Senior Sem Final

Ingroup bias

This is the term for our tendency to rate our own groups more favorably than groups we aren't part of, even when we know nothing about the other group

Peripheral route

This is the term for persuasion that is the result of humor, attractiveness of the source, or simple heuristics

Hawthorne effect

This is the term for tendency for participants' motivation to increase when they know they are being studied

convergent

This is the type of validity you establish by showing that your measure correlates with another measure of the same concept

Empathy

This is what the EQ scale measures - autistics and sociopaths produce the lowest scores

Multivariate

This is what the M stands for in MANOVA

Thanatophobia

This is what you have if you fear death

Mediating variable

This kind of variable helps explain why the effect occurs

Modering variable

This kind of variable is one that helps identify when an effect will occur

Central route

This method focuses on facts and the content of the message in order to convince the listener, as opposed to relying on peripheral factors like the personality of the speaker, or how the message was delivered. For example, a TV ad that presents laboratory findings to demonstrate the effectiveness of an acne treatment would be using this, as opposed to one that only uses a celebrity endorser. This method of persuasion works best when the facts presented are strong, the topic is relevant to the listener, and the audience is motivated to listen. Successful use of this results in long-lasting and enduring attitude change in the listener.

Antidepressants

Tofranil, Zoloft and Prozac are all in this class of drugs

substantia nigra

black substance

tabula rasa

blank-slate

extrinsic motivation

writes music to sell for profit

Machiavellianism scale

-Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so. -The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear. -One should take action only when sure it is morally right. (r) -Most people are basically good and kind. (r) -It is safest to assume that all people have a vicious streak and it will come out when they are given a chance. -Honesty is the best policy in all cases. (r) -There is no excuse for lying to someone else. (r) -It is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there. -All in all, it is better to be humble and honest than important and dishonest. (r) -When you ask someone to do something for you, it is best to give the real reasons for wanting it rather than giving reasons that carry more weight. (r) -Most people who get ahead in the world lead clean, moral lives. (r) -Anyone who completely trusts anyone else is asking for trouble. -The biggest difference between most criminals and other people is that criminals are stupid enough top get caught. -Most men are brave. (r) -It is wise to flatter important people. -It is possible to be good in all respects. (r) -Barnum was very wrong when he said that there's a sucker born every minute. (r) -Generally speaking, men won't work hard unless they're forced to do so. -People suffering from incurable diseases should have the choice of being put painlessly to death. -Most men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their property.

William Wundt

1910

Biopsychology

5th perspective

True

A separate title page is required for a research paper

1879

Birth year of psychology

Lightner Witmer

Clinical psychology, opened the first psychology clinic at the University of PA

Panic Disorder

Closely correlated with agoraphobia

Gardner

Cognitive

Brain stem

Consists of the medulla, pons, and midbrain

Attitude inoculation

Developed by William McGuire

Amygdala

Emotion (especially fear)

EQ

Emotional Quotient (EQ) is the emotional equivalent of an IQ or the individual's skill level at reading, understanding, and empathizing with the emotions of others. All of us have known in our lives people who are very empathetic and easy to talk to--these people have a high EQ. We all have also met people who are self-centered and "clueless" when it comes to other people's feelings--these people would be considered to have a low EQ.

Activation-synthesis theory

First proposed by Harvard University psychiatrists John Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley in 1977

Margaret Washburn

First women to receive a PhD in psychology

phrenology

Franz Joseph Gall

Type A

Friedman and Rosenman conducted studies on the relationship between stress and heart disease. One of the outcomes was the discovery of Type A and Type B personalities. People who are classified as having Type A personality have characteristisc like: they have a sense of time urgency, find it difficult to relax, and often become impatient and angry when they get delayed (or if they are going to be late) or are around other people whom they view as incompetent. They are the opposite of Type B people.

Type B

Friedman and Rosenman conducted studies on the relationship between stress and heart disease. One of the outcomes was the discovery of Type A and Type B personalities. People who are classified as having Type B personality are better at relaxing without feeling guilty and working without becoming anxious or agitated. Some of the other characteristics include being more relaxed about time (they don't get overly stressed about being late), and are not easily angered. You probably know people who just seemed to be relaxed people who don't get angry often (they roll with the punches well)...these are the characteristics of a Type B. They are the opposite of Type A people.

Type A

Friedman and Rosenman conducted studies on the relationship between stress and heart disease. One of the outcomes was the discovery of this. People who are classified as having this personality have characteristisc like: they have a sense of time urgency, find it difficult to relax, and often become impatient and angry when they get delayed (or if they are going to be late) or are around other people whom they view as incompetent.

Type B

Friedman and Rosenman conducted studies on the relationship between stress and heart disease. One of the outcomes was the discovery this. People who are classified as having this personality are better at relaxing without feeling guilty and working without becoming anxious or agitated. Some of the other characteristics include being more relaxed about time (they don't get overly stressed about being late), and are not easily angered. You probably know people who just seemed to be relaxed people who don't get angry often (they roll with the punches well)...these are the characteristics of this

Hypothalamus

From the Greek for under chamber, this is a key player in the "four Fs"

Placebo

From the Latin word for "I please" this refers to a study condition intended to deceive the recipient, usually into thinking they are receiving the treatment

Phrenology

Function is localized & complex functions like personality traits can be assessed by measuring bumps on the head

Personal construct theory

George Kelly

Kurt Lewin

German found of Social psychology and group dynamics, action research

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Get out of my way, you peasant. And bow.

Cardinal Trait

Gordon Allport

Rene Descartes

His view stated that the one essential ability that humans have but dogs not is thought

Impulsivity

Is the tendency to act without thinking

Cerebral cortex

It is divisible into two hemispheres (left and right) and each hemisphere is divisible into four lobes (occipital, temporal, parietal, and frontal

Kurt Lewin

Known as the father of social psychology, he is also known for his famous study of leadership styles

Oscar Wilde

Known for his biting wit and flamboyant dress, this Irish writer who penned the novel Portrait of Dorian Gray and the play Importance of Being Earnest died of meningitis in 1900

Wundt

Mentored psychology's first official graduate students

MAOI

Monoamine oxidase

standard deviation

Other than the mean, this is the most commonly used descriptive statistic

Preoperational stage

Piaget's stage 2; Age 2 to 7 Years

Immanuel Kant

Priori and posteriori knowledge

Chi square

Probability that exists when rolling one die

Restless leg syndrome

RLS

Type 1 error

Reject the null hypothesis even if it's true

New York

Research on helping was stimulated by the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in this U.S. state

Interval

Temperature and calendars

Depressive realism

Tendency for clinically depressed people to be more accurate in their self-ratings

Openness to experience

The Big Five dimension most closely associated with IQ scores

Serotonin

The drugs most frequently prescribed for both depression and panic disorder act on this neurotransmitter

Basal ganglia

The large masses of gray matter in the brain that lie on each side of the thalamus

Demand characteristics

These are hints as to a study's hypothesis that participants notice - and they're a bad thing

MAO

They are found bound to the outer membrane of mitochondria in most cell types in the body

Outlier

This is the statistical term for a data point that is distant from other observations

Histogram

This type of chart depicts frequency distributions

motor coordination

What do REM and Parkinson's have in common?

Rosenthal

Which was Clever Hans influenced by

Companionate love

a deep, mature, affectionate attachment between people who love each other, like each other, and respect each other.

MRI

a noninvasive test that uses a strong magnetic field and radio waves to create detailed images of the body

arcuate nucleus

a nucleus (cluster of neural cell bodies) in the hypothalamus of the brain that plays a critical role in the control of appetite

illness anxiety disorder

aka hypochondriasis

Cerebrum

associated with higher brain function such as thought and action

Caudal

at or near the tail or the posterior part of the body

Broca's aphasia

can only produce small words

Alcoholics Anonymous

closely modeled after the conditions for making a good Confession in the Catholic Church

Antipsychotic drugs

clozapine, olanzapine, quetiapine and risperidone are in this category - clozapine is the most effective of them

Power bases

coercive, reward, legitimate, referent, and expert.

Self-efficacy

coined by Albert Bandura is a person's belief in his or her ability to complete a future task or solve a future problem. For example, if a person believes he is a brilliant scientist and can complete any scientific experiment, he has a high this in science because he believes in his competency to perform a future experiment. Whether it is true that he is brilliant in science or not doesn't really matter. It only matters what he believes.

standard deviation

common measure of variability

moderating variable

commonly denoted as just M, is a third variable that affects the strength of the relationship between a dependent and independent variable In correlation

dermatillomania

compulsive skin picking

Margaret Washburn

conducted extensive research on animal behavior and motor development

Cranial nerves

control special sensations as well as sensory & motor functions for head & neck

dualism

each human being consists of two distinct but intimately conjoined entities, a material body and an immaterial soul

degrees of freedom

each of a number of independently variable factors affecting the range of states in which a system may exist, in particular.

John Dewey

education

John Dewey

educational point of view, this means that students must interact with their environment in order to adapt and learn.

humanistic therapy

emphasizing the client's own constructions on his or her reality

John Locke

empiricism

Psychodynamic perspective

first force in psychology

G Stanley Hall

first person to earn a PhD of psychology in the US

inferential statistics

help researchers decide how confident they can be in judging that the results observed are not due to chance

Set Point Theory

holds that one's body will fight to maintain that weight range.

Kahneman

human decision making

central state theory

hunger and sex... different drives so the neural circuits for them cannot be identical

central state theory

hypothalamus is the hub of many drive systems

Identity theory

individuals form self-conceptions that are based on two parts: 1) personal or self identity, and 2) collective identity

Corpus callosum

integrates motor, sensory, and cognitive performances between the cerebral cortex on one side of the brain to the same region on the other side.

Activation-synthesis theory

is a neurobiological theory of dreams.

RLS

is a neurological disorder and a sleep disorder, a condition that causes tingling, twitching, "creepy-crawly" feelings in the legs.

substantia nigra

is a nucleus in the midbrain that is considered part of the basal ganglia

validity

it measures what it is supposed to measure

p-value

level of significance

Conflict spiral

llustrates how conflict can spiral out of control, causing people to feel as though there are no solutions

Behavioral genetics

looks at nonhuman animals and human twin pairs

tegmentum

motor component of the midbrain

Efferent neurons

motor neurons that carry neural impulses away from the central nervous systme and towards muscles to cause movement

Basal ganglia

nucleus accumbens

p-value

or calculated probability, is the probability of finding the observed, or more extreme, results when the null hypothesis (H 0) of a study question is true - the definition of 'extreme' depends on how the hypothesis is being tested.

cerebellum

part of the hindbrain: coordination, balance & learning

John Dewey

pragmatism

G Stanley Hall

president of Clark University

p

probability

tegmentum

process sensory inputs and produce orienting movemets (e.g., moving your head to a sound)

cerebrospinal fluid

produced by the choroid plexus of each ventricle?

Nucleus accumbens

rat study of pressing bar, they kept pushing it

dizygotic

refers to the conception of fraternal (non-identical) twins

Attitude ambivalence

refers to the ratio of positive and negative evaluations that make up that attitude. The ambivalence of an attitude increases as the positive and negative evaluations get more and more equal.

Helping

refers to voluntary actions intended to help the others, with reward regarded or disregarded

Midbrain

region of the developing vertebrate brain that is composed of the tectum and tegmentum

Phrenology

the detailed study of the shape and size of the cranium as a supposed indication of character and mental abilities

subcortical structures

the limbic system, the diencephalon, and the ventricles

scarcity

the state of being scarce or in short supply; shortage.

phrenology

theory based on the assumption that bumps on the skull reflect a person's character or personality traits

Opponent Process

theory suggested by Solomon

Humoral theory

was a model for the workings of the human body

Dependent personality disorder

Individuals with this disorder have problems with work and social situations and need their caretakers close in order to feel comfortable. Children with chronic illness or separation issues are more likely to develop dependent personality disorder in adulthood.

Oral stage

Mouth oriented- such as sucking, biting, and breastfeeding

Paul Elkman

Pancultural (cross-cultural)

Anxious avoidant insecure attachment

Tends to ignore the caregiver, sometimes almost completely. The child may have little or no interest in exploring the area or having any interaction with them. Comes from mom being disengaged and emotionally detached from the child

Interaction

Term for an effect that involves one IV determining the influence of another IV

Dissociative Disorder

The DSM criteria for this are: 1. The main disturbance is sudden, unexpected travel away from home or one's customary place of work, with inability to recall one's past. 2. Confusion about personal identity or assumption of a new identity (partial or complete). 3. The disturbance does not occur exclusively during the course of Dissociative Identity Disorder and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (for example, a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (for example, temporal lobe epilepsy). 4. The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Machiavellianism

psychology refers to a personality trait which sees a person so focused on their own interests they will manipulate, deceive, and exploit others to achieve their goals.

Anticonformity

rebellion against group norms for it's own sake

Somatosensory cortex

receives all sensory input from the body

Receptors

receiving messages from substances in the bloodstream and then telling the cells what to do

Influence principles

reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity

double-blind experiment

reduces demand biases by withholding info from both the participant and the researcher

nonparametirc tests

refer to a statistical method wherein the data is not required to fit a normal distribution. Nonparametric statistics uses data that is often ordinal, meaning it does not rely on numbers, but rather a ranking or order of sorts

order effect

refer to differences in research participants' responses that result from the order (e.g., first, second, third) in which the experimental materials are presented to them. Order effects can occur in any kind of research.

reverse cause

refers either to a direction of cause-and-effect contrary to a common presumption or to a two-way causal relationship in, as it were, a loop.

