| A | B |
|---|
| absolute threshold | the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus |
| accommodation | (1) adapting one's current understandings (schemas) to incorporate information; or (2) the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus the image of near objects on the retina |
| acetylcholine (ACh) | a neurotransmitter that, among its functions, triggers muscle contraction |
| achievement motivation | a desire for significant accomplishment: for mastery of things, people, or ideas; for attaining a high standard |
| achievement test | a test designed to assess what a person HAS LEARNED |
| acoustic encoding | ecoding of sound, especially the sound of words |
| acquisition | initial stage of learning where a response is established & gradually strengthened |
| action potential | a neural impulse; brief electrical charge that travels down an axon |
| active listening | empathetic listening: listener echoes, re-states, and clarifies |
| acuity | the sharpness of vision |
| adaptation-level phenomenon | tendency to form judgements (sounds, lights, income) relative to neutral level defined by prior experience |
| adolescence | transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence |
| adrenal glands | pair of endocrine glands just above the kidneys |
| aerobic exercise | sustained exercise that increases heart and lung fitness; may also alleviate depression & anxiety |
| aggresion | any physical/verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy |
| algorithm | methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem |
| alpha waves | relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state |
| altruism | unselfish regard for the welfare of others. |
| Alzheimer's Disease | progressive & irreversible brain disorder characterized by gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, langauge, & physical functioning |
| amnesia | the loss of memory. |
| amphetamines | drugs that stimulate neural activity, causing speeded-up body functions and associated energy and modd changes. |
| amygdala | two almond-shaped neural clusters that are components of the limbic system and are linked to emotion. |
| anorexia nervosa | an eating disorder in which a normal-weight person diets and becomes significantly underweight, yet still feeling fat continues to starve. |
| antisocial personality disorder | a personality disorder in which the person exhibits a lack of concscience for wrongdoing even towards friends and family members. May be aggresive and ruthless or a clever con artist. |
| anxiety disorders | psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent, anxiety or by maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety. |
| aphasia | impairment of language, usually caused by left hemishpere damage either to Broca's area or to Wernicke's area. |
| applied research | scientific study that aims to solve practical problems. |
| aptitude test | a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptidute is the capacity to learn. |
| artificial intelligence | the science of designing and programming computer systems to do intelligent things and to simulate human thought processes such as intuitive reasoning, learning and understanding language. |
| assimilation | intrepreting one's new experience in terms of one's existing schemas. |
| association areas | areas of the cerbral 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. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning). |
| attachment | an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on seperation |
| frontal lobe | associated with sensations of pleasure and higher thought processes, ie. abstract reasoning |
| auditory cortex | outermost layer of brain, receives sound information |
| Broca's area | left hemishere of brain having to do with motor aspects of speech, named after French surgeon |
| cortex | layer of gray matter that covers most of the surface of the brain...seat of all conscious sensations and actions, memory, the will and intelligence |
| declarative memory | type of long term memory referring to the learning of "what" ... memory for facts or general knowledge |
| episodic memory | type of long term memory that references time, such as memories of specific events, places or situations that occurred in the past |
| explicit memory | awareness of one's ability to retrieve stored information, such as a past conversation |
| implicit memory | not being aware of one's ability to call on a stored past experience, such as how to walk or reach for a book |
| semantic memory | type of long term memory that refers to knowledge, facts or meaning without any reference to when it was learned |
| Wernicke's area | area located in parietal and upper temporal cortex that deals with comprehension of language |
| attitude | a belief and feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to people, objects, and events |
| attribution theory | the theory that we tend to give a casual explanation for someone's behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition |
| audition | the sense of hearing |
| autonomic processing | unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings |
| autonomic nervous system | the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs. Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms |
| 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 (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alchohol) |
| axon | the extension of a neuron, ending in branching terminal fibers, through which messages are sent to other neurons or to muscles or glands |
| babbling stage | beginning at 3 to 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language |
| barbitudes | drugs that depress the activity to the central nervous system, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgement |
| 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 power and limits of genetic and enviornmental influences on behavior |
| behavior therapy | therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted bahaviors |
| behavioral medicine | an interdisciplinary field that integrates behavioral and medical knowledge and applies that knowledge to health and disease |
| behaviorism | the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies the behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not (2) |
| belief bias | the tendency for one's preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning, sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalid |
| belief perseverence | clining to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited |
| binocular cues | depth cues, such as retinal disparity and convergence, that depend on the use of two eyes |
| bio-psycho-social perspective | a contemporary perspective which assumes the biological, sociocultural, and psychological factors combine and interact to produce psychological disorders |
