| Term/Concept | Definition/Discussion | Topic | X-Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 68-95-99.7 Rule | In statistics, the 68–95–99.7 rule is a shorthand used to remember the percentage of values that lie within a band around the mean in a normal distribution by the number of standard deviations. More accurately, 68.27%, 95.45% and 99.73% of the values lie within one, two and three standard deviations of the mean, respectively. | 2-Research | |
| Aaron Beck's cognitive therapy model | Cognitive therapy is based on the cognitive model, which states that thoughts, feelings and behavior are all connected, and that individuals can move toward overcoming difficulties and meeting their goals by identifying and changing unhelpful or inaccurate thinking, problematic behavior, and distressing emotional responses. This involves the individual working collaboratively with the therapist to develop skills for testing and modifying beliefs, identifying distorted thinking, relating to others in different ways, and changing behaviors. (source: wikipedia) | 13-Therapies | 2015MC |
| Aaron Beck's view of depression | regarded as the father of cognitive therapy, theories are widely used in the treatment of clinical depression. Beck also developed self-report measures of depression and anxiety, notably the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). | 12-Abnormalities | |
| absolute threshold | the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time | 3-Biology | K3 |
| achievement vs aptitude tests | 11-Testing | ||
| action potential | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| action vs. resting potential | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| acuity-vision | 4-Sense & Perception | ||
| Adler, Alfred ( 1870 –1937) | Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of inferiority, the inferiority complex, is recognized as an isolating element which plays a key role in personality development. Alfred Adler considered human beings as an individual whole, therefore he called his psychology "Individual Psychology" | 10-Personality | |
| adrenal glands | a pair of endocrine glands just above the kidneys. The adrenals secrete the hormones epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (nonadrenaline), which help to arouse the body in times of stress | 3-Biology | K3 |
| affective disorder | another term for mood disorder | 12-Abnormalities | AP |
| afferent nerves |
|
3-Biology | K3 |
| Ainesworth, Mary | Strange Situation [Paradigm] | 9-Development | |
| Bandura, Albert | major view on learning and Bobo Doll experiment | 6-Learning | |
| Albert Ellis - Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) | 8-Motivation & Emotion | ||
| all-or-nothing law of neural firing (all-or-none) | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| altruism | |||
| American Psychological Association | 1-History | ||
| amnesia (anteriograde & retrograde) | |||
| anxious ambivalent | attachment style in which they are less likely to explore with parent present, protest when they leave, and not comforted when they return | 9-Development | |
| apparent motion | |||
| arousal | |||
| Asch's conformity (line segments) | |||
| attachment | |||
| attribution theory | |||
| autonomic nervous system | 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. | 3-Biology | K3 |
| aversive conditioning (good or bad?) | |||
| aversive conditions | |||
| avoidant attachment | attachment style in which they seek little contact with their caregiver and are not distressed when the caregiver leaves | 9-Development | |
| Babinsky response | The plantar reflex is a reflex elicited when the sole of the foot is stimulated with a blunt instrument. The reflex can take one of two forms. In normal adults, the plantar reflex causes a downward response of the hallux (flexion). An upward response (extension) of the hallux is known as the Babinski response or Babinski sign, named after the neurologist Joseph Babinski. The presence of the Babinski sign can identify disease of the spinal cord and brain in adults, and also exists as a primitive reflex in infants. | ||
| behavior | 1-History | K1 | |
| basilar membrane | the basilar membrane within the cochlea of the inner ear is a stiff structural element in the inner ear (cochlea) that separates two liquid-filled tubes that run along the coil of the cochlea, the scala media and the scala tympani ( source: wikipedia)
 |
3-Biology | FRQ 2017#2 |
| behavior as being adaptive | |||
| behavior genetics | the perspective of psychological science that deals with how much our genes, and our environment, influence our individual differences | ||
| behavioral approach | 1-History | K1 | |
| belief perseverence | maintaining a belief despite new information that firmly contradicts it | Memory | 2013#1 |
| bell curve (normal distribution) | 2-Research | ||
| Benjamin Worf's theory of linguistic relativism (determinism) | 7-Cognition | ||
| Big Five personality traits | there are generally five personality traits, or behaviors: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, (acronyms OCEAN or CANOE are useful to recall them). Beneath each Big Five trait, more specific primary factors are identified. For example, extraversion is said to include gregariousness, assertiveness, excitement seeking, warmth, activity, and positive emotions
The Big Five personality traits are also known as the Five Factor Model (FFM). |
10-Personality | 2016#2 |
| binocular disparity | 4-Sense & Perception | ||
| biological approach | 1-History | K1 | |
| blind spot | 4-Sense & Perception | ||
| blood brain barrier | 5-Consciousness | ||
| brain: what part do we share with animals? How do we differ? | |||
| brainstorming | |||
| Broca's aphasia (expressive) located in left frontal lobe | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| bystander intervention | 14-Social Psych | ||
| Cannon's critique of Kohlberg's theory | 9-Development | ||
| Rogers, Carl | : person (client) centered therapy | ||
| Carol Gilligan's critique of Kohlberg's theory | 9-Development | ||
| case study or case history | 2-Research | K2 | |
| central nervous system | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| central route to persuasion | persuasion will result from a person's careful and thoughtful consideration of the true merits of the information presented in support of an advocacy. See also, peripheral route to persuasion. | topic | 2013#1 |
| central tendency | In statistics, a central tendency (or measure of central tendency) is a central or typical value for a probability distribution. It may also be called a center or location of the distribution.
The most common measures of central tendency are the arithmetic mean, the median and the mode. The central tendency of a distribution is typically contrasted with its dispersion or variability; dispersion and central tendency are the often characterized properties of distributions. Analysts may judge whether data has a strong or a weak central tendency based on its dispersion. See also: mean, median, mode, distribution (normal, negatively skewed, positively skewed) |
2-Research | 2003#1 |
| circadian rhythms | any biological process that is endogenous (meaning self-produced), and entrainable (matching a natural cycle, like the Earth's day-night oscillation), such as the human sleep and wake cycle.
In mammals, such endogenous rhythms are generated by the suprachiasmatic nuclei(SCN) of the anterior hypothalamus. |
5 | 2016#1 |
| chaining | |||
| cognitive approach | 1-History | K1 | |
| cognitive dissonance | In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress (discomfort) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values; when performing an action that contradicts existing beliefs, ideas, or values; or when confronted with new information that contradicts existing beliefs, ideas, and values.
Leon Festinger's 1957 theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how human beings strive for internal consistency. A person who experiences inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable, and so is motivated to try to reduce the cognitive dissonance occurring, and actively avoids situations and information likely to increase the psychological discomfort. |
7 | 2003#1 |
| compulsion | 12-Abnormalities | AP | |
| conditioned response | a learning procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus (e.g. food) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. a bell). It also refers to the learning process that results from this pairing, through which the neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response (e.g. salivation) that is usually similar to the one elicited by the potent stimulus. These basic facts, which require many qualifications (see below), were first studied in detail by Ivan Pavlov through experiments with dogs. Together with operant conditioning, classical conditioning became the foundation of behaviorism, a school of psychology which was dominant in the mid-20th century and is still an important influence on the practice of psychological therapy and the study of animal behavior. Classical conditioning is now the best understood of the basic learning processes, and its neural substrates are beginning to be understood. | 6 | 2016#1 |
| confederate | 2-Research | K2 | |
| conformity | Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms. The tendency to conform occurs in small groups and/or society as a whole, and may result from subtle unconscious influences, or direct and overt social pressure. Conformity can occur in the presence of others, or when an individual is alone. For example, people tend to follow social norms when eating or watching television, even when alone.
