Intro to Anthropology, Psychology and Sociology Definitions

Ethnocentric

Believing that one's own culture is superior to all others.

Extrinsic Motivation

Desire to perform a task due to external factors, such as a reward or the threat of punishment.

Intrinsic Motivation

Desire to perform a task for its own sake.

Group-based identity

The development of self-concept and identity through membership in a social group with whom the individual shares similar values and beliefs.

Defense Mechanism

The ego's way of distorting reality to deal with anxiety.

Role

The expected behaviour of a person in a particular social position.

Drive-reduction Theory

The idea that our physiological needs create drives that need to be reduced, which motivated us to satisfy this need.

Objective

Type of conclusions based on facts and data uninfluenced by personal perspectives, prejudices, or emotions.

Subjective

Type of conclusions shaped by a person's cultural and personal perspective, feelings, and beliefs.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD)

Type of disorder characterized by the reliving of a traumatic event through flashbacks and nightmares.

Archetypes

Universal symbols that tend to reappear over time; includes models of people, behaviours, and personalities.

Culturally Constructed

created or shaped by culture

Potlatch

A sacred ceremony of First Nations people on the Northwest coast of North America in which property is given away to enhance status.

Collective Unconscious

The shared, inherited pool of memories of our ancestors.

Displacement

The shift of an emotion from its original focus to another object, person, or situation.

Primary group

A set of people with whom an individual has strong emotional and personal connections.

Subculture

A small group within a larger group who shares a common system of values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, and lifestyle distinct from those of the larger group.

Agents of Socialization

People and institutions that shape an individual's social development.

Placemakers

People who access the Internet in public to create social interactions.

True mobiles

People who access the Internet in public to specifically avoid social interactions.

Self-actualization

Reaching one's full potential; occurs only after basic physical and psychological needs are met.

Extinction

In operant conditioning, the diminishing of a conditioned response due to lack of reinforcement.

Stigma

A belief that leads to social disgrace.

Analytical Psychology

A branch of psychology founded by Carl Jung, based on the idea that balancing a person's psyche would allow the person to reach his or her full potential.

Psychotic disorder

A broad term that indicates severe mental disorder characterized by a break from reality.

Individualistic Society

A community based on the belief that individual rights and the freedom of the individual to pursue his or her own happiness are more important than the interests of the group.

Projection

A defence mechanism whereby a person attributes their own threatening impulses onto someone else.

Denial

A defence mechanism whereby a person refuses to recognize or acknowledge something that is painful.

Social Shield

A device or object used to avoid interactions with other people.

Mob

A disorderly crowd of people.

Horticultural

A form of semi-nomadic agriculture.

Hominin

A human or human ancestor.

Secondary Group

A large, impersonal gathering of people in which members' roles are measured by their contributions to a common goal or purpose.

Free Association

A method used in psychoanalysis where a patient relaxes and says whatever comes to mind.

Repression

A process in which unacceptable desires or impulses are excluded from consciousness and left to operate in the unconscious.

Radiometric Dating

A process that is used to determine the age of an object, based on measuring the amount of radioactive material it has.

Unconditioned stimulus

A stimulus that naturally triggers a response.

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder(ADHD)

A type of developmental disorder characterized by inattention, impulsiveness, and overactivity.

Operant conditioning

A type of learning that uses rewards and punishment to achieve a desired behaviour.

Classical Conditioning

A type of learning where a once neutral stimulus comes to produce a particular response after pairings with a conditioned stimulus.

Deviance

A violation of society's norms and accepted standards.

Macrosociology

An approach of sociology that analyzes social systems on a large scale.

Psychodynamic Theory

An approach to therapy that focuses on resolving a patient's conflicted conscious and unconscious feelings.

Redistribution

An economic system of collecting resources centrally and handing them out among members of a society.

Reciprocity

An economic system of formal and informal sharing among members of a society to distribute resources fairly.

Personality

An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Conditioned stimuli

An originally neutral stimulus that comes to trigger a conditioned response after being paired with an unconditional stimulus.

Phobia

Anxiety about a specific object, activity, or situation.

Introversion

Directing one's interests inward.

Extroversion

Directing one's interests outward, especially toward social contacts.

Norms

Expectations about how people should behave.

Id

Freud's term for the instinctual part of the mind, which operates on the pleasure principle.

Superego

Freud's term for the moral centre of the mind.

Ego

Freud's term for the rational part of the mind, which operates on the reality principle.

Unconscious

Information processing in our mind that we are not aware of; according to Freud, it holds our unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and memories; according to Jung, it includes patterns of memories, instincts, and experiences common to all.

Conscious

Information that we are always aware of; our conscious mind performs that thinking when we take in new information.

Heredity

Physical characteristics and aspects of personality and behaviour that are passed down genetically from your relatives.

Neo-Freudians

Psychologists who modifies Freud's psychoanalytic theory to include social and cultural aspects.

Values

Shared ideas and standards that are considered acceptable and binding.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Sigmund Freud's theory that all human behaviour is influenced by early childhood and that childhood experiences influence the unconscious mind throughout life.

Culture

Sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to the next.

Positivism

The application of the scientific method to obtain quantifiable data in order to understand society.

Role Identity

The behaviour an individual displays in order to fulfill expectations of a specific role.

Attribution Theory

The belief that a person's behaviour is the result of his or her disposition or an external situation.

Personality View of Behaviour

The belief that the individual shows consistency in behaviour from one situation to another.

Situation View of Behaviour

The belief that the individual's behaviour changes from encounter to encounter.

Self-enhancement

The belief that you are more competent and generally better than your actions and behaviour indicate.

Conditioned response

The learned response to a previously neutral stimulus.

Cognition

The mental processes in the brain associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering.

Unconditioned response

The natural response to an unconditioned stimulus.

Reflexivity

The practice of reflecting on your own world view, biases, and impact on the culture you are studying.

Globalization

The process by which economies, societies, and cultures become integrated through a worldwide network.

Resocialization

The process by which negative behaviour is transformed into socially acceptable behaviour.

Secondary Socialization

The process of learning how to behave appropriately in group situations.

Anticipatory Socialization

The process of learning how to plan the way you behave in new situations.

Primary socialization

The process of learning the basic skills needed to survive in society.

Microsociology

The study of small groups and individuals within society.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overestimate the impact of personal disposition and underestimate the impact of social influences when analyzing the behaviours of others.

Negative Bias

The tendency to recall and react to unpleasant events more easily than positive ones.

Instinct theory

The theory that involuntary and unlearned processes direct our behaviours.

Cognitive Dissonance

The theory that people are motivated to reduce the discomfort they feel when their behaviour doesn't match their attitude.

Wage Labour

Work for which wages are paid.