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AP Psych Final
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| absolute threshold | the minimum stimulus energy needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time |
| accommodation (sensation and perception) | the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina |
| accommodation (developmental) | adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information |
| achievement motivation | a desire for significant accomplishment, for mastery of skills or ideas, for control, and for attaining a high standard |
| achievement test | a test designed to assess what a person has learned |
| acquisition | in classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response; in operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response |
| action potential | a neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon |
| active listening | empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates a clarifies, part of Rogers' client centered therapy |
| acute schizophrenia | a form of schizophrenia that can begin at any age; frequently occurs in response to a tragic animal event. |
| adaptation-level phenomenon | our tendency to form judgments relative to a neural level defined by our prior experience |
| adolescence | the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence |
| adrenal glands | a pair of endocrine glands that sit just above the kidneys and secrete hormones that help arouse the body in times of stress |
| aerobic exercise | sustained exercise that increases heart and lung fitness; also help alleviate depression and anxiety |
| affiliation need | the need to build relationships and to reel part of a group |
| aggression | any physical or verbal behavior intended to harm someone physically or emotionally |
| agonist | a molecule that increases a neurotransmitter's actions |
| agoraphobia | the fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide open places, where one has felt loss of control and panic |
| AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) | a life-threatening, sexually transmitted infection caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) |
| alcohol use disorder | alcohol use marked by tolerance, withdrawal, and drive to continue problematic use |
| algorithm | a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem |
| all-or-none response | a neuron's reaction of either firing or not firing it |
| alpha waves | the relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state |
| altruism | unselfish regard for the welfare of others |
| Alzheimer's disease | a neurological disorder marked by neural plaques and entailing a productive decline in memory and other cognitive abilities |
| amphetamines | drugs, such as methamphetamine, that stimulate neural activity, causing accelerated body functions and associated energy and mood changes. |
| amygdala | two lima-bean-sized neural clusters in the limbic system that are linked to emotion |
| androgyny | displaying both traditional masculine and feminine psychological characteristics |
| anorexia nervosa | an eating disorder in which a person maintains a starvation diet despite being significantly underweight |
| antagonist | a molecule that inhibits or blocks a neurotransmitter's action |
| anterograde amnesia | an inability to form new memories |
| antianxiety drugs | drugs used to control anxiety and agitation |
| antidepressant drugs | drugs used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive -compulsive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder |
| antipsychotic drugs | drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorder |
| antisocial personality disorder | a personality disorder in which a person exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even towards friends and family members |
| anxiety disorder | psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety |
| aphasia | impairment of language, usually caused by damage to either Broca's area (impairing speaking) or Wernicke’s area (impairing understanding) |
| applied research | scientific study that aims to solve practical problems |
| aptitude test | a test designed to predict a person's future performance |
| asexual | having no sexual attraction to others |
| assimilation | interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas |
| 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 |
| associative learning | learning that certain events occur together, either two stimuli or a response and its consequence |
| attachment | an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to their caregiver and showing distress on seperation |
| attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) | a psychological disorder marked by extreme inattention and/or hyperactivity and impulsivity |
| attitude | feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events |
| attribution theory | the theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition |
| audition | the sense or act of hearing |
| autism spectrum disorder (ASD) | a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by significant deficiencies in communication and social interaction, and by rigidly fixated interests and repetitive behaviors. |
| automatic processing | unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings |
| autonomic nervous system (ANS) | the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of internal organs, made up of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems |
| availability heuristic | estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind we presume such events are common |
| aversive conditioning | a type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior |
| axon | the neuron extension that passes messages through its branches to other neurons or to muscles or glands |
| babbling state | beginning around 4 months, the stage of speech development in which an infant spontaneously utters various sounds unrelated to the household language |
| barbiturates | drugs that depress central nervous system activity, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgment |
| basal metabolic rate | the body's resting rate of energy output |
| basic research | pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base |
| 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 |
| behavior genetics | the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior |
| behavior therapy | therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors |
| behavioral approach | focuses on the effects of learning on our personality and development |
| behavioral psychology | the scientific study of observable behavior, and its explanation by principles of learning |
| behaviorism | the view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior, originally without reference to mental processes |
| belief perseverance | clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited |
| binge-eating disorder | significant binge-eating episodes, followed by distress, disgust, or guilt, but without the compensatory behavior that marks bulimia nervosa |
| binocular cue | a depth cue, such as retinal disparity that depends on the use of two eyes |
| biofeedback | a system for electronically recording, amplifying, and feeding back information regarding a subtle physiological state, such as blood pressure or muscle tension |
| biological psychology | the scientific study of the links between biological (genetic, neural, hormonal) and psychological processes |
| biomedical therapy | prescribed medications or procedures that act directly on the person's physiology |
| biopsychosocial approach | an integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural viewpoints |
| bipolar disorder | a disorder in which a person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania |
| blind spot | the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because no receptor cells are located there |
| blindgsight | a condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously experiencing it |
| bottom-up processing | analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brains integration of sensory information |
| 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 |
| broca's area | helps control language expression--an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech |
| bulimia nervosa | an eating disorder in which a person's binge eating is followed by inappropriate weight-loss promoting behaviors, such as vomiting, laxative use, fasting, or excessive exercise |
| bystander affect | the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present |
| cannon-bard theory | the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers physiological responses and the subjective experience of emotion |
| case study | a descriptive technique in which one individual or group is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles |
| catharsis | the idea that "releasing" aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges |
| cell body | the part of a neuron that contains the nucleus; the cell's life-support center |
| central nervous system (CNS) | the brain and the spinal cord |
| central route persuasion | occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts |
| cerebellum | the "little brain" at the rear of the brainstem; functions include processing sensory input, coordinating movement output and balance, and enabling nonverbal learning and memory |
| cerebral cortex | the intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells covering the cerebral hemispheres; the body's ultimate control and information-processing center |
| change blindness | failing to notice changes in the environment; a form of inattentional blindness |
| chromosomes | threadlike structures made of DNA molecules that contain genes |
| chronic schizophrenia | a form of schizophrenia in which symptoms usually appear by late adolescence or early adulthood, that worsens as they grow older |
| chunking | organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically |
| circadian rhythm | our biological clock; regular bodily rhythms that occur on a 24-hour cycle |
| classical conditioning | a type of learning in which we link two or more stimuli; as a result, the first stimulus comes to elicit behavior in anticipation of the second stimulus |
| client-centered therapy | a humanistic theory, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within an accepting, genuine, empathic environment to facilitate clients' growth |
| clinical psychology | a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders |
| cocaine | a powerful and addictive stimulant derived from the coca plant; produces temporarily increased alertness and euphoria |
| cochlea | a coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear; sound waves traveling through the cochlear fluid trigger nerve impulses |
| cochlear implant | a device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea |
| cognition | all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating |
| cognitive dissonance theory | the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent |
| cognitive learning | the acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language |
| cognitive map | a mental representation of the layout of one's environment |
| cognitive neuroscience | the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition |
| cognitive psychology | the study of mental processes, such as ones that occur when we perceive, learn, remember, think, communicate, and solve problems |
| cognitive therapy | therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions |
| cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) | a popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy with behavioral therapy |
| cohort | a group of people sharing a common characteristic, such as from a given time period |
| collective unconscious | Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history |
| collectivism | giving priority to the goals of one's group and defining one's identity accordingly |
| color constancy | perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object |
| community psychology | a branch of psychology that studies how people interact with their social environments and how social institutions affect individuals and groups |
| companionate love | the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined |
| concept | a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people |
| concrete operational stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events |
| conditioned reinforcer | a stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary or secondary reinforcer |
| conditioned response (CR) | in classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus |
| conditioned stimulus (CS) | in classical conditioning, an originally neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR) |
| conduction hearing loss | a less common form of hearing loss, caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea |
| cones | retinal receptors that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions, that detect fine details and give rise to color sensations |
| confirmation bias | a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence |
| conflict | a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas |
| conformity | adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard |
| confounding variable | a factor other than the factor being studied that might influence a study's results |
| consciousness | our subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment |
| context validity | the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest |
| continuous reinforcement schedule | reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs |
| control group | in an experiment, the group not exposed to the treatment; contrasts with the experimental group and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment |
| convergent thinking | narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution |
| conversion disorder | a disorder related to somatic symptom disorder in which a person experiences very specific, physical symptoms that are not compatible with recognized medical or neurological conditions |
| cornea | the eye's clear, protective outer layer, covering the pupil and iris |
| coronary heart disease | the clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle |
| corpus callosum | the large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them |
| correlation | a measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the otehr |
| correlation coefficient | a statistical index of the relationship between two things (from -1.00 to +1.00) |
| counseling psychology | a branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living and achieving greater well-being (often related to school, work, or marriage) |
| creativity | the ability to produce new and valuable ideas |
| critical period | an optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development |
| critical thinking | thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions, but examines assumptions, appraises the source, discerns hidden biases, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions |
| cross-sectional study | research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time |
| crystallized intelligence | our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age |
| CT (computed tomography) scan | a series of x-ray photographs taken from different angles and combined by computer into a composite representation of a slice of the brain's structure; also called CAT scan |
| culture | the enduring behavior, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next |
| debriefing | the postexperimental explanation of a study, including its purpose and any deceptions, to its participants |
| deep processing | encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention |
| defense mechanisms | in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality |
| deindividuation | the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity |
| deja vu | that eerie sense that "I've experienced this before"; cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience |
| delta waves | the large, slow brain waves associated with the deep sleep of NREM-3 |
| delusion | a false belief, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders |
| dendrites | a neuron's often busy, branching extensions that receive and integrate messages, conducting impulses towards the cell body |
| dependent variable | in an experiment, the outcome that is measures; the variable that may change when the independent variable is manipulated |
| depressants | drugs (such as alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates) that reduce neural activity and slow body functions |
| 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 |
| descriptive statistics | numerical data used to measure and describe characteristics of groups; includes measures of central tendency and measures of variation |
| developmental psychology | a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span |
| difference threshold | the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time |
| discrimination (conditioning) | the learned ability to distinguish between different and similar stimuli |
| discrimination (social psychology) | unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members |
| discriminative stimulus | a stimulus that elicits a response after association with reinforcement, in contrast to related stimuli not associated with reinforcement |
| dissociation | a split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously with other |
