gradients

Back 857

A cue for depth perception that refers to the variations in perceived surface texture as a function of the distance from the observer—the more distant parts of a scene appear to have smaller, more densely packed elements, and sudden changes in texture generally signal either a change in distance or a change in direction.

Front 858

Thalamus

Back 858

The brain's sensory switchboard, located on top of the brainstem; it directs messages to the sensory receiving areas in the cortex and transmits replies to the cerebellum and medulla.

Front 859

Thanatos

Back 859

In Freud's structural dynamic model of personality, it refers to the death instincts that represent an unconscious wish for the ultimate absolute state of quiescence.

Front 860

THC

Back 860

The major active ingredient in marijuana; triggers a variety of effects, including mild hallucinations.

Front 861

Thematic Apperception Test

Back 861

A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.

Front 862

Theodore Necomb

Back 862

studied political norms

Front 863

Theory

Back 863

An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviours or events.

Front 864

Theory of Mind

Back 864

People's ideas about their own and others' mental states- about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behavior these might predict.

Front 865

Theory of motivation

Back 865

A drive-reduction theory proposed by Clark Hull suggesting that the goal of behavior is to reduce biological drives—that is, behavioral reinforcement occurs whenever a biological drive is reduced.

Front 866

Theory of multiple intelligences

Back 866

Howard Gardner's theory that there are 7 intelligence factors: linguistic ability, logical-mathematical ability, spatial ability, musical ability, bodily-kinesthetic ability, interpersonal ability, and intrapersonal ability.

Front 867

Thomas Szasz

Back 867

The Myth of Mental Illness. Mental disorders are disorders because they differ from the social norm.

Front 868

Thorazine

Back 868

An antipsychotic drug thought to block receptor sites for dopamine, making it effective in treating the delusional thinking; hallucinations and agitation commonly associated with schizophrenia.

Front 869

Threshold

Back 869

The level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse.

Front 870

Timbre

Back 870

In sound perception, it is the tone quality—the aspect that distinguishes the sound of one instrument from another.

Front 871

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

Back 871

A problem with memory retrieval where some parts of the information are available to memory, but not enough for complete recall.

Front 872

Token economies

Back 872

A technique used in behavior therapy to reinforce behavior by giving tokens (that can be cashed in for something desirable) for appropriate behavior.

Front 873

Token Economy

Back 873

An operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behaviour and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats.

Front 874

Tolerance

Back 874

The diminishing effect with regular use of the same dose of a drug, requiring the user to take larger and larger doses before experiencing the drug's effect.

Front 875

Top-down processing (conceptually-driven processing)

Back 875

From object recognition theory, it refers to when people recognize objects by using conceptual processes such as memories and expectations about the whole object.. .

Front 876

Tourette's disorder

Back 876

A disorder characterized by multiple motor tics (e.g., eye-blinking, skipping, deep knee bends) and one or more vocal tics (e.g., grunts, barks, sniffs, snorts, coughs, utterance of obscenities).

Front 877

Trait

Back 877

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peers report.

Front 878

Transduction

Back 878

The second step in sensory information processing where physical energy is translated into neural impulses or action potentials.

Front 879

Transference

Back 879

In psychoanalysis, the patient's transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships (such as love or hatred for a patient).

Front 880

Transformational grammar

Back 880

Rules that govern the ways in which changes in word order change meaning.

Front 881

Triarchic theory

Back 881

Robert Sternberg's theory of intelligence that suggests that there are three aspects to intelligence: componential (e.g., performance on tests), experiential (creativity) and contextual (street smarts/business sense).

Front 882

Tricyclic antidepressants

Back 882

Behavioral stimulants thought to reduce depression by facilitating the transmission of norepinephrine or serotonin at the synapse.

Front 883

True experiments

Back 883

Research designs that use random assignment and manipulate the independent variable.

Front 884

T-scores

Back 884

A test score that is converted to a normal distribution that has a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10.

Front 885

T-tests

Back 885

A significance test .used to compare the means of two groups.

