| observer bias | expectations of an observer which may distort an authentic observation |
| response bias | preconceived notions of a person answering [a survey] which may alter the experiments purpose |
| informed consent | the agreement of participants to take part in an experiment and their acknowledgement that they understand the nature of their participation in the research, and have been fully informed about the general nature of the research, its goals, and methods |
| normal distribution | approximate distribution of scores expected when a sample is taken from a large population, drawn as a frequency polygon that often takes the form of a bell-shaped curve, called the normal curve |
| placebo | typically a pill that is used as a control in the experiment; a sugar pill |
| descriptive statistics | general set of procedures used to summarize, condense, and describe sets of data |
| frequency distribution | a chart or array of scores, usually arranged from highest to lowest, showing the number of instances for each score |
| frequency polygon | graph of a frequency distribution that shows the number of instances of obtained scores, usually with the data points connect by straight lines |
| measure of central tendency | a descriptive statistic that tells which result or score best represents an entire set of scores |
| mean | the arithmetic average of a set of scores |
| functionalism | school of psychological thought that was concerned with how and why the conscious mind works |
| psychoanalytic | perspective developed by freud, which assumes that psychological problems are the result of anxiety resulting from unresolved conflicts and forces of which a person might be unaware |
| Gestalt psychology | school of psychological thought that argued that behavior cannot be studied in parts but must be viewed a s whole |
| behaviorism | perspective that defines psychology as the study of behavior that is directly observable or through assessment instruments |
| cognitive psychology | perspective that focuses on the mental processes involved in perception, learning, memory, and thinking |
| humanistic psychology | perspective that emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual and the idea that humans have free will |
| self-actualization | the human need to fulfill one's potential |
| sociocultural psychology | perspective concerned with how cultural differences affect behavior |
| evolutionary psychology | perspective that seeks to explain and predict behaviors by analyzing how the human brain developed over time, how it functions, and how input from the environment affects human behaviors |
| positive psychology | in emerging Theo psychology that focuses on positive experiences; includes subjective well-being, self-determination, the relationship between positive emotions and physical health, and the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to boorish |
| afferent neuron | nerve cell that sends messages to brain or spinal cord from other parts of the body; also called sensory neurons |
| all-or-none principle | the law that the neuron either fires at 100% or not at all |
| amygdala | part of the limbic system; influences emotions such as aggression, fear, and self-protective behaviors |
| aphasia | inability to understand or use language |
| association areas | areas of the cerebral cortex that are not involved in primary motor or sensory functions, rather, they are involved in higher mental processes such as thinking, planning, and communicating |
| autonomic nervous system | a division of the peripheral nervous system that regulates involuntary functions; made up of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems |
| axon terminal | terminal button, synaptic knob; the structure at the end of an excellent terminal branch; houses the synaptic vesicles and neurotransmitters |
| axon | a single long, fiber that carries outgoing messages to other neurons, muscles, or glands |
| behavioral genetics | study of hereditary influences and how it influences behavior and thinking |
| brain | portion of the CNS above the spinal cord; consists of hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain |
| endocrine glands | the bodies "slow" chemical communication by secreting hormones directly into the bloodstream |
| endocrine system | glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream, which regulate body and behavioral processes |
| endorphins | chemical similar to opiates that relieves pain; may induce feelings of pleasure |
| epinephrine | adrenaline; activates a sympathetic nervous system by making the heart beat faster, stopping digestion, enlarging pupils, sending sugar into the bloodstream, preparing a blood clot faster |
| excitatory neurotransmitter | chemical secreted at terminal button that causes the neuron on the other side of the synapse to fire |
| family studies | studies of hereditability on the assumption that if a gene influences a certain trait, close relatives should be more similar on that trait in distant relative |
| forebrain | top of the brain which includes the thalamus, hypothalamus, and cerebral cortex; responsible for emotional regulation, complex thought, memory aspect of personality |
| fraternal twins | twins from two separate fertilized eggs (zygotes); share half of the same genes |
| frontal lobes | control emotional behaviors, make decisions, carry out plans; speech (Broca's area); controls movement of muscles |
| functional MRI (fMRI) | shows brain activity at higher reolution than PET scan when changes in oxygen concentration in neurons alters its magnetic qualities |
| gonads | reproductive glands-male, testes; female, ovaries |
| graded potential | shift in electrical charge in a tiny area of the neuron (temporary); transmits a long cell membranes leaving neuron and polarized state; needs higher than normal threshold of excitation to fire |
| heritability | the proportion of variation among individuals that is due to genetic causes |
| hindbrain | division which includes the cerebellum, Pons, and medulla; responsible for involuntary processes: blood pressure, body temperature, heart rate, breathing, sleep cycles |
| hippocampus | part of the limbic system and is involved in learning and forming new long-term memories |
| hormone | chemical that carries messages that travel through the bloodstream to help regulate bodily functions |
| human genomes | 30,000 genes needed to build a human |
| hypothalamus | area of the brain that is part of the limbic system and regulates behaviors such as, eating, drinking, sexual behaviors, motivation; also body temperature |
| identical twins | twins from a single fertilized egg (zygote) with the same genetic makeup; also called monozygotic (MZ) twins |
| inhibitory neurotransmitter | chemical secreted at terminal button that prevents (or reduces ability of) the neuron on the other side of the synapse from firing |
| insulin | hormone backpacks in the regulation of blood sugar by acting in the utilization of carbohydrates; released by pancreas; too much-hypoglycemia, too little-diabetes |
| interneurons | nerve cell that transmits messages between sensory and motor neurons |
| ions | electrically charged particles found both inside and outside a neuron; negative ions are found inside the cell membrane in a polarized neuron |
| limbic system | a donut ring-shaped of loosely connected structures located in the forebrain between the central core and cerebral hemispheres; consists of: septum, cingulate gyrus, endowments, hypothalamus, and to campus, and amygdala; associated with emotions and memories |
| magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) | creates a computerized image using a magnetic field and pulses of radio waves |
| medulla (also medulla oblongata) | part of the brain which controls living functions such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature |
| midbrain | the middle division of brain responsible for hearing and sight; location where pain is registered; includes temporal lobe, occipital lobe, and most of the parietal lobe |
| motor neurons | efferent neurons; neurons that carry messages from spinal cord/brain to muscles and glands |
| motor projection areas | primary motor cortex; areas of the three boat cortex for response messages from the brain to the muscles and glands |
| myelin sheath | a white, fatty covering of the axon which speeds transmission of message |
| neuron | individual cells that are the smallest unit of the nervous system; it has three functions: receive information, process it, send to rest of body |