| biofeedback | a system for electronically recording, amplifying, and feeding back information regarding a subtle physiological sate, such as blood pressure or muscle tension |
| biological psychology | a branch of psychology concerned with the links between biology and bhavior |
| bipolar disorder | a mood disorder in which the person alternates between the hoplessness 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 not receptor cells are located there |
| bottom-up processing | analysis that begins with the sense receptors and works up to the brain's 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; it is responsible for autonomic survival functions |
| bulimia nervosa | an eating disorder characterized by private, "binge-purge" episodes of overeating, followed by vomiting or laxative use |
| burnout | physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion brought on by persistent job-related stress |
| bystander effect | 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 (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion |
| case study | an observation technique where one person is studied in depth in the hope of revaling universal principles |
| catharsis | emotional release. the Catharsis hypothesis maintains the "releasing" aggressive energy relieves aggressive urges |
| central nervous system (CNS) | the brain and the spinal cord |
| cerebellum | the "little brain" attached to the rear of the brainstem; it helps coordinate voluntary movement and balance |
| cerebral cortex | the intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells that covers the cerebral hemispheres; the body's ultimate control and information-processing center |
| chromosomes | threadlike structures made of DNA molecules that contain the genes |
| chunking | organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically |
| circadian rhythm | the biological clock; regular body rhythms that occur on a 24-hour cycle |
| classical conditioning | a type of learning in which an organism comes to associate simuli. A neutral stimulus thatsignals an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) begins to produce a response that anticipates and prepares for the unconditioned stimulus |
| clinical psychology | a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders |
| cochlea | a coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses |
| cognition | (1) all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering. (2) the mental activity associated with processing, understanding, and communicating information |
| cognitive dissonance theory | the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when 2 of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent |
| cognitive map | a mental representation of the layout of one's enviornment |
| cognitive therapy | therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions |
| 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 havng consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the objec |
| companionate love | the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined |
| concept | a mental grouping of similar objects, events, or people |
| concrete operational stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 yars old) during which children gain the mental operations that enable tem to think logically about concrete events |
| conditioned response (CR) | in classical conditioning, the learned response to a previously neutral conditioned stimulus |
| conditioned stimulus (CS) | in classical conditioning, an originally neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), comes to trigger a conditoned response |
| conduction deafness | hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea |
| cones | receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight. The cones detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations |
| confirmation bias | a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions |
| conflict | a percieved incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas |
| conformity | adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard |
| consciousness | our awareness of ourselves and our enviornments |
| conservation | the principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects |
| content validity | the extent to ehich a test samples the behavior that is of interest |
| continuous reinforcement | reinforcing the desired respose every time it occurs |
| control condition | the codition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental treatment and serves as a comparison for evaluating the the effect of the treatment |
| convergence | a binocular cue for percieving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object |
| coronary heart disease | the clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; the leading cause of death in the US |
| corpus callosum | the largest bundle of neural fibers connceting the 2 brain hemispheres and carrying mesages between them |
| correlation | a statistical measure that indicates the extent to which 2 factors vary together and thus how well either factor predicts the other |
| counterconditioning | a behavior therapy procedure that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors; based on classical conditioning |
| creativity | the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas |
| criterion | the behavior that a test is designed to predict; thus, the measure used in defining whether the test has predictive validity |
| critical period | an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development |
| critical thinking | thinking that doesn't blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions |
| cross-sectional study | a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another |
| crystallized intelligence | one's accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tend to increase with age |
| CT (computed tomograph) scan | a series of x-ray photographs taken from different angles and combined by computer into a composite representation of a slice through the body |
| culture | the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next |
| defense mechanism | 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 subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience |
| delta waves | the large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep |
| delusions | false beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders |
| dendrite | the bushy, branching extensions of a neuron that recieve messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body |
| dependent variable | the experimental factor that is being measured; the variable that mey change in response to manipulations of the independent variable |
| depressants | drugs that reduce neural activity and slow body functions |