Machiavellianism

refers to a personality type that does not choose to be, but simply is, a master manipulator

humanism

studies the whole person, and the uniqueness of each individual

correlation study

study in which the researcher does not manipulate any variable, but observes or measures two or more already existing variables to find relationships between them.

double blind procedure

study is one in which neither the participants nor the experimenters know who is receiving a particular treatment.

biopsychology

study the ways hormones and drugs act on the brain to alter behavior and experience, either in humans or in nonhuman animals

negative symptoms

such as those that accompany schizophrenia, can be seen as lack of active involvement with life; flat affect, little emotion, poverty of speech, inability to feel pleasure, low motivation, and lack of interest in forming attachments. These are called this because they indicate a lack of active symptoms thus becoming a symptom in itself. These symptoms are evidence of cognitive deficits that are caused by the disease. Negative symptoms prove more difficult to treat than the positive symptoms of disorders such as delusions, hallucinations and disordered thought. They are called positive because there is a behavior or belief present in the individual that shouldn't be there and is not normal.

Restoration theory

suggests that nature can help to replenish our mental and attentional capacity. When we are dealing with a task that demands high levels of concentration, we exert mental energy from certain parts of the brain.

glia

surround neurons and provide support for and insulation between them

Evolutionary

survival or reproduction

parsimony

tells us to choose the simplest scientific explanation that fits the evidence

malingering

the "intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms, motivated by external incentives such as avoiding military duty, avoiding work, obtaining financial compensation, evading criminal prosecution, or obtaining drugs

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

No body likes me? No big deal. I don't like them either.

Triplett's social faciliatation study

Norman Triplett, way back in 1898, noticed that people in bicycle races went faster when they were competing against each other directly than when they were racing individually (e.g., an individual time trial). This observation was the basis for this, which states that people perform certain tasks better when they are in the presence of other people. This is true for simple tasks, tasks people are good at already, or already learned tasks, but not for difficult or novel tasks.

social facilitation

Norman Triplett, way back in 1898, noticed that people in bicycle races went faster when they were competing against each other directly than when they were racing individually (e.g., an individual time trial). This observation was the basis for this, which states that people perform certain tasks better when they are in the presence of other people. This is true for simple tasks, tasks people are good at already, or already learned tasks, but not for difficult or novel tasks.

suprachiasmatic nucleus

Nucleus (cluster of neurons) in the brain's hypothalamus that controls circadian rhythms of sleep and arousal

E.B. Titchener

One of Wundt's first students

Dopamine

One of the many neurotransmitters substances in the brain. It is, among other things, crucial for the "wanting" component of reward

one-way design

Only one independent variable

Snake

Ophidiophobia is a relatively common phobia involving this object

Optimism and health

Optimists handle stress better, a risk factor associated with high blood pressure, heart disease and other risk factors that adversely affect health and longevity.

Freud's model

Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Gential

Restoration theory

Oswald said that short-wave sleep (SWS) is for restoring the body in terms of physical activity, whilst REM sleep is for resting the brain functions.

Mailbox effect

People who are in locations where they get more exposure to people (such as next to the mailboxes in an apartment complex) tend to be better liked; Festinger

Narcissism

People who display this symptom have little or no empathy for or understanding of other people's needs and feelings. This symptom is a central feature of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality disorder as well as several other syndromes

Hypersomnia

People who have this can fall asleep at any time; for instance, at work or while they are driving.

Tolerance for ambiguity

People who score low on this trait strongly prefer familiar over unfamiliar and tend to reject the unusual or different, preferring things that fit established patterns.

illness anxiety disorder

People with this diagnosis are statistically the most likely to seek medical attention

Bulimia Nervosa

People with this eating disorder engage in binge eating and purging behaviors. What this means is that a person who suffers from this disorder will have episodes during which they eat tremendous amounts of food (usually foods that are high in calories) and then go vomit or use laxatives to lose weight. While there are many men who suffer from this eating disorder, the majority of people with this disorder are women in their teens and mid twenties. Like other eating disorders, there tends to be a relationship between social views of attractiveness and this disorder; cultures that identify being thin with being attractive have higher rates of bulimia (of course there are many alternative perspectives on the causes and treatments for this disorder).

Rorschach test

Projective clinical and personality assessment based on a children's game - its' creator died in 1922 at age 37

TAT

Projective test

kleptomania

Refers to an irresistible urge to steal items that have no personal or financial bearing to the one committing the act. Persons with this typically feel a strong pressure prior to the act, which is then relieved after the theft is accomplished. A person suffering from this would be unable to resist the temptation to steal an item, say a scarf seen at the mall, even if they themselves never wear scarves, and can easily pay for the item. They get a thrill not from having the item itself, but from the act of stealing it.

Reciprocity norm

Refers to how positive actions bring about more positive actions while negative actions bring about more negative actions. For example, if a person receives a gift for their birthday, they are more likely to give a gift back to that person on their birthday. In contrast, if someone throws eggs at his neighbor's house, the neighbor will likely respond by adding a mixture of dandelion seeds to some fertilizer and spreading it on their lawn in the middle of the night.

Libido

Sexual desires and urges

General stage

Sexual experimentation, loving relationship

Robbers cave study

Sherif argued that intergroup conflict (i.e. conflict between groups) occurs when two groups are in competition for limited resources. This theory is supported by evidence from a famous study investigating group conflict: The Robbers Cave (Sherif, 1954, 1958, 1961).

ambivalent attachment

Show distress when their parent leaves and when reunited with them approaches the parent but doesn't want contact and sometimes even pushes them away. Children with this cry more and want to explore less

Secure attachment

Showed minimal distress when their mother left them alone and sought comfort when their mother returned. These children appear to trust their caregivers would meet their needs. Caregivers of these children respond appropriately and consistently to their children's needs

84th

The approximate percentile rank of someone with a Z score of +1.0 on a normally distributed variable

3 pounds

The average adult human brain weighs about this much

Central nervous system

The brain and spinal cord

Thalamus

The brain structure that sits directly atop the brainstem

Frontal and parietal

The central sulcus is the dividing line between which lobes?

Carl Jung

The closest of Freud's followers, his theory expanded on the role of the unconscious and inspired the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory

Primary sex characteristics

are body structures that are specific to sex; Females have ovaries whereas men have testes. These are primary sex characteristics because they are specific to the sex of the person (men typically don't have ovaries) and are related to reproduction.

descriptive statistics

are brief descriptive coefficients that summarize a given data set, which can be either a representation of the entire population or a sample of it. Descriptive statistics are broken down into measures of central tendency and measures of variability, or spread.

MAOI inhibitor

are chemicals that are used to inhibit the activity of monoamine oxidase enzymes in the brain. Long used for the treatment of clinical depression, they have been also been found useful in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, atypical depression, bulimia, PTSD, social phobia, panic disorder with agoraphobia and several other conditions.

Demand Effects

are clues that allow participants to figure out the hypothesis.

quasi experiment

are employed when the researcher is interested in independent variables that cannot be randomly assigned. Usually this happens when the independent variable in question is something that is an innate characteristic of the participants involved.

Circadian Rhythm

are endogenously generated, although they can be modulated by external cues such as sunlight and temperature

Synaptic vesicles

are essential for propagating nerve impulses between neurons and are constantly recreated by the cell

Nativism

are inborn and do not have to acquired from experience

reliability vs validity

are independent of each other. A measurement may be valid but not reliable, or reliable but not valid.

specific phobias

are intense, persistent fears of certain objects or situations, such as a fear of snakes or a fear of flying. These fears are unreasonable in that the object or situation poses little actual threat or harm, yet the sufferer may go to great lengths to avoid what they are scared of. If a phobia causes severe anxiety or panic or disrupts a person's routine, they may need to seek treatment.

Frontal lobe

are involved in motor function, problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, initiation, judgement, impulse control, and social and sexual behavior

Big Five

are openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. You can remember these easier by using the word OCEAN, which uses the first letter of each one

Big Five

are openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. You can remember these easier by using the word OCEAN, which uses the first letter of each one.

Big Five

are personality dimensions which are differing facets that comprise a person's personality. They are different factors of a person's personality that everyone has to varying levels

Need for closure

are psychological terms that describe an individual's desire for a firm answer to a question and an aversion toward ambiguity. The term "need" denotes a motivated tendency to seek out information.

Phonemes

are sets of basic sounds (in fact, the smallest set of sounds) that are the building blocks to all spoken language; Unlike morphemes, phonemes are not units of speech that convey meaning when used in isolation.

pilot testing

are small, trial versions of proposed studies to test their effectiveness and make improvements. They are helpful in identifying potential issues early, which can then be rectified before committing to the length and expense of a full investigation.

Dendrites

are the structures on the neuron that receive electrical messages. These messages come in two basic forms: excitatory and inhibitory

Meninges

are three layers of protective tissue called the dura mater, arachnoid mater, and pia mater that surround the neuraxis

Choroid plexus

are vital for the production of cerebrospinal fluid

Graphology

the study of handwriting, for example, as used to infer a person's character.

structuralism

the study of the elements of consciousness

parsimony

the taking of extreme care at arriving at a course of action; or unusual or excessive frugality, extreme economy or stinginess

Graphology

the term used to describe the analysis of a person's handwriting as a means of inferring stable personality characteristics or their psychological state. Also called hand writing analysis.

Split-brain operation

the two hemispheres can not communicate

Self-esteem

the understanding a person creates of his or her worth, based on emotions and beliefs about how he or she fits into or performs in any given situation in life. For example, being a good runner can make a person's self esteem more positive and bad course grade could make a person's self esteem more negative. Self esteem is a fluid idea and can change frequently.

Mary Whiton Calkins

was an American psychologist who became the American Psychological Associations first woman president

Dorothea Dix

was an advocate for the mentally ill who revolutionarily reformed the way mentally ill patients are treated. She created the first mental hospitals across the US and Europe and changed the perception of the mentally ill. She began her social work career by opening schools and then became a successful author. When teaching prisoners she noticed the horrible living conditions and treatment they were exposed to along with the realization that the mentally ill were being housed and receiving the same inhumane treatment as violent criminals. She traveled across the country and compiled reports on the horrible treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill. It was these reports that she used to bring this treatment to light and allowed her to lobby for legislation and funding for mental institutions. She was the first woman federally appointed to a major military position when she was put in charge of Union hospitals and nursing staff during the Civil War. After the war for the rest of her life she improved existing mental health facilities and opened many new ones.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

(previously known as multiple personality disorder), is a controversial diagnosis of a psychological disorder that manifests itself in the presence of two or more alternate personalities in the same body that may or may not be aware of each other's existence. It is believed to be the result of severe childhood trauma. Several popular books and movies (The 3 Faces of Eve and Sybil, amongst others) have been based on this diagnosis.

Myelin sheath

A casing of fatty cells wrapped tightly around the axon of some neurons

Affective forecasting

(also known as hedonic forecasting, or the hedonic forecasting mechanism)

Machiavellianism

"Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so" is an item on the scale measuring this trait.

Myers-Briggs

"assessment" that is designed to measure basic personality traits that influence how a person deals with the world; perceptions, decision-making, etc. Based on the theories of Carl Jung, it was designed to measure naturally occurring differences that exist within the human population as a means of helping people to identify their most comfortable work environments and assignments. This inventory assumes that everyone has specific preferences for how they organize their lives in relations to their experiences, and how those underlie their values, needs, interests and motivations. At present, this test is the most widely used personality inventory in existence.

Androgens

A category of hormones, including testosterone, which are produced by the testes in male animals and are normally thought of as "male hormones."

Inferiority complex

Adler's term for the tendency to feel weak and helpless - based on our experiences in the early stages of life

1904

Adolescence wasn't brought up until when??

Spinal cord

1) Connects the peripheral nervous system to the brain. 2) Coordinates simple reflexes, such as sending a signal to pull your hand away from a hot object.

William Wundt

1st experiment in psychology

Narcolepsy

1st scientific sleep disorder

Ed Diener

3 predictors of happiness

self actualization, esteem, belongingness and love, safety, and physiological

5 levels of hierarchy of needs

George Miller

7: working or short term memory

Erikson

8 stages; psychoanalytic

Karl Pearson

?

Personality change

?

Sir Ronald Risher

?

intelligence

?

Genetics

A 1951 paper by Eysenck provided the first evidence that _______was a major factor in personality; later research led by Thomas Bouchard confirmed Eysenck's work

Amygdala

A brain structure that is part of the limbic system and is particularly important for evaluating the emotional and motivational significance of stimuli and generating emotional responses

Neurotransmitter

A chemical substance released from the axon terminal of a neuron, at a synapse, that influences the activity of another neuron , a muscle cell, or a glandular cell

Medical model

A clinician practicing this would first identify the patient's symptoms. Symptoms can be grouped together in order to identify a possible syndrome and give the patient a diagnosis. For example, Schizophrenia can be easily diagnosed using this because it is a biological disease. The clinician would note the symptoms (delusions, hallucinations) and other biological considerations (family members with schizophrenia- there is a genetic predisposition) and make a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Treatment options (medication, therapy) would then be considered.

Reaction formation

A defense mechanism where an individual acts in a manner opposite from his or her unconscious beliefs. A homosexual who joined a gay hate group would be an example of reaction formation. Freud believed that defense mechanisms helped us cope with the world around us by letting us repress our deepest unconscious fears.

Reaction formation

A defense mechanism where an individual acts in a manner opposite from his or her unconscious beliefs. A homosexual who joined a gay hate group would be an example of this. Freud believed that defense mechanisms helped us cope with the world around us by letting us repress our deepest unconscious fears.

object permanence

A developmental term that refers to a child's ability to understand that objects still exist after they are no longer in sight. Infants eight-months old or younger tend not to have this ability. It is not until they become more cognitively developed that they understand to search for an object even though it has been hidden from view

confound

A factor that co-varies with the IV and obscures your findings

Recessive gene

A gene that produces its observable effects only if the individual is homozygous for that gene

Self-monitoring

A high self-monitor is someone who is concerned about how they are perceived by others and will actually change their behavior in order to fit different situations (e.g., if they believe they will be perceived negatively by others, they may change their behavior so that they are perceived more positively...rather than just acting in a consistent manner). On the other hand, a low self-monitor is someone who is less concerned with how other people perceive them and will be more likely to act consistently. For example, a low self-monitor who has certain religious beliefs will be more likely than a high self-monitor to express their actual beliefs across situations (a high self-monitor might say something other than their true beliefs if they believe the situation calls for it or if they believe others will perceive them in a negative manner).