| dissociative disorders | controversial, rare disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings |
| dissociative identity disorder (DID) | a rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities |
| divergent thinking | expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions |
| DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) | a complex molecule containing the genetic information that makes up the chromosomes |
| double-blind procedure | an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo |
| down syndrome | a condition of mild to severe intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome |
| dream | a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind |
| drive-reduction theory | the idea that a physiological need creates an aroused state that motivates an organism to satisfy the need |
| DSM-5 | the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition; a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders |
| dual processing | the principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks |
| echoic memory | a momentary sensory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds, and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds |
| eclectic approach | an approach to psychotherapy that uses techniques from various forms of therapy |
| ecstasy (MDMA) | a synthetic stimulant and mild hallucinogen that produces euphoria and social intimacy, but with short-term health risks and longer-term harm to serotonin-producing neurons and to mood and cognition |
| educational psychology | the study of how psychological processes affect and can enhance teaching and learning |
| EEG (electroencephalogram) | an amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity sweeping across the brain's surface, measured by electrodes places on the scalp |
| effortful processing | encoding that requires attention and conscious effort |
| ego | the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that mediates the demands of the id, superego, and reality; operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain |
| egocentrism | in Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view |
| electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) | a biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent though the brain of an anesthetized patient |
| embodied cognition | the influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments |
| embryo | the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month |
| emerging adulthood | a period from about age 18 to the mid-twenties, when many in western cultures are no longer adolescents but have not yet achieved full independence as adults |
| emotion | a response of the whole organism, involving physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience |
| emotion-focused coping | attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to our stress reaction |
| emotional intelligence | the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions |
| empirically derived test | a test created by selecting from a pool of items those that discriminate between groups |
| empiricism | the idea that knowledge comes from experience, and that observation and experimentation enable scientific knowledge |
| encoding specificity principle | the idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it |
| encoding | the process of getting information into the memory system |
| endocrine system | the body's "slow" chemical communication system; a set of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream |
| endorphins | natural, opiate-like neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure |
| environment | every nongenetic influence, from prenatal nutrition to the people and things around us |
| epigenetics | the study of environmental influences on gene expression that occur without a DNA change |
| episodic memory | explicit memory of personally experienced events; one of our two conscious memory system |
| equity | a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it |
| estrogens | sex hormones, such as estradiol, that contribute to female sex characteristics and are secreted in greater amounts by females than by males |
| evidence-based practice | clinical decision making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics and preferences |
| evolutionary psychology | the study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection |
| experiment | a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process |
| experimental group | in an experiment, the group exposed to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable |
| explicit memory | retention of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare" |
| exposure therapies | behavioral techniques, such as systematic desensitization and virtual reality exposure therapy, that treat anxieties by exposing people to the things they fear and avoid |
| external locus of control | the perception that chance or outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate |
| extinction | the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus; occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced |
| extrasensory perception (ESP) | the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition |
| extrinsic motivation | a desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment |
| facial feedback effect | the tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness |
| factor analysis | a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score |
| family therapy | therapy that treats people in the context of their family system |
| feature detectors | nerve cells in the brain's visual cortex that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement |
| feel-good, do-good phenomenon | people's tendency to be helpful when in a good mood |
| fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) | physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking |
| fetus | the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth |
| figure-ground | the organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings |
| fixation (cognition) | the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle in problem solving |
| fixation (personality theory) | a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved |
| fixed-interval schedule | a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed |
| fixed-ratio schedule | a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses |
| flashbulb memory | a clear, sustained memory of an emotionally significant moment or event |
| fluid intelligence | our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease with age, especially during late adulthood |
| fMRI (functional MRI) | a technique for revealing bloodflow and, therefore, brain activity by comparing successive MRI scans |
| foot-in-the-door phenomenon | the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request |
| formal operational stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts |
| fovea | the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster |
| framing | the way an issue is posed; how an issue is worded can significantly affect decisions and judgments |
| fraternal (dizygotic) twins | twins that are genetically no closer than ordinary brothers and sisters, who develop from separate fertilized eggs |
| free association | a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing |
| frequency | the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time |
| frequency theory | 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 |
| frontal lobes | the portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead; involved in speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgments |
| frustration-aggression principle | the principle that frustration--the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal--creates anger, which can generate aggression |
| functionalism | an early school of thought promoted by James and influenced by Darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes function--how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish |
| fundamental attribution error | the tendency for observers, when analyzing others' behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition |
| gate-control theory | the theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain; the gate is opened by pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by information coming from the brain |
| gender identity | our sense of being male, female, or some combination of the two |
| gender | the socially influenced characteristics by which people define boy, girl, man, and woman |
| gender role | a set of expected behaviors, attitudes, and traits for males or for females |
| gender typing | the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role |
| general adaptation syndrome (GAS) | selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three phases--alarm, resistance, exhaustion |