| depth perception | the ability to see object in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance |
| developmental psychology | a barnch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span |
| difference threshold | the minimum difference that a subject can detect between 2 stimuli 50% of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticable difference |
| discrimination | in classical conditioning, the ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that don't signal an unconditioned stimulus |
| displacement | defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet |
| dissociation | a split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously with others |
| dissociative amnesia | loss of memory; selective memory loss often brought on by extreme stress |
| dissociative disorders | disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings |
| dissociative fugue | a dissociative disorder in which flight from one's home and identity accompanies amnesia |
| dissociative identity disorder | a rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities |
| 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 subject and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the subject has recieved the treatment or a placebo |
| Down syndrome | a condition of retardation and associated physical disorders caused by an extra chromosome in one's genetic makeup |
| drive-reduction theory | the idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need |
| DSM-IV | The american Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders |
| dualism | the presumption that mind and body and two ditinct entities that interact |
| echoic memory | a momentary sensory memory 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, depending on the client's problems, uses or integrates tecniques from various forms of therapy |
| effortful processing | encoding that requires attention and conscious effort |
| ego | the largely conscious, "executive" part of the personality that, according to Freud, mediates among demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain |
| egocentrism | in Piaget's theory, the inability of the preoperational child to take another's point of view |
| electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) | a biomedical therap for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient |
| electroencephalogram (EEG) | an amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity that sweeps across the brain's surface |
| embryo | the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month |
| emotional intelligence | the ability to percieve, express, understand, and regulate emotions |
| empirically derived test | a test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups |
| encoding | the processing of information into the memory system |
| endocrine system | the body's "slow" chemical communication system; a set of glands that secrete the hormones into the bloddstream |
| endorphins | "morphine within"-natural, opiatelike neurotransmitters linked to pain control and pleasure |
| equity | a condition in which people recieve from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it |
| estrogen | a sex hormone, secreted in greater amounts by females than by males. In nonhuman female mammals, estrogen levels peak during ovulation, promoting sexual receptivty |
| evolutionary psychology | the study of the evolution of behavior using the principles af natural selection, which presumable favors behavior tendancies that contribute to the preservation and spread of one's genes |
| experiment | a research method in which the investigator manipulates one or more factors to observe their effect on some behavior or mental process while controlling other relevant factors by random assignment of subjects |
| experimantal condition | the condition of an experiment that exposes subjects to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable |
| explicit memory | memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare" |
| external loss of control | the perception that chance or outside forces beyond one's personal control determine one's fate |
| extinction | the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) doesn't follow a conditiond stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced |
| extrasensory perception (ESP) | the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory output. Said to include telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition |
| extrinsic motivation | a desire to perorm a behavior due to promised rewards or threats of punishment |
| factor analysis | a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie one's total score |
| false consensus effect | the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors |
| family therapy | therapy that treats the family as a system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by or directed at other family members; encourages family members toward positive relationships and improved communication |
| fantasy-prone personality | someone who imagines and recalls experiences with lifelike vividness and who spends considerable time fantasizing |
| farsightedness | a condition in which faraway objects are seen more clearly than near objects because the image of near objects is focused behind the retina |
| feature detectors | nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, and movement |
| feel-good, do-good phenomenon | people's tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood |
| fetal-alchohol syndrome (FAS) | physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases, syptoms include noticable facial misproportions |
| 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 | the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an impediment to problem solving |
| fixed-interval schedule | in operant conditioning, a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response only after a specific time has elapsed |
| fixed-ratio schedule | in operant conditioning, a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response only after a specific number of responses |
| flashbulb memory | a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event |
| fluid intelligence | one's ability to reason speadily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood |
| 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 (normally beginning about age 12) 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 framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments |
| fraternal twins | twins who develop from seperate zygotes. They are genetically no closer than brothers and sisters , but they share the fetal environment |
| free association | in psychoanalysis, a method of explorng 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 | in hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch |
| 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 |
| functional fixedness | the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving |
| fundamental attribution error | the tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overcome the impact of personal disposition |
| gate-control theory | theory that hte spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. |
| gender | in psychology, the characteristics, whether biologically or socially influenced, by which people define male and female |
| gender identity | one's sense of being male or female |
| gender role | a set of expected behaviors for males and for females |
| gender schema theory | the theory that children learn from their cultures a concept of what it means to be male and female and that they adjust their behavior accordingly |
| gender-typing | the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role |
| general adaption syndrome | Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress as composed of three stages--alarm, resistance, exhaustion |
| general intelligence | a general intelligence factor that Spearman and others believed underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intellignece test |
| generalization | the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to evoke 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; a segment of DNAa capable of synthesizing a protein |
| gestalt | an organized whole; these psychologists emphasize our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes |
| Gestalt therapy | developed by Fritz Perls; combines the psychoanalytic emphasis on bringing unconscious feelings to awareness and the humanistic emphasis on getting "in touch with oneself" |
| glial cells | cells in the nervous sytem that are not neurons but that support, nourish, and protect neurons |
| glucose | the form of sugar that cirvulates in the blood and provides the major source of energy for body tissues. When its level is low, we feel hunger |
| grammar | a system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand others |
| GRIT | Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction--a strategy designed to decrease international tensions |
| grouping | the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups |
| group polarization | the enhancement of a group's prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group |
| 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 stimulation |
| hallucinations | false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus |
| hallucinogens | psychedelic ("mind-manifesting") 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 |
| heritability | the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes |
| heuristic | a rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms |
| hidden observer | Hilgard's term describing a hypnotized subject's awareness of experiences, such as pain, that go unreported during hypnosis |
| 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 |
| 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 that helps process explicit memories for storage |
| 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, mostly those manufactured by the endocrine glands, that are produced in one tissue and affect another |
| hospice | an organization whose largely volunteer staff provides support for dying people and their families either in special facilities or in people's own homes |
| 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 |
| 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 endocrine system via the pituitary gland, and is linked to emotion |
| hypothesis | a testable prediction, often implied by a theory |
| iconic memory | a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second |
| id | a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. It operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification |
| identical twins | twins who develop from a single zygote that splits in two, creating two genetic replicas |
| identification | the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos |
| identity | one's sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent's task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles |
| illusory correlation | the perception of a relationship where none exists |
| imagery | mental pictures; a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding |
| implicit memory | retention without conscious recollection |
| imprinting | the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life |
| incentive | a positive or negative environmental stimulus that moderates behavior |
| independent variable | the experimental factor that is 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/organizational psychology | a subfield of psychology that studies and advises on workplace behavior |
| informational social influence | influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality |
| ingroup bias | the tendency to favor one's own group |
| inner ear | the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs |
| insight | a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions |
| insomnia | a sleep disorder involving recurring problems in falling or staying asleep |
| instinct | a complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned |
| intelligence | the capacity for goal-directed and adaptive behavior. Involves the abilities to profit from experience, solve problems, and reason effectively |
| intelligence quotient | defined originally as the tratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100 |
| intelligence test | a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them to those of others, using numerical scores |
| intensity | the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude |
| internal locus of control | the perception that one controls one's own fate |
| interneurons | central nervous system neurons that internally communicate and intervene between the sensory inputs and motor outputs |
| interposition | a monocular cue for perceiving distance; we perceive an object partially blocking our view of another object as more distant |
| interpretation | in psychoanalysis, the analyst's noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors in order to promote insight |
| intimacy | in Erikson's theory, the ability to form a close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in late adolescence and early adulthood |
| intrinsic motivation | a desire to perform a behavior for its own sake and to be effective |
| 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 emotion-arousing stimuli |
| just-world phenomenon | the tendency of people to believe the world is just and that the people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get |
| kinesthesis | the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts |
| language | our spoken, written, or gestural words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning |
| latent content | according to Freud, the underlying but censored meaning of a dream (as distinct from its manifest content) |
| latent learning | learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it |
| law of effect | Thorndike's principal 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 human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events |
| learning | a relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience |
| lens | the transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to focus images on the retina |
| lesion | tissue destruction |
| limbic system | a doughnut-shaped system of neural structures at the border of the brainstem and cerebral hemispheres; associated with emotions such as fear and aggression and drives such as those for food and sex |
| linear perspective | a monocular cue for perceiving distance; we perceive the converging of what we know to be parallel lines as indicating increasing distance |
| linguistic relativity | Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think |
| lithium | a chemical that provides an effective drug therapy for the mood swings of bipolar disorders |
| lobotomy | a now-rare psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. The procedure cut the nerves that connect the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain |
| longitudinal study | research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period |
| long-term memory | the relatively permanent and limitless store-house of the memory system |
| long-term potentiation | anincrease in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory |
| LSD | a powerful hallucinogenic drug; also known as acid |
| lymphocytes | the two types of white blood cells that are part of the body's immune system |
| major depressive disorder | a mood disorder in which a persom, for no apparent reason, experiences two or more weeks of depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished interest or pleasure in most activities |
| mania | a mood disorder marked by a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state |
| manifest content | according to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream |
| maturation | biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience |
| medical model | the concept that diseases have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and, in most cases, cured |
| medulla | the base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat and breathing |
| memory | the persistence of learning over time via the storage and retrieval of information |
| menarche | the first menstrual period |
| menopause | the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines |
| mental age | a measure of intellegence test performance devised by Binet: the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. |
| mental retardation | a condition of limites mental ability as indicated by an intelligence score below 7, that produces difficulty in adapting to the demandsof life. |
| mental set | a tendency to approach a problem in a particular way. |
| mere exposure effect | the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them |
| meta-analysis | a procedure for statistically combinig the results of many different research studies |
| metabolic rate | the body's base rate of energy expendenture |
| middle ear | the chamber between the eardrum and the cochlea containing three bones (hammer, anvil, stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window |
| Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) | the most widely esearched and clinically used of all personality tests |
| misinformation effect | incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event |
| mnemonics | memory aids |
| modeling | the process of observing and imitating a behavior |
| monism | the presumption that mind and body are different aspects of the same thing |
| monocular cues | distance cues, such as linear perspective and overlap, available to either eye alone |
| mood-congruent memory | the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood. |
| mood disorders | psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes |
| morpheme | in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word |
| motivation | a need or desire that energizes and direct behavior |
| motor cortex | an area at the reatr of the frontal lobes that controls voluntray movements |
| motor neurons | the neurons that carry outgoing information from the central nervous system to the muscles and glands |
| MRI | a technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated images that distinguish among different types of soft tissue; allows us to see structures of the brain |
| myelin sheath | a layer of fatty cells segmentally encasing the fibers of many neurons; makes possible vastly greater transmission speed of neural impulses |
| narcolepsy | a sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks. |
| naturalistic observation | observing and recording behavior in naturally occuring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation |
| nature-nurture issue | the longstanding controvery 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 |
| nearsightedness | a condition in which nearby objects are seen more clearly than distant objects because the lens focuses the image of distant objects in front of the retina |
| nerve defness | hearing loss caused by damage tot he cochlea's receptor cells or the auditory nerves |
| nerves | neural "cables" containing many axons |
| nervous system | the body's speedy, electrochemical communication system, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous systems |
| neural networks | interconnected neural cells |
| neural networks | computer circuits that momoc the brain's interconnected neural cells, performing tasks such as learning to recognize visual patterns and smell |
| neuron | a nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system |
| neurotic disorder | a psychological disorder that is usually distressing but that allows one to think rationally and function socially |
| neurotransmitters | chemical messengers that traverse the synaptic gaps between neurons |
| night terrors | a sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified; unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during Stage 4 sleep, within 2 or 3 hours of falling asleep, and are seldom remembered |
| norm | an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior |
| normal curve | the symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many ohysical and psychological attributes |
| normative social influence | influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval |
| object permanence | the awarenedd that thing continue to exist even when not perceived |