| neuroscience | study of the brain and nervous system; overlaps with psychobiology |
| neurotransmitters | chemical messengers released by terminal buttons into the synapse |
| norepinephrine | noradrenaline; chemical which is excitatory, similar to adrenaline, and affects arousal and memory; raises blood pressure by causing blood vessels to become constricted, but also carried by bloodstream to the anterior pituitary which relaxes ACTH thus prolonging stress response |
| occipital lobes | primary area for processing visual information |
| pancreas | organ lying between the stomach and small intestine; regulates blood sugar by secreting to regulating hormones insulin and glucagon |
| parasympathetic nervous system | a branch of the autonomic nervous system that maintains normal body functions; it calms the body after sympathetic stimulation |
| parathormone | hormone that controls imbalances levels of calcium and phosphate in the blood and tissue fluid; influences levels of excitability; secreted by parathyroids |
| parathyroid | for glands embedded in the thyroid; secretes parathormone; controls announces level of calcium and phosphate (which influence levels of excitability) |
| parietal lobes | processes sensory information including touch, temperature, and pain from other body parts |
| recessive gene | member of the gene terror that controls the appearance of a certain trait only if it is paired with the same gene |
| relative refractory period | a period after firing when a neuron is returning to its normal polarize state and will only fire again if the incoming message open parentheses impulse) is stronger than usual; returning to arresting state |
| resting potential | when a neuron is in polarization; more negative ions are inside the neuron cell membrane with a positive ions on the outside, causing a small electrical charge; release of this charge generates a neuron's impulse (signal/message) |
| reticular formation (RF) (RES) | netlike system of neurons that weaves through limbic system and plays an important role in attention, arousal, and alert functions; arouses and alerts higher parts of the brain; anesthetics work by temporary shutting off RF system |
| selection studies | studies that estimate the hereditability of a trait by breeding animals with another animal that has the same trait |
| sympathetic nervous system | a branch of the autonomic nervous system and prepares the body for quick action in emergencies; "fight or flight" |
| synapse | the space between two neurons where neurotransmitters are secreted by terminal buttons and received by dendrites |
| synaptic cleft | synaptic gap or synaptic space; tiny gap between the terminal of one neuron and the dendrites of another neuron (almost never touch); location of the transfer of an impulse from one neuron to the next |
| synaptic vesicles | tiny oval-shaped sacs in a terminal of one neuron; assist in transferring mineral impulse from one neuron to another neuron by releasing specific neurotransmitters |
| temporal lobes | main area for hearing, understanding language (Wernicke's area), understanding music; smell |
| terminal buttons (axon terminals) | ends of axons that secrete neurotransmitters |
| thalamus | motor sensory relay center for four of the five senses; and with a brain stem and composed of two egg-shaped structures; integrates in shades incoming sensory signals; Mnemonic-"don't smell the llamas because the llamas smell bad" |
| thyroid gland | located in neck; regulates metabolism by secreting thyroxine |
| thyroxine | released by thyroid; hormone that regulates the body's metabolism; OVERACTIVE-over-excitability, insomnia, reduced attention span, fatigue, snap decisions, reduced concentration (hyperthyroidism); UNDERACTIVE-desire to sleep, constantly tired, weight gain (hypothyroidism) |
| twin studies | studies as identical and rhetorical twins to determine relative influence of heredity and environment on human behavior |
| natural selection | the principle that those characteristics and behaviors that help organisms adapt, be fit, and survive will be passed on to successive generations, because flexible, fit individuals have a greater chance of reproduction |
| adaptation | a trait or inherited characteristic that has increased in a population because it solved a problem of survival or reproduction |
| nervous system | the structures and organs that facilitate electrical and chemical communication in the body and allow all behavior and mental processes to take place |
| agonist | chemical that mimics or facilitates the actions of a neurotransmitter |
| antagonist | chemical that opposes the actions of a neurotransmitter |
| hindbrain | the most primitive of the three functional divisions of the brain, consisting of the pons, medulla, reticular formation, and cerebellum |
| midbrain | the second level of the three organizational structures of the brain that receives signals from other parts of the brain or spinal cord and either relays the information to other parts of the brain or causes the body to act immediately; involved in movement |
| forebrain | largest, most complicated, and most advanced of the three divisions of the brain; comprises the thalamus, hypothalamus, limbic system, basal ganglia, corpus callosum, and cortex |
| split brain patients | people whose corpus callosum has been surgically severed |
| Phineas Gage | railroad worker who survived a severe brain injury that dramatically changed his personality and behavior; case played a role in the development of the understanding of the localization of brain function |
| Aaron Beck | pioneer in Cognitive Therapy. Suggested negative beliefs cause depression. |
| Abraham Maslow | humanistic psychology; hierarchy of needs-needs at a lower level dominate an individual's motivation as long as they are unsatisfied; self-actualization, transcendence |
| Albert Bandura | pioneer in observational learning (AKA social learning), stated that people profit from the mistakes/successes of others; Studies: Bobo Dolls-adults demonstrated 'appropriate' play with dolls, children mimicked play |
| Albert Ellis | pioneer in Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), focuses on altering client's patterns of irrational thinking to reduce maladaptive behavior and emotions |
| Alfred Adler | neo-Freudian, psychodynamic; Contributions: inferiority complex, organ inferiority; Studies: birth order influences personality |
| Alfred Binet | pioneer in intelligence (IQ) tests, designed a test to identify slow learners in need of help-not applicable in the U.S. because it was too culture-bound (French) |
| Anna Freud | child psychoanalysis; emphasized importance of the ego and its constant struggle |
| Anna O. | Austrian-Jewish woman (real name: Bertha Pappenheim) diagnosed with hysteria, treated by Josef Breuer for severe cough, paralysis of the extremities on the right side of her body, and disturbances of vision, hearing, and speech, as well as hallucinations and loss of consciousness. Her treatment is regarded as marking the beginning of psychoanalysis. |
| Benjamin Whorf | language; his hypothesis is that language determines the way we think |
| B.F. Skinner | behaviorism; pioneer in operant conditioning; behavior is based on an organism's reinforcement history; worked with pigeons |
| Carl Jung | neo-Freudian, analytic psychology; archetypes; collective unconscious; libido is all types of energy, not just sexual; dream studies/interpretation |
| Carl Rogers | humanistic psychology; Contributions: founded client-centered therapy, theory that emphasizes the unique quality of humans especially their freedom and potential for personal growth, unconditional positive regard, |
| Carol Gilligan | moral development studies to follow up Kohlberg. She studied girls and women and found that they did not score as high on his six stage scale because they focused more on relationships rather than laws and principles. Their reasoning was merely different, not better or worse |
| Charles Darwin | biologist; developed theory of evolution; transmutation of species, natural selection, evolution by common descent; "The Origin of Species" catalogs his voyage on The Beagle |
| Charles Spearman | intelligence; found that specific mental talents were highly correlated, concluded that all cognitive abilities showed a common core which he labeled 'g' (general ability) |
| Clark Hull | motivation theory, drive reduction; maintained that the goal of all motivated behavior is the reduction or alleviation of a drive state, mechanism through which reinforcement operates |