Leptin

A hormone produced by fat cells that acts in the brain to inhibit hunger and regulate body weight

Corpus callosum

A massive bundle of axons connecting the right and left hemispheres of the higher parts of the brain, including the cerebral cortex

Biofeedback

A method of behavior modification that uses principles of operant conditioning to change a maladaptive behavior. With this method, a person is presented with visual or auditory information about some internal, involuntary process. The information is actual feedback about the internal process that the person can use to increase control of the internal process. For example, a person suffering from stress can be hooked up to a biofeedback machine that creates a sound whenever the person starts getting stressed (increased heart rate, blood pressure, etc., would cause the machine to produce the sound). By paying attention to the sounds, the person can use relaxation techniques when there are some internal changes due to the stress - even if they are not yet feeling them, the effects can be identified by the machine and then controlled by the person. Over time, the goal is to be able to control these behaviors without the use of the machine.

Cranial nerve

A nerve that extends directly from the brain

Interneuron

A neuron that exists entirely within the brain or spinal cord and carries messages from one set of neurons to another

Arcuate nucleus

A nucleus in the hypothalamus of the brain that plays a critical role in the control of appetite

Cyclothymic Disorder

A person with this disorder has a history of at least two years of mood swings from mild depression to slight mania or hyperactivity. Affecting mostly women, the person is unable to function well socially, at work or at home and also becomes at risk for alcohol and drug abuse. Unlike 'normal' mood swings which we can snap out of, the person with this disorder needs medication as well as psychotherapy in order to get better.

Mood disorders

A person with this disorder might feel very happy or very sad for long periods of time and for no apparent reason. Because of this, their moods affect they way perceive everything in their daily lives, making it very difficult to function well. There are two main categories of this disorder; Depressive Disorders (major depression, dysthymia) and Bipolar Disorders (also known as manic depression; mood swings from euphoria to depression).

long-term potentiation

A process by which repeated activation of synapses results in strengthening of those synapses

EEG

A record of the electrical activity of the brain that can be obtained by amplifying the weak electrical signals picked up by recording electrodes pasted to the person's scalp

paraphillia

A sexual disorder where individuals only become aroused by inappropriate objects or fantasies. An example of this disorder is this, in which people may only be sexually attracted to and want to have sexual relations with young children.

Depolarization

A stimulus first causes sodium channels to open. Because there are many more sodium ions on the outside, and the inside of the neuron is negative relative to the outside, sodium ions rush into the neuron. Remember, sodium has a positive charge, so the neuron becomes more positive and becomes this

Hippocampus

A structure in the limbic system of the brain that is essential for encoding explicit memories for long-term storage

Projective Test

A test which requires an individual to respond to indistinct stimuli. The individual's interpretation about the stimuli is meant to reveal aspects of their personality

Projective Test

A test which requires an individual to respond to indistinct stimuli. The individual's interpretation about the stimuli is meant to reveal aspects of their personality. The Rorschach, which has individuals describe various ambiguous inkblot pictures is a classic example of a projective test. These types of tests usually work the following way: A test taker is presented with a dark circular drawing and is asked to describe what he or she sees. Let us say that the test taker states that it is a basketball, the test scorer may then presume that the individual likes sports and probably favors basketball oppose to tennis or any other sport. This type of reasoning is a primary illustration of how these types of tests work.

Axon

A thin, tube-like extension from a neuron that is specialized to carry neural impulses (action potentials) to other cells

Discriminant validity

A valid measure should correlated with other measures of the same concept, but it should also be weakly correlated with measures other concepts, meaning that this kind of validity is demonstrated

systemic replication

A way to increase the generality of an experimental finding by conducting other experiments in which the procedures are different (from the original research) but they are logically related.

Alzheimer's Disease

Donepezil, approved in 1996, is a cholinesterase inhibitor - if you are prescribed this drug, this is your most likely diagnosis

Limbic system

An interconnected set of brain structures (including the amygdala and hippocampus) that form a circuit wrapped around the thalamus and basal ganglia, underneath the cerebral cortex

manifest content

According to Freud, our dreams are important and meaningful in understanding the causes of our problems, hidden issues, and painful issues we can't face during wakefulness. Freud identified two types of content in our dreams; latent content and _________ content. This is all the parts of the dream that we remember (the actual content). It's not the stuff we associate with our dreams, but the actual story lines of the dreams.

interdependent self concept

Adjust oneself so as to fit in and maintain the interdependence among individuals; Fit in and be part of a relevant ongoing relationship, strive to meet/create duties, obligations, and social responsibilities; Self is unbound, flexible, and contingent on context; Internal attributes are less salient in thinking, feeling, and acting

Inferential statistics

ANOVA, t-test, ANCOVA - they share a reliance on probability and samples of populations...placing them in this category of statistic

Dentophobia

Abraham Lincoln developed this one after having a tooth pulled without anesthesia at age 32

Type 2 error

Accept the null hypothesis when you should in fever reject it

Ideal self

According the Humanistic Psychologist Carl Rogers, the personality is composed of the Real Self and the Ideal Self. Your Real Self is who you actually are, while your Ideal Self is the person you want to be. The Ideal Self is an idealized version of yourself created out of what you have learned from your life experiences, the demands of society, and what you admire in your role models. For example, your parents are medical doctors who are respected and admired in the community, and experience tells you that in order to be happy, you need to be smart and have a high-paying job. Your Ideal Self might be someone who excels in science subjects, spends a lot of time studying, and does not get queasy at the sight of blood. If your Real Self is far from this idealized image, then you might feel dissatisfied with your life and consider yourself a failure.

unconditional positive regard

According to Carl Rogers, this is when one person is completely accepting toward another person. This is not just a show of acceptance, but is an attitude that is then demonstrated through behavior. Rogers indicated that for humanistic type of therapy to work, the therapist had to have this for the client.

Rationalization

According to Freud when people are not able to deal with the reasons they behave in particular ways, they protect themselves by creating self-justifying explanations for their behaviors. For example, if I flunk out of school because I didn't study properly it might be so hard for me to deal with that I rationalize my behaviors by saying that I simply didn't have enough time to study because I have a full-time job, a baby at home, and so many other demands on my time

latent content

According to Freud, dreams have two types of content, each of which contains different meanings to the dreams. One of these type of content is this, which is the underlying, more hidden, but true meaning of a dream (as opposed to the manifest content).

Sublimation

According to Freud, sublimation is a way in which people can deal with socially unacceptable impulses, feelings, and ideas in social acceptable ways. For example, a person may have a longing to be a banker but has not been able to achieve this goal (Seinfield fans...are you listening?). The frustration with not being able to achieve this goal may be very difficult to deal with and lead to hostility and anger toward bankers, to the point where the person wants to physically hurt all bankers. Of course, hurting all bankers is not socially acceptable, so the person transforms this anger with bankers into building his own venture capital business and becoming incredibly successful.

Sublimation

According to Freud, this is a way in which people can deal with socially unacceptable impulses, feelings, and ideas in social acceptable ways. For example, a person may have a longing to be a banker but has not been able to achieve this goal. The frustration with not being able to achieve this goal may be very difficult to deal with and lead to hostility and anger toward bankers, to the point where the person wants to physically hurt all bankers. Of course, hurting all bankers is not socially acceptable, so the person transforms this anger with bankers into building his own venture capital business and becoming incredibly successful.

Projection

According to Freud, this is when someone is threatened by or afraid of their own impulses so they attribute these impulses to someone else. For example, a person in psychoanalysis may insist to the therapist that he knows the therapist wants to rape some women, when in fact the client has these awful feelings to rape the woman.

Displacement

According to Freudian psychoanalytic theory, displacement is when a person shifts his/her impulses from an unacceptable target to a more acceptable or less threatening target. For example, if you are very angry at your teacher because you did poorly on a test and think the reason for your poor performance is because the teacher asked tricky, unfair questions, you may become angry at your teacher. But, you obviously can't yell at your teacher (really, you can't!), hit your teacher, or express your angry in any other hostile way toward the teacher, so you go home and "displace" your anger by punching your little brother instead.

Cardinal Trait

According to Gordon Allport, the human personality is comprised of three traits. The most dominant of these traits are the cardinal traits which are dominant traits that characterizes almost all of a person's personality. For example, Mother Teresa is often identified as exemplifying the cardinal trait, altruism, as her life was completely devoted to helping others, even at her own expense.

TAT

Achievement motivation

Dorothea Dix

Activist for the mentally ill

Self-monitoring

Actors tend to produce high scores on this personality characteristic, as they are motivated and capable of changing their actions to create desired impressions on others

Oral

Age 0-2

Genital

Age 12+; you are finished developing at age 12; you were an adult at age 13

Anal

Age 2-3

Phallic

Age 4-6

Latency

Age 7-11

Amygdala

Aggression is reduced when this area is lesioned; the Buddhist meditative practice of mettā bhāvanā has been shown to modulate it

Basic Emotions

All human behaviour can be broken down into four basic emotions, according to research by Glasgow University. The study has challenged a commonly-held belief that there are six basic emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust.

Cardinal trait

Allport's term for traits that stand out so much that they define an individual

Criterion validity

Also called predictive validity

ADHD

Although most commonly diagnosed in children adults can also be diagnosed as having this disorder with the presumption they have had it since childhood and it wasn't identified. There are differing levels of this disorder which can range from mild to severe with symptoms often decreasing in severity with age. This disorder can be treated using behavioral therapies and/or medication.

Acetylcholine

Alzheimer's

Dissociative Disorder

Amnesia and the condition formerly known as multiple personality disorder are both in this general category

Freedom to withdraw

Among the ethical criticisms of the Milgram study, this was his most flagrant violation, and the one most likely to have caused a modern IRM to deny approval

Motor neurons

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is better known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Its primary effect is to cause these to rapidly degenerate (they are sometimes referred to using the term 'efferent')

Conduct disorder

An adolescent exhibiting this disorder may show one or all of the following: cruelty to other people or animals, running away, skipping school, lying and stealing, setting fires. Therapy should be offered to the child as well as the family. If not treated, the antisocial behavior often gets worse, leading to juvenile delinquency and adult criminal behavior.

Incremental validity

An example would be a school psychologist who was trying to identify learning delays in students so they could receive a specialized curriculum. She first uses grades and teacher interviews to identify any students who may be having trouble learning material. She then uses a test which is supposed to identify students with learning delays. The test would be incrementally valid if it identified students who had learning delays that had gone unnoticed while using the previous grade and interview method. If no new students were identified using the measure then it would not be incrementally valid because it failed to do anything more than the previous method.

under extension

An example would be a toddler learning the word ball to describe their toy ball. Underextension occurs when the child uses the word ball in reference to only their specific individual ball and not use it as a term for all balls. Another example would be a child using the word cat for only their family's lone pet cat instead of using it to apply to all cats.

Within-Subjects Design

An experiment in which the same group of subjects serves in more than one treatment

between-subjects design

An experiment that has two or more groups of subjects each being tested by a different testing factor simultaneously

Jung

Analytical psychology, collective unconscious

structuralism

Another example would be an apple. It is red, crisp, hard and sweet.

Mediator v Moderator

Another way to think about this issue is that a moderator variable is one that influences the strength of a relationship between two other variables, and a mediator variable is one that explains the relationship between the two other variables.

Anxious resistant insecure attachment

Anxious about exploring surroundings even if mother is present. When the mother is not present, the child shows quite a bit more anxiety about exploration and may even show strong signs of distress. When mom returns, the child may be ambivalent about having contact and may even show signs of anger toward her. Comes from the mother being engaged with the child only on her own terms and not meeting the needs of the child. Mom gives attention to the child once her own needs are met.

Hormone

Any chemical substance that is secreted naturally by the body into the blood and can influence physiological processes at specific target tissues (such as the brain) and thereby influence behavior

Aphasia

Any loss in language ability due to brain damage

Nonregulatory Drive

Any motivational state (such as the sex drive) that serves some function other than that of preserving some constancy of the body's internal environment

Asch's conformity study

Apparently, people conform for two main reasons: because they want to fit in with the group (normative influence) and because they believe the group is better informed than they are (informational influence).

Cardinal Trait

Are dominant traits that characterize almost all of a person's personality. For example, Mother Teresa is often identified as exemplifying this trait, altruism, as her life was completely devoted to helping others, even at her own expense.

Superordinate goal

Are goals that get people from opposing sides to come together and work toward a common end result. For example, if you have two groups of people that seriously dislike each other you might set up a situation in which they simply have to work together in order to be successful (e.g., maybe the two groups get lost in the jungle together and the only way they survive is to work together - hey, it could happen :). This breaks down barriers, encourages people to see eachother as just people and not as part of "that other group that we dislike", and can help overcome differences between the groups.

Hindsight bias

Are you a Monday-morning quarterback? Have you heard the expression "hindsight is 20-20"? Have you ever said, "I knew it all along" after something happened? These are examples of the what which is the tendency to believe, once the outcome is already known of course, that you would have forseen it...that even though it's over and you know the outcome, you knew it all along.

Passionate love

Aren't new relationships great? You know that giddy feeling you get when you first fall in love? If you have intense feelings (positive feelings) toward the other person to the point of really being wrapped up in the other person, you have this type of love

Two-factor theory of emotion

Arousal and cognitive label

Asch's conformity study

Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view. On average, about one third (32%) of the participants who were placed in this situation went along and conformed with the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials. Over the 12 critical trials about 75% of participants conformed at least once, and 25% of participant never conformed. In the control group, with no pressure to conform to confederates, less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer.