| observational learning | learning by observing and imitating the behavior of others |
| obsessive-compulsive disorder | an anxiety disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts and/or actions |
| occipital lobes | the portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head; includes the visual areas |
| Oedipus complex | according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father |
| 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 conditioning | a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by reinforcement of diminished if followed by punishment |
| operational definition | a statement of the procedures used to define research variables |
| opiates | opium and its derivatives, such as morphine and heroin; they depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety |
| opponeny-process theory | the theory that opposing retinal processes enable color vision |
| optic nerve | the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye tot he brain |
| overconfidence | the tendency to be more confident than correct-to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs and judgments |
| overjustification effect | the effect of promising a reward for doing what one already likes to do |
| panic disorder | an anxiety disorder marked by a minutes-long episode of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying cheat pain, choking, or other frightening sensations |
| parallel processing | processing several aspects of a problem simultaneously |
| parapsychology | the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis |
| parasympathetic nervous system | the division of the sutonomic nervous system that calms tha body, conserving its energy |
| parietal lobes | the portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top of the head and toward the rear; includes the sensory cortex |
| partial reinforcement | reinforcing a response only part of the tune |
| passtionate love | an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship |
| perception | the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events |
| perceptual adaption | in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificiallly 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 the another |
| peripheral nervous system (PNS) | the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body |
| personal control | our sense of controlling our environments rather than feeling helpless |
| personal space | the buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies |
| person-centered therapy | a humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting, empathetic environment to facilitate clients' growth |
| personality | an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting |
| personality disorders | osychological disorders characterized bu inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning |
| personality inventory | a questionaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits |
| PET | 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 succession |
| phobia | an anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object or situation |
| phoneme | in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit |
| physical dependence | a physiological need for a drug, marked by unpleasant withdrawl symptoms when the drug is discontinued |
| pitch | a tone's highness or lowness; depends on frequency |
| pituitary gland | the endocrine system's most influential gland |
| place theory | in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated |
| placebo | an inert substance or condition that may be administered instead of presumed active agent, such as a drug , to see if it triggers the effects believed to characterize the active agent |
| plasticity | the brain's capacity for modification, as evident in brain reorganization following damage and in experiments on the effects of experience on brain development |
| polygrapy | a machine, commonly used in attempts to detect lies, that measures several of the physiological responses accompanying emotion |
| population | all the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for study |
| posthypnotic amnesia | supposed inability to recall what one experienced during hypnosis; included by the hypnotist's suggestion |
| posthypnotic suggestion | a suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carries out after the subject is no longer hypnotized, used by some cliniciand to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors |
| preconscious | information that is not conscious, but is retrievable into conscious awareness |
| 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 |
| preoperational stage | stage during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic |
| primary reinforcer | an inately reinforcing stimulus |
| primary sex characteristics | the body structures that make sexual reproduction possible |
| priming | the activation of particular associations in memory |
| projection | the disruptive effect of people disguise their own threatening impulses by attrubuting them to others |
| proactive interference | the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall on new information |
| projective test | a personality test that provides ambiguoud stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics |
| prosocial behavior | positive, constructive, helpful behavior |
| prototype | the best example of a category |
| psychiatry | a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians |
| psychoactive drug | a chemical substance that alters perceptions and mood |
| psychoanalysis | Freud's theraputic technique |
| psychological dependence | a psychological need to use a drug, such as a need to relieve negative emotions |
| psychological disorder | a condition in which behavior is judged atypical, disturbing, maladaptive, and unjustifiable |
| psychology | the science of behavior and mental processes |
| psychopharmacology | the study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior |
| psychophysics | the study os relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them |
| psychophysiological illness | literally, "mind-body" illness; any stress-related physical illness, such as hypertension and headaches |
| psychosexual stages | the childhood stages of development during which 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 | an emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and someone who suffers from psychological difficulties |
| psychotic disorder | a psychological disorder in which a person loses contact wtih reality, experiencing irrational ideas and distorted perceptions |
| puberty | the period of sexual maturation, during which one first becomes capable of reproducing |
| punishment | an aversive event that decrease the behavior that is follows |
| pupil | the adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters |
