| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Reinforcement | The term behavioral psychologists use to increase the likelihood of a behavior repeating. This can be accomplished by adding or removing a stimulus. |
| Punishment | The term behavioral psychologists use to decrease the likelihood of a behavior repeating. This can be accomplished by adding or removing a stimulus. |
| Gerontology | Study of old age |
| Thanatology | Study of death |
| Empty Nest | The period of time in midlife when children leave the parents' home. |
| compulsion | Ritualistic behavior that person feels they must do |
| obsession | Unwanted thought that a person can't stop thinking about |
| preconventional moral reasoning | According to Kohlberg, a level of moral development in which moral judgments are based on fear of punishment or desire for pleasure |
| conventional moral reasoning | According to Kohlberg, the level of moral development at which a person makes judgments based on conventional standards (society's standards) |
| postconventional moral reasoning | According to Kohlberg, a level of moral development during which moral judgments are derived from a person's own moral standards |
| authoritative or assertive | A parenting style based on recognized authority or knowledge and characterized by mutual respect |
| authoritarian or dictatorial | A parenting style that stresses unquestioning obedience |
| permissive | A parenting style that lets the child do whatever they please |
| identity achievement | the status of adolescents who commit to a particular identity following a period during which they consider various alternatives |
| identity foreclosure | the status of adolescents who prematurely commit to an identity without adequately exploring alternatives |
| moratorium | the status of adolescents who may have explored various identity alternatives to some degree, but have not yet committed themselves |
| identity diffusion | the status of adolescents who consider various identity alternatives, but do not commit to one or even consider options |
| Norms | Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members |
| Ingroup favoritism | The preferential treatment people give to those whom they perceive to be members of their own groups. |
| outgroup homogeneity | individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups. Outgroup percieved all the same, therefore easier to judge against them |
| superordinate goals | To lessen friction and promote unity between the Rattlers and Eagles, Sherif devised and introduced tasks that required cooperation between the two groups. A __________ _________ is a desire, challenge, predicament or peril that both parties in a conflict need to get resolved, and that neither party can resolve alone. It is the BEST way to unite conflicting groups. |
| self-fulilling prophecy | people's expectations or beliefs determine their behavior and performance, thus serving to make their expectations come true |
| Empathetic Listening | Must actively listen (without giving advice) for what the client/person is saying underneath the meaning. |
| Hallucination | A false, distorted perception that seems vividly real to people experiencing it. (For example, hearing God or the angels talking to you and forcing you to comply with their requests.) |
| Delusion | A false belief that persists in spite of compelling evidence against them. (The neighbor is an alien, the Secret Service is poisoning my food) |
| Naturalistic Observation or field observation | Research Method in which the psychologist observes the subject in their natural surrounding without interfering. |
| Survey | Research method by asking individuals a fixed set of questions about their attitudes or behavior. |
| psychiatry | the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders |
| Milgram | measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. |
| cognitive approach | The approach to psychology teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions |
| humanistic approach | The approach to psychology that emphasized the growth potential of healthy people; deep down, believes all humans have worth. |
| psychoanalytic | Freud's theory of personality and therapeutic technique that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts. |
| 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. |
| Piaget Stages of Development | 1) Sensorimotor 2) Preoperational 3) Concrete Operational 4) Formal Operational |
| sensorimotor stage | birth to age 2; in this stage the infant learns through looking-touching-putting things in mouth-sucking-grabbing. thinking is all done through bodily movements. They are confused by and then achieve object permanence. |
| preoperational stage | ages 2 to 7. the use of symbols and language accelerates. stage dominated by egocentrism. they have trouble with conservation and reversibility. |
| concrete operations stage | ages 7 to 12. by this stage children have developed significantly and have overcome some of their earlier limitations. they are able to accept other people's perspectives, and make fewer logical errors. they understand conservation. |
| object permanence | the understanding which develops throughout the first year, that an object continues to exist even when you cannot see or touch it. |
| formal operation stage | ages 12 through adulthood; become capable of abstract reasoning. they understand that ideas can be compared and classified just as objects can. |
| bystander effect | a group of people is less likely to help someone because they think someone else will do it |