People often conform from a desire for security within a group—often referred to as groupthink: a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics, which ignores realistic appraisal of other courses of action. Unwillingness to conform carries the risk of social rejection. Conformity is often associated with adolescence and youth culture, but strongly affects humans of all ages. Although peer pressure may manifest negatively, conformity can have good or bad effects depending on the situation. Driving on the correct side of the road could be seen as beneficial conformity. Conformity helps societies function smoothly and predictably via the self-elimination of behaviors seen as contrary to unwritten rules. In this sense it can be perceived as a positive force that prevents acts that are perceptually disruptive or dangerous. As conformity is a group phenomenon, factors such as group size, unanimity, cohesion, status, prior commitment and public opinion help determine the level of conformity an individual displays. |
14 | 2003#1 |
| control group | 2-Research | K2 | |
| conventional morality | morality at this level of Kohlberg's theory is determined by approval seeking and law and order. Right and wrong is determined by society's rules. There is respect for authority and majority rule. | 9-Development | |
| conversion disorder | patients with neurological symptoms, such as numbness, blindness, paralysis, or fits, which are not consistent with a well-established organic cause, which cause significant distress, and can be traced back to a psychological trigger...or to an ongoing mental health condition such as depression. Conversion disorder was retained in DSM-5, but given the subtitle functional neurological symptom disorder. | 12-Abnormalities | AP-2014 |
| correlational research | a relationship between two variables that have a linear relationship (positive or negative) with each other, but no cause and effect relationship. A simple example is the correlation between the physical statures of parents and their offspring or, from economics, the correlation between the demand for a product and its price. | 2-Research | 2013#1 |
| correlational research | a relationship between two variables that have a linear relationship (positive or negative) with each other, but no cause and effect relationship. A simple example is the correlation between the physical statures of parents and their offspring or, from economics, the correlation between the demand for a product and its price. | 2-Research | K2 |
| critical thinking | thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions | 7-Cognition | K1 |
| cross-sectional study | a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another. | 2-Research | |
| crystallized intelligence | one's accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age (associated with Raymond Cattell) | 9-Development | |
| cue-dependent forgetting | Cue-dependent forgetting, or retrieval failure, is the failure to recall information without memory cues. The term either pertains to semantic cues, state-dependent cues or context-dependent cues. Some memories are not retrieved by thinking about the memory, but something that cues, or is associated with the memory. | 7-Cognition | AP |
| demand characteristics | 2-Research | K2 | |
| dependent variable | the experimental factor--in psychology, the behavior or mental process--that is being measured; the variable that may change in response to the manipulations of the independent variable | 2-Research | K2 |
| descriptive research | 2-Research | K2 | |
| descriptive statistics | 2-Research | K2 | |
| distributed practice | a learning strategy where practice is broken up into a number of short sessions—over a longer period of time. Humans and animals learn items in a list more effectively when they are studied in several sessions spread out over a long period of time, rather than studied repeatedly in a short period of time, a phenomenon called the spacing effect. The opposite, massed practice, consists of fewer, longer training sessions. It is generally a less effective method of learning. For example, when studying for an exam dispersing your studying more frequently over a larger period of time will result in more effective learning than intense study the night before. | 6 | 2016#2 |
| double-blind experiment | 2-Research | K2 | |
| efferent nerves | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| Elaboration likelihood model | ( Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo in 1986) | Models | xref |
| empirical method | 1-History | K1 | |
| Erikson, Erik | theorist who studied psychosocial development across the lifespan—8 stages, 4 before adolescence. | 9-Development | |
| ethics of testing | 2-Research | ||
| evolutionary approach | the perspective of psychological science that deals with how nature selects traits that promote the perpetuation of one's genes | 1-History | K1 |
| evolutionary psychology | the perspective of psychological science that deals with how nature selects traits that promote the perpetuation of one's genes | 3-Biology | K3 |
| experiment | a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). By random assignment of participants the experimenter controls other relevant factors). Note: you may be asked to be able to design one | 2-Research | K2 |
| experimental group | 2-Research | K2 | |
| experimenter bias | 2-Research | K2 | |
| explicit memory | one of the two main types of long-term human memory. It is the conscious, intentional recollection of factual information, previous experiences and concepts. Explicit memory can be divided into two categories: episodic memory, which stores specific personal experiences, and semantic memory, which stores factual information | 6 | |
| external locus of control | the perception that chance or outside forces beyond one's personal control determine one's fate (associated with Julian Rotter) | 10-Personality | |
| external validity | 2-Research, 11-Testing | K2 | |
| false consensus effect | |||
| feature (signal) detector cells: Hubel & Wisel's research on visual processing | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| feature analysis | |||
| feral children | |||
| Festinger, Leon (1957), cognitive dissonance theory | Leon Festinger's 1957 theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how human beings strive for internal consistency. A person who experiences inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable, and so is motivated to try to reduce the cognitive dissonance occurring, and actively avoids situations and information likely to increase the psychological discomfort. | 2 | |
| fetal alcohol syndrome: characteristics | |||
| figure-ground-phenomenon | |||
| Five Factor Model (FFM) | See Big Five personality traits | 10-Personality | K10 |
| fluid intelligence | one's ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood (associated with Raymond Cattell | 11-Testing | |
| foot-in-the-door phenomenon | |||
| formal operations | |||
| fovea | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| Francis Galton's research | |||
| free association | |||
| frequency polygon | |||
| Freudian dream anaylysis: two levels of interpretation | |||
| Freud's stage of psychosexual development | |||
| frustration-aggression hypothesis | |||
| functional fixedness | |||
| functionalism | 1-History | K1 | |
| fundamental attribution error | |||
| galvanic skin response (GRS) | |||
| ganglia | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| Gansfeld Procedure | |||
| Gate Control Theory of Pain | |||
| generalizability of a study | |||
| genotype & phenotype | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| Gestalt theory | |||
| glial cells | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| group therapy (advantages of) | |||
| groupthink | |||
| gustatory sense: detects only sweet, sour, salty, bitter | 4-Sense & Perception | ||
| habituation | |||
| Hans Seyle General Adaptation Response | three progressive stages of stress: 1) ALARM, 2) RESISTANCE, 3) EXHAUSTION | 8-Motivation & Emotion | |
| Harlow, Harry | researcher that highlighted the importance of physical contact comfort in the formation of attachments with parents (monkeys) using cloth and wire "mothers" | 9-Development | |
| Hawthorne Effect | |||
| hueristic | an approach to problem solving, learning, or discovery that employs a practical method (not guaranteed or perfect), but sufficient for the immediate goals. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristics can be mental shortcuts. Examples include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, stereotyping, profiling, or common sense. | 6-Learning | 2016#1 |
| hierarchy of needs (Maslow) in order | |||
| high vs low self-monitors | |||
| histogram | |||
| homeostasis | |||
| Howard Gardner's view of multiple intelligences | 11-Testing | ||
| hue: (British term for colour) | 4-Sense & Perception | ||