| Daniel Goleman | emotional intelligence |
| Darley & Latane | social psychology; bystander apathy, diffusion of responsibility |
| David McClelland | achievement motivation; developed scoring system for TAT's use in assessing achievement motivation |
| David Rosenhan | did study in which healthy patients were admitted to psychiatric hospitals and diagnoses with schizophrenia; showed that once you are diagnosed with a disorder, the label, even when behavior indicates otherwise, is hard to overcome in a mental health setting |
| Elizabeth Loftus | cognition and memory; studied repressed memories and false memories; showed how easily memories could be changed and falsely created by techniques such as leading questions and illustrating the inaccuracy in eyewitness testimony |
| Erik Erikson | neo-Freudian, humanistic; 8 psychosocial stages of development: theory shows how people evolve through the life span. Each stage is marked by a psychological crisis that involves confronting "Who am I?" |
| Ernst Weber | perception; identified just-noticeable-difference (JND) that eventually becomes Weber's law |
| Francis Galton | differential psychology AKA "London School" of Experimental Psychology; Contributions: behavioral genetics, maintains that personality & ability depend almost entirely on genetic inheritance; compared identical & fraternal twins, hereditary differences in intellectual ability |
| Gazzaniga or Sperry | neuroscience/biopsychology; studied split brain patients |
| Gibson & Walk | developmental psychology; "visual cliff" studies with infants |
| Gordon Allport | trait theory of personality; 3 levels of traits: cardinal, central, and secondary |
| Harry Harlow | development, contact comfort, attachment; experimented with baby rhesus monkeys and presented them with cloth or wire "mothers;" showed that the monkeys became attached to the cloth mothers because of contact comfort |
| Harry Stack Sullivan | interpersonal psychoanalysis; groundwork for enmeshed relationships, developed the Self-System, a configuration of personality traits |
| Henry Murray | personality assessment; created the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) with Christina Morgan, stated that the need to achieve varied in strength in different people and influenced their tendency to approach and evaluate their own performances |
| Hermann Rorschach | developed one of the first projective tests, the Inkblot test which consists of 10 standardized inkblots where the subject tells a story, the observer then derives aspects of the personality from the subject's commentary |
| Hans Eysenck | personality theorist; asserted that personality is largely determined by genes, used introversion/extroversion |
| Hobson & McCarley | sleep/dreams/consciousness; pioneers of Activation-Synthesis Theory of dreams; sleep studies that indicate the brain creates dream states, not information processing or Freudian interpretations |
| Holmes & Rahe | stress and coping; used "social readjustment scale" to measure stress |
| Howard Gardner | devised theory of multiple intelligences: logical-mathematic, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, linguistic, musical, interpersonal, naturalistic |
| Ivan Pavlov | discovered classical conditioning; trained dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell |
| Jean Piaget | cognitive psychology; created a 4-stage theory of cognitive development, said that two basic processes work in tandem to achieve cognitive growth (assimilation and accommodation) |
| John B Watson | behaviorism; emphasis on external behaviors of people and their reactions on a given situation; famous for Little Albert study in which baby was taught to fear a white rat |
| Judith Langlois | developmental psychology;: social development & processing, effects of appearance on behavior, origin of social stereotypes, sex/love/intimacy, facial expression |
| Karen Horney | neo-Freudian, psychodynamic; criticized Freud, stated that personality is molded by current fears and impulses, rather than being determined solely by childhood experiences and instincts, neurotic trends; concept of "basic anxiety" |
| Karl Wernicke | "Wernicke's area"; discovered area of left temporal lobe that involved language understanding: person damaged in this area uses correct words but they do not make sense |
| Kenneth Clark | social psychology; research evidence of internalized racism caused by stigmatization; doll experiments-black children chose white dolls |
| Kurt Lewin | social psychology; German refugee who escaped Nazis, proved the democratic style of leadership is the most productive; studied effects of 3 leadership styles on children completing activities |
| Langer & Rodin | Social Psychology; Helping behavior, personal responsibility; studied the effects of enhanced personal responsibility and helping behavior |
| Lawrence Kohlberg | moral development; presented boys moral dilemmas and studied their responses and reasoning processes in making moral decisions. Most famous moral dilemma is "Heinz" who has an ill wife and cannot afford the medication. Should he steal the medication and why? |
| Martin Seligman | learning; Positive Psychology; learned helplessness theory of depression; Studies: Dogs demonstrating learned helplessness |
| Mary Ainsworth | developmental psychology; compared effects of maternal separation, devised patterns of attachment; "The Strange Situation": observation of parent/child attachment |
| Mary Cover-Jones | behaviorism/learning; pioneer in systematic desensitization, maintained that fear could be unlearned |
| Masters & Johnson | motivation; human sexual response—studied how both men and women respond to and in relation to sexual behavior |
| Noam Chomsky | language development; disagreed with Skinner about language acquisition, stated there is an infinite # of sentences in a language, humans have an inborn native ability to develop language |
| Robert Sternberg | intelligence; devised the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (academic problem-solving, practical, and creative) |
| Robert Yerkes | intelligence, comparative; Yerkes-Dodson law: level of arousal as related to performance |
| Robert Zajonc | motivation; believes that we invent explanations to label feelings |
| Rosenhan | Psychopathology and Social Psychology; effects of labeling; Rosenhan and colleagues checked selves into mental hospitals with symptoms of hearing voices say "empty, dull and thud." Diagnosed with schizophrenia. After entered, acted normally. Never "cleared" of diagnosis. Roles and labels in treating people differently. |
| Rosenthal & Jacobson | Intelligence and learning, self-fulfilling prophecy; Study Basics: Researchers misled teachers into believing that certain students had higher IQs. Teachers changed own behaviors and effectively raised the IQ of the randomly chosen students |
| Solomon Asch | conformity; showed that social pressure can make a person say something that is obviously incorrect ; in a famous study in which participants were shown cards with lines of different lengths and were asked to say which line matched the line on the first card in length |
| Stanley Milgram | obedience to authority; had participants administer what they believed were dangerous electrical shocks to other participants; wanted to see if Germans were an aberration or if all people were capable of committing evil actions |
| Stanley Schachter | emotion; stated that in order to experience emotions, a person must be physically aroused and know the emotion before you experience it |
| Tolman | cognition; studied rats and discovered the "cognitive map" in rats and humans |
| Walter B. Cannon | motivation; believed that gastric activity as in empty stomach, was the sole basis for hunger; did research that inserted balloons in stomachs |
| John Garcia | Researched taste aversion. Showed that when rats ate a novel substance before being nauseated by a drug or radiation, they developed a conditioned taste aversion for the substance. |
| memory | the ability to recall past events, images, ideas, or previously learned information or skills; the storage system that allows a person to retain and retrieve previously learned information |
| encoding | organizing sensory information so it can be processed by the nervous system |
| levels-of-processing approach | brain encodes information in different ways or on different levels; deeper processing leads to deeper memory |
| encoding specificity principle | retrieval cues that match original information work better |
| memory span | the number of items a person can reproduce from short-term memory, usually consisting of one or two chunks |
| chunks | manageable and meaningful units of information organized in such a way that it can be easily encoded, stored, and retrieved |
| rehearsal | process of repeatedly verbalizing, thinking about, or otherwise acting on or transforming information in order to keep that information active in memory |
| maintenance rehearsal | repetitive review of information with little or no interpretation |
| elaborative rehearsal | rehearsal involving repletion and analysis, in which a stimulus may be associated with (linked to) other information and further processed |
| long-term potentiation | the biochemical processes that make it easier for the neuron to respond again when it has been stimulated |
| flashbulb memories | detailed memory for events surrounding a dramatic event that is vivid and remembered with confidence |
| Hermann Ebbinghaus | the first person to study memory scientifically and systematically; used nonsense syllables and recorded how many times he had to study a list to remember it well |
| Cognitive Psychology | The study if the overlapping fields of perception, learning, memory, and thought, with a special emphasis on how people attend to, acquire, transform, store, and retrieve knowledge. |
| Concept | Mental category used to classify an event or object according to some distinguishing property or feature. |
| Prototype | An abstraction, an idealized pattern of an object or idea that is stored in memory and used to decide whether similar objects or ideas are members of the same class of items. |
| Problem Solving | The behavior of individuals when confronted with a situation or task that requires insight or determination of some unknown elements. |
| Algorithm | Procedure for solving a problem by implementing a set of rules over and over again until the solution is found. |
| Heuristics | Sets of strategies, rather than strict rules, that act as guidelines for discovery-oriented problem solving. |
| Subgoal analysis | Heuristic procedure in which a problem is broken down into smaller steps, each of which has a subgoal. |
| Means-ends analysis | Heuristic procedure in which the problem solver compares the current situation with the desired goal to determine the most efficient way to get from one to the other. |
| Backward search | Heuristic procedure in which a problem solver works backward from the goal or end of a problem to the current position, in order to analyze the problem and reduce the steps needed to get from the current position to the goal. |
| Functional fixedness | Inability to see that an object can have a function other than its stated or usual one. |
| Creativity | A feature of thought and problem solving that includes the tendency to generate or recognize ideas considered to be high-quality, original, novel, and appropriate. |
| Convergent thinking | In problem solving, the process of narrowing down choices and alternatives to arrive at a suitable answer. |
| Language | A system of symbols, usually words, that convey meaning and a set of rules for combining symbols to generate an infinite number of messages. |
| Linguistics | The study of language, including speech sounds, meaning, and grammar. |
| Psycholinguistics | The study of how language is acquired, perceived, understood, and produced. |
| Phonology | The study of the patterns and distributions of speech sounds in a language and the tacit rules for their pronunciation. |
| Phoneme | A basic or minimum unit of sound in a language. |
| Developmental Psychology | The study of the lifelong, often age-related, processes of change in the physical, cognitive, moral, emotional, and social domains of functioning; such changes are rooted in biological mechanisms that are genetically controlled, as well as in social interactions |
| Zygote | A fertilized egg |
| Embryo | The prenatal organism from the 5th through the 49th day after conception |
| Fetus | The prenatal organism from the 8th week after conception until birth |
| Placenta | A mass of tissue that is attached to the wall f the uterus and connected to the developing fetus by the umbilical cord; it supplies nutrients and eliminates waste products |
| Grasping reflex | Reflex that causes a newborn to grasp vigorously any object touching the palm or fingers or placed in the hand |
| Critical Period | The time in to development of an organism when it is especially sensitive to certain environmental influences; outside of that period the same influences will have far less effect |
| Schema | In Piaget's view, a specific mental structure; an organized way of interacting with the environment and experiencing it- a generalization a child makes based on comparable occurences of various actins, usally physical, motor actions |
| Assimilation | According to Piaget, the process by which new ideas and experiences are absorbed and incorporated into existing mental structures and behaviors |
| Accommodation | According to Piaget, the process by which existing mental structures and behaviors are modified to adapt to new experiences |
| Sensorimotor stage | The first of Piaget's four stages of cognitive development (covering roughly the first 2 years of life), during which the child develops some motoer coordination skills and a memory for past events |
| Object permanence | The realization of infants that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight |
| Preoperational stage | Piaget's second stage of cognitive development (lasting from about age 2 to age 6 or 7), during which the child begins to represent the world symbolically |
| Egocentrism | Inability to perceive a situation or event except in relation to oneself; also know as self-centeredness |
| Decentration | Process of changing from a totally self-oriented point of view to one tha recognizes other people's feelings, ideas, and viewpoints |
| Concrete operational stage | Piaget's thrid stage of cognitive development (lasting from approximately age 6 or 7 to age 11 or 12), during which the child develops the ability to understand constant factors in the environment, rules, and higher-order symbolic systems |
| Conservation | Ability to recognize that objects can e transformed in some way, visually or phycially, yet still be the same in number, weight, substance, or volume |
| Formal operational stage | Piaget's fourth and final stage of cognitive development (beginning at about age 12), during which the individual can think hypothetically, can consider future possibilites, and can use deductive logic |
| Cross-sectional study | A type of research design that compares individuals of different ages to determine how they differ on an important dimension |
| Theory of mind | An understanding of mental states such as feelings, desires, beliefs, and intentions and of the causal role they play in human behavior |
| Temperament | Early-emerging and long-lasting individual differences in disposition and in the intensity and especially the quality of emotional reactions |
| Gender stereotype | A fixed, overly simple, sometimes incorrect idea about traits, attitudes, and behaviors of males or females |
| Consciousness | The general state of being aware of and responsive to events in the environment, as well as one's own mental processes |
| Circadian Rhythms | Internally generated patterns of body functions, including hormonal signals, sleep, blood pressure, and temperature regulation, which have approximately a 24-hour cycle and occur even in the absence of normal cues about whether it is day or night |
| Electroencephalogram (EEG) | Graphical record of brain-wave activity obtained through electrodes placed on the scalp and forehead |
| Rapid Eye Movement Sleep | Stage of sleep characterized by high-frequency, low-amplitude brain-wave activity, rapid and systematic eye movements, more vivid dreams, and postural muscle paralysis |
| Non-rapid Eye Movement Sleep | Four distinct stages of sleep during which no rapid eye movements occur. |
| Insomnia | Problems in going to sleep or maintaining sleep |
| Dream | A state of consciousness that occurs during sleep, usually accompanied by vivid visual, tactile, or auditory imagery. |
| Lucid Dream | Dream in which the dreamer is aware of dreaming while it is happening |
| Manifest Content | The overt story line, characters, and setting of a dream-the obvious, clearly discernible events of the dream |
| Latent Content | The deeper meaning of a dream, usually involving symbolism hidden meaning, and repressed or obscured ideas and wishes |