| individualism | A type of thinking where one places their own goals over group goals; typical of people in the United States. |
| Collectivism | A type of thinking where one places group goals over their own goals; typical of people in Japan. |
| Conditioned stimulus | In Watson's Little Albert experiment, the rat is the __________ ____________ |
| Conditioned response | In Watson's experiment, Little Albert learned to associate a loud noise with rats. His fear of rats is known as the _________ _______________. |
| Unconditioned stimulus | In Watson's experiment, the loud noise that scared Little Albert was the ____________ ____________ |
| Ethnocentrism | Belief that one's culture is superior to all other cultures |
| Phobia | an exaggerated, unrealistic fear of a specific situation, activity, or object. |
| OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder | an anxiety disorder in which a person feels trapped in repetitive persistent thoughts an repetitive ritualized behaviors designed to reduce anxiety. |
| major depression | a mood disorder involving disturbances in emotion (excessive sadness) behavior (loss of interest on usual activities), cognition (thoughts of hopelessness), and body function (fatigue, and loss of appetite). |
| bipolar disorder | a mood disorder in which episodes of both depression and mania occur. formerly known as manic depression. |
| dissociative identity disorder (MPD) | a controversial disorder marked by the apparent appearance within one person of two or more distinct personalities, each with its own name and traits; formerly known as multiple personality disorder. |
| Schizophrenia | a psychotic disorder marked by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized and incoherent speech, inappropriate behavior, and cognitive impairments. |
| Psychosis | an extreme mental disturbance involving distorted perceptions and irrational behavior; it may have psychological or organic causes; person tends to BLAME WORLD and does not see themselves as ill |
| electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) | a procedure used in cases of prolonged and severe major depression, in which a brief brain seizure is induced. |
| Repression | Pushing unacceptable or anxiety-arousing thoughts below consciousness |
| Regression | Retreating back to an earlier stage of development in order to deal with anxiety or hardship |
| Reaction formation | Turning unacceptable thoughts or impulses into their opposites |
| Projection | Attributing one's own threatening or unacceptable thoughts to others |
| Displacement | Taking our aggressive or negative thoughts and actions on a more acceptable or less threatening object or person |
| Serotonin | There is too little of this neurotransmitter in a depressed brain |
| Dopamine | There is too much of this neurotransmitter in a schizophrenic brain |
| Control | Theory related to deviant behavior which states people are more likely to commit crime if they have few to no attachments/connections (home, job, family, etc.) |
| Conflict | Theory related to deviant behavior which states people break norms because they seek power. (For example, rich over poor or vice versa and/or one race over another.) |
| Cultural Transmission | Theory related to deviant behavior which states people learn to break norms from their friends, family, and society. |
| Self-disclosure | To reveal one's inner thoughts, emotions, dreams, goals. |
| covert observation | To observe or watch secretly; the participants are unaware of study |
| overt observation | To observe or watch openly; the participants are aware of the study and may fall subject to the "Hawthorne effect" - that is, they may act differently because they know they are being watched. |
| Sensory adaptation | A gradual decline in sensitivity to prolonged stimulation. For example, when someone jumps in a cold swimming pool, they eventually get used to it. |
| Characteristics of Left Brain | Language, logic, math, science, spelling, writing, public speaking, RIGHT SIDE OF BODY |
| Characteristics of Right Brain | art, dance, music, sports, negative feelings, LEFT SIDE OF BODY |
| Split brain | right and left brain unable to communicate, since corpus callosum was cut |
| Corpus Callosum | Bundle of nerve fibers that hold left and right brain together and allow the hemispheres to communicate (jibbyjibbies) |
| Blind spot | The part of eye where optic nerve transmits messages to occipital lobe; there are no photoreceptors (rods/cones) so eye cannot see |
| Hypothalamus | Controls sex, thirst, hunger, aggression and is said to be LARGER in men |
| Frontal Lobe | Personality, reasoning, feelings |
| Occipital Lobe | Vision |
| Parietal Lobe | Touch, temperature, pain (think PARANA!) |
| Temporal Lobe | Short term or temporary memory and hearing and smell |
| Nature | Psychologists sometimes attribute behaviors to a person's genes or birth |
| Nurture | Psychologists sometimes attribute behaviors to a person's environment - that is, they learned the behavior through experience. |
| Taste Aversion | Pairing a neutral stimulus with an aversive or unpleasant one, so that a particular food or liquid is avoided |
| Classical conditioning | Learning that a neutral stimulus causes an INVOLUNTARY or automatic feeling or reflex |
| Operant conditioning | Learning that consequences (consisting of rewards and punishments) follow certain VOLUNTARY behaviors |
| Reversibility | A child's ability to view a an equation or relationship from two perspectives (I have a mom; My mother has a daughter who is me) |
Combine with other sets
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