Aristotle

Association of continuity

Self-actualization

At the top of Maslow's hierarchy are these needs where people have reached their full potential and have become all that they can be. According to Maslow, few people in history are said to have reached this

Bowlby

Attachment theory

Central limit theorem

Attributed to Pierre-Simon Laplace, this is the idea that averages tend to form a normal distribution

Wundt

Authored the first psychology textbook

Cognitive-behavioral

Aversion therapy and systematic desensitization are both examples of this approach to therapy

social learning theory

Bandura's Bobo doll study; Is a form of behavior therapy based on modeling or learning by observing and imitating others

80%

Based on Mary Lee Smith's highly publicized 1980 findings, the average psychotherapy patient shows better improvement than this percentage of untreated patients

Token economy

Before operant learning was well known, there were precursors of these in schools and prisons. In these systems, points can be earned and exchanged for different items or privileges; they became popular in psychiatric institutions beginning in the 1960s

John Watson

Behaviorism

B.F. Skinner

Behaviorist

Pavlov

Behaviorist

Group

Benefits of this type of therapy include modeling, social support, a diversity of suggestions, and a better sense of perspective

Rene Descartes

Body and mind are separate and follow different laws

E.B. Titchener

Brought psychology to the US

Catharsis

CBT

humanism

Carl Rogers

Congruence

Carl Rogers stated that the personality is like a triangle made up of the real self, the perceived self, and ideal self. According to Rogers, when there is a good fit between all three components, the person has congruence. This is a healthy state of being and helps people continue to progress toward self-actualization.

Empathy

Carl Rogers, founder of client-centered therapy, said that this alone was sufficient for healing

Piaget

Changes in the way people think; 4 stages

Sublimation

Channeling id energy into acceptable outlets

Neurology

Charcot

endocrine

Collectively, the adrenal, thyroid and pituitary glands are part of this system

Diazepam

Commonly marketed as Valium, this is used to treat insomnia, anxiety, restless legs syndrome, and Meniere's disease

Phallic stage

Concentrated on genitals and masturbation

Latency stage

Concentrated on school work, hobbies, and friendships

Implicit personality theory

Consistency, in terms of implicit personality theories, refers to the way in which a newly formed impression that relates to what is already known about the other person. There are two dimensions of consistency involved with inferring traits in respect to the other known traits of a person.

Peripheral route

Consists of a person's association with positive or negative qualities in the stimulus that isn't related to the logical quality of the stimulus. For example, in a speaker this would be things like the attractiveness, perceived authority, or superficial charm of the speaker instead of the quality or rationality of the message. In contrast, the direct method of persuasion relies on the logic of the presentation. This would be the rationality and logic of the speaker's message instead of their looks or personality. Central route processing occurs when the listener or audience is actually taking part in the message by thinking logically and truly listening to the speaker. This only occurs when the listener is motivated and is able to comprehend what the speaker is saying. Occurs when individuals lack the motivation or the capability to understand the speaker's message.

Consumer reports study

Consumer Reports (1995, November) published an article which concluded that patients benefited very substantially from psychotherapy, that long-term treatment did considerably better than short-term treatment, and that psychotherapy alone did not differ in effectiveness from medication plus psychotherapy.

School psychology

Educational system problems

Implicit personality theory

Everyone has their own personal beliefs about what factors to consider when sizing up 'what someone is like' and this is the term that accounts for such variation in how people form impressions of others

determinism

Everything that happens is the only possible thing that could happen

FACS

Created by Paul Ekman:

Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

DSM-5

Bystander effect

Darley; is a social phenomenon in which a person (or persons) are less likely to offer help to another person (or persons) when there are more people around who can also provide assistance. Many people believe that, when there is an emergency and lots of people are present, the people in need are more likely to get assistance. However, this is not the case. Rather, the more people there are who can help, the less likely each person is to offer help. Thus, when in a group, people are less likely to offer help than when they are alone

TAT

David McClelland

major depressive disorder

Depression is the #1 reason why people get psychological counseling. However, there is a difference between feeling depressed and being clinically depressed. This disorder is classified as a mood disorder in which people have periods of hopelessness and sadness that last for more than 2 weeks and don't appear to have a specific cause (although this varies). This is more than "having the blues" but is a period of intense psychological pain that includes hopelessness, feeling worthless, loss of pleasure in things that previously were pleasurable, etc.

Reactance

Describes the pattern of behaviors that occur in an individual when they feel their freedoms are being taken away or restricted. First introduced by Brehm (1968), this theory posits that individuals believe they have certain freedoms and choices and if these are threatened then negative reactions occur. When behaviors that are perceived as being free are threatened or taken away individuals can become motivated to retain and recapture these freedoms.

Adolescence

Developmental period in which personality tends to change the most

Antisocial

Did I just cheat you out of $3000? Hahaha... sucker

Harlow

Didn't work with humans; worked with monkeys

Arcuate Nucleus

Digestion

construct Validity

Does it properly measure what it's suppose to measure? For example, if we want to know our height we would use a tape measure and not a bathroom scale because all height measurements are expressed in inches and not in pounds

Nonregulatory Drive

Doesn't preserve homeostasis

Sibling contrast

Douglas Downey; only children lack social skills

Clinical psychology

Dr. Phil holds a Ph.D. in what?

True

Each source listed in the Reference list must be cited in text

EQ

Emotional Quotient

Opponent Process

Emotional reactions to a stimulus are followed by opposite emotional reactions.

Psychoanalysis

Emphasizes the roles of unconscious mental processes, early childhood experiences, and the drives of sex and aggression in personality formation

Wilder Penfield

Epilepsy

Chi square

Equation that tests the frequency distribution in comparison to the frequency distribution of another measured event

Cerebellum

Especially important for the coordination of rapid movements

Basal ganglia

Especially important for the invitation and coordination of deliberate movements

Longitudinal

Especially popular in developmental psychology, this design involves following the same participants over a lengthy time frame

Factorial design

Example: 3 x 3 x 2

Interaction

Example: If the effects of TV viewing on violence depend on the viewer's age

positive symptoms

Examples of these include hallucinations (tactile, auditory, visual, olfactory and gustatory), delusions, and disordered thoughts or speech. These symptoms are typically considered to be manifestations of psychosis. On the contrary, negative symptoms refer to symptoms that are characterized by their lack of something that should be present.

negative symptoms

Examples of these include lack of speech (alogia) or action, lack of interest or motivation (avolition), and social isolation.

Narcolepsy

Exists in goats and dogs

Mediator

Explain why; explains the relationship between the IV and DV

Behaviorism

Exposure

Loftus

Eyewitness memory study

Type 2 error

False negative

Type 1 error

False positive

Piaget

Father of Developmental psychology

William Wundt

Father of structuralism

Cognitive dissonance

Festinger; asserts that people often have two conflicting or inconsistent cognitions which produce a state of tension or discomfort. People are then motivated to reduce the dissonance, often in the easiest manner possible. For example, if you are a pacifist, but punched someone, there is inconsistency -- you think you should be passive, but you became angry enough to punch someone -- which would likely produce tension (you would feel discomfort from this - "how could I do this" ..." I don't believe in violence" ...etc.). You may reduce this tension by claiming that you don't believe in violence, EXCEPT in certain circumstances, like this one! In Festinger's classic study of dissonance, people who had engaged in a boring task for along period of time had to tell the next participant who was going to engage in the same task that it was actually a lot of fun (dissonance = telling a lie, but most people do not view themselves as liars).

Sumner

First African American to earn PHD

countertransference

First defined by Freud in a 1910 book, this is more generally known to refer to a therapist becoming emotionally entangled with a client

Tricyclics

First discovered in the 1950s, these antidepressants are named after their chemical structure, which contains three rings of atoms

kleptomania

First medically described in the early nineteenth century, it is now classified as part of either an impulse-control disorder, or (controversially) as part of the spectrum of obsessive-compulsive disorders and is most often comorbid with other disorders like anxiety, eating disorders and/or substance abuse.

acetylcholine

First neurotransmitter to be discovered, it stimulates voluntary muscle movements and has been implicated in Alzheimer's Disease

Wilder Penfield

First person to try to break down the brain and behaviors they were associated with was

G Stanley Hall

First president of the psychological association

Cattell

First professor of psychology in the US; won awards for the science of psychology

Frustration aggression theory

First, we need to explain frustration (not that we don't all already know what this is). Frustration is a feeling of tension that occurs when our efforts to reach some goal are blocked. When this occurs, it can produce feelings of anger, which in turn can generate feelings of aggression and aggressive behavior. This theory has been utilized to explain a lot of violent behavior over time. For example, some have stated that people who become frustrated with their jobs because they don't like their work, can't get the raise they want, etc., but can't take out their aggressions at work (can't yell at the boss, can't punch annoying co-workers), will redirect this frustration and act aggressively toward others (like a husband, wife, children, etc.)

Displacement

For example, if you are very angry at your teacher because you did poorly on a test and think the reason for your poor performance is because the teacher asked tricky, unfair questions, you may become angry at your teacher. But, you obviously can't yell at your teacher (really, you can't!), hit your teacher, or express your angry in any other hostile way toward the teacher, so you go home and take your anger out by punching your little brother instead.

Locus of control

For example, if you had an Internal this and you got a perfect score on your Statistics exam, you would tend to attribute your success to how much time and effort you spent studying for the test. If you had an External this, you would probably say that it was because the teacher made the test easy, or it was just your lucky day.

James-Lange theory

For example, suppose you are walking in the woods, and you see a grizzly bear. You begin to tremble, and your heart begins to race. This theory proposes that you will interpret your physical reactions and conclude that you are frightened ("I am trembling. Therefore I am afraid.")

Personal construct theory

For example, two friends are at a carnival and see a roller coaster. The first person gets excited and immediately wants to ride it. The second person is horrified, has a fear response, and wants to go on another ride. This theory would suggest these two different responses are explained by differing constructs- the two people have different individual experiences and mental frameworks that make them perceive the roller coaster in wildly different ways.

affective forecasting

For instance, an individual is eagerly looking forward to an outdoor birthday party and expecting good weather and sunshine for the occasion. Their mood is upbeat and they expect that mood to continue.

Thomas Hobbes

Founder of materialism

E.B. Titchener

Founder of structuralism

George Miller

Fourth major perspective was led by

latent content

Freud believed that the this was somehow censored by the subconscious which was a way to protect us from the real meanings of the dreams. This was necessary because the dream content may be difficult for people to deal with, so people disguise the real meaning. However, Freud believed that when people were in conflict, if he could uncover or get to the ________ _______, then he could identify the person's problem and resolve their conflict.

Projection

Freud said that we defend themselves against our own unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in ourselves and instead attributing them to others...name the defense mechanism

Repression

Freud was saying that when we have memories, impulses, desires, and thoughts that are too difficult or unacceptable to deal with, we unconsciously exclude them from our consciousness (some people like to say we "push" them down from our consciousness to our uncosciousness). This is similar to suppression with one key difference - suppression is a conscious exclusion (or "pushing" down) of these painful memories, thoughts, etc., and is more similar to Freud's explaination of condemnation.

Hypnosis

Freud's primary therapy technique before he developed psychoanalysis

Phallic personality

Freudian term for a self-centered narcissist

Superego

Freudian term for our (unconscious) moral conscience

Hierarchy of needs

Has five levels

Autonomic nervous system

Has two divisions- sympathetic and parasympathetic

True experiment

Has two key features: control over the IV and Random Assignment

Deindividuation

Have you ever been in a group and acted in a manner that was completely out of character for you? How about when you hear on the news that some group of people did something so violent or stupid that you just couldn't believe it? One reason this happens is that people in groups tend to lose some of their own self-awareness and self-restraint when in groups. They become less of an individual and more anonymous. In a sense, people will do things in groups they otherwise would not because they feel less responsible for their actions and less like an individual

In vivo exposure

Having phobics confront their fears in real life situations is called

Rene Descartes

He contended that nonhuman animals do not have souls, and he pointed out a logical implication of this contention: Any activity performed by humans that is qualitatively no different from the behavior of a nonhuman can occur without the soul. Example: eating, drinking, sleeping, running, etc

Ratio

Height, weight, and length; absolute zero

Weather

Hippocrates theorized that this was the main reason for the greater violence in northern Europe compared to his native Greece

Rene Descartes

His conception of the mechanical control of movement resembles our modern understanding of reflexes, which are involuntary responses to stimuli

2 pounds 11 ounces

How much did Einstein's brain weigh?

11 pounds

How much does the average elephant's brain weigh?

educational psychology

Human learning

Maslow

Humanist

Maslow

Humanistic psychology

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

I always wear a hat because my hair is hideous

OCD

I close every door three times... just to be sure

Schizoaffective disorder

I hate myself and I hear voices

Pica

I like to eat dirt

Gender Dysphoria

I look like a man, but I feel like a woman

Internet gaming disorder

I played World of Warcraft for 132 straight hours

Intermittent explosive Disorder

I tend to "fly off the handle"

Restless leg syndrome

I want to sleep, but I can't stop moving

Agoraphobia

I'm afraid to leave my house

Bipolar I

I'm king of the world! God, I suck.

Dissociative amnesia

I'm told my son died; I don't remember having one

Criterion validity

If an achievement test is aimed at measuring abnormal 5th graders achievement, it is important that both the language skills and mathematics are properly calibrated for an average 5th grader

Agoraphobia

If being one of the people in the stands causes you intense fear, this is your likely diagnosis

1.0

If the null is true, this is the most common F-ration result from an ANOVA test

validity

If theresults of the personality test claimed that a very shy person was in factoutgoing, the test would be invalid.

Factor analysis

If you are comparing eigenvalues you are probably using this type of statistical technique, designed to identify hidden variables via examining intercorrelations with observed variables

Type A

If you are competitive, ambitious, impatient, aggressive, and fast talking, Friedman & Rosenman would call you this

Counterbalancing

If you have two groups of participants and two levels of IV, you would present one possible order first then present the opposite order. You can measure the effects in all possible situations

Eclectic

If you randomly chose a psychotherapist, this would be the best bet as to their actual therapeutic orientation

Blood

If you suffer from haemophobia, this is your feared object

Gestalt

If you visit this type of therapist the office will usually have an extra chair--an empty chair

Behavioral

If your therapist believes in contracts, homework, token economies, and modeling, this is your best bet as to their orientation

Fundamental attribution error

Imagine this situation, you are at school and someone you know comes by, you say hello, and this person just gives you a quick, unfriendly "hello" and then walks away. How would you attribute this situation -- why did this person act this way? If you react to this situation by saying the person is a "jerk" or an "ass", then you have made the fundamental attribution error; the tendency for an observer, when interpreting and explaining the behavior of another person (the actor), to underestimate the situation and to overestimate the personal disposition. Maybe the person was having the worst day of their life, just found out a loved one died, failed a test and was feeling devastated, etc. In this case, the situation may have caused them to act in a way that was different than their normal happy self. But, you, as a normal observer, would instead attribute their behavior to them as a person...acted that way because that is the type of person they are.

False

In APA style, the first name of the author in a Reference list is spelled out

Centration

In Piaget's theory of cognitive development, the second stage is called Preoperational Thought. During this stage, which occurs from age 4-7, the child begins to develop logic or reasoning

open v closed interview

In a conversation, when completing a research survey, being interviewed for a job or working on a homework assignment, you might find yourself presented with a series of closed-ended or open-ended questions.

DV

In a repeated measures design, that is what is repeated

control group

In a within-subjects design, each participant serves as their own what??

Situational attribution

In an internal, or dispositional, attribution, people infer that an event or a person's behavior is due to personal factors such as traits, abilities, or feelings. In an external, or situational, attribution, people infer that a person's behavior is due to situational factors

content analysis

In its most common form it is a technique that allows a researcher to take qualitative data and to transform it into quantitative data (numerical data).

Standardization

In order to compare one person to another on a test, it is important that they take the test under the same conditions and the same scoring procedure is applied to both

sample vs population

In statistics the term "population" takes on a slightly different meaning. The "population" in statistics includes all members of a defined group that we are studying or collecting information on for data driven decisions. A part of the population is called a sample.

1 dollar

In the famous cognitive dissonance study by Festinger and colleagues, the amount of money paid to the participants who showed the most attitude change

Reaction formation

In the phenomenon described as Stockholm Syndrome, a hostage or kidnap victim 'falls in love' with the feared and hated person who has complete power over them. What defense mechanism is this an example of?

displacement

In this defense mechanism, the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object for goals that, in their original form, are either dangerous or unacceptable

between

In which is random assignment more important? within vs. between subjects design

Narcissism

Ingrained belief found in some people that they exist at the center of the universe and that everyone and everything around exists to serve them. People who display this symptom have little or no empathy for or understanding of other people's needs and feelings. This symptom is a central feature of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality disorder as well as several other syndromes.

Rorschach

Inkblot Test

Schizophrenia

Insulin shock, lobotomization, ECT, thorazine and sterilization have all been popular at times as 'treatments' for this disorder

Histogram

Introduced by Karl Pearson

Good Samaritan study

Ironically, a person in a hurry is less likely to help people, even if he is going to speak on the parable of the Good Samaritan. (Some literally stepped over the victim on their way to the next building!). The results seem to show that thinking about norms does not imply that one will act on them. Maybe that "ethics become a luxury as the speed of our daily lives increases". Or maybe peoples cognition was narrowed by the hurriedness and they failed to make the immediate connection of an emergency.

Groupthink

Irving Janis coined this term to describe the flawed decision making process of John F. Kennedy's "Bay of Pigs" advisory group

Existentialism

Irwin Yalom, Viktor Frankl and Rollo May are among the founders of this therapy approach, grounded in the so-called 'givens of human life' such as the inevitability of death

Prisoners Dilemma Game

Is a bargaining game where the biggest reward is gained when both players cooperate. This is how the game goes: Two criminals, Prisoner A and Prisoner B, have been arrested under suspicion of committing a major crime, but the police do not have enough evidence to convict them. They interrogate the two prisoners separately, and offer each of them a bargain. Essentially, each prisoner has to decide whether to confess to having committed the crime with the other person, or to deny it. If Prisoner A confesses and Prisoner B denies, Prisoner A will be set free, while Prisoner B will be convicted for 10 years, and vice versa. If both confess, they will both serve a six-year sentence. If both deny, they will both serve a six-month sentence. The best scenario for both prisoners is for each of them to deny involvement, earning them the shortest sentence of six months. But not knowing what the other prisoner intends to do might deter them from denying the crime. For example, Prisoner A could think this way: ""If Prisoner B confesses and I deny, he will be set free while I stay in prison for ten years. If he confesses and I confess, then we both serve six years. If Prisoner B denies and I deny, then we both serve six months. But if he denies anyway, then I'd be better off confessing because then, I'd go free. Either way, it's in my best interest to confess." The problem is Prisoner B could also be following the same line of thinking. Thus, they will both tend to choose to confess, earning them both a six-year sentence. The Prisoner's Dilemma Game illustrates how some people might choose an option where both parties lose instead of cooperating and maximizing the rewards for both parties.

Proximity effect

Is a change in the frequency response of a directional pattern microphone that results in an emphasis on lower frequencies.

State-trait anxiety

Is a commonly used measure of trait and state. It can be used in clinical settings to diagnose anxiety and to distinguish it from depressive syndromes. It also is often used in research as an indicator of caregiver distress

Subjective assessment

Is a form of questioning which may have more than one correct answer (or more than one way of expressing the correct answer); job interview; This type of technique can certainly help in gathering information and making decisions, but is is not without its negatives.

Prejudice

Is a negative, usually unjustified attitude directed toward people simply because they are members of a specific social group. For example, if a person believes that people from Bali are less intelligent than people from Nepal, that person would be prejudice toward those from Bali. Often times prejudice involves broad, sweeping generalizations about others.

Weapons effect

Is a phenomenon described and evidenced for in the scientific field of social psychology. It refers to the mere presence of a weapon or a picture of a weapon leading to more aggressive behavior in humans, particularly if these humans are already aroused.

Self-reference effect

Is a phenomenon of memory that causes an individual to encode information differently depending on the degree of personal involvement in the sequence of events being encoded. Research has shown that the greater the person's involvement, the greater the level and accuracy of recall. For instance, if an individual is involved in a car accident, the memory will be much more intense than if the accident had only been witnessed.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Is a prediction that causes itself to come true due to the simple fact that the prediction was made. This happens because our beliefs influence our actions. For example, if a woman thinks that her husband will leave her for another woman, she will act in ways that will directly or indirectly cause her belief to come true. She might get jealous easily and make a fuss about him being friends with other women. She might pick fights whenever she suspects that he is cheating on her, or she might go through his personal things to look for evidence of cheating. Eventually, her actions will put a strain on their marriage, and her husband just might leave her, causing her prediction to come true.

Behavioral confirmation

Is a process in which people learn to behave in ways that get a consistent and expected reaction, and then use those reactions to confirm their beliefs. For example: A person learns that flattery or good manners can deflect anger in some people

social proof

Is a psychological and social phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior in a given situation.

Sleeper effect

Is a psychological phenomenon in which an idea or message has a delayed persuasive effect and becomes more effective as time goes on. Typically, the impact of a message usually decrease over time but in instances where the message came from a source with low credibility the persuasive impact can actually increase after time has passed. It is theorized this occurs when the source of low credibility is not longer mentally associated with the message because time has weakened the association between the message and the untrustworthy source. Therefore the message becomes more credible because it is not associated with the source.

Ingroup bias

Is a simple concept, but one that has very powerful affects on people, societies, and life in general. Ingroup bias is simply the tendency to favor one's own group. This is not one group in particular, but whatever group you associate with at a particular time. So, for example, when you play on an intramural softball team that meets once a week, you are part of that softball team's ingroup. Or, it can be something on a much more grand scale like, the situation between religious groups in Ireland. They have been killing each other for years, because they each perceive their own group as being the "right" and "good" group, while the other group (the outgroup) is "bad" and "evil".

Realistic group conflict theory

Is a social model that attempts to explain why prejudice, negative stereotypes, and discrimination are developed towards members of other social groups. Socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and differing lifestyles are often examples of factors that separate people into different groups. RCT is a social theory that suggests that conflict can arise between different groups of people that have differing goals and are competing over limited resources. When two or more groups are competing over limited resources (either from real or perceived scarcity) prejudicial feelings and negative stereotypes can develop towards the other group. Conflict and negative attitudes towards other groups can be reduced if both groups have a superordinate goal (a mutually beneficial goal for both groups in which both groups need to participate in order to reach the goal). The most famous RCT research occurred in the 1950s with the Robber's Cave Experiment in Oklahoma. Two groups of young boys in a summer camp setting who were initially unaware of each other and which allowed friendship and norms to develop within in each group. During the next phase the groups were introduced to one another and competition was fostered between the two. After awhile prejudicial attitudes and negative stereotypes were each being attributed to the other group, including name calling and vandalism.

terror management theory

Is a social psychology concept that humans have distress and anxiety related to the awareness of mortality and the inevitability of death. TMT suggests that this anxiety and psychological distress is subdued by investment in cultural beliefs and world views. This fear of death (or terror) is unique to humans and does not purportedly exist in any other species. Humans deal with this distress by investment in culture and belief systems. Self-esteem is also an important component in that it protects individuals from the terror of mortality. According to this, experiencing this terror can affect a person's behaviors, perceptions, and cognitive functions. It can cause increased ingroup/outgroup thinking and alter ethnic and religious perceptions and stereotypes. It can also negatively affect a person's self esteem.

Discrimination

Is a term that is used in both classical and operant conditioning. In classical conditioning, it refers to an ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and other, similar stimuli that don't signal an unconditioned stimulus (US). For example, if Pavlov's dog had developed discrimination, it would have salivated to the tone that had been paired with the delivery of the meat powder, and not a similar tone with a slightly different pitch. In operant conditioning, the definition is essentially the same, but here the organism discriminates between a learned, voluntary response and an irrelevant, non-learned response. For example, a dog that has learned to sit when a person says "sit" in order to receive a treat, but the dog does not sit when a person says "bit".

Strange situation test

Is a test created by Mary Ainsworth to explore childhood attachments patterns. The procedure begins with the child and his mother in a room where the child is allowed to play and explore alone. A stranger enters the room, talks to the mother, and approaches the child while the mother leaves the room. After a short period, the mother comes back and reunites with the child. The mother and the stranger leaves, and the child is left to play alone. The stranger then comes back and attempts to interact with the child. The mother returns for a second reunion as the stranger leaves. Throughout the procedure, the child is observed on four aspects: play behavior, reactions to departure and to the mother's return, and behavior when the stranger is around. Ainsworth categorized the nature of the children's attachment into three groups based on their behaviors. A child is said to have a Secure Attachment when he is able to freely explore when the mother is around, interacts with the stranger when the mother is present but not when she is absent, shows distress when the mother leaves, and is happy to see the mother return.

Complementarity

Is a theory in social psychology that proposes we seek traits and qualities in social relationships that fill gaps in ourselves. This concept suggests that individuals seek in others traits that they do not have and that 'complete' them. Focus is placed on spectrums of dominance/submission and friendliness/aggression. For example, in the workplace a successful relationship between the boss and their employees is based on complementarity. The boss is dominant and their employees are submissive. Research suggests that similarity between people is actually a better predictor of successful relationships rather than complementarity.

Insufficient justification

Is a theory proposed by Festinger and Carlsmith that attempts to explain how individuals deal with cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is an unpleasant state of mind that occurs when two conflicting beliefs or thoughts are held at the same time.

Tragedy of the commons

Is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action.

aggression

Is any form of behavior that is intended to harm or injure some person, oneself, or an object.

Matching effect/phenomenon

Is derived from the discipline of social psychology and was first proposed by Elaine Hatfield and her colleagues in 1966, which suggests why people become attracted to their partner.

Order effect

Is designed to measure whether the order of the question makes a difference in the outcome of the survey

Gun

Ownership of this item has been estimated to increase the likelihood of aggressive reactions to threat by 5 to 8 times

Similarity

Is one type of "grouping rule" that we, as humans, follow in an effort to make sense of our basic sensations and the world around us. We follow these very specific rules unconsciously, but they are very important for our everyday survivial. One grouping principle refers to the tendency for humans to group together objects or stimuli that seem similar to each other. For example, what do you see here: $$$$$ 88888 !!!!! Most people would say they see 5 dollar signs followed by 5 number 8's, and 5 exclamation points. But why not see this as 15 items that mean nothing together, or random symbols and numbers? The reason is that we group similar items together to try and make sense of them or find some pattern.

Implicit attitude

Is one where an individual's feelings or opinions on some matter exist without conscious awareness. In everyday life we all have these attitudes; we may love blueberries yet hate strawberries, or we may be attracted to some types of people, yet be repulsed by others. These attitudes simply exist and we rarely if ever question why. These attitudes are shaped by many factors, some internal and some external. If a person grows up in a household or society where prejudices against other ethnic or religious groups are commonplace, that person is very likely to never question the attitudes that they absorbed while growing up. Attitudes about foods, activities, personal attractions, etc. are partially shaped by a person's environment, partly by intangibles that are possibly genetic in origin (sense of taste, physical talents) and /or experiences while growing (personal attractiveness, personality types, etc.).

Just world attitude

Is the assumption that a person's actions are inherently inclined to bring morally fair and fitting consequences to that person, to the end of all noble actions being eventually rewarded and all evil actions eventually punished.