| general intelligence (g) | according to Spearman and others, underlies all mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test |
| generalization | the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses |
| generalized anxiety disorder | an anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal |
| genes | the biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes; segments of DNA capable of synthesizing proteins |
| genome | the complete instructions for making an organism, consisting of all the genetic material in that organism's chromosomes |
| gestalt | an organized whole; gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes |
| glial cells (glia) | cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons; they also play a role in learning, thinking, and memory |
| glucose | the form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides the major source of energy for body tissues; when its levels are low, we feel hunger |
| grammar | in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with an understand others |
| semantics | a language's set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds |
| syntax | a language's set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences |
| grit | passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals |
| group polarization | the enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group |
| group therapy | therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals |
| grouping | the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups |
| groupthink | the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives |
| habituation | decreasing responsiveness with repeated exposure to a stimulus |
| hallucinations | false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus |
| hallucinogens | psychedelic drugs, such as LSD, that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input |
| health psychology | a subfield of psychology that provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine |
| heredity | the genetic transfer of characteristics from parents to offspring |
| heritability | the proportion of variation among individuals in a group that we can attribute to genes, which varies depending on the range of populations and the environments studied |
| heuristic | a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently |
| 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 |
| higher-order conditioning | a procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second, often weaker, conditioned stimulus |
| hindsight bias | the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it |
| hippocampus | a neural center located in the limbic system; helps process for storage explicit memories of facts and events |
| histogram | a bar graph depicting a frequency distribution |
| 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 |
| hormones | chemical messengers that are manufactured by the endocrine glands, travel through the bloodstream, and affect other tissues |
| 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 |
| human factors psychology | a field of psychology allied with I/O psychology that explores how people and machines interact and how machines and physical environments can be made safe and easy to use |
| humanistic psychology | a historically significant perspective that emphasized human growth potential |
| humanistic theories | theories that view personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth |
| hypnagogic sensations | bizarre experiences, such as jerking or a feeling of falling or floating, which occurs while transitioning to sleep |
| hypnosis | a social interaction in which one person suggests to another that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur |
| hypothalamus | a neural structure lying below the thalamus; it directs several maintenance activities, helps govern the endocrine system via the pituitary gland, and is linked to emotion and reward |
| hypothesis | a testable prediction, often implied by a theory |
| iconic memory | a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second |
| id | a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives, operating on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification |
| identical (monozygotic) twins | develop from a single fertilized egg that splits in two, creating two genetically identical organisms |
| identification | the process by which children incorporate their parents values into their developing superegos |
| identity | our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent's task is to solidify a sense of self by testing an integrating various roles |
| illness anxiety disorder | a disorder related to somatic symptom disorder in which a person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease |
| illusory correlation | perceiving a relationship where none exists, or perceiving a stronger-than-actual relationship |
| implicit memory | retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection |
| imprinting | the process by which certain animals form strong attachments during early life |
| inattentional blindness | failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere |
| incentive | a positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior |
| independent variable | in an experiment, the factor that is being manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied |
| 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 |
| industrial-organization psychology | the application of psychological concepts and methods to optimizing human behavior in workplaces |
| inferential statistics | numerical data that allow one to generalize--to infer from sample data the probability of something being true of a population |
| informational social influence | influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality |
| informed consent | giving potential participants enough information about a study to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate |
| ingroup | "us"--people with whom we share a common identity |
| ingroup bias | the tendency to favor our own group |
| inner ear | the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs |
| insecure attachment | demonstrated by infants who display either a clinging, anxious attachment or an avoidant attachment that resists closeness |
| insight | a sudden realization of a problem's solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions |
| insight therapies | therapies that aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing a person's awareness of underlying motives and defenses |
| insomnia | recurring problems in falling or staying asleep |
| instinct | a complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned |
| instinctive drift | the tendency of learned behavior to gradually revert to biological predisposed patterns |
| intellectual disability | a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence test score of 70 or below and difficulty adapting to the demands of life |
| intelligence quotient (IQ) | defined originally as the ration of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100; now, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100 |
| intelligence test | a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores |
| intelligence | the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations |
| intensity | the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which influences what we perceive as brightness or loudness, determined by the amplitude (height) |
| interaction | the interplay that occurs when the effect of one factor depends on another |
| internal locus of control | the perception that we control our own fate |
| interneurons | neurons within the brain and spinal cord; the communicate internally and process information between the sensory inputs and motor outputs |
| interpretation | the analyst's noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events in order to promote insight |
| intersex | a condition present at birth due to unusual combinations of male and female chromosomes, hormones, and anatomy; possessing biological sexual characteristics of both sexes |
| intimacy | in Erikson's theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in young adulthood |
| intrinsic motivation | a desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake |
| introspection | the process of looking inward in an attempt to directly observe one's own psychological processes |
| intuition | an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning |
| 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 |
| James-Lange theory | the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to an emotion-arousing stimulus: stimulus → arousal → emotion |
| just-world phenomenon | the tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get |