| Collective Unconscious | Jung's theory of a shared storehouse of primitive ideas and images that are inherited ideas and images, called archetypes, are emotionally charged and rich in meaning and symbolism |
| Descriptive Studies | A type of research method that allows researchers to measure variables so that they can develop a description of a situation or phenomenon |
| Biofeedback | A process through which people receive information about the status of a physical system and use this feedback information to learn to control the activity of that system |
| Mediation | The use of a variety of techniques including concentration, restriction of incoming stimuli, and deep relaxation to produce a state of consciousness characterized by a sense of detachment. |
| Drug | Any chemical substance that, in small amounts, alters biological or cognitive processes or both |
| Psychoactive Drug | A drug that alters behavior, thought, or perception by altering biochemical reactions in the nervous system, thereby affecting consciousness |
| Tolerance | The characteristic of requiring higher and higher doses of a drug to produce the same effect. |
| Dependence | The situation that occurs when the drug becomes part of the body's functioning and produces withdrawal symptoms when the drug is discontinued |
| Blood-Brain Barrier | A mechanism that prevents certain molecule from entering the brain but allows others to cross |
| depressants (AKA sedative-hypnotics) | Any of a class of drugs that relax and calm a user and, in higher doses, induce sleep; also known as a depressant |
| opiates (AKA narcotics) | Drugs derived from the opium poppy, including opium, morphine, and heroin |
| Stimulant | A drug that increases alertness, reduces fatigue, and elevates mood |
| hallucinogens (AKA psychedelic drugs) | Consciousness-altering drugs that affect moods, thoughts, memory, judgment, and perception and that are consumed for the purpose of producing those results |
| Dementia | Impairment of mental functioning and global cognitive abilities in otherwise alert individuals, causing memory loss and related symptoms and typically having a progressive nature |
| Alzheimer's Disease | A chronic and progressive disorder of the brain that is the most common cause of degeneration dementia |
| Thanatology | The study of the psychological and medical aspects of death and dying |
| Motivation | any internal condition, although usually an internal one, that initates, activates, or maintains an organism's goal directed behavior |
| Drive theory (aka, drive-reduction theory) | an explanation of behavior that assumes that an organism is motivated to act because of a need to attain, reestablish, or maintain some goal that helps with survival |
| Avoidance-avoidance conflict | Conflict that results from having to choose between two distasteful alternatives |
| Approach-avoidance conflict | Conflict that results from having to choose an alternative that has both attractive and unappealing aspects |
| Arousal | Activation of the central nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, and the muscles and glands |
| Cognitive theories | In the study of motivation, an explanation of behavior that asserts that people actively and regularly determine their own goals and the means of achieving them through thought. |
| Expectancy Theories | Explanations of behavior that focus on people's expectations about reaching a goal and their need for achievement as energizing factors |
| Motive | a specific (usually internal) condition, usually involving some form of arousal, which directs an organism's behavior toward a goal. |
| Social Need | An aroused condition that directs people to behave in ways that allow them to feel good about themselves and others and to establish and maintain relationships |
| Extrinsic motivation | Motivation supplied by rewards that come from the external environment |
| Intrinsic motivation | Motivation that leads to behaviors engaged in for no apparent reward except the pleasure and satisfaction of the activity itself |
| Overjustification effect | Decrease in likelihood that an intrinsically motivated task, after having been extrinsically rewarded, will be performed when the reward is no longer given. |
| Humanistic theory | An explanation of behavior that emphasizes the entirety of life rather than individual components of behavior and focuses on human dignity, individual choice, and self-worth |
| Self-actualization | In humanistic theory, the final level of psychological development, in which one strives to realize one's uniquely human potential-to achieve everything one is capable of achieving |
| Excitement phase | the first phase of the sexual response cycle during which there are increases in heart rate blood pressure and respiration |
| Vasocongestion | In the sexual response cycle, engorgement of the blood vessels, particularly in the genital area, due to increased blood flow |
| Plateau phase | the second phase of the sexual response cycle, during which physical arousal continues to increase as the partners bodies prepare for orgasm |
| Orgasm phase | the third phase of the sexual response cycle, during which autonomic nervous system activity reaches its peak and muscle contractions occur in spasms throughout the body, but especially in the genital area |
| Resolution Phase | the fourth phase of the sexual response cycle, following orgasm, during which the body returns to its resting, or normal state |
| Survey | One of the descriptive methods of research; it requires construction of a set of questions to administer to a group of participants |
| Representative sample | A sample that reflects the characteristics of the population from which it is drawn |
| Need for achievement | A social need that directs a person to strive constantly for excellence and success |
| Psychophysics | Subfield of psychology that focuses on the relationship between physical stimuli and people's conscious experiences of them. |
| Absolute threshold | The statistically determined minimum level of stimulation necessary to excite a perceptual system. |
| Subliminal perception | Perception below the threshold of awareness. |
| Signal Detection Theory | Theory that holds that an observer's perception depends not only on the intensity of a stimulus but also on the observer's motivation, the criteria he or she sets for determining that a signal is present, and on the background noise. |
| Electromagnetic Radiation | The entire spectrum of waves initiated by the movement of charged particles. |
| Visual cortex | The most important area of the brain's occipital lobe, which receives and further processes information from the lateral geniculate nucleus; also known as the striate cortex. |
| Dark adaptation | The increase in sensitivity to light that occurs when the illumination level changes from high to low, causing chemicals in the rods and cones to regenerate and return to their inactive state. |
| Optic chiasm | Point at which half of the optic nerve fibers from each eye cross over and connect to the other side of the brain. |
| Receptive fields | Areas of the retina that, when stimulated, produce a change in the firing of cells in the visual system. |
| Saccades | Rapid voluntary movements of the eyes. |
| Hue | The psychological property of light referred to as color, determined by the wavelengths of reflected light. |
| Brightness | The lightness or darkness of reflected light, determined in large part by the light's intensity. |
| Saturation | The depth and richness of a hue determined by determined by the homogeneity of the wavelengths contained in the reflected light; also known as purity. |
| Trichromatic theory | Visual theory, stated by Young and Helmholtz that all colors can be made by mixing the three basic colors: red, green, and blue; a.k.a the Young-Helmholtz theory. |
| Color Blindness | The inability to perceive different hues. |
| Opponent-process theory | Visual theory, proposed by Herring, that color is coded by stimulation of three types of paired receptors; each pair of receptors is assumed to operate in an antagonist way so that stimulation by a given wavelength produces excitation (increased firing) in one receptor of the pair and also inhibits the other receptor. |
| Trichromats | People who can perceive all three primary colors and thus can distinguish any hue. |
| Monochromats | People who cannot perceive any color, usually because their retinas lack cones. |
| Dichromats | People who can distinguish only two of the three basic colors. |
| Size constancy | Ability of the visual perceptual system to recognize that an object remains constant in size regardless of its distance from the observer or the size of its image on the retina. |
| Unconditioned Response | Unlearned or involuntary response to an unconditioned stimulus |
| Conditioned Stimulus | Neutral stimulus that, through repeated association with an unconditioned stimulus, begins to elicit a conditioned response |
| Conditioned Response | Response elicited by a conditioned stimulus |
| Higher-order Conditioning | Process by which a neutral stimulus takes on conditioned properties through pairing with a conditioned stimulus |
| Extinction (classical conditioning) | The procedure of withholding the unconditioned stimulus and presenting the conditioned stimulus alone, which gradually reduces the probability of the conditioned response |
| Spontaneous Recovery | Recurrence of an extinguished conditioned response, usually following a rest period |
| Stimulus Generalization | Process by which a conditioned response becomes associated with a stimulus that is similar but not identical to the original conditioned stimulus |
| Stimulus Discrimination | Process by which an organism learns to respond only to a specific stimulus and not to other stimuli |
| Operant Conditioning | Conditioning in which an increase or decrease in the probability that a behavior will recur is affected by the delivery of reinforcement or punishment as a consequence of the behavior; |
| Skinner Box | Named for its developer, B.F. Skinner, a box that contains a responding mechanism and a device capable of delivering a consequence to an animal in the box whenever it makes the desired response |
| Learned Helplessness | The behavior of giving up or not responding to punishment, exhibited by people or animals exposed to negative consequences or punishment over which they have no control |
| Fixed-interval Schedule | A reinforcement schedule in which a reinforcer (reward) is delivered after a specified interval of time, provided that the required response occurs at least once in the interval |
| Variable-interval Schedule | A reinforcement schedule in which a reinforcer (reward) is delivered after predetermined but varying amounts of time, provided that the required response occurs at least once after each interval |
| Fixed-ratio Schedule | A reinforcement schedule in which a reinforcer(reward) is delivered after a specified number of responses has occurred |
| Variable-ratio Schedule | A reinforcement schedule in which a reinforcer (reward) is delivered after a predetermined but variable number of responses has occurred |
| Extinction (operant conditioning) | The process by which the probability of an organism's emitting a response is reduced when reinforcement no longer follows the response |
| Latent Learning | Learning that occurs in the absence of direct reinforcement and that is not necessarily demonstrated through observable behavior |
| Observational Learning Theory | Theory that suggests that organisms learn new responses by observing the behavior of a model and then imitating it; aka. Social learning theory |
| Social Psychology | The scientific study of how people think about, interact with, influence, and are influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of other people. |
| Attitudes | Patterns of feelings and beliefs about other people, ideas, or objects that are based on a person's past experiences, shape his or her future behavior, and are evaluative in nature. |
| Elaboration Likelihood Model | Theory suggesting that there are two routes to attitude change: the central route, which focuses on thoughtful consideration of an argument for change, and the peripheral route, which focuses on less careful, more emotional, and even superficial evaluation. |
| Cognitive Dissonance | A state of mental discomfort arising from a discrepancy between two or more of a person's beliefs or between a person's beliefs and overt behavior. |
| Self-perception Theory | Approach to attitude formation that assumes that people infer their attitudes and emotional states from their behavior. |
| Reactance | The negative response evoked when there is an inconsistency between a person's self-image as being free to choose and the person's realization that someone is trying to force him or her to choose a particular occurrence. |
| Social Cognition | The process of analyzing and interpreting events, other people, oneself, and the world in general. |
| Impression Formation | The process by which a person uses behavior and appearance of others to form attitudes about them. |
| Nonverbal Communication | The communication of information by cues or actions that include gestures, tone of voice, vocal inflections, and facial expressions. |
| Body Language | Communication of information through body positions and gestures. |
| Attributions | The process by which a person infers other people's motives or intensions by observing their behavior. |
| Fundamental Attribution Error | The tendency to attribute other people's behavior to dispositional (internal) causes rather than situational (external) causes. |
| Actor-observer Effect | The tendency to attribute the behavior of others to dispositional causes but to attribute one's own behavior to situational causes. |
| Self-serving Bias | People's tendency to ascribe their positive behaviors to their own internal traits, but their failures and shortcomings to external, situational factors. |
| Prejudice | Negative evaluation of an entire group of people, typically based on unfavorable (and often wrong) stereotypes about groups. |
| Stereotypes | Fixed, overly simple and often erroneous ideas about traits, attitudes, and behaviors of groups of people; stereotypes assume that all members of a given group are alike. |
| Discrimination | Behavior targeted at individuals or groups and intended to hold them apart and treat them differently. |
| Deindividuation | The process by which individuals lose their self-awareness and distinctive personality in the context of a group, which may lead them to engage in antinormative behavior. |
| Aggression | Any behavior intended to harm another person or thing. |
| Prosocial Behavior | Behavior that benefits someone else or society but that generally offers no obvious benefit to the person performing it and may even involve some personal risk or sacrifice. |
| Altruism | Behaviors that benefit other people and for which there is no discernable extrinsic reward, recognition, or appreciation. |
| Sociobiology | A discipline based on the premise that even day-to-day behaviors are determined by the process of natural selection – that social behaviors that contribute to the survival of a species are passed on via the genes from one generation to the next. |
| Ego | In Freud's theory, the part of personality that seeks to satisfy instinctual needs in accordance with reality. |
| Superego | In Freud's theory, the moral aspect of mental functioning comprising the ego ideal (what a person would ideally like to be) and the conscience and taught by parents and society. |
| Oral Stage | Freud's first stage of personality development, from birth to about age 2, during which the instincts of infants are focused on the mouth as the primary pleasure center. |
| Anal Stage | Freud's second stage of personality development, from about age 2 to about age 3, during which children learn to control the immediate gratification they obtain through defecation and to become responsive to the demands of society. |
| Phallic Stage | Freud's third stage of personality development, from about age 4 through age 7, during which children obtain gratification primarily from the genitals. |
| Oedipus Complex | Feelings of rivalry with the parent of the same sex and sexual desire for the parent of the other sex, occurring during the phallic stage and ultimately resolved through identification with the parent of the same sex. |
| Latency Stage | Freud's fourth stage of personality development, from about age 7 until puberty, during which sexual urges are inactive. |
| Genital Stage | Freud's last stage of personality development, from the onset of puberty through adulthood, during which the sexual conflicts of childhood resurface (at puberty) and are often resolved during adolescence). |
| Libido | In Freud's theory, the instinctual (and sexual) life force that, working on the pleasure principle and seeking immediate gratification, energizes the id. |
| Defense Mechanism | An unconscious way of reducing anxiety by distorting perceptions of reality. |
| Self-actualization | The process of growth and the realization of individual potential; in the humanistic view, a final level of psychological development in which a person attempts to minimize ill health, be fully functioning, have a superior perception of reality, and feel a strong sense of self-acceptance. |
| Fulfillment | In Roger's theory of personality, an inborn tendency directing people toward actualizing their essential nature and thus attaining their potential. |
| Self | In Roger's theory of personality, the perception an individual has of himself or herself and of his or her relationships to other people and to various aspects of life. |
| Ideal Self | In Roger's theory of personality, the self a person would ideally like to be. |
| Self-efficacy | A person's belief about whether he or she can successfully engage in and execute a specific behavior. |
| Demand characteristics | Elements of an experimental situation that might cause a participant to perceive the situation in a certain way or become aware of the purpose of the study and thus bias the participant to behave in a certain way, and in so doing, distort results. |
| Psychoanalysis | A lengthy insight therapy that was developed by Freud and aims at uncovering conflicts and unconscious impulses through special techniques, including free association, dream analysis, and transference. |
| Psychodynamically | Therapies that use approaches or techniques derived from Freud, but that reject or modify some elements of Freud's theory. |
| Insight therapy | Any therapy that attempts to discover relationships between unconscious motivations and current abnormal behavior. |
| Free association | Psychoanalytic technique in which a person is asked to report to the therapist his or her thoughts and feelings as they occur, regardless of how trivial, illogical, or objectionable their content may appear. |
| Dream analysis | Psychoanalytic technique in which a patient's dreams are described in detail and interpreted so as to provide insight into the individual's unconscious motivations. |
| Interpretation | In Freud's theory, the technique of providing a context, meaning, or cause for a specific idea, feeling, or set of behaviors; the process of tying a set of behaviors to its unconscious determinant. |
| Resistance | In psychoanalysis, an unwillingness to cooperate, which a patient signals by showing a reluctance to provide the therapist with information or to help the therapist understand or interpret a situation. |
| Transference | Psychoanalytic phenomenon in which a therapist becomes the object of a patient's emotional attitudes about an important person in the patient's life, such as a parent. |
| Working through | In psychoanalysis, the repetitive cycle of interpretation, resistance to interpretation, and transference. |
| Client-centered therapy | An insight therapy, developed be Carl Rogers, that seeks to help people evaluate the world and themselves from their own perspective by providing them with a nondirective environment and unconditional positive regard; also known as person-centered therapy. |
| Behavior therapy | A therapy that is based on the application of learning principles to human behavior and that focuses on changing overt behaviors rather than on understanding subjective feelings, unconscious processes, or motivations; also known as behavior modification. |
| Symptom substitution | The appearance of one overt symptom to replace another that has been eliminated by treatment. |
| Token economy | An operant conditioning procedure in which individuals who display appropriate behavior receive tokens that they can exchange for desirable items or activities. |
| Time-out | An operant conditioning procedure in which a person is physically removed from sources of reinforcement to decrease the occurrence of undesired behaviors. |
| Counterconditioning | Process of reconditioning in which a person is taught a new, more adaptive response to a familiar stimulus. |
| Systematic desensitization | A three-stage counterconditioning procedure in which people are taught to relax when confronting stimuli that forming elicited anxiety. |
| Aversive counterconditioning | A counterconditioning technique in which an aversive or noxious stimulus is paired with a stimulus with the undesirable behavior. |
| Rational-emotive therapy | A cognitive behavior therapy that emphasizes the importance of logical, rational thought processes. |
| Group therapy | Psychotherapeutic process in which several people meet as a group with a therapist to receive psychological help. |
| Family therapy | A type of therapy in which two or more people who are committed to one another's well-being are treated at once, in and effort to change the ways the interact. |
| Psychosurgery | Brain surgery used in the past to alleviate symptoms of serious mental disorders. |
| Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) | A treatment for severe mental illness in which an electric current is briefly applied to the head in order to produce a generalized seizure. |
| Abnormal Behavior | Behavior characterized as atypical, socially unacceptable, distressing to the individual or others, maladaptive, and/or the result of distorted cognitions |
| Model: | an analogy or a perspective that uses a structure from one field to help scientists describe data in another field |
| Abnormal psychology | The field of psychology concerned with the assessment, treatment, and prevention of maladaptive behavior. |
| Prevalence | the percentage of a population displaying a disorder during any specified period. |
| Case study | a descriptive study that includes an intensive study of one person and allows an intensive examination of a single case, usually chosen for its interesting or unique characteristics |
| Anxiety | a generalized feeling of fear and apprehension that may be related to a particular situation or object and is often accompanied by increased physiological arousal. |
| Generalized anxiety disorder | An anxiety disorder characterized by persistent anxiety occurring on more days than not for at least 6 months, sometimes with increased activity of the autonomic nervous system, apprehension, excessive muscle tension, and difficulty in concentrating |
| Phobic disorders | Anxiety disorders characterized by excessive and irrational fear of, and consequent attempted avoidance of, specific objects or situations. |
| Agoraphobia | anxiety disorder characterized by marked fear and avoidance of being alone in a place from which escape might be difficult or embarrassing |
| Panic Attack | Anxiety disorders characterized as acute anxiety, accompanied by sharp increases in autonomic nervous system arousal, that is not triggered by a specific event. |
| Social phobia | Anxiety disorder characterized by fear of, and desire to avoid, situations in which the person might be exposed to scrutiny by others and might behave in an embarrassing or humiliating way. |
| Specific phobia | Anxiety disorder characterized by irrational and persistent fear of a particular object or situation, along with a compelling desire to avoid it. |
| Obsessive-compulsive disorder | Anxiety disorder characterized by persistent and uncontrollable thoughts and irrational beliefs that cause the performance of compulsive rituals that interfere with daily life. |
| Depressive disorders | general category of mood disorders in which people show extreme and persistent sadness, despair, and loss of interest in life's usual activities. |
| Major depressive disorder | Depressive disorder characterized by loss of interest in almost all of life's usual activities; a sad, hopeless, or discourage mood, sleep disturbance; loss of appetite; loss of energy; and feelings of unworthiness and guilt. |
| Delusions | False beliefs that are inconsistent with reality but are held in spite of evidence that disproves them. |
| Learned helplessness | the behavior of giving up or not responding, exhibited by people and animals exposed to negative consequences or punishment over which they feel they have no control. |
| Vulnerability | A person's diminished ability to deal with demanding life events. |
| Dissociative disorders | psychological disorders characterized by a sudden but temporary alteration in consciousness, identity, sensorimotor behavior, or memory |
| Dissociative amnesia | Dissociative disorder characterized by the sudden and extensive inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature. |
| Dissociative identity disorder | dissociative disorder characterized by the existence within an individual of two or more distinct personalities, each of which is dominant at different times and directs the individual's behavior at those times; commonly known as multiple personality disorder. |