| humanistic approach | 1-History | K1 | |
| hybrid | |||
| hypnosis: major theories of | 5-Consciousness | ||
| hypothalamus | 3-Biology | ||
| hypothesis | a testable prediction, often implied by a theory | 2-Research | K2 |
| id, ego, superego | |||
| identity vs. role confusion | Erikson's name for the crisis of adolescence. | 9-Development | |
| inferential statistics | 2-Research | K2 | |
| inattentional blindness | also known as perceptual blindness, is a psychological lack of attention that is not associated with any vision defects or deficits where an individual fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus that is in plain sight; it simply becomes impossible to attend to all the stimuli in a given situation, a temporary blindness effect can take place as a result | 4-Sense&Perception | AP |
| incentive motivation | Motivation is a theoretical construct used to explain behaviour. It gives the reason for people's actions, desires, and needs. Motivation can also be defined as one's direction to behavior, or what causes a person to want to repeat a behavior and vice versa. | 8-Motivation & Emotion | 2003#1 |
| independent variable | the experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect if being studied | 2-Research | K2 |
| inner ear | the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, |
4-Sense & Perception | |
| intelligence testing | An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from several standardized tests designed to assess human intelligence. Historically, IQ is a score obtained by dividing a person’s mental age score, obtained by administering an intelligence test, by the person’s chronological age, both expressed in terms of years and months. The resulting fraction is multiplied by 100 to obtain the IQ score. When current IQ tests were developed, the median raw score of the norming sample is defined as IQ 100 and scores each standard deviation (SD) up or down are defined as 15 IQ points greater or less. By this definition, approximately two-thirds of the population scores between IQ 85 and IQ 115. About 5 percent of the population scores above 125, and 5 percent below 75. | 11-Testing | 2003#1 |
| internal validity | 2-Research | K2 | |
| Kohlberg, Lawrence | theorist who claimed individuals went through a series of stages in the process of moral development. | 9-Development | |
| longitudinal study | research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period. | 2-Research | |
| longitudinal design | see longitudinal study | 2-Research | K2 |
| mode | the most frequently occurring score in a distribution | 2-Research | K2 |
| mean | the arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores | 2-Research | K2 |
| median | the middle score in a distribution; the scores are above it and half are below it | 2-Research | K2 |
| mental processes | 1-History | K1 | |
| meta-analysis | 2-Research | K2 | |
| milieu therapy | |||
| Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory (MMPI) Test | 11-Testing | ||
| misinformation effect | |||
| modeling | |||
| monocular vs binocular depth cues | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| motion aftereffect | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| motion parallax | a depth cue that results from our motion—as we move, objects that are closer to us move farther across our field of view than do objects that are in the distance. The animation below attempts to demonstrate how motion parallax works for driving along the road | 4-Sense & Perception | AP |
| motor neurons | a nerve cell (neuron) whose cell body is located in the spinal cord and whose fiber (axon) projects outside the spinal cord to directly or indirectly control effector organs, mainly muscles and glands. Motor neurons' axons are efferent nerve fibers that carry signals from the spinal cord to the effectors to produce effects. | 3-Biology | 2016#1 |
| myelin sheath | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| mnemonic device | any learning technique that aids information retention in the human memory. Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imagery to encode information in a way that allows for efficient storage and retrieval. Mnemonics aid original information in becoming associated with something more meaningful—which, in turn, allows the brain to have better retention of the information. Examples include short poems, acronyms, or memorable phrases, but mnemonics can also be used for other types of information and in visual or kinesthetic forms. Their use is based on the observation that the human mind more easily remembers spatial, personal, surprising, physical, sexual, humorous, or otherwise "relatable" information, rather than more abstract or impersonal forms of information. Here's an example of a kinesthetic mnemonic device.
 . |
7-Cognition | 2016#2 |
| natural selection | the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations | 1-History | K1 |
| naturalistic observation | observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation | 2-Research | K2 |
| narcissism | |||
| nature-nurture issue | the long-standing controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors | ||
| negative reinforcement | definition | 2003#1 | |
| nervous system | the body's speedy, electrochemical communication system, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous systems. | 3-Biology | K3 |
| neuroscience | the perspective of psychological science that deals with how the body and brain create emotions, memories, and sensory experiences | 1-History | K1 |
| neuron: three basic parts | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| neurotransmitters: major kinds | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| nervous system: major parts | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| newborn baby reflexes | |||
| Neuron | building blocks of the nervous system | 3-Biology | K3 |
| next-in-line-effect | |||
| normative social influence | |||
| norms | |||
| novelty preference | |||
| obesity (role of hypothalamus) | |||
| Obsessive Compulsive Disorders | |||
| occipital lobe | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| Oedipal conflict | |||
| one eye problem - what you couldn't do well if you had only one eye | |||
| operational definition | a statement of the procedures (operations) used to define research variables. For example, intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures | 2-Research | K2 |
| operationalizing a definition | |||
| opponent-process theory of emotions | |||
| opponent-process theory of visual processing (afterimages) | |||
| optic disc | |||
| optic nerve | |||
| overjustification effect | occurs when an expected external incentive such as money or prizes decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a task. The overall effect of offering a reward for a previously unrewarded activity is a shift to extrinsic motivation and the undermining of pre-existing intrinsic motivation. Once rewards are no longer offered, interest in the activity is lost; prior intrinsic motivation does not return, and extrinsic rewards must be continuously offered as motivation to sustain the activity | Learning | 2013#1 |
| pancreas | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| panic attacks (& what's the best treatment?) | |||
| panic disorder | a psychiatric disorder in which debilitating anxiety and fear arise frequently and without reasonable cause | 12-Abnormalities | AP-2014 |
| paradoxical sleep: why is REM called this? | |||
| parasympathetic nervous system | the division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy | 3-Biology | K3 |
| parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) | one of the three divisions of the autonomic nervous system, the others being the sympathetic nervous system and enteric nervous system.[1][2] The autonomic nervous system is responsible for regulating the body's unconscious actions. The parasympathetic system is responsible for stimulation of "rest-and-digest" or "feed and breed"[3] activities that occur when the body is at rest, especially after eating, including sexual arousal, salivation, lacrimation (tears), urination, digestion and defecation. Its action is described as being complementary to that of the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for stimulating activities associated with the fight-or-flight response. | 3-Biology | |
| paresis | |||
| perceptual constancy (size, color, shape) | |||
| perceptual set | |||
| peripheral nervous system | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| peripheral route to persuasion | persuasion results from a person's association with positive or negative cues in the stimulus or making a simple inference about the merits of the advocated position. The cues received by the individual under the peripheral route are generally unrelated to the logical quality of the stimulus. These cues will involve factors such as the credibility or attractiveness of the sources of the message, or the production quality of the message. The likelihood of elaboration will be determined by an individual's motivation and ability to evaluate the argument being presented. Elaboration likelihood model ( Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo in 1986) | ||
| personal space | |||
| perspectives in psychology (major ones) | |||
| phenylketonuria (PKU) | |||
| phi phenomenon | |||
| phobia | 12-Abnormalities | AP | |
| phonemes vs. morphemes | 7-Cognition | ||
| photoreceptors | 4-Sense & Perception | ||
| Piaget, Jean | theorist that developed a series of stages in which an individual passes during cognitive development. | 9-Development | |
| Piaget's stages of cognitive development | 9-Development | ||
| pineal gland (function and what makes it unique) | 3-Biology | ||
| pitch | 4-Sense & Perception | ||
| pituitary gland | 3-Biology | ||
| placebo | an inert substance or condition that may be administered instead of a presumed active agent, such as a drug, to see if it triggers the effects believed to characterize the active agent | 2-Research | K2 |
| placebo effect | any effect on behavior caused by a placebo | 2-Research | K2 |
| plasticity | the brain's capacity for modification, as evident in the brain reorganization following damage (especially in children) and in experiments on the effects of experience on brain development | 3-Biology | K3 |
| population | all the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study | 2-Research | K2 |
| positive psychology | the scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive | 1-History | K1 |
| positive reinforcement | 6-Learning | ||
| postconventional morality | in this Kohlberg level right and wrong determined by society's rules which are viewed as fallible rather than absolute or by abstract ethical principles that emphasize equality and justice | 9-Development | |
| preconventional morality | morality at this level of Kohlberg's theory is determined by the will of outside authority (adults such as parents and teachers) and centers around gaining reward or avoiding punishment. | ||
| procedural memory | a type of implicit memory (unconscious memory) and long-term memory which aids the performance of particular types of tasks without conscious awareness of these previous experiences. Procedural memories are automatically retrieved and can involve both cognitive and motor skills. Examples include driving car, tying shoes, reading. | 7-Cognition | 2016#1 |
| physiological addiction | topic | 2003#1 | |
| psychodynamic approach | 1-History | K1 | |
| psychology | the a science of behavior and mental processes | 1-History | K1 |
| psychopathology | 1-History | K1 | |
| range | the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution | 2-Research | K2 |
| random assignment | assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups | 2-Research | K2 |
| random sample | a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion | 2-Research | K2 |
| reconstruction | Reconstructive memory is a theory of elaborate memory recall proposed within the field of cognitive psychology, in which the act of remembering is influenced by various other cognitive processes including perception, imagination, semantic memory and beliefs, amongst others. | 7-Cognition | K2 |
| research participant bias | 2-Research | K2 | |
| retinal disparity | the difference in image location of an object seen by the left and right eyes, resulting from the eyes’ horizontal separation (parallax). The brain uses retinal disparity to extract depth information from the two-dimensional images. Also called binocular disparity. | 4-Sense & Perception | 2016#1 |
| retroactive interference | when newly learned information interferes with and impedes the recall of previously learned information. Muller, G. E.; Pilzecker, A. (1990) demonstrated that filling the retention interval (defined as the amount of time that occurs between the initial learning stage and the memory recall stage) with tasks and material caused significant interference effects with the primary learned items. | 7-Cognition (memory) | 2013#1, 2016#2 |
| sample | 2-Research | K2 | |
| schedules of reinforcement | a structure of rewards where two or more simple schedules of reinforcement are used simultaneously. Reinforcers can be positive, negative, or both. For example, a pigeon in an experimental cage is learning to peck at a button: every 20th peck results in food, every 200 pecks results in water. There are four types of schedules: Fixed-Ratio (FR) (the pigeon example), Fixed Interval (FI), Variable-Ratio (VR), and Variable-Interval (VI) schedule. | 6-Learning | 2013#1 |
| secondary reinforcer |
a stimulus or situation that is a reinforcer after pairing with a stimulus that is ordinarily not a reinforcer. A common example is the sound of people clapping... there is nothing inherently positive about hearing that sound, but we have learned that it is associated with praise and rewards. Also called a conditioned reinforcer.
When trying to distinguish primary and secondary reinforcers in human examples, use the "caveman test." If the stimulus is something that a caveman would naturally find desirable (e.g., candy) then it is a primary reinforcer. If, on the other hand, the caveman would not react to it (e.g., a dollar bill), it is a secondary reinforcer. As with primary reinforcers, an organism can experience satiation and deprivation with secondary reinforcers. |
6-Learning | 2016#2 |
| secure attachment | attachment style in which infants are able to explore, are upset when their caregiver leaves and happy when their caregiver returns | 9-Development | |
| self-fulfilling prophecy | is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Robert K. Merton is credited with coining the expression in his 1948 article Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: a strongly held belief, or delusion—declared as truth when it is actually false—may sufficiently influence people so that their reactions ultimately fulfill the once-false prophecy. | 10-Personality | 2016#2 |
| semicircular canals |
In the APPSYCH course, its important to know that the semicircular canals are associated with balance. Think of them as the X-Y-Z axis sensors. One keeps track of each of the three dimensions that we move through.
source: wikipedia
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4-Sense & Perception | |
| skewness | In statistics, skewness is a measure of the asymmetry of a distribution about its mean. The skewness value can be positive or negative, or even undefined.
Negative skew indicates that the tail on the left side of the probability density function is longer or fatter than the right side; positive skew indicates that the tail on the right side is longer or fatter than the left side. The figure shows a positive skew.
A zero value means that the tails on both sides of the mean balance out overall; this is the case for a symmetric distribution, but is also true for an asymmetric distribution where the asymmetries even out, such as one tail being long but thin, and the other being short but fat. |
2-Research | 2003#1 |
| sociocultural approach | 1-History | K1 | |
| somatic nervous system | 3-Biology | K3 | |
| somatosensory cortex | located in the postcentral gyrus, and is part of the somatosensory system: tactile representation is orderly arranged (in an inverted fashion) from the toe (at the top of the cerebral hemisphere) to mouth (at the bottom). However, some body parts may be controlled by partially overlapping regions of cortex. Each cerebral hemisphere of the primary somatosensory cortex only contains a tactile representation of the opposite (contralateral) side of the body. The amount of primary somatosensory cortex devoted to a body part is not proportional to the absolute size of the body surface, but, instead, to the relative density of cutaneous tactile receptors on that body part. The density of cutaneous tactile receptors on a body part is generally indicative of the degree of sensitivity of tactile stimulation experienced at said body part. For this reason, the human lips and hands have a larger representation than other body parts.
|
3-Biology | FRQ#2017-2 |
| source amnesia | the inability to remember where, when or how previously learned information has been acquired, while retaining the factual knowledge. This branch of amnesia is associated with the malfunctioning of one's explicit memory. | 7-Cognition (memory) | 2013#1 |
| standard deviation | In statistics, the standard deviation is a measure that is used to quantify the amount of variation or dispersion of a set of data values. A low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be close to the mean of the set, while a high standard deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a wider range of values.
 See also, the 68-95-99.7 rule |
topic | 2003#1 |
| standard deviation | a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score | 2-Research | K2 |
| Stanley Milgram's experiment with obedience | |||
| Stanley Schlachter's Two Factor Theory | |||
| stereotype | |||
| stimulus generalization | |||
| stranger anxiety | |||
| structuralism | 1-History | K1 | |
| sympathetic nervous system (SNS) | one of the two main divisions of the autonomic nervous system (the other being the parasympathetic nervous system), which regulate the body's unconscious actions. The sympathetic nervous system's primary process is to stimulate the body's fight-or-flight response and constantly manages homeostasis. The sympathetic nervous system is described as being complementary to the parasympathetic nervous system which stimulates the body to "feed and breed" and to (then) "rest-and-digest". |
Anatomy | 2016#2 |
| systematic desensitization: a.k.a, a kind of counterconditioning | 6-Learning | ||
| Tay-Sachs disease | 9-Development | ||
| temperament | an individual's basic disposition, which is evident from infancy and is generally stable across the lifespan | 9-Development | |
| testable hypothesis | 2-Research | ||
| thalamus (what sense doesn't get routed through here?) | 3-Biology | ||
| theory | 2-Research | K2 | |
| third variable problem | 2-Research | K2 | |
| Thorndyke's Law of Effect | |||
| thyroid gland | 3-Biology | ||
| token economy | 14-Social Psyh | ||
| Tourette's syndrome | 12-Abnormalities | ||
| Turner's syndrome (X with missing chromosome) | |||
| validity: different kinds | 2-Research | ||
| variable | 2-Research | K2 | |
| vestibular sense | the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| visual cliff | |||
| water balance (role of hypothalamus) | 3-Biology | ||
| Weber's law | |||
| Wernicke's aphasia (receptive) located in the left temporal lobe | |||
| Wilder Penfield's research on the brain | |||
| Wilhelm Wundt (structllalism) | |||
| William James (functionalism) | |||
| Yerkes/Dodson Arousal Law | |||
| Zajonc's "Mere Exposure Effect" | |||
| Zimbardo's prison experiment | |||
| dendrite | Branches designed to receive/send/and transport information | 3-Biology | K3 |
| axon | transports messages to different muscles/glands in the body | 3-Biology | K3 |
| action potential | a neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon. The action potential is generated by the movement of positively charged atoms in and out of channels in the axon's membrane. | 3-Biology | K3 |
| myelin sheath | 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 | 3-Biology | K3 |
| threshold | the level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse | 3-Biology | K3 |
| synapse | 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 | 3-Biology | K3 |
| neurotransmitters | 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 it will generate a neural impulse | 3-Biology | K3 |
| acetylcholine | a neurotransmitter that, among its functions, triggers muscle contraction | 3-Biology | K3 |
| endorphins | morphine within - natural, opiatelike neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure. | 3-Biology | K3 |
| central nervous system (CNS) | the brain and spinal cord | 3-Biology | K3 |
| peripheral nervous system (PNS) | The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body | 3-Biology | K3 |
| nerves | 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 | 3-Biology | K3 |
| sensory neurons | neurons that carry incoming information from the sense receptors to the central nervous system | 3-Biology | K3 |
| interneurons | central nervous system neurons that intervene between the sensory inputs and motor outputs | 3-Biology | K3 |
| motor neurons | The neurons that carry outgoing information from the central nervous system to the muscles and glands | 3-Biology | K3 |
| sympathetic nervous system | The division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations | 3-Biology | K3 |
| reflex | a simple, automatic, inborn response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee-jerk response | 3-Biology | K3 |
| neural networks | interconnected neural cells. With experience, networks can learn, as feedback strengthens or inhibits connections that produce certain results. Computer stimulations of neural networks show analogous learning. | 3-Biology | K3 |
| Phrenology | an ill-fated theory that claimed bumps on the skull could reveal our mental abilities and our character traits. | 3-Biology | |
| lesion | tissue destruction. A brain lesion is a naturally or experimentally caused destruction of brain tissue | ||
| EEG (electroencephalogram) | 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 | 3-Biology | K3 |
| CT (computed tomography) | a series of x-ray photographs taken from different angles and combined by computer into a composite representation of a slice through the body | 3-Biology | K3 |
| PET (positron emission tomography) | a visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task | 3-Biology | K3 |
| MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) | 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 | 3-Biology | K3 |
| brainstem | the oldest part and central core of the brain, beginning where the spinal cord swells as it enters the skull; the brainstem is responsible for automatic survival functions | 3-Biology | K3 |
| medulla | the base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat and breathing | 3-Biology | K3 |
| reticular formation | a nerve network in the brainstem that plays an important role in controlling arousal | 3-Biology | K3 |
| thalamus | 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 | 3-Biology | K3 |
| cerebellum | the "little brain" attached to the rear of the brainstem; it helps coordinate voluntary movement and balance | 3-Biology | K3 |
| limbic system | 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 | 3-Biology | K3 |
| amygdala | two almond-shaped neural clusters that are components of the limbic system and are linked to emotion | 3-Biology | K3 |
| hypothalamus | a neural structure lying below 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 | 3-Biology | K3 |
| cerebral cortex | the intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells that covers the cerebral hemispheres; the body's ultimate control and information-processing center | 3-Biology | K3 |
| glial cells | cells in the nervous system that are not neurons but that support, nourish, and protect neurons | 3-Biology | K3 |
| frontal lobes | the portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead; involved in speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgement | 3-Biology | K3 |
| parietal lobes | the portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top of the head and toward the rear; includes the sensory cortex | 3-Biology | K3 |
| occipital lobes | 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 | 3-Biology | K3 |
| temporal lobes | 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 | 3-Biology | K3 |
| motor cortex | an area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements | 3-Biology | K3 |
| sensory cortex | the area at the front of the parietal lobes that registers and processes body sensations | 3-Biology | K3 |
| association areas | 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 | 3-Biology | K3 |
| aphasia | impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage to either Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding) | 3-Biology | K3 |
| Broca's Area | an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech | 3-Biology | K3 |
| Wernicke's area | a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe | 3-Biology | K3 |
| corpus callosum | the large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them | 3-Biology | K3 |
| split brain | a condition in which the two hemispheres of the brain at isolated by cutting the connecting fibers (mainly those of the corpus callosum) between them | 3-Biology | K3 |
| endocrine system | the body's "slow" chemical communication system; a set of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream | 3-Biology | K3 |
| hormones | chemical messengers, mostly those manufactured by the endocrine glands, that are produced in one tissue and affect another | 3-Biology | K3 |
| pituitary gland | the endocrine system's most influential gland. Under the influence of the hypothalamus, the pituitary regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands. | 3-Biology | K3 |
| term | defintion | topic | xref |
| Aggression Anxiety | |||
| Anxiety disorder | |||
| Artificial intelligence | |||
| Associationism | |||
| Attachment | |||
| Attitude change, factors influencing | |||
| Attitudes and behavior | |||
| Attribution theory | |||
| Avoidance learning | |||
| Binocular depth cues | |||
| Cerebellum | |||
| Cerebral cortex | |||
| Cerebral hemispheres | |||
| Childhood, characteristics | |||
| Classical conditioning | |||
| Cognitive development | |||
| Cognitive dissonance theory | |||
| Conditionied stimulus | |||
| Conditioned reflex | |||
| Conformity | |||
| Consciousness | |||
| Contrast | |||
| Correlation coefficient (correlational method) | |||
| Dendrite | |||
| Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) | |||
| Dependent variable | |||
| Depression | |||
| Depth perception | |||
| Determinism | |||
| Developmental stages. theories of | |||
| Distance cues | |||
| Ego | |||
| Electroencephalograph | |||
| Empiricism | |||
| Etiology | |||
| Evolution and functionalism | |||
| Extinction | |||
| Forgetting curve | |||
| Free association | |||
| Free recall | |||
| Frequency (audition) | |||
| Gestalt principles of organization | |||
| Gestalt psychology | |||
| Hypothesis testing | |||
| Id | |||
| Independent variable | |||
| Infant-mother attachment | |||
| Information-processing approach | |||
| Instrumental behavior | |||
| Intelligence | |||
| Intelligence quotient | |||
| Introversion-extraversion | |||
| Just noticeable difference | |||
| law of effect | |||
| Long-term memory | |||
| longitudInal research | |||
| Meaning | |||
| Mental illness | |||
| Mental imagery | |||
| Milgram's obedience experiement | |||
| Nature-nuture controversy | |||
| Neocortex | |||
| Neurotransmitter | |||
| Normal distribution | |||
| Operant conditioning | |||
| Origins of Species | |||
| Personality | |||
| Positive reinforcement | |||
| Prejudice | |||
| Prosodal behavior | |||
| Psychoanalytic theory | |||
| Psychosis | |||
| Psychosomatic disorders | |||
| Psychotherapy | |||
| Rehearsal | |||
| Reinforcement | |||
| Right hemisphere | |||
| Semantic memory | |||
| Serial position function | |||
| Significance level | |||
| Significant difference | |||
| Social influence | |||
| Socialization | |||
| Socioeconomic status | |||
| Traits | |||
| Unconscious | |||
| Unconscious motivation | |||
| Visual angle | |||
| Visual depth perception | |||
| Rating | |||
| psychodynamic | the perspective of psychological science that deals with how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts | ||
| behavioral | the perspective of psychological science that deals with how we learn observable responses | ||
| cognitive | the perspective of psychological science that deals with how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information | ||
| social-cultural | the perspective of psychological science that deals with how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures | ||
| basic research | pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base | ||
| applied research | scientific study that aims to solve practical problems | ||
| clinical psychology | a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders | ||
| psychiatry | a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders, practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy | ||
| hindsight bias (I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon) | the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it | ||
| theory | an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes and predicts observations | ||
| replication | repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding generalizes to other participants and circumstances | ||
| case study | an observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles | ||
| survey | a technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of them | ||
| false consensus effect | the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors | ||
| correlation coefficient | a statistical measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other | ||
| scatterplot | 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 correlation (little scatter indicates high correlation). | ||
| illusory correlation | the perception of a relationship where none exists | ||
| double-blind procedure | 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. | ||
| experimental condition | the condition of an experiment that exposes participants to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable | ||
| control condition | the condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluation the effect of the treatment | ||
| statistical significance | a statistical criterion for rejecting the assumption of no differences in a particular study | ||
| culture | the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next | ||
| Biological psychology | concerned with links between biology and behavior | ||
| learning | a relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience | ||
| associative learning | 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) | ||
| behaviorism | 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). | ||
| classical conditioning | a type of learning in which an organism comes to associate stimuli. A neutral stimulus that signals an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) begins to produce a response that anticipates and prepares for the unconditioned stimulus. | ||
| unconditioned response (UCR) | in classical conditioning, the unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), such as salivation when food is in the mouth. | ||
| unconditioned stimulus (UCS) | in classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally--naturally and automatically--triggers a response. | ||
| conditioned response (CR) | in classical conditioning, the learned response to a previously neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) | ||
| conditioned stimulus (CS) | in classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR) | ||
| acquisition | 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 | ||
| extinction | the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced | ||
| spontaneous recovery | the reappearance, after a rest period, of an extinguished conditioned response | ||
| generalization | the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses | ||
| discrimination | in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguished between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus | ||
| operant conditioning | a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by reinforcement or diminished if followed by punishment | ||
| respondent behavior | behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus; Skinner's term for behavior learned through classical conditioning | ||
| operant behavior | behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences | ||
| law of effect | Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely | ||
| operant chamber ("Skinner box") | a chamber 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 | ||
| shaping | an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximation of a desired goal | ||
| reinforcer | in operant conditioning, an event that strengthens the behavior it follows | ||
| primary reinforcer | an innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need | ||
| conditioned reinforcer (or secondary reinforcer) | a stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer | ||
| continuous reinforcement | reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs | ||
| partial (intermittent) reinforcement | 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 | ||
| fixed-ratio schedule | in operant conditioning, a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses | ||
| variable-ratio schedule | in operant conditioning, a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses | ||
| fixed-interval schedule | in operant conditioning, a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed. | ||
| variable-interval schedule | in operant conditioning, a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals | ||
| punishment | an event that decreases the behavior that it follows | ||
| cognitive map | 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. | ||
| latent learning | learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it | ||
| overjustification effect | the effect of promising a reward for doing what one already likes to do. The person may now see the reward, rather than intrinsic interest, as the motivation for performing the task. | ||
| observational learning | learning by observing others | ||
| modeling | the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior | ||
| prosocial behavior | positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior. | ||
| memory | the persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information | ||
| flashbulb memory | a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event | ||
| encoding | the processing of information into the memory system--for example, by extracting meaning | ||
| storage | the retention of encoded information over time | ||
| retrieval | the process of getting information out of memory storage | ||
| sensory memory | the immediate, initial recording of sensory information in the memory system | ||
| short-term memory | activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten | ||
| long-term memory | the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system | ||
| working memory | a similar concept that focuses more on the processing of briefly stored information | ||
| automatic process | ingunconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meaning | ||
| effortful processing | encoding that requires attention and conscious effort | ||
| rehearsal | the conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage | ||
| spacing effect | the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practiced | ||
| serial position effect | our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list | ||
| semantic encoding | the encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words | ||
| acoustic encoding | the encoding of sound, especially the sound of words | ||
| visual encoding | the encoding of picture images | ||
| imagery | mental pictures, a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding | ||
| mnemonics | memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivd imagery and organizational devices | ||
| chunking | organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically | ||
| iconic memory | a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second | ||
| echoic memory | momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled with 3 or 4 seconds | ||
| long-term potentiation (LPT) | an increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory | ||
| amnesia | the loss of memory | ||
| implicit memory | retention without conscious recollection (of skills and dispositions) (aka procedural memory) | ||
| explicit memory | memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare" (aka declarative memory) | ||
| hippocampus | a neural center located in the limbic system that helps process explicit memories for storage | ||
| recall | a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test | ||
| recognition | a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test | ||
| relearning | a memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time | ||
| priming | the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory | ||
| déjà vu | the eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience | ||
| mood-congruent memory | the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood | ||
| proactive interference | the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information | 7-Cognition | AP |
| retroactive interference | the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information | 7-Cognition | |
| repression | in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness | ||
| misinformation effect | incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event | ||
| source amnesia | attributing to the wrong source an event that we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined (aka source misattribution). Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories | ||
| cognition | the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering | ||
| concept | a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people | ||
| prototype | a mental image of best example of a category. Matching new items to the prototype 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) | ||
| algorithm | 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 | ||
| heuristic | a rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier also more error-prone than algorithms | ||
| insight | a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions | ||
| confirmation bias | a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions | ||
| fixation | the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an impediment to problem solving | ||
| mental set | a tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, especially a way that has been successful in the past but may or may not be helpful in solving a new problem. | ||
| functional fixedness | the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions, an impediment to problem solving | ||
| representativeness heuristic | a rule of thumb for judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; maybe lead one to ignore other relevant information | ||
| availability heuristic | estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vivdness), we presume such events are common | ||
| overconfidence | the tendency to be more confident than correct - to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs in judgments | ||
| framing | the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgements | ||
| belief bias | the tendency for one's preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning, sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalid | ||
| belief perseverance | clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited | ||
| artificial intelligence (AI) | the science of designing and programming computer systems to do intelligent things and to stimulate human thought processes such as intuitive reasoning, learning, and understanding language. Includes practical applications (chess playing, industrial robots, expert systems) and efforts to model human thinking inspired by our current understanding of how the brain works | ||
| computer neural networks | computer circuits that mimic the brain's interconnected neural cells, performing tasks such as learning to recognize visual patterns and smells. | ||
| consciousness | our awareness of ourselves and our environments | ||
| fantasy-prone personality | someone who imagines and recalls experiences with lifelike vividness and who spends considerable time fantasizing | ||
| biological rhythms | periodic physiological fluctuations | ||
| circadian rhythm | the biological clock; regular bodily rhythms (for example, of temperature and wakefulness) that occur on a 24-hour cycle | ||
| REM sleep | rapid eye movement sleep, 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. | ||
| alpha waves | the relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state | ||
| sleep | periodic, natural, and reversible loss of consciousness--as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation | ||
| hallucinations | false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus | ||
| sleep spindles | burst of rapid, rhythmic brainwave activity during Stage 2 sleep | ||
| delta waves | the large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep (stage 4) | ||
| insomnia | recurring problems in falling or staying asleep | ||
| narcolepsy | a sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks. the sufferer may lapse directly into REM sleep, often at inopportune times | ||
| sleep apnea | a sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and consequent momentary reawakenings. | ||
| night terrors | a sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified; unlike nightmare, night terrors occur during stage 4 sleep, within 2 or 3 hours of falling sleep, and are seldom remembered | ||
| dream | a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind. Dreams are notable for their hallucinatory imagery, discontinuities, and incongruities, and for the dreamer's delusional acceptance of the content and later difficulties remember it | ||
| manifest content | according to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream (as distinct from its latent content) | ||
| latent content | according to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream (as distinct from its manifest content). Freud believed that a dream's latent content functions as a safety valve. | ||
| REM rebound | the tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation | ||
| hypnosis | a social interaction in which one person (the hypnotist) suggests to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feeling, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur | ||
| posthypnotic amnesia | supposed inability to recall what one experienced during hypnosis; induced by the hypnotist's suggestion | ||
| posthypnotic suggestion | a suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors | ||
| dissociation | a split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously with others | ||
| hidden observer | Hilgard's term describing a hypnotized subject's awareness of experiences, such as pain, that go unreported during hypnosis | ||
| psychoactive drug | a chemical substance that alters perceptions and mood | ||
| tolerance | 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 | ||
| withdrawal | the discomfort and distress that follow discontinuing the use of an addictive drug | ||
| physical dependence | a physiological need for a drug, marked by unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the drug is discontinued | ||
| psychological dependence | a psychological need to use a drug, such as to relieve negative emotions | ||
| depressants | drugs (such as alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates) that reduce neural activity and slow body functions | ||
| stimulants | drugs (such as caffeine, nicotine, and the more powerful amphetamines and cocaine) that excite neural activity and speed up body functions | ||
| hallucinogen | spsychedelic ("mind-manifesting") drugs, such as LSD, that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input | ||
| barbiturates | drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgement | ||
| opiates | opium and its derivatives, such as morphine and heroin; they suppress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety | ||
| amphetamines | drugs that stimulate neural activity, causing speeded-up body functions and associated energy and mood changes | ||
| LSD | a powerful hallucinogenic drug, aka acid | ||
| THC | the major active ingredient in marijuana; triggers a variety of effects, including mild hallucinations | ||
| near-death experience | an altered state of consciousness reported after a close brush with death (such as through cardiac arrest); often similar to drug-induced hallucinations | ||
| dualism | the presumption that mind and body are two distinct entities that interact | ||
| monism | the presumption that mind and body are different aspects of the same thing | ||
| selective attention | the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus, as in the cocktail party effect | ||
| visual capture | the tendency for vision to dominate the other senses | ||
| Gestalt | an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasize our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes | ||
| figure-ground | the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground) | ||
| grouping | the perceptual tendency to organize information into coherent groups | ||
| depth perception | the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional, allows us to judge distance | ||
| visual cliff | a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals | ||
| binocular cues | depth cues, such as retinal disparity and converge, that depend on the use of two eyes | ||
| monocular cues | distance cues, such as linear perspective and overlap, available to either eye alone | ||
| retinal disparity | a binocular cue for perceiving depth: the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images the retina receives of an object, the closer the object is to the viewer | ||
| convergence | a binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object | ||
| interposition | a monocular cue; if one object partially blocks our view of another, we perceive it as closer | ||
| relative size | an monocular cue; if we assume that two objects are similar in size, we perceive the one that casts the smaller retinal image as farther away | ||
| relative clarity | an monocular cue; because light from distant objects passes through more atmosphere, we perceive hay objects are farther away than sharp, clear objects | ||
| texture gradient | an monocular cue; a gradual change from a coarse, distinct texture to a fine, indistinct texture signals increasing distance. Objects far away appear smaller and more densely packed | ||
| relative height | an monocular cue; we perceive objects higher in our field of vision as farther away | ||
| relative motion (motion parallax) | As we move, objects that are actually stable may appear to move | ||
| linear perspective | Parallel lines, such as railroad tracks, appear to converge with distance. The more the lines converge, the greater the perceived distance | ||
| light and shadow | Nearby objects reflect more light to eyes. Given two identical objects, the dimmer one seems farther away | ||
| phi phenomenon | an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in succession | ||
| perceptual constancy | perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change | ||
| shape constancy | perceiving the same shape for objects, even if retinal image changes | ||
| size constancy | perceiving the same size for objects, even if retinal image changes | ||
| lightness constancy (aka brightness constancy) | perceiving the same lightness for objects, even if retinal image changes; perceived lightness depends on relative luminance | ||
| perceptual adaptation | in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field | ||
| perceptual set | a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another | ||
| human factors psychologists | psychologists that help design appliances, machines, and work settings that harness natural perception sets. | ||
| extrasensory perception (ESP) | the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input. Said to include telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition | ||
| parapsychology | the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESp and psychokinesis | ||
| telepathy | mind-to-mind communication | ||
| clairvoyance | perceiving remote events, ie that a friend's house is on fire | ||
| precognition | perceiving future events, ie a political leader's death or a sporting event's outcome | ||
| psychokinesis | mind over matter ie levitating a table or influencing the roll of a die | ||
| cocktail party effect | ability to attend to only one voice among many | ||
| proximity | the effect of grouping nearby figures together | ||
| similarity | the effect of grouping similar figures together | ||
| continuity | the effect of perceiving smooth, continuous patterns rather than discontinuous ones | ||
| connectedness | the effect of perceiving spots, lines, or areas as a single unit | ||
| closure | the effect of filling in gaps to create a complete whole object | ||
| sensation | the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| perception | the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| bottom-up processing | analysis that begins with the sense receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| top-down processing | information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| psychophysics | the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them. | ||
| signal detection theory | predicts how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus ("signal") amid background stimulation ("noise"). Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and level of fatigue | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| subliminal | below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| difference threshold | the minimum difference that a person can detect between two stimuli. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference (aka jnd) | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| Weber's Law | the principle that, to perceive their difference, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount) | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| sensory adaptation | diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| transduction | conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies into neural impulses | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| wavelength | 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 | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| hue | the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green, and so forth | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| intensity | the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| pupil | the adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| iris | a ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| lens | the transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to focus images on the retina | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| accommodation | the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus the image of near objects on the retina | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| retina | 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 | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| acuity | the sharpness of vision | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| nearsightedness | a condition in which nearby objects are seen more clearly than distant objects because the lens focuses the image of distance objects in front of the retina | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| farsightedness | a condition in which faraway objects are seen more clearly than near objects because the image of near objects is focused behind the retina | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| rods | retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| cones | 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 color sensations. | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| optic nerve | the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| blind spot | the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because no receptor cells are located there | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| fovea | the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| parallel processing | 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. | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three-color) theory | the theory that the retina contains three different color receptors--one most sensitive to red, one to green, and one to blue--which when stimulated in combination can produce the perception of any color | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| opponent-process theory | the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision. For example, some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red; others are stimulated by red and inhibited by green. (complete explanation pg 187) | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| color constancy | perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| audition | the sense of hearing | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| frequency | the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second) | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| pitch | a tone's highness or lowness; depends on frequency | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| middle ear | 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 | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| cochlea | a coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| place theory | in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| frequency theory | 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 | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| conduction hearing los | shearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| sensorineural hearing loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| gate-control theory | 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 | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| sensory interaction | the principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| kinesthesis | the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts | 4-Sense & Perception | |
| motivation | a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior | ||
| instinct | a complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned | ||
| drive-reduction theory | the idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need | ||
| homeostasis | 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 | ||
| incentive | a positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior | ||
| hierarchy of needs | 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 | ||
| glucose | 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. | ||
| set point | 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. | ||
| basal metabolic rate | the body's resting rate of energy expenditure | ||