| kinesthesia | our movement sense--our system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts |
| language | our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning |
| latent content | the underlying meaning of a dream |
| latent learning | learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it |
| 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 |
| learned helplessness | the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or person learns when unable to avoid repeated adversive events |
| learning | the process of aquiring though experience new and relatively enduring information or behaviors |
| lens | the transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina |
| lesion | tissue destruction |
| limbic system | neural system located below the cerebral hemispheres; associated with emotion and drives |
| linguistic determinism | the hypothesis that language controls the way we think and interpret the world around us |
| linguistic influence | the idea that language affects thought, causing our thinking and world view to be dependent on our cultural language |
| lobotomy | a psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients by cutting the nerves connecting the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain |
| long-term memory | the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system, which includes knowledge, skills, and experiences |
| long-term potentiation (LTP) | an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning and memory |
| longitudinal study | research that follows and retests the same people over time |
| LSD | a powerful hallucinogenic drug; also known as acid |
| major depressive disorder | a disorder in which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or another medical condition, two or more weeks with five or more symptoms, at least one of which must be either depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure |
| mania | a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state in which dangerously poor judgment is common |
| manifest content | according to Freud, the symbolic, remembered story line of a dream |
| maturation | biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience |
| mean | the arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores |
| median | the middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it |
| medical model | the concept that psychological disorders, have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hospital |
| medulla | the base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat and breathing |
| MEG (magnetoencephalography) | a brain imaging technique that measures magnetic fields from the brain's natural electrical activity |
| memory consolidation | the neural storage of a long-term memory |
| memory | the persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information |
| menarche | the first menstrual period |
| menopause | the time of natural cessation of menstruation; the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines |
| mental age | a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the level of performance typically associated with children of a certain chronological age |
| mental set | a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past |
| mere exposure effect | the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them |
| meta-analysis | a procedure for statistically combining the results of many different research studies |
| methaphetamine | a powerfully addictive drug that stimulates the central nervous system, with accelerated body functions and associated energy and mood changes; over time, appears to reduce baseline dopamine levels |
| 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 |
| mirror neurons | frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when we perform certain actions or observe another doing so, which may enable imitation and empathy |
| mirror-image perceptions | mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful and views the other side as evil and aggressive |
| misinformation effect | occurs when misleading information has distorted one's memory of an event |
| mnemonics | memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices |
| mode | the most frequently occurring scores in a distribution |
| modeling | the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior |
| molecular behavior genetics | the study of how the structure and function of genes interact with our environment to influence behavior |
| molecular genetics | the subfield of biology that studies the molecular structure and function of genes |
| monocular cue | a depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, available to either eye alone |
| mood-congruent memory | the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood |
| morpheme | in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning |
| motivation | a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior |
| motor (efferent) neurons | neurons that carry outgoing information from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands |
| motor cortex | an area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements |
| MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) | a technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated images of soft tissue |
| mutation | a random error in gene replication that leads to a change |
| myelin sheath | a fatty tissue later segmentally encasing the axons of some neurons; enables vastly greater transmission speed as neural impulses hop from one node to the next |
| narcissim | excessive self-love and self-absorption |
| narcolepsy | a sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks |
| natural selection | the principle that inherited traits that better enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations |
| naturalistic observation | a descriptive technique of observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate or control the situation |
| nature-nurture issue | the longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors |
| near-death experience | an altered state of consciousness reported after a close brush with death; often similar to drug induced hallucinations |
| negative reinforcement | increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing aversive stimuli |
| nerves | bundled axons that form neural cables connecting the central nervous system with muscles, glands, and sense organs |
| nervous system | the body's speedy, electrochemical communication network, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous system |
| neurocognitive disorders | acquired disorders marked by cognitive deficits; often related to Alzheimer's, brain injury or disease, or substance abuse |
| neurogenesis | the formation of new neurons |
| neuron | a nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system |
| neurotransmitters | chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between neurons, binding to receptor sites on the receiving neuron and influencing whether that neuron will generate a neural impulse |
| neural stimulus | in classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning |
| nicotine | a stimulating and highly addictive psychoactive drug in tobacco |
| night terrors | a sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified; unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during NREM-3 sleep and are seldom remembered |
| normal curve | a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean (68% within one standard deviation) and fewer and fewer near the extremes |
| normative social influence | influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval |
| norms | understood rules for accepted and expected behavior |
| NREM sleep | non-rapid eye movement sleep; encompasses all sleep stages except for REM sleep |
| obesity | defined as a body mass index (BMI) measurement of 30 or higher |
| object permanence | the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived |
| observational learning | learning by observing others |
| obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) | a disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions), actions (compulsions), or both |
| occipital lobes | the portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head; includes areas that receive information from the visual fields |
| oedipus complex | according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires towards his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father |
| olfaction | the sense of smell |
| one-word stage | the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words |
| operant behavior | behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences |
| operant chamber | a chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal's rate of bar pressing or key pecking |