| Schizophrenic disorders | a group of psychological disorders characterized by a lack of reality testing and by deterioration of social and intellectual functioning and personality beginning before age 45 and lasting at least 6 months |
| Psychotic | suffering from a gross impairment in reality testing that interferes with the ability to meet the ordinary demands of life. |
| Paranoid type of schizophrenia | type of schizophrenia characterized by hallucinations and delusions of persecution or grandeur (or both), and sometimes irrational jealousy. |
| Catatonic type of schizophrenia | Type of schizophrenia characterized either by displays of excited or violent motor activity or by stupor. |
| Disorganized type of schizophrenia | type of schizophrenia characterized by severely disturbed thought processes, frequent incoherence, disorganized behavior, and inappropriate affect. |
| Residual type of schizophrenia | a schizophrenic disorder in which the person exhibits inappropriate affect, illogical thinking, and/or eccentric behavior but seems generally in touch with reality. |
| Antisocial personality disorder | Personality disorder characterized by egocentricity, and behavior that is irresponsible and that violates the rights of other people, a lack of guilt feelings, an inability to understand other people and a lack of fear of punishment. |
| Child abuse | physical, emotional, or sexual mistreatment of a child. |
| Rape | Forcible sexual assault on an unwilling partner. |
| Intelligence | The overall capacity of an individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with the environment |
| Factor analysis | Statistical procedure designed to discover the independent elements (factors) in any set of data |
| Metal retardation | Below-average intellectual functioning, as measured on an IQ test, accompanied by substantial limitations in functioning that originate before age 8 |
| Burnout | State of emotional and physical exhaustion, lowered productivity, and feelings of isolation, often caused by work-related pressures |
| Stress | A nonspecific, emotional response to real or imagined challenges or threats; a result of a cognitive appraisal by the individual |
| Stressor | An environmental stimulus that affects an organism in physically or psychologically injurious ways, usually producing anxiety, tension, and physiological arousal |
| Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) | Psychological disorder that may become evident after a person has undergone extreme stress caused by some type of disaster; common symptoms include vivid, intrusive recollections or reexperiences of the traumatic event and occasional lapses of normal consciousness |
| Type A behavior | Behavior pattern characterized by competitiveness, impatience, hostility, and constant efforts to do more in less time |
| Type B behavior | Behavior pattern exhibited by people who are calmer, more patient, and less hurried than Type A individuals |
| Psychoneuroimmunology | An interdisciplinary area of study that includes behavioral, neurological, and immune factors and their relationship to the development of disease |
| Coping | Process by which a person takes some action to manage, master, tolerate, or reduce environmental or internal demands that cause or might cause stress and that tax the individual's inner resources |
| Resilience | The extent to which people are flexible and respond adaptively to external or internal demands |
| Health psychology | Subfield concerned with the use of psychological ideas and principles to enhance health, prevent illness, diagnose and treat disease, and improve rehabilitation |
| Edward Bradford Titchener | Student of Wilhelm Wundt; founder of Structuralist school of psychology. |
| Herman von Helmholtz | Theorist who both aided in the development of the trichromatic theory of color perception and Place theory of pitch perception. |
| difference threshold | minimum difference between any two stimuli that person can detect 50% of the time |
| just noticeable difference (JND) | experience of the difference threshold |
| ESP | the controversial claim that sensation can occur apart from sensory input |
| preconscious | level of consciousness that is outside awareness but contains feelings and memories that can easily be brought into conscious awareness |
| unconscious | level of consciousness that includes unacceptable feelings, wishes, and thoughts not directly available to conscious awareness |
| nonconscious | the level of consciousness devoted to processes completely unavailable to conscious awareness (e.g., fingernails growing) |
| REM (rapid eye movement) sleep | sleep stage when the eyes move about, during which vivid dreams occur; brain very active but skeletal muscles paralyzed |
| bulimia nervosa | eating disorder characterized by pattern 9of eating binges followed by purging (e.g., vomiting, laxatives, exercise) |
| James-Lange theory of emotion | conscious experience of emnotion results from one's awareness of physiological arousal |
| Cannon-Bard theory of emotion | conscious experience of emotion and physiological arousal occur at the same time |
| opponent-process theory of emotion | following a strong emotion, an opposing emotion counters the first emotion, lessening the experience of that emotion; on repeated occasions, the opposing emotion becomes stronger |
| Schachter-Singer theory of emotion | we determine our emotion based on our physiological arousal, then label that emotion according to our explanation for that arousal |
| cognitive-appraisal theory of emotion | our emotional experience depends on our interpretation of the situation we are in |
| Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome | three-stage process which describes the body's reaction to stress: 1) alarm reaction, 2) resistance, 3) exahaustion |
| cohort effect | observed group differences based on the era when people were born and grew up, exposing them to particular experiences that may affect the results of cross-sectional studies |
| prenatal development | period of development from conception until birth |
| fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) | group of abnormalities that occur in the babies of mothers who drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy |
| habituation | decreased responsiveness with repeated presentation of the same stimulus |
| schema | framework of basic ideas about people, objects and events based on past experience in long-term memory |
| zone of proximal development | the range between the level at which a child can solve a problem working alone with difficulty, and the level at which a child can solve a problem with the assistance of adults or children with more skill |
| preconventional level of moral development | morality based on consequences to self |
| moral development | growth in the ability to tell right from wrong, control impulses, and act ethically |
| conventional level of moral development | morality based on fitting in to the norms of society |
| postconventional level of moral development | morality based on one's own individual moral principles (i.e., conscience) |
| authoritarian parenting | style of parenting marked by emotional coldness, imposing rules and expecting obedience |
| authoritative parenting | parenting style characterized by emotional warmth, high standards for behavior, explanation and consistent enforcement of rules, and inclusion of children in decision making |
| menarche | first menstrual period |
| menopause | the cessation of the ability to reproduce |
| Stanford-Binet intelligence tests | constructed by Lewis Terman, originally used ratio IQ (MA/CA x 100); now based on deviation from mean |
| Wechsler intelligence tests | three age individual IQ tests: WPPSI (children), WISC (children), WAIS (adults) |
| fluid intelligence | cognitive abilities requiring speed or rapid learning that tends to diminish with age |
| crystallized intelligence | learned knowledge and skills such as vocabulary, which tends to increase with age |
| emotional intelligence | the ability to perceive, express, understand, and regulate emotions |
| triarchic theory of intelligence | Robert Sternberg's theory that describes intelligence as having analytic, creative and practical dimensions |
| aptitude test | a test designed to predict a person's future performance |
| achievement test | test designed to determine a person's level of knowledge in a given subject area |
| replication | the repetition of an experiment to test the validity of its conclusion |