Accommodation

Is the cognitive process of revising existing cognitive schemas, perceptions, and understanding so that new information can be incorporated. In order to make sense of some new information, you actual adjust information you already have (schemas you already have, etc.) to make room for this new information

Dispositional attribution

Is the explanation of individual behavior as a result caused by internal characteristics that reside within the individual, as opposed to external (situational) influences that stem from the environment or culture in which that individual is found.

Rosenthal effect

Is the phenomenon whereby higher expectations lead to an increase in performance. The effect is named after the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved, or alternately, after the Rosenthal-Jacobson study (see below).

Physical attractiveness stereotype

Is the tendency to perceive physically attractive people as intelligent, talented, confident, well-liked, and honest. As a result, good-looking individuals have more persuasive power than individuals of average or below average looks. Research has shown that attractive people have an advantage in job searches, elections, and even criminal trials. This raises the question of whether attractive people are more successful in life because of their personal traits or because of the way others perceive them.

Outgroup homogeneity

Is the tendency to view an outgroup as homogenous, or as "all the same," whereas the ingroup is seen as more heterogeneous or varied. For example, a woman who lives in a big city might believe that everyone from the country or a small town is stupid, whereas she thinks that people from the city can be smart, stupid, or something in between. When the woman meets a small town person who is very intelligent, she considers him or her an exception to the norm. Overgeneralizing in this way about outgroup traits contributes to stereotyping.

Self esteem

Is the understanding a person creates of his or her worth, based on emotions and beliefs about how he or she fits into or performs in any given situation in life. For example, being a good runner can make a person's self esteem more positive and bad course grade could make a person's self esteem more negative. Self esteem is a fluid idea and can change frequently.

seasonal affective disorder

Lack of sunlight and the general dreariness of the winter months may be one cause of this. For this reason patients of the disorder are often treated using sun lamps or tanning beds. Another reason may be the isolation that occurs when the weather forces you to stay inside.

Pluralistic ignorance

Is when members of a group mistakenly believe that everyone in the group feels a certain way or holds a certain belief. For example, Sarah doesn't like the taste of alcohol, but she (falsely) believes that all her friends and classmates love it. This false belief could make her more likely to drink, or at least more likely to hide her true feelings about drinking.

Self-handicapping

Is when someone makes excuses for a potential failure or anticipated poor performance. For example, if a student says, "I'm not going to do well on the Psychology test because I'm sick," then if they get a bad grade they can blame it on illness instead of their lack of skill or preparation. Self-handicapping is a way of preserving self-esteem, but it is a self-defeating behavior in that the person is avoiding effort and responsibility.

Stereotype threat

Is when worry about conforming to a negative stereotype leads to underperformance on a test or other task by a member of the stereotyped group (i.e., men, women). For example, we sometimes hear that men are better than women in math and science. A woman who is aware of this stereotype may try to fight it by getting a really high score on a math exam, but the anxiety and distraction caused by the stereotype may actually lead her to get a lower score on the exam than she would otherwise. Thus, women's performance in math may not be due to lower ability compared to men but to negative stereotypes.

Thalamus

It functions as a sensory relay station, connecting incoming sensory tracts to special sensory areas of the cerebral cortex

Hyperpolarization

It inhibits action potentials by increasing the stimulus required to move the membrane potential to the action potential threshold

GABA

It inhibits nerve transmission in the brain, calming nervous activity

Bipolar disorder II

It involves at least one depressive episode lasting at least two weeks and at least one hypomanic episode lasting at least four days. Depressive symptoms include sadness or hopelessness. Hypomanic symptoms include a persistently elevated or irritable mood. Treatment includes counseling and medications, such as mood stabilizers.

Medulla

It is responsible, with the pons, for organizing reflexes more complex than spinal reflexes

EEG

It is usually described in terms of wave patterns

substantia nigra

It looks like a darkened streak in unstained brain tissue; this is where it gets its name, which is Latin for "black substance."

Reticular formation

It plays a central role in states of consciousness like alertness and sleep

Risky shift

It refers to the observed tendency of people to make more daring decisions when they are in groups than when they are alone. This phenomenon explains how riots and gang violence start; from choices and actions that a person would probably never take on their own but are willing to take as part of a group. This is related to the concept of deindividuation which is when individuals in groups lose their self - identity which can lead to a loss of restraint and self-awareness.

Ghrelin

It stimulates our appetite and the release of growth hormones.

Effect size

It tells us about practical significance rather than statistical significance

NEO-PI

It uses a series of 240 questions to measure the big five personality traits: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience (The big five traits spell out the word OCEAN). The 240 questions are further broken down to 6 dimensions (or facets) of the main personality traits. This battery of questions was originally designed to measure personality changes associated with aging. Since then, it has been updated several times with the last update occurring in 2010

structuralism

It works to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel.

Behaviorism

It's all nurture stupid - not nature

panic disorder

It's not uncommon for these symptoms to lead the person to think they are 'going crazy', having a heart attack, or are going to die. Afterwards, the individual may become so afraid of having another panic attack and not being able to get help or medical care, that they insist on having a trusted person with them at all times, are afraid to leave the house, or are afraid to be in places or situations where they would be unable to get help.

Groupthink

Janus (1972) said that this is "a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment that results from in-group pressures." Essentially, people within a group become so consumed with the group, maintaining group cohesiveness, and doing what is important for the group that they themselves lose their ability to think independently and make good, sound judgments. There are quite a few symptoms and causes of groupthink, but it is important to know what groupthink is and that it has been used to explain a variety of tragic events throughout history such as, mass suicides (like the Heaven's Gate suicides), poor political decisions (like the Bay of Pigs invasion), riots, and more.

Purkinje

Kearns-Sanye Syndrome involves a disconnect between these cells and the cerebrum, leading to trouble reading, writing, walking and talking; these GABAnergic cells are among the largest in the nervous system and are abundant in the cerebellum. What is the name of these cells? (or their discoverer, who is also known for this dark adaptation phenomenon, which makes blue colors more prominent at nightfall)

Cattell 16PF

L-data - this is life record data such as school grades, absence from work etc. Q-data - this was a questionnaire designed to rate an individual's personality. T-data - this is data from objective tests designed to 'tap' into a personality construct.

Anal stage

Libido is focused on the anus and defecating

John Watson

Little Albert Experiment

Wernicke's aphasia

Long sentences that make no sense at all

Multiple sclerosis

Loss of coordination and clumsiness Speech difficulties Hand shaking/tremor Loss of bladder and bowel control Extreme fatigue Sight impairments Memory lapses VertigoWeakness Impaired sensation

Independent self concept

Maintain the individual as a separate, self-contained individual; Focus on internal attributes (ability, intelligence, personality, goals, preferences, rights); Verify and confirm through social comparison

GABA

Many sedatives and anti-anxiety medicines operate on receptors for this inhibitory neurotransmitter

Factitious disorder

Many who suffer from this disorder go to extreme means to create illness such as tainting medical samples, using or misusing medications or illegal drugs, or self-injection of bacteria and other noxious or poisonous substances. The most severe and well-known form of this is Munchausen Disorder (where people create physical illness in themselves though various means as a way of gaining attention). This disorder also has a "proxy" form where a caregiver creates illness or injury in others.

Attachment styles

Mary Ainsworth

Hierarchy of needs

Maslow

Self-actualization

Maslow believed that there are five types of needs that motivate us in our every day lives. At the top of Maslow's hierarchy are self-actualization needs where people have reached their full potential and have become all that they can be. According to Maslow, few people in history are said to have self-actualized.

Sexual Response Cycle

Masters & Johnson

power

Mathematically, it is equal to one minus beta

Thomas Hobbes

Matter and motion

Floor effect

Measurement problem that could be caused by a test that is too difficult

Olds and Milner

Medial forebrain bundle

Inferior colliculi

Midbrain-tectum-Auditory information

Superior colliculi

Midbrain-tectum-Visual Information

Obedience determinants

Milgram; Occurs when you change your opinions, judgments, or actions because someone in a position of authority told you to. The key aspect to note about obedience is that just because you have changed in some way, it does not mean that you now agree with the change. For example, if you are a democratic senator, and the president came to you and demanded that you vote for a something that you were not in favor, and you did go ahead and vote the way the president said, you would be obeying (or displaying obedient behavior). However, this does not mean that you now agree with the way you voted or what you voted for....only that you did what you were told to do.

depression

Mirtazapine hit the market in 1996 and, although shown effective for sleep apnea, insomnia and social anxiety, its primary use is for this disorder

Insomnia

Most cases of this are related to poor sleep habits, depression, anxiety, lack of exercise, chronic illness, or certain medications.

Hippocampus

Most important brain part for you in trying to file all this stuff away for the quiz (memory)

parametric statistics

Most well-known elementary statistical methods are what?

Robber's cave

Muzafer Sherif was the researcher behind the famous conflict study with two groups of youth campers, the Eagles and the Rattlers; this was the state park where it took place

Piaget

NOT classified as a behaviorist

negative correlation

Negative correlation is a relationship between two variables in which one variable increases as the other decreases, and vice versa. In statistics, a perfect negative correlation is represented by the value -1.00, while a 0.00 indicates no correlation and a +1.00 indicates a perfect positive correlation.

Implicit prejudice

Negative feelings and/or beliefs about a group that people hold without being aware of it; racism has probably received the most research attention

Action potential

Neural impulses; the all or nothing electrical bursts that begin at one end of the axon of a neuron and move along the axon to the other end

Mirror neurons

Neurons in the brain that become active both when the individual makes a particular motion and when the individual sees another individual making that same motion.

Somatosensory cortex

Neurons that sense feelings in our skin, pain, visual, or auditory stimuli, all send their information to this for processing.

glutamate

Neurotransmitter most important in learning new material; also the most abundant excitatory neurotransmitter

parsimony

Often mistakenly believed to mean "simplicity"

Sibling contrast

Parents tend to perceive more divergence between their children than really exists (i.e., they underestimate the level of similarity), consistent with this effect.

TAT

People are shown ambiguous pictures and then asked to make up stories about them. This allows the person to "project" their own feelings and interests onto the picture. So rather than saying, I feel really angry, the person may indicate that the person in the picture looks really angry and upset about something.

Locus of control

Personality trait based on perceptions of your influence over life outcomes; first theorized by Julian Rotter

Zimbardo Stanford Prison study

Philip Zimbardo (1933 - ) is known for leading the Stanford Prison Study, a controversial experiment which investigated the psychological effects of being a prisoner or prison guard. In the experiment, college students were randomly assigned to become prisoners or guards. During the course of the experiment, both the prisoners and guards rapidly internalized their roles (they started to become their roles), with the guards becoming sadistic, and the prisoners becoming passive and depressed. Originally designed as a two-week experiment, the duration was cut short after 6 days due to the emotional trauma experienced by the participants. The study demonstrated what Zimbardo calls the Lucifer Effect - how good people can turn evil in response to the situation they are in, and not as a result of their real personalities.

The sensorimotor stage

Piaget's stage 1; Birth to 2 Years

Concrete Operational stage

Piaget's stage 3; Age 7 to 11 Years

Formal Operational stage

Piaget's stage 4; Age 12 & up

egocentrism

Piaget; is an inability on the part of a child in the preoperational stage of development to see any point of view other than their own. For example, little Suzy gets a phone call from her father, who asks little Suzy if Mommy is home. Instead of saying, "yes", little Suzy nods her head. Her father, hearing no response, asks again, to which little Suzy again nods her head. What little Suzy fails to appreciate is that her father is unable to see her nodding. Little Suzy can only take her own perspective - "I am nodding my head yes, why do you keep asking me this question?"

Seligman

Positive psychology, conditioning of dogs to the point of learned helplessness

Alfred Binet

Practical intelligence test

Four horsemen of the apocalypse

Predictors of divorce; They are Criticism, Defensiveness, Contempt and Stonewalling; Gottman

Rosenthal effect

Problematic effect in which the experimenter subtly influence participants to act in ways that confirm the experimenter's expectancies

Freud

Psychoanalysis

Erikson

Psychoanalyst

Existential therapy

Psychological problems that arise in people are considered to be a result of an individual's confrontation with the limits of human existence. Existentialism as a philosophical concept focuses on the unique distress that humans face- we are the only organism that is aware of our mortality and that we will die.

Depersonalization disorder

Psychologists believe that this is a way the mind protects itself after the traumatic event. This is not considered a disorder unless it becomes frequent enough to disrupt normal life and functioning.

Gustav Fechner

Psychophysics, improved on Weber's Law

Free association

Quick, say whatever comes to your mind when I say the word "marriage". Don't limit or try to evaluate your responses, just say everything that pops into your head. This process is a Freudian (psychoanalytic) method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.

B.F. Skinner

Radical behaviorism and reinforcement schedule

Narcolepsy

Random Falling Asleep

Confidence interval

Range of values that is (usually) 95% likely to contain the true population average

Ordinal

Ranking

Rechtschaffen Study

Rat Study (sleep deprivation) Rats dies from metabolism shutdown

neologism

Recent examples of this are internet related terms such as blog, meme, and selfie that have been recently coined and are now in frequent use. These are particularly common in young children who frequently assign idiosyncratic names to various objects such as naming their favorite blanket. In psychiatry, it is not uncommon for severely impaired clients (patients with thought disorders, autism or severe psychopathy such as schizophrenia) to use neologisms; words or usages, or nonsensical phonemic groups, in ways that are unique to the user. The latter of these is sometimes referred to as word salad.

Allport

Recognized as the founder of personality psychology

Order effect

Refer to how the positioning of question or tasks in a survey or text influence the outcome

Internal and external validity

Referred to as the experimenter's dilemma

Factitious disorder

Refers to a collection of disorders that are, essentially, made up by patients as a means of gaining attention, sympathy, nurturance, and other forms of approval through the portrayal or creation of illness or injury in themselves.

Conduct disorder

Refers to negative behaviors exhibited by children and teenagers. This is not a mental illness, but the result of deep-seated behavioral and emotional problems, with causes such as anxiety, mood disorders, ADHD, or learning disorders. They should be diagnosed early and treatment could be long term, in order to develop new patterns of thinking and behavior.

Self-regulation

Refers to our ability to direct our behavior and control our impulses so that we meet certain standards, achieve certain goals, or reach certain ideals. Self regulation involves being able to set goals, monitoring one's behavior to ensure that it is in line with those goals, and having the willpower to persist until goals are reached

Self-regulation

Refers to our ability to direct our behavior and control our impulses so that we meet certain standards, achieve certain goals, or reach certain ideals. Self regulation involves being able to set goals, monitoring one's behavior to ensure that it is in line with those goals, and having the willpower to persist until goals are reached. One example of a situation that requires self regulation is when you go on a diet with a goal of losing X number of pounds. In order to be successful, you must stick to a diet and exercise plan, at least until you reach your target weight. This means being able to say no to certain foods that are not part of your meal plan, getting yourself to eat certain food that you might not like very much, being able to motivate yourself to get up and do your daily workout, and other things that are needed to achieve your goal. In this case, good self-regulation may spell the difference between achieving your ideal weight and being healthy, or spiralling out of control into obesity and ill health.

spotlight effect

Refers to our tendency to think that other people are watching us more closely than they actually are. Do you remember that one time in school when you tripped on something, fell on your butt, and everyone saw you? Of course, you do, and it may have been one of the most embarrassing moments of your life. But chances are, no one remembers but you. And those who remember probably don't think it was as bad as you thought.

Self-serving bias

Refers to people's tendency to attribute positive outcomes to personal factors, but attribute negative outcomes to external factors. In other words, "If it's a success, it's because of me. If it's a failure, it's because of someone or something else." For example, if I met my sales target, it's because I'm a great salesperson. But if I did not meet my sales target, it's because the economy is bad.

Construct validity

Refers to the ability of a measurement tool to actually measure the psychological concept being studied

Temperament

Refers to the characteristics and aspects of personality that we are born with. For that reason, they are similar to traits in that they are both innate (born with these things) and enduring. Infants who are anxious and nervous tend to be the same way when they are older. One difference though is that this more often relates to emotionality...the specific emotional characteristics such as calm, anxious, or nervous.

Self disclosure

Refers to times when you share very private, intimate secrets about yourself with another person. Typically in a counseling setting, self-disclosure is necessary to make significant progress. Not only is this important in counseling settings, but it is crucial for successful, loving relationships.

Personal construct psychology

Related to implicit personality theory is the notion that everyone sees the world in their own unique ways, meaning that in a sense everyone defines their own personality. This was George Kelly's theory, otherwise known as this (it shares an acronym with a dissociative drug with the street name 'angel dust')

Emotional contagion

Research reveals that emotions, both positive and negative, actually spread among your employees like viruses. People routinely "catch" each other's feelings when working together in groups. It's not surprising that this influences your employees' moods: what's more surprising is that it significantly influences their judgment and business decisions as well. Usually without anyone having a clue what's going on

Conscientiousness

Research shows that this Big 5 trait is the best predictor of job performance

Nucleus accumbens

Researchers are Olds & Milner

random assignment

Researchers use this as their primary defense against subject effects and it used the most

Sleep Apnea

Risk factors include age and obesity. It's more common in men.

Luminotherapy/Phototherapy

Seasonal affective disorder treatment - exposure to intense artificial lighting

behaviorism

Second force in the history of psychology and challenged the psychodynamic perspective

psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud is the most famous developer of this therapy approach. The therapy concentrates on bringing forward repressed unconscious thoughts. Freud believed that the ego and superego spent a considerable amount of energy to keep these feelings and thoughts repressed. It was this repression and the development of defense mechanism that left these hidden conflicts unresolved. Freud thought that these unresolved conflicts prevented normal psychosexual development, which in turn cause personality disorders. One of his most common techniques to bring these thoughts to the consciousness was the use of free association.

Quasi-experimental

Similiar to a traditional experimental design, but lacks the element of random assignment to treatment or control

phenomenology

Simply stated, this is the psychological study of subjective experience

Belief perseverance

Social psychologists Ross, Lepper and Hubbard found that some people have a tendency or unwillingness to admit that their foundational premises are incorrect even when shown convincing evidence to the contrary. This is this tendency to reject convincing proof and become even more tenaciously held when the belief has been publicly announced to others. For example, members of the Jonestown cult made a public admission of their loyalty to Jim Jones by selling all their possessions and following him to Guyana. Even though they later experienced irrational manipulation and abuse, they stayed to the point of committing mass suicide when he told them to do so.

Normative influence

Sometimes people behave in ways just to gain approval from others, even if they don't necessarily believe in what they are doing. This is influence resulting in the desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval. For example, if you go to a play, many times you will applaud when others do even if you didn't really like the play that much. You do this to avoid the diapproval of the other people.

Graded potential

Spreading voltage changes that occur when one neuron stimulates another; they vary in size

Basic trust vs Mistrust

Stage 1 of Erikson's model

Autonomy vs. shame/doubt

Stage 2 of Erikson's model

Initiative vs. guilt

Stage 3 of Erikson's model

Industry (competence) vs. Inferiority

Stage 4 of Erikson's model

Identity vs. Role Confusion

Stage 5 of Erikson's model

Intimacy vs. Isolation

Stage 6 of Erikson's model

Generativity vs. Stagnation

Stage 7 of Erikson's model

Ego Integrity vs. Despair

Stage 8 of Erikson's model

z-score

Standardized score with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1

Two-factor theory of emotion

Stanley Schachter

Social comparison

States that we determine our own social and personal worth based on how we stack up against others. As a result, we are constantly making self and other evaluations across a variety of domains (for example, attractiveness, wealth, intelligence, and success).

Epinephrine

Strong emotions such as fear or anger cause this to be released into the bloodstream, which causes an increase in heart rate, muscle strength, blood pressure, and sugar metabolism.

Hugo Munsterberg

Studied under Wundt, considered a founder of both IO psychology and forensic psychology

Dependent personality disorder

Symptoms can include an inability to assume responsibility, troubles making decisions and starting projects, difficulty disagreeing with others, and submissive behaviors. The fear of being alone is disruptive and pervasive and if a close relationship ends the dependent individual will frantically try to replace them.

Sleep Apnea

Symptoms include snoring loudly and feeling tired even after a full night's sleep.

Anorexia Nervosa

Symptoms include trying to maintain a below-normal weight through starvation or too much exercise. Medical treatment may be needed to restore normal weight. Talk therapy can help with self-esteem and behavior changes

Insomnia

Symptoms may include difficulty falling or staying asleep and not feeling well-rested.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

Symptoms of this disorder include impulsivity, disregard for the rights of others (both physically and psychologically), not caring about laws or societal norms. Sufferes of this disorder can be superficially charming and glib. They typically suffer from conduct disorder was a child. There is sometimes confusion because this disorder's symptoms are the symptoms of a 'psychopath' or 'sociopath'. Although many of the traits are the same the terms psychopath and sociopath are not official diagnoses that a mental health professional could make.

Terminal buttons

Taken from the French term meaning 'end feet,' these receive the axon's impulses and send them to the other cells

Neuroticism

The Big Five trait most closely associated with vulnerability to stress

Meninges

The CNS protecting dura mater, arachnoid mater, and pia mater are known collectively as this

Autism Spectrum Disorder

The DSM-5 no longer has Asperger's disorder as a separate diagnosis. It is now included as a mild form within the Autism spectrum. There is widespread misconception that vaccines can cause an this disorder - there is no scientific evidence to back this up. This disorder is considered to be caused by both genetic and environmental factors.

causation

The ability to pinpoint this is the main benefit of true experiments

Self-regulation

The ability to take on important tasks now rather than procrastinating, resist angry impulses, and delay gratification are all rooted in this personality variable

Factor analysis

The advent of personal computers led to the widespread use of this as an approach to developing models of human personality

Cognitive triad

The components of this feed and strengthen each other with negative viewpoints in one area making the other parts of the triad stronger. Attributions of events come from maladaptive beliefs about the self, the world, and the future. Cognitive therapy focuses on changing these pessimistic ways of thinking in order to alleviate bad symptoms. This could be done by pointing out the positive qualities of the depressed patient, the world, and their future.

Homeostasis

The constancy in the body's internal environment that must be maintained through the expenditure of energy

Resting potential

The constant electrical charge that exists across the membrane of an inactive neuron

Alexithymia

The core characteristics are marked dysfunction in emotional awareness, social attachment, and interpersonal relating.

Neurogenesis

The creation of new neurons in which neuronal stem cells divide and replicate themselves by mitosis

IV

The defining characteristic of a true experiment is control over this

Outward appearance

The earliest theories based on physiognomy emerged in 5th century B.C. Athens; a more recent example is the somatotype theory from the 1940s. The basic point in physiognomy is that personality can be concluded by observing this

Peripheral nervous system

The entire set of cranial and spinal nerves that connect the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) to the body's sensory organs, muscles, and glands

Manipulation check

The experimented changes or adjusts variables in an experiment and randomly assigns subjects to conditions (groups) to see whether or not those changes create substantial changes in the results of the experiment

ECT

The film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was largely responsible for the drop in popularity of this treatment

Wundt

The first people to earn a Ph.D in psychology were whose students?

Prefrontal cortex

The front-most portion of the frontal lobe of the brain's cerebral cortex

narcissitic personality disorder

The hallmarks of this disorder are grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people, and a need for admiration. Individuals with this seek excessive admiration and attention in order to know that others think highly of them.

iatrogenic

The key to the definition is that a new medical problem has cropped up as a result of the actions of the medical provider. Essentially, it's saying that the patient would not have gotten sick or hurt had they not interfaced with that doctor or practitioner.

Medulla

The lowest portion of the brainstem, bounded at one end by the spinal cord and at the other by the pons

RLS

The main symptom is a nearly irresistible urge to move the legs. Getting up and moving around helps the unpleasant feeling temporarily go away. Self-care steps, lifestyle changes, or medications may help.

2

The minimum number of people required for a group

Lithium

The most common drug treatment for bipolar disorder

16

The number of distinct personality traits according to Cattell's model

degrees of freedom

The number of independent ways by which a dynamic system can move, without violating any constraint imposed on it

power

The odds of rejecting the null in a study

Chimpanzees

The only nonhuman species to show evidence of Conscientiousness

Cerebral cortex

The outermost, evolutionarily newest, and by far the largest portion of the brain

cohort effect

The particular impact of a group bonded by time or common life experience

90%

The percent of all psychotherapy clients who report being satisfied with their experience, based on the 1995 Consumer Reports study

Androgen insensitivity syndrome

The person has some or all of the physical traits of a woman, but the genetic makeup of a man.

Foot in the door/lowball effect

The phenomenon is the tendency for people to comply with some large request after first agreeing to a small request. As you can then imagine, the technique is used to get compliance from others (to get them to behave in a way you want) in which a small request is made first in order to get compliance for a larger request. For example, someone might want you to give to give 5 hours of your time a week for the three months as a volunteer to a charity (a big request). But to get you to agree to this big request, they first ask you to volunteer for 1 hour one time and one time only. After hearing this small request, which you are willing to agree to, they then work their way up asking you to volunteer time until you are willing to agree to the big request. You are more likely to agree to this when you have already said yes to the small request

Central State Theory

The philosophy of mind that identifies mental events with physical events occurring in the brain and central nervous system. It is thus a form of physicalism. The two forms most commonly distinguished are token-token identity theory, and type-type identity theory.

Brain stem

The primitive, stalk-like portion of the brain that can be thought of as an extension of the spinal cord into the head

Split-brain operation

The procedure involves severing the corpus callosum, the main bond between the brain's left and right hemispheres

Operationalization

The process by which the researcher sets out to measure something that is not directly measurable

Fast mapping

The process of rapidly learning a new word by contrasting it with a familiar word. This is an important tool that children use during language acquisition. An example would be presenting a young child with two toy animals - one a familiar creature (a dog) and one unfamiliar (a platypus). When the child is asked to retrieve the platypus a contrast is provided for the child (dog versus unknown creature) which allows them to infer the other creature must be a platypus. Using fast mapping is very effective in new word acquisition with most children being able to recall the new object a week later.

Anna O

The pseudonym for the famous conversion disorder patient of Freud's colleague Joseph Breuer, who led Freud to his belief in psychoanalysis

Cerebellum

The relatively large, conspicuous, convoluted portion of the brain attached to the rear side of the brainstem

Catharsis

The research on this aggression-related effect could be summarized as, "it feels good, but it tends to backfire"

philosophers, physicists, physiologists, and naturalists

The roots of psychology predated Wundt. What did those people call themselves?

False

The running head contains the author's name

Genotype

The set of genes inherited by the individual

Parasympathetic nervous system

The set of motor neurons that act upon visceral muscles and glands and mediate many of the body's regenerative, growth-promoting, and energy-conserving functions.

sympathetic nervous system

The set of motor neurons that act upon visceral muscles and glands and mediate many of the body's responses to stressful stimulation, preparing the body for possible for "fight or flight"

two

The simplest possible version of an experiment would involve how many levels of the IV?

Morphemes

The smallest units of speech that convey meaning. All words are composed of at least one. For example, the word "work" is a single one, but the word "working", which implies some action, is made up of two of these ("work" and "ing").

ANOVA

The statistical test most commonly used for designs that incorporate more than one IV

parsimony

This term describes a desirable characteristic of a theory - it means that there are no unnecessary assumptions made

False consensus effect

The tendency to overestimate how much other people agree with us. This kind of cognitive bias leads people to believe that their own values and ideas are "normal" and that the majority of people share these same opinions

Factorial design

The term for a research design in which multiple IVs are tested independently and for their interactive effects.

need for achievement

The term was first used by Henry Murray and associated with a range of actions. These include: "intense, prolonged and repeated efforts to accomplish something difficult.