Front 886

Turner's syndrome

Back 886

Caused by the lack of one X chromosome in females, it results in a failure to develop secondary sex characteristics and cognitive impairment.

Front 887

Two main principles of cognitive dissonance theory

Back 887

1)if a person is pressured to say or do something, there will be a tendency for him or her to change those attitudes. 2)the greater the pressure to comply, the less this attitude change. ultimately, attitude change generally occurs when the behavior is induced with minimum pressure.

Front 888

Two-Factor Theory

Back 888

Schachter-Singer's theory that to experience emotion one must (1) be physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the arousal.

Front 889

Two-factor theory of emotion

Back 889

A theory stating that the . subjective experience of emotion is based on the interaction between changes in physiological arousal and cognitive interpretation of that arousal. In absence of any clear emotion-provoking stimulus, interpretation of physiological arousal depends on what is happening in the environment.

Front 890

Two-point thresholds

Back 890

The minimum distance necessary between two points of stimulation on the skin such that the points will be felt as two distinct stimuli.

Front 891

two-sided messages

Back 891

contain arguments for and against a position

Front 892

Two-Word Stage

Back 892

Beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements.

Front 893

Type A

Back 893

Friedman and Rosenman's term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people.

Front 894

Type B

Back 894

Friedman and Rosenman's term for easygoing, relaxed people.

Front 895

Type I errors

Back 895

An error of mistakenly rejecting the null hypothesis. The likelihood of making a Type I error is the criterion of significance.

Front 896

Type II errors

Back 896

An error of mistakenly failing to reject the null hypothesis.

Front 897

Unconditional Positive Regard

Back 897

According to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person.

Front 898

Unconditioned Response

Back 898

In classical conditioning, the unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus (US), such as salivation when food is in the mouth.

Front 899

Unconditioned Stimulus

Back 899

In classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally- naturally and automatically- triggers a response.

Front 900

Unconscious

Back 900

According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.

Front 901

Validity

Back 901

The extent to which a test actually measures what it is purports to measure.

Front 902

Value hypothesis

Back 902

A hypothesis that suggests that the risky shift occurs in situations in which riskiness is culturally valued.

Front 903

Variable

Back 903

A characteristic or property that varies in amount or kind, and can be measured (e.g., height, weight, mental abilities, physical abilities, personality characteristics, and so on).

Front 904

Variable interval (VI)

Back 904

In operant conditioning, it is when behavior is reinforced at the first response made after a variable amount of time has elapsed since the last reinforcement.

Front 905

Variable-Interval Schedule

Back 905

In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.

Front 906

Variable-ratio (VR)

Back 906

In operant conditioning, it is when behavior is reinforced after a varying number of responses.

Front 907

Variable-Ratio Schedule

Back 907

In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.

Front 908

Variance

Back 908

The square of the standard deviation, it is a description of how much each score varies from the mean.

Front 909

Verplank

Back 909

showed that the course of a conversation changes dramatically upon the feeback (approval) of from others; helped establish the reinforcement theory as an important perspective in stuyding social behavior

Front 910

Vestibular sense

Back 910

The sense of balance of our bodily position relative to gravity.

Front 911

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

Back 911

An anxiety treatment that progressively exposes people to simulations of their greatest fears, such as airplane flying, spiders, or public speaking.

Front 912

Visual agnosia

Back 912

An impairment in visual recognition whereby the person can see an object, but is unable to recognize what it is.

Front 913

Visual Capture

Back 913

The tendency for vision to dominate the other senses.

Front 914

Visual Cliff

Back 914

A laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.

Front 915

Visual Encoding

Back 915

The encoding of picture images.

Front 916

Walter Cannon

Back 916

Studied autonomic nervous system

Front 917

Wavelength

Back 917

The distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next. Electromagnetic wavelengths vary from the short blips of cosmic rays to the long pulses of radio transmission.

Front 918

Weber's Law

Back 918

The principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount).

Front 919

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

Back 919

Is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests.

Front 920

Wernicke's aphasia

Back 920

Impairment in understanding spoken language associated with damage to Wernicke's area.

Front 921

Wernicke's Area

Back 921

Controls language reception- a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe.

Front 922

William McDougall

Back 922

published the first textbooks on social psychology

Front 923

William McGuire

Back 923

The innoculation procces against diseases in the body is anallogous to the mind--people can be inoculated against the attack of persuasive communications.

Front 924

Withdrawal

Back 924

The discomfort and distress that follow discontinuing the use of an addictive drug.

Front 925

Working Memory

Back 925

A newer understanding of short-term memory that involves conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

Front 926

X Chromosome

Back 926

The sex chromosome found in both men and women. Females have two X chromosomes; males have one. An X chromosome from each parent produces a female child.

Front 927

Y Chromosome

Back 927

The sex chromosome found only in males. When paired with an X chromosome from the mother, it produces a male child.

Front 928

Yerkes-Dodson law

Back 928

A law stating that performance is worst at extremely low or extremely high levels of arousal, and optimal at some intermediate level.

Front 929

Young & Helmhotz

Back 929

Trichromatic theory of color vision states that cones have red, blue, and green receptors. Ratio of activity determines color.

Front 930

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory

Back 930

The theory that the retina contains three different colour receptors- one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue- which when stimulated in combination can produce the perception of any colour.

Front 931

Zajonc

Back 931

studied the mere exposure effect; resolved problems with the social faciliation effect by suggesting that the precence of others enhances the emission of dominant response and impairs the emission of nondominant responses

Front 932

Zone of proximal development

Back 932

It refers to those skills and abilities that have not yet fully developed but are in the process of development.

Front 933

Z-score

Back 933

A score that represents how many standard deviations above or below the mean a score is.

Front 934

Zygote

Back 934

The fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo.

Front 935

Learning

Back 935

The relatively permanent or stable change in behavior as the result of experience.

Front 936

E.L. Thorndike

Back 936

Suggested the LAW OF EFFECT, which was the precursor of operant conditioning. The law postulated a cause-and-effect chain of behavior revolving around reinforcement.

Front 937

Kurt Lewin

Back 937

Developed the THEORY OF ASSOCIATION, which was a forerunner of behaviorism. Association is grouping things together based on the fact that they occur together in time and space. This idea is abasically waht Ivan Pavlov later proved experimentally.

Front 938

Ivan Pavlov

Back 938

Classical conditioning, also known as pavlovian conditioning, involves teaching an organism to respond to a neutral stimullus with a non-so-neutral stimulus.

Front 939

John B. Watson

Back 939

Expanded the ideas of Pavlov and founded the school of behaviorism. Watson's idea of learning was that everything could be explained by stimulus-response chains and that conditioning was the key factor in developing these chains. Only objective and observable elements were of importance to organisms and to psychology.

Front 940

B.F. Skinner

Back 940

Conducted the first scientific experiments to prove the concepts in Thorndike's Law of Effect and Waton's idea of the causes and effects of behavior. This idea of behavior being influenced primarily by reinforcement is now called operant conditioning. Skinner used rats and a device called the Skinner Box. Proved that animals are influenced by reinforcement.

Front 941

Classical conditioning

Back 941

involves pairing a neutral stimulus with a non-so-neutral stimulus; this creates a relationship between the two.

Front 942

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

Back 942

The not-so-neutral stimulus. In Pavlov's dog experiments, the UCS is the food. Without conditiniong, the stimulus elicits the response of salivating.

Front 943

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

Back 943

The neutral stimulus that is paried with the UCS. The CS has no naturall occurring response, but it is conditioned through pairings with a UCS. In classical conditioning, a CS (the light) is paired with a UCS (the food), so that the CS along will produce a response.

Front 944

Unconditioned Response (UCR)

Back 944

The naturally occurring response to the UCS.

Front 945

Conditioned Response (CR)

Back 945

The response that the CS elicits after conditioning. The UCR and the CR are the same (salivating to food or a light, for example).

Front 946

Simultanous Conditioning

Back 946

The UCS and CS are presented at the same time.

Front 947

High-Order Conditioning/Second-Order Conditioning

Back 947

A conditioning technique in which a previous CS now acts as a UCS.