| operant conditioning | a type of learning in which a behavior becomes more likely to recur if followed by a reinforcer or less likely to recur if followed by a punisher |
| operational definition | a carefully worded statement of the exact procedures (operations) used in a research study |
| opiates | opium and its derivatives; depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety |
| opponent-process theory | the theory that opposing retinal processes enable color vision |
| optic nerve | the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain |
| ostracism | deliberate social exclusion of individuals or groups |
| other-race effect | the tendency to recall faces of one's own race more accurately than faces of other races |
| outgroup | "them"--those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup |
| overconfidence | the tendency to be more confident than correct--to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments |
| panic disorder | an anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable, minuteslong episodes of intense dread in which a person may experience terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations; often followed by worry over a possible next attack |
| parallel processing | processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions |
| parapsychology | the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis |
| parasympathetic nervous system | the division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy |
| parietal lobes | the portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top of the head and toward the rear; receives sensory input for touch and body position |
| partial (intermittent) reinforcement schedule | reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction that does continuous reinforcement |
| passionate love | an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a romantic relationship |
| perception | the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events |
| perceptual adaptation | the ability to adjust to changed sensory input, including an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field |
| perceptual constancy | perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change |
| perceptual set | a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another |
| peripheral nervous system (PNS) | the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body |
| peripheral route persuasion | occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness |
| personal control | our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless |
| personality | an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting |
| personality disorders | inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning |
| 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 |
| personality psychology | an I/O psychology subfield that helps with job seeking, and with employee recruitment, selection, placement, training, appraisal, and development |
| PET (position emission tomography) scan | a visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task |
| phi phenomenon | an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession |
| phobia | an anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation |
| phoneme | in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit |
| physiological need | a basic bodily requirement |
| pitch | a tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency |
| pituitary gland | the endocrine system's most influential gland, that regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands under the influence of the hypothalamus |
| place theory | in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated |
| placebo effect | experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which the recipient assumes is an active agent |
| plasticity | the brain's ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience |
| polygraph | a machine used in attempts to detect lies that measures several of the physiological responses (such as perspiration, heart rate, and breathing changes) accompanying emotion |
| population | all those in a group being studied, from which samples may be drawn |
| positive psychology | the scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive |
| positive reinforcement | increasing behaviors by presenting positive reinforcers, any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response |
| posthypnotic suggestion | a suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized |
| posttraumatic growth | positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises |
| posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) | a disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, hypervigilance, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feelings, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience |
| predictive validity | the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior |
| prejudice | an unjustifiable attitude toward a group and its members; prejudice generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action |
| 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 |
| preparedness | a biological predisposition to learn associations, such as between taste and nausea, that have survival value |
| primary reinforcer | an innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need |
| primary sex characteristics | the body structures that make sexual reproduction possible |
| priming | the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response |
| proactive interference | the forward-acting disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information |
| problem-focused coping | attempting to alleviate stress directly-by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor |
| projective test | a personality test, such as the Rorschach, that provides ambiguous images designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics |
| prosocial behavior | positive, constructive behavior; the opposite of antisocial behavior |
| prototype | a mental image or best example of a category |
| psychiatry | a brand of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who are licensed to provide medical treatments as well as psychological therapy |
| psychoactive drug | a chemical substance that alters perceptions and moods |
| psychoanalysis | (1) Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; (2) Freud's therapeutic technique used in treating psychological disorders, which uses free association to interpret repressed feelings |
| psychodynamic psychology | a branch of psychology that studies how unconscious drives and conflicts influence behavior and uses that information to treat people with psychological disorders |
| psychodynamic theories | theories that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences |
| psychodynamic therapy | therapy deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition; views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and seeks to enhance self insight |
| psychological disorder | a syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior |
| psychology | the science of behavior and mental processes |
| psychometrics | the scientific study of the measurement of human abilities, attitudes, and traits |
| psychoneuroimmunology | the study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect the immune system and resulting health |
| psychopharmacology | the study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior |
| psychophysics | the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experiences of them |
| 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 |
| psychosurgery | surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior |
| psychotherapy | treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth |
| psychotic disorders | a group of disorders marked by irrational ideas, distorted perceptions, and a loss of contact with reality |
| puberty | the period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing |
| punishment | an event that tends to decrease the behavior that it follows |
| pupil | the adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters |
| random assignment | assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between different groups |
| random sample | a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion |
| range | the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution |
| rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) | a confrontational cognitive therapy, developed by Albert Elis, that vigorously challenges people's illogical, self-defeating attitudes and assumptions |
| recall | a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test |
| reciprocal determinism | the interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment |
| reciprocity norm | an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped then |
| recognition | a measure of memory in which the person identifies items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test |
| reconsolidation | a process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again |
| reflex | a simple, automatic response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee-jerk response |
| refractory period (neural processing) | a brief resting pause that occurs after a neuron has fired; subsequent action potentials cannot occur until the axon returns to its resting state |
| refractory period (human sexuality) | a resting period that occurs after orgasm, during which a person cannot achieve another |
| regression toward the mean | the tendency for extreme or unusual scores or events to fall back (regress) toward the average |
| reinforcement | any event that strengthens the behavior it follows |
| reinforcement schedule | a pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforced |
| relational agression | an act of aggression intended to harm a person's relationship or social standing |
| relative deprivation | the perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself |
| relearning | a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again |
| reliability | the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, alternative forms of the test, or on retesting |
| REM rebound | the tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation |
| REM sleep | rapid eye movement sleep; a recurring sleep stage during which dreams commonly occur; muscles are relaxed except for minor twitches but other body systems are active |
| repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) | the application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity |
| replication | repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding can be reproduced |
| representativeness heuristic | estimating the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information |
| repression | in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories |
| resilience | the personal strength that helps most people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma |
| resistance | in psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material |
| respondent behavior | behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus |
| reticular formation | a nerve network that travels through the brainstem into the thalamus and plays an important role in controlling arousal |
| 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 |
| retinal disparity | a binocular cue for perceiving depth; by comparing retinal images from the two eyes, the brain computes distance--the greater the disparity between two images, the closer the object |
| retrieval | the process of getting information out of memory storage |
| retroactive interference | the backward-acting disruptive effect of newer learning on the recall of old information |
| retrograde amnesia | an inability to retrieve information from one's past |
| reuptake | a neurotransmitter's reabsorption by the sending neuron |
| rods | retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray, and are sensitive to movement; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond |
| role | a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave |
| 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 |
| rumination | compulsive fretting; overthinking our problems and their causes |
| sampling bias | a flawed sampling process that produces an unrepresentative sample |
| savant syndrome | a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing |
| scaffold | a framework that offers children temporary support as they develop higher levels of thinking |
| scapegoat theory | the theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame |
| scatterplot | a graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables |
| schema | a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information |
| schizophrenia | a disorder characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and/or diminished, inappropriate emotional expression |
| secondary sex characteristics | nonreproductive sexual traits, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair |
| secure attachment | demonstrated by infants who comfortably explore environments in the presence of their caregiver, show only temporary distress when the caregiver leaves, and find comfort in the caregiver's return |
| selective attention | the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus |
| self | the center of personality; the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions |
| self-actualization | according to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential |
| self-concept | all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves in answer to the question, "Who am I?" |
| self-control | the ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for greater long-term rewards |
| self-disclosure | the act of revealing intimate aspects of ourselves to others |
| self-efficacy | one's sense of competence and effectiveness |
| self-esteem | one's feelings of high or low self-worth |
| self-fulfilling prophecy | a belief that leads to its own fulfillment |
| self-serving bias | a readiness to perceive oneself favorably |
| self-transcendence | according to Maslow, the striving for identity, meaning, and purpose beyond the self |
| semantic memory | explicit memory of facts and general knowledge; one of our two conscious memory systems |
| sensation | the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment |
| sensorimotor stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to nearly 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities |
| sensorineural hearing loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; the most common form of hearing loss |
| sensory (afferent) neurons | neurons that carry incoming information from the body's tissues and sensory receptors to the brain and spinal cord |
| sensory adaptation | diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation |
| sensory interaction | the principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste |
| sensory memory | the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system |
| sensory receptors | sensory nerve endings that respond to stimuli |
| sequential processing | processing one aspect of a problem at a time; generally used to process new information or to solve difficult problems |
| serial position effect | our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list |
| set point | the set point at which you "weight thermostat" may be set; when your body falls below this weight, increased hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may combine to restore lost weights |
| sex | the biologically influenced characteristics by which people define male, female, and intersex |
| sexual orientation | our enduring sexual attraction, usually toward members of our own sex, the other sex, or a combination of both |
| sexual response cycle | the four stages of sexual responding described by Masters and Johnson--excitement, plateau, organism, and resolution |
| shallow processing | encoding on a basic level, based on the structure or appearance of words |
| shaping | an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior |
| short-term memory | activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as digits of a phone number while calling, before the information is stored or forgotten |
| signal detection theory | a theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus amid background stimulation |
| skewed distribution | a representation of scores that lack symmetry around their average value |
| sleep | a periodic, natural loss of consciousness |
| sleep apnea | a sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary awakenings |
| social anxiety disorder | intense fear and avoidance of social situations |
| social clock | the culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement |
| social exchange theory | the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs |
| social facilitation | improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others |
| social identity | the "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships |
| social learning theory | the theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished |
| social loafing | the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable |
| social psychology | the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another |
| social scripts | a culturally modeled guide for how to act in various situations |
| social trap | a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior |
| social-cognitive perspective | views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits and their social context |
| social-cultural psychology | the study of how situations and cultures affect our behavior and thinking |
| social-responsibility norm | an expectation that people will help those needing their help |
| somatic nervous system | the division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body's skeletal muscles |
| somatic symptom disorder | a psychological disorder in which the symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without apparent physics |
| somatosensory cortex | an area at the from of the parietal lobes that registers and processes. body touch and movement sensations |
| source amnesia | faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined |
| spacing effect | the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention that is achieved through massed study or practice |
| supermarche | the first ejaculation |
| split brain | a condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain's two hemispheres by cutting the fibers connecting them |
| spontaneous recovery | the reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response |
| spotlight effect | overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders |
| SQ3R | a study method incorporating five steps: study, question, read, retrieve, review |
| standard deviation | a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score |
| standardization | defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group |
| Stanford-Binet | the widely used American revision of Binet's original intelligence test |
| statistical significance | a statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance |
| sterotype | a generalized belief about a group of people |
| sterotype threat | a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype |
| stimulants | drugs that excite neural activity and speed up bodily functions |
| stimulus | any event or situation that evokes a response |
| storage | the process of retaining encoded information over time |
| strange situation | a procedure for studying child-caregiver attachment; a child is placed in an unfamiliar environment while their caregiver heaves and then returns |
| stranger anxiety | the fear of strangers that infants commonly displace beginning by about 8 months of age |
| stress | the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors |
| structuralism | an early school of thought promoted by Wundt and Titchener; used introspection to reveal the structure of the human mind |
| subjective well-being | self-perceived happiness or satisfaction within life |
| subliminal | below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness |
| substance use disorder | a disorder characterized by continued substance craving and use despite significant life disruption and/or physical risk |
| superego | the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment and for future aspirations |
| superordinate goals | shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation |
| suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) | a pair of cell clusters in the hypothalamus that control circadian rhythm |
| survey | a descriptive technique for obtaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group |
| sympathetic nervous system | the division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy |
| 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/cleft |
| systematic desensitization | a type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli |
| telegraphic speech | early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram, using mostly nouns and verbs |
| temperament | a person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity |
| temporal lobes | the portion of the cerebral cortex lying roughly above the ears; includes the auditory areas, each receiving information primary from the opposite ear |
| tend-and-befriend response | under stress, people (especially women) often provide support to others (tend) and bond with and seek support from others (befriend) |
| teratogens | agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm |
| terror-management theory | a theory of death-related anxiety; explores people's emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death |
| testing effect | enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information |
| testosterone | the most important male sex hormone |
| thalamus | the brain's sensory control center, 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 |
| THC | the major active ingredient in marijuana; triggers a variety of effects, including mild hallucinations |
| Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) | a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests though the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes |
| theory | an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events |
| therapeutic alliance | a bond of trust and mutual understanding between a therapist and client, who work together constructively to overcome the client's problem |
| threshold | the level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse |
| token economy | an operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange tokens for privileges or treats |
| 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 |
| top-down processing | information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations |
| trait | a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act in certain ways, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports |
| transduction | conversion of one form of energy into another; in sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and. smells, into neural impulses our brain can interpret |
| transference | in psychoanalysis, the patient's transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships |
| transgender | an umbrella term describing people whose gender identity or expression differs from that associated with their birth-designated sex |
| two-factor theory | the Schachter-Singer theory that to experience emotion one must be physically aroused and cognitively label the arousal |
| two-word stage | beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two word statement |
| type A | Friedman and Rosenman's term for competitive hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people |
| type B | Friedman and Rosenman's term for easygoing, relaxed people |
| unconditional positive regard | a caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients develop self-awareness and self-acceptance |
| unconditioned response | an unlearned, naturally occurring response to an unconditioned stimulus |
| unconditioned stimulus | a stimulus that unconditionally--naturally and automatically--triggers an unconditioned response |
| 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 |
| validity | the extent to which a test or experiment measures or predicts what it is supposed to |
| variable | anything that can vary and is feasible and ethical to measure |
| variable-interval schedule | a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals |
| variable-ratio schedule | a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses |
| vestibular sense | our sense of body movement and position that enables our sense of balance |
| virtual reality exposure therapy | a counterconditioning technique that treats anxiety through creative electronic simulations in which people can safely face their greatest fears |
| visual cliff | a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals |
| wavelength | the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next |
| Weber's law | the principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount) |
| Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) | the WAIS and its companion versions for children are the most widely used intelligence tests; they contain verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests |
| Wernicke's area | a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe |
| withdrawl | the discomfort and distress that follow discontinuing an addictive drug or behavior |
| working memory | a newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory |
| X chromosome | the sex chromosome found in both males and females; females typically have two X chromosomes and males typically have one |
| Y chromosome | the sex chromosome typically found only in males |
| Yerkes-Dodson law | the principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases |
| Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three-color) theory | the theory that the retina contains three different types of color receptors--one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue--which, when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color |
| zygote | the fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo |
| mindfulness meditation | a reflective practice in which people attend to current experiences in a nonjudgmental and accepting manner |
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