| anorexia nervosa | an eating disorder in which a normal-weight person diets and becomes significantly underweight, yet, still feeling fat, continues to starve | ||
| bulimia nervosa | an eating disorder characterized by episodes of overeating, usually of high-calorie foods, followed by vomiting, laxative use, fasting, or excessive exercise | ||
| sexual response cycle | the four stages of sexual responding described by Masters and Johnson-excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. | ||
| excitement phase | one of the phases of the sexual response cycle; characterized by the genital areas becoming engorged with blood, causing the man's penis to become partially erect and the woman's clitoris to swell and the inner lips covering her vagina to open up | ||
| plateau phase | one of the phases of the sexual response cycle; characterized by the excitement peaking as breathing, pulse, and blood pressure rates continue to increase. The penis becomes fully engorged. Orgasm feels imminent. | ||
| orgasm | one of the phases of the sexual response cycle; characterized by observed muscle contractions all over the body and further increases in breathing, pulse, and blood pressure rates, followed by ejaculation in men and orgasm in women. | ||
| resolution phase | one of the phases of the sexual response cycle; characterized by the body slowly returning to its unaroused state | ||
| refractory period | a resting period after orgasm, during which a man cannot achieve another orgasm | ||
| estrogen | a sex hormone, secreted in greater amounts by females than by males. In nonhuman female mammals, estrogen levels peak during ovulation, promoting sexual receptivity | ||
| sexual disorder | a problem that consistently impairs sexual arousal or functioning | ||
| sexual orientation | an enduring sexual attraction toward members of either one's own sex (homosexual orientation) or the other sex (heterosexual orientation) | ||
| achievement motivation | a desire for significant accomplishment: for mastery of things, people, or ideas; for attaining a high standard | ||
| intrinsic motivation | a desire to perform a behavior for its own sake and to be effective | ||
| extrinsic motivation | a desire to perform a behavior due to promised rewards or threats of punishment | ||
| industrial/organizational psychology | a subfield of psychology that studies and advises on workplace behavior. Industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologists help organizations select and train employees, boost morale and productivity, and design products and assess responses to them | ||
| task leadership | goal-oriented leadership that sets standards, organizes work, and focuses attention on goals | ||
| social leadership | group-oriented leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support | ||
| Theory X | assumes that workers are basically lazy, error-prone, and extrinsically motivated by money and, thus, should be directed from above. | ||
| Theory Y | assumes that, given challenge and freedom, workers are motivated to achieve self-esteem and to demonstrate their competence and creativity. | ||
| emotion | a response of the whole organism, involving (1) physiological arousal, (2) expressive behaviors, and (3) conscious experience | ||
| James-Lange Theory | the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli | ||
| Cannon-Bard Theory | the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus spontaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion | ||
| two-factor theory | Schachter's theory that to experience emotion one must (1) be physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the arousal | ||
| polygraph | a machine, commonly used in attempts to detect lies, that measures several of the physiological responses accompanying emotion | ||
| catharsis | emotional release. In psychology, the catharsis hypothesis maintains that "releasing" aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges | ||
| feel-good, do-good phenomenon | people's tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood | ||
| subjective well-being | 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. | ||
| adaptation-level phenomenon | our tendency to form judgments (of sounds, of lights, of income) relative to a "neutral" level defined by our prior experience | ||
| relative deprivation | the perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself | ||
| personality | an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting | ||
| free association | 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. | ||
| psychoanalysis | Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions | ||
| unconscious | according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware | ||
| preconscious | information that is not conscious but is retrievable into conscious awareness | ||
| id | contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification. | ||
| ego | the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain | ||
| superego | the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations | ||
| psychosexual stages | 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 | ||
| Oedipus complex | according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father | ||
| Electra complex | counterpart to the Oedipus complex for females | ||
| identification | the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos | ||
| fixation | according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved | ||
| defense mechanisms | in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality | ||
| repression | in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness | ||
| regression | defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated (ie thumb sucking) | ||
| reaction formation | 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. (ie changing "I hate him" to "I love him") | ||
| projection | defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others (ie changing "I don't trust him" to "He doesn't trust me" ... "The thief thinks everyone else is a thief") | ||
| rationalization | defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions | ||
| displacement | 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. (ie kicking the dog) | ||
| sublimation | in psychoanalytic theory, the defense mechanism by which people rechannel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities | ||
| projective test | a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics | ||
| Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) | a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes | ||
| Rorschach inkblot test | the most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots | ||
| collective unconscious | Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history | ||
| trait | a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports. | ||
| personality inventory | 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; used to assess selected personality traits. | ||
| Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) | the most widely reserached and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes | ||
| empirically derived test | a test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups | ||
| self-actualization | according to Maslow, the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential | ||
| unconditional positive regard | according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person | ||
| self-concept | all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?" | ||
| self-esteem | one's feelings of high or low self-worth | ||
| self-serving bias | a readiness to perceive oneself favorably | ||
| individualism | giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications | ||
| collectivism | giving priority to the goals of one's group (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly | ||
| reciprocal determinism | the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors | ||
| personal control | our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless | 10-Personality | |
| internal locus of control | the perception that one controls one's own fate (associated with Julian Rotter) | 10-Personality | |
| perceived locus of control | the perception that chance that internal or external forces beyond one's personal control determine one's fate (associated with Julian Rotter) | 10-Personality | |
| learned helplessness | the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events | ||
| developmental psychology | a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span. | ||
| zygote | the fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo. | 9-Development | |
| embryo | the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month in which major body systems develop. | ||
| fetus | the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth in which the first bone cells appear. | 9-Development | |
| teratogens | agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm. | 9-Development | |
| fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) | physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases, symptoms include noticeable facial misproportions. | ||
| rooting reflex | a baby's tendency, when touched on the cheek, to turn toward the touch, open the mouth, and search for the nipple. | 9-Development | |
| habituation | decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner. | ||
| maturation | biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience. | 9-Development | |
| schema | a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information. | 9-Development | |
| assimilation | interpreting one's new experience in terms of one's existing schemas. | 9-Development | |
| cognition | all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. | ||
| accommodation | adapting one's current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information. | 9-Development | |
| object permanence | the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived. | 9-Development | |
| sensorimotor stage | 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. | 9-Development | |
| conservation | the principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects. | 9-Development | |
| egocentrism | in Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty in taking another's point of view. | 9-Development | |
| preoperational stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic. | 9-Development | |
| theory of mind | people's ideas about their own and others' mental states about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behavior these might predict. | 9-Development | |
| autism | a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others' states of mind. | ||
| concrete operational stage | 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. | 9-Development | |
| formal operational stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts. | 9-Development | |
| attachment | an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation. | 9-Development | |
| stranger anxiety | the fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age. | 9-Development | |
| critical period | an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development. | 9-Development | |
| imprinting | the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life. | 9-Development | |
| basic trust | 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. | 9-Development | |
| self-concept | (1) a sense of one's identity and personal worth. (2) all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?" | 9-Development | |
| adolescence | the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence. | 9-Development | |
| primary sex characteristics | the body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible. | 9-Development | |
| puberty | the period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing. | 9-Development | |
| secondary sex characteristics | nonreproductive sexual characteristics, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair. | 9-Development | |
| menarche | the first menstrual period. | 9-Development | |
| identity | 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. | 9-Development | |
| intimacy | in Erikson's theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in late adolescence and early adulthood. | 9-Development | |
| menopause | the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines. | 9-Development | |
| Alzheimer's disease | a progressive and irreversible brain disorder characterized by gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and, finally, physical functioning. | ||
| social clock | the culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement. | ||
| Marcia | stage theorist who focused on the adolescent crisis of Erik Erikson and came up for four stages that adolescents pass through while seeking an identity. | 9-Development |