Front 948

Forward Conditioning

Back 948

Pairing of the CS and the UCS in which the CS is presented before the UCS. Two types of forward conditioning are DELAYED CONDITIONING and TRACE CONDITIONING.

Front 949

Delayed Conditioning

Back 949

The presentation of the CS begins before that of the UCS and lasts until the UCS is presented.

Front 950

Trace Conditioning

Back 950

The CS stimulus is presented and terminated before the UCS is presented.

Front 951

Operant Conditioning

Back 951

Also called INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING. Aims to influence a response through various reinforcement strategies. In Skinner's experiments, using the SKINNER BOX, the basic idea was that rats repeated behaviors that won them rewrads and gave up behaviors that did not.

Front 952

Differential Reinforcement of Successive Approximations

Back 952

Another word for SHAPING (e.g. rewarding rats with pellets for getting progressively closer to the lever in a Skinner Box)

Front 953

Primary Reinforcement

Back 953

A natural reinforcement. Something that is reinforcing on its own without the requirement of learning. Food and water are primary reinforcers.

Front 954

Secondary Reinforcement

Back 954

A learned reinforcer. Money is a perfect example. They are often learned through society. Other examples are prestige, awards, and a token economy.

Front 955

Positive Reinforcement

Back 955

A type of reward or positive event acting as a stimulus that increases that likelihood of a particular response. Some subjects are not motivated by rewards because they don't believe or understand that the rewards will be given.

Front 956

Negative Reinforcement

Back 956

It is NOT punishment or the delivery of a negative consequence. Rather, it is reinforcement through the removal of a negative event.

Front 957

Negative Reinforcement v. Punishment

Back 957

First, negative reinforcement encourages the subject to behave a certain way, and punishment encourages a subject to stop behaving a certain way. Second, negative reinforcement entails removing a negative event, and punishment entails introducing a negative event. Skinner did not use punishment.

Front 958

Continuous Reinforcement Schedule

Back 958

In this schedule, every correct response is met with some form of reinfircement. This type of reinforcement factilites the quickest learning, but also the most fragile learning; as soon as the rewards stop coming, the animal stops performing.

Front 959

Partial Reinforcement Schedule

Back 959

In this schedule, not all correct responses are met with reinforcement. This stragety may require a longer learning time, but once learned, these behaviors are more resistant to extinction. There are four distince reinforcement schedules: 1) fixed ratio, 2) variable ratio, 3) fixed interval, 4) variable interval

Front 960

Empirical

Back 960

Relying on or derived from observation, experimentation, or measurement.

Front 961

psychology

Back 961

The discipline concerned with behavior and mental processes and how they are affected by an organism's physical state, mental state, and external environment.

Front 962

"psychobabble"

Back 962

pseudoscience and quackery covered by a veneer of psychological and scientific sounding language.

Front 963

critical thinking

Back 963

The ability and willingness to asses claims and make judgments on the basis of well supported reasons and evidence rather than emotion and anecdote.

Front 964

Occam's Razor

Back 964

The principle is popularly interpreted as "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one". The principle recommends selection of the hypothesis that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities while still sufficiently answering the question. Simplest is not defined by the time or number of words it takes to express the theory; "[simplest] is really referring to the theory with the fewest new assumptions.

Front 965

phrenology

Back 965

The now discredited theory that different brain areas account for specific character and personality traits, which can be read by bumps on the head!

Front 966

Wilhelm Wundt

Back 966

1832-1920 German trained in medicine and philosophy. Announced in 1873 he was going to make psychology a science. Opened the first lab for psychology in 1879.

Front 967

structuralism

Back 967

An early psychological approach that emphasized the analysis of immediate experience into basic elements.

Front 968

functionalism

Back 968

An early psychological approach that emphasized the function or purpose of behavior and consciousness.

Front 969

William James

Back 969

1842-1910 American philosopher, physician and psychologist. Leader of the functionalism approach.

Front 970

Charles Darwin

Back 970

1809-1882 British Naturalist. Argued that biologist's job wasn’t just to describe, say, the puffed out chest of a pigeon, but to also figure out how these attributes enhanced survival. An approach taken by functionalist psychologists.

Front 971

Sigmund Freud

Back 971

1856-1939 Austrian Neurologist. Forerunner of psychoanalysis.

Front 972

psychoanalysis

Back 972

A theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy that emphasizes unconscious motives and conflicts.

Front 973

biological perspective

Back 973

A psychological approach that emphasizes bodily events and changes associated with actions, feelings and thoughts.

Front 974

evolutionary perspective

Back 974

A field of psychology emphasizing evolutionary mechanisms that help to explain the human commonalities in cognition, development, emotion, social practices, and other areas of behavior.

Front 975

learning perspective

Back 975

A psychological approach that emphasizes how the environment and experience affect a person's or animal's actions. It included behaviorism and social-cognitive learning theories.

Front 976

behaviorists

Back 976

This learning approach focuses on the environmental rewards and punishers that maintain or discourage specific behaviors.

Front 977

social-cognitive learning theorists

Back 977

This learning approach combines elements of behaviorism with research on thoughts, values, expectations and intentions. They believe people learn by not only adapting to their environment but also by imitating others and by thinking about the events that are going on around them.

Front 978

cognitive perspective

Back 978

A psychological approach that emphasizes mental processes in perception, memory, language, problem solving, and other areas of behavior.

Front 979

sociocultural perspective

Back 979

A psychological approach that emphasizes social and cultural influences on behavior.

Front 980

social psychologists

Back 980

Within sociocultural perspective, social psychologists focus on social rules and roles, how groups affect behavior affect attitudes and behavior, why people obey authority and how each of us is affected by other people, lovers, fiends, bosses parents and strangers.

Front 981

cultural psychologists

Back 981

In sociocultural perspective, the cultural psychologists examine how cultural rules and values, explicit and unspoken affect a person's development, behavior and feelings

Front 982

psychodynamic perspective

Back 982

A psychological approach that emphasizes unconscious dynamics within the individual,, such as inner forces, conflicts, or the movement of instinctual energy.

Front 983

humanist psychology

Back 983

A psychological approach that emphasizes free will, personal growth, resilience, and the achievements of human potential.

Front 984

positive psychology

Back 984

Focuses on the qualities that enable people to be happy, optimistic and resilient in times of stress.

Front 985

feminist psychology

Back 985

A psychological approach that analyses the influence of social inequities on gender and the behavior of the two sexes.

Front 986

basic psychology

Back 986

The study of psychological issues in order to seek knowledge for its own sake rather than for its practical application.

Front 987

applied psychology

Back 987

The study of psychological issues that have direct practical significance; also the application of psychological findings.

Front 988

experimental psychologist

Back 988

Conduct laboratory studies of learning, motivation, emotion, sensation and perception, physiology, and cognition. Do not be misled by the term experimental though, other psychologists also do experiments.

Front 989

educational psychologist

Back 989

Study psychological principles that explain learning and search for ways to improve educational systems.

Front 990

developmental psychologist

Back 990

Study how people change and grow over time, physically, mentally and socially.

Front 991

industrial/organizational psychologist

Back 991

Study behavior in the workplace, especially concerning group decision making, employee morale, motivation, stress etc.

Front 992

psychometric psychologist

Back 992

Design and evaluate tests of mental abilities and aptitudes, interests and personality.

Front 993

counseling psychologist

Back 993

Generally help people deal with problems of everyday life, family conflict, job stress etc.

Front 994

school psychologist

Back 994

Work with parents teachers and students to enhance student's performance and resolve emotional difficulties.

Front 995

clinical psychologist

Back 995

Are trained to do psychotherapy with severely disturbed people as well as those who are simply troubled, unhappy or want to deal with their problems better.

Front 996

psychotherapist

Back 996

Is someone who does any kind of psychotherapy. It is not a legally regulated title.

Front 997

psychoanalyst

Back 997

Practices a specific type of psychology: psychoanalysis.

Front 998

psychiatrist

Back 998

Is a MD with 3 years residency in psychiatry. Will be able to give prescriptions.