Opponent process

The theory also postulates that repeated exposure to the stimulus will cause less of an initial reaction and a stronger opposing reaction. This may explain why drugs, such as opiates, give diminishing returns after prolonged use yet the effects of withdraw become more intensified and unpleasant.

Locus of control

The theory refers to individual perceptions of "causality" or "how and why" things happen in a person's life. These perceptions are generally referred to as either: a) intrinsic, in which a person believes that they exert control on their environment actions; or b) extrinsic, which refers to a belief system where a person feels controlled by outside forces and events and believes that they have little or no control over their own circumstances and environment.

Congruence

The therapist must be true to who they are and not put on a façade for the client, said Rogers. This is the term he used for this 'honesty' in the therapist

Cognitive

The three components of an attitude are the evaluative component, the behavioral component, and this component

social exchange theory

There are many different theories about why we help each other. According to this people help each other when there is a positive cost-benefit analysis; when the benefits outweigh the costs.The benefits can be tangible or intangible, physical or psychological. All that really matters is that the person perceives the benefits to be greater than the costs.

Serotonin

The two biochemical factors most closely related to aggression are testosterone and this neurotransmitter

Cognitive Therapy

The type of therapy you could expect if you paid a visit to depression expert Aaron T. Beck

somatoform disorders

There are many different types and forms of psychological disorders. To make sense and organize them all, we place disorders into categories, such as anxiety disorders, dissociative disorders, somatoform disorders (among others). Somatoform disorders as those that have some type of bodily symptom (soma = body) but don't appear to have any physical cause. This does not mean that the symptoms are not real, only that a physical cause for the real symptoms can't be found. This may be the result of anxiety, stress, among other causes.

parkinson's disease

There are medications and treatments that can help control symptoms. Since this results from damage to cells that release dopamine (a chemical messenger in the brain that controls coordination in motion), treatments attempt to replace the lost dopamine. There are also some surgical procedures that are helpful in managing or suppressing symptoms. Unfortunately, none of these treatments stop the progression of the disease.

Self-monitoring

There are people who are high self-monitors and people who are low self-monitors...A high self-monitor is someone who is concerned about how they are perceived by others and will actually change their behavior in order to fit different situations (e.g., if they believe they will be perceived negatively by others, they may change their behavior so that they are perceived more positively...rather than just acting in a consistent manner). On the other hand, a low self-monitor is someone who is less concerned with how other people perceive them and will be more likely to act consistently. For example, a low self-monitor who has certain religious beliefs will be more likely than a high self-monitor to express their actual beliefs across situations (a high self-monitor might say something other than their true beliefs if they believe the situation calls for it or if they believe others will perceive them in a negative manner).

Overjustification effect

There were some very cool studies many years back in which children were given opportunities to play with some toys. They really enjoyed playing with these toys -- it was fun for them. Then the researchers gave the children rewards for playing with the toys. Know what happened? The getting a reward for doing something that was intrinsically rewarding (it was fun to do all on its own) was now seen as totally different because they were getting rewarded for it. What happened was the kids no longer enjoyed playing with the toys. It became less about fun and more about "work". Still think that people do their best work if they get paid well for it?

Secondary sex characteristics

These are the physical features other than reproductive organs that distinguish men from women; are nonreporductive sexual characteristics such as breasts (on females) and an adam's apple on men.

Ventricles

These four cavities are filled with CSF; enlargement of the third one has been associated with major depressive disorder

Androgens

These hormones are also produced at lower levels by the adrenal glands, in females as well as in males

Mirror neurons

These neurons are believed to faciliate observational learning

compound

This term describes a factor that varies along with the IV and kills internal validity

Limbic system

These structures are especially important for the regulation of emotion and motivation and are involved in the formation of long-term memories

Big Five

These traits exist on a spectrum. So when personality measures are given to measure the big five traits people are scored on a range. For example, a person would score on a spectrum that ranges from extroversion to introversion. Openness traits are having imagination, a high range of interests, and openness to new experiences. High conscientiousness means high levels of thoughtfulness, good impulse control, and being organized. People scoring high in extroversion are high in excitability, sociability, and are often talkative. Agreeableness means beings trusting, unselfish, and kind. High neuroticism scores often are predictors of behavior that is anxious, moody, sad, and emotionally unstable

Big Five

These traits exist on a spectrum. So when personality measures are given to measure these, people are scored on a range

Existential therapy

These type of therapies are not focused on the past like many other types of therapies. Although the past is acknowledged the present and the future are more emphasized along with the traits of being a human and how these limitations can be freeing.

Catatonia

These types of states can be caused by a mental disorder, a medical condition, or unspecified reasons. These patients are in a stupor and are not affected by their environment in any way.

Corpus callosum

Thickest part of it is the splenium - overall, it tends to be thicker in women than men, musicians than non-musicians, and lefthanders than righthanders

Durability Bias

Thinking emotions will last longer than they really will

Major Depressive Disorder

This "common cold" of mental illness hits roughly 18 percent of all Americans at some point in their life

Authoritarian

This "personality" characteristic is associated with political conservativism, obedience to authority and extreme ethnocentrism

Food & Drug Administration

This agency has the final say-so on whether new drugs can hit the market - but it approves over 80% of them

Systematic desensitization

This behavioral technique is the most common in treating phobias

Xanax

This benzodiazepine is also a palindrome

Conversion Disorder

This disorder is a rare somatoform disorder in which a person has specific, genuine, physical symptoms, but there is no physiological basis for the symptoms; at least there is no physiological basis that can be found.

Conduct disorder

This disorder is often seen as the precursor to antisocial personality disorder - which is, per definition, not diagnosed until the individual is 18 years old

Need for cognition

This individual difference predicts a variety of outcomes, the most significant being whether attitudes guide behavior. It is higher in college students, who (sometimes, at least) like to roll ideas around in their minds.

Huntington's disease

This inherited disorder causes brain cells to die, typically starting in the 30s or 40s, with the first visible signs being involuntary jerky movements

Borderline personality Disorder

This is a commonly diagnosed disorder that is characterized by unpredictable and impulsive behavior as well as sudden changes or shifts in mood. Because of this instability, people with this disorder have a difficult time maintaining relationships, and keeping a stable and positive self image. Some psychologists have suggested that this disorder hugs the line between mood disorders and personality disorders, which may cause some confusion when diagnosing people. The disorder is so commonly diagnosed that as much as 20% of all psychiatric patients are diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (Frances & Widiger, 1986). The primary characteristics include (not all of these symptoms have to be present for a person to be diagnosed with the disorder)

parkinson's disease

This is a disorder that affects the central nervous system which consists of the brain and spinal cord. It results in symptoms such as uncontrollable tremors, slow shuffling movements, slurred speech, and cognitive impairment. Individuals with this rarely die from the disease itself. Instead, they die from complications resulting from the disease e.g. stroke. At this point in time, there is no cure for this disease.

Desensitization

This is a form of treatment or therapy for phobias, fears, and aversions that people have. The premise is to reduce a person's anxiety responses through counterconditioning - a person who learned to be afraid of something is associating fear with that object or behavior, and the way to eliminate this is to teach the person to replace the feelings of anxiety with feelings of relaxation when the object or behavior is present

systemic desensitization

This is a form of treatment or therapy for phobias, fears, and aversions that people have. The premise is to reduce a person's anxiety responses through counterconditioning - a person who learned to be afraid of something is associating fear with that object or behavior, and the way to eliminate this is to teach the person to replace the feelings of anxiety with feelings of relaxation when the object or behavior is present. This approach is based on conditioning relaxation with the feared object or object of anxiety. For example: A) the fear - fear of dating women B) the client is asked to create a hierarchy of anxiety (what makes the client afraid, from least fear producing to most fear producing). 1) sitting next to a woman in class (least) 2) talking to a woman in class 3) walking with a woman on campus 4) calling a woman on the phone 5) eating a meal with a woman 6) going out on a date with a woman (most) C) the therapist then teaches the client some relaxation technique and then has the client use the relaxation technique when encountering (or just thinking about) the first level (sitting next to a woman in class). Once the client is comfortable with this, they move on to the next level, and so on until the client becomes relaxed and is able to go out on a date with a woman.

Door in the face

This is a technique used to get compliance from others (to get them to behave in a way you want) in which a large request is made knowing it will probably be refused so that the person will agree to a much smaller request. The real objective is to get the person to agree to the small request, which is made to seem very reasonable because it is compared to such a large, seemingly unreasonable request

Extraversion

This is the Big 5 personality dimension with the strongest genetic component and a significant positive correlation with happiness

Implicit personality theory

This is the general expectations that we build about a person after we know something of their central traits. For example when we believe that a happy person is also friendly

Diffusion of responsibility

This is the main reason for the bystander effect - it has to do with something being "spread out'

Gender Dysphoria

This is the mental illness currently most likely to be "treated" with surgery

1,500

This is the number of supervised hours required (plus the Ph.D.) in order to be eligible for a psychology license in Georgia

Operationalization

This is the process of converting the abstract into the concrete, for purposes of experimentation

Self-efficacy

This is the term -- coined by Bandura - for your belief in your ability to accomplish a specific task

Temperament

This is the term commonly used in lieu of "personality" in referring to infant behavior

Attitude ambivalence

This is the term for having both strongly positive and strongly negative feelings about an object or issue

Altruism

This is the term for helping with no conscious expectation of any reinforcement

Reciprocity

This norm is the main reason people tend to me more helpful in smaller than in larger communities

Prefrontal Cortex

This part of your brain plays the most important role in inhibiting aggression; in people diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder (a particularly violent group) it is often reduced in size by about 15%

Cattell 16PF

This personality test consists of 164 statements about yourself, for each indicate how accurate it is on the scale of (1) disagree (2) slightly disagree (3) niether agree nor disagree (4) slightly agree (5) agree. It will take most people around ten minutes to complete

Self monitoring

This personality trait is associated with weak attitudes since people high in the trait tend to base their actions on what seems socially appropriate - and not on their attitudes

double blind procedure

This procedure is utilized to prevent bias in research results

graphology

This pseudoscientific field is still popular in a number of European countries, but John Hancock does not approve

Outgroup Homogeneity

This refers to the tendency to see people in other groups as less variable than those in our own group...e.g., "they all look alike"

Within subjects or repeated measures

This research design negates random assignment since the same people serve in both (or all) conditions

Lateralization

This six-syllable term refers to the fact that the brain hemispheres are specialized

naturalistic observation

This technique involves observing subjects in their natural environment.

token economy

This technique is often used in schools or in parenting to change children's behaviors. It's also used in in-patient programs.

regression

This technique, which is based on the correlation statistic, allows for the assessment of both unique and combined influences of multiple predictors on a single outcome variable

Stratified sampling

This term describes the technique being used if the US is divided into 9 regions, with respondents selected randomly within each of the regions to assure each region is represented according to population

Halo Effect

This term describes the tendency to attribute positive characteristics to someone on the basis of one feature they possess that we like

standardization

This term is used in statistics and in methods; in the latter, it refers to consistency of testing conditions, operationalizations, instructions, etc

Accommodation

This term stemmed from the work of Jean Piaget and his work on cognitive development of children

Just world attitude

This term was coined to describe individual differences in the tendency to think of life as "fair"

Psychotropic

This term, first used in 1948, is taken from the Greek for 'turning the mind'

social identity theory

This theory addresses the ways in which people perceive and categorize themselves. According to social identity theory, individuals form self-conceptions that are based on two parts: 1) personal or self identity, and 2) collective identity. Personal or self identity refers to our unique, personal qualities such as our beliefs, our abilities and skills, etc. The collective self includes all the qualities that arise from being part of a society, culture, family, groups, clubs, etc. For example, you may identify yourself as a protestant, male, football player, who is very popular with people at school.

Opponent process

This theory may explain why stunt people enjoy their work. First the individual will feel intense anxiety before performing a stunt and then the person will receive an opposite reaction of relief after the stunt is completed.

James-Lange Theory

This theory states that our emotions are caused by our interpretation of bodily reactions.

Need for closure

This trait is negatively correlated with tolerance for ambiguiy, but positively correlated with authoritarianism; high scorers strongly dislike new ideas and desire clear rules and swift solutions over flexibility and deliberation

Meta analysis

This was the research technique adopted by Smith & Glass (1977) in their landmark study of the efficacy of psychotherapy - a technique made more difficult by the fact that the Internet didn't exist

Alcoholics Anonymous

This well-known treatment approach, founded in 1935, is best known for its 12-step method of spiritual and character growth

MAOI

This, the oldest class of antidepressants, is named for the enzyme they inhibit...not a Chinese dictator

Paul Elkman

Thought there were 6 basic emotions

Robert Plutchik

Thought there were 8 basic emotions

Self liking

Three studies were conducted to validate the conceptualization of global self- esteem as consisting of two dimensions: a sense of social worth, or self-liking, and a sense of personal efficacy, or self-competence.

Princeton

Time pressure was shown to be a factor influencing helping in the "Good Samaritan" study conducted on this Rhode Island campus

assent

To include children in a study requires the consent of the parents, and this from the children

Glia

To surround neurons and hold them in place. To supply nutrients and oxygen to neurons. To insulate one neuron from another

Insomnia

Treatment for this consists of improving sleep habits, behavior therapy, and identifying and treating underlying causes. Sleeping pills may also be used, but should be monitored for side effects.

Sleep Apnea

Treatment often includes lifestyle changes, such as weight loss, and the use of a breathing assistance device at night, such as a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine.

Rational-Emotive Therapy

Type of cognitive therapy developed by Albert Ellis; designed to isolate irrational beliefs

Counterbalancing

Type of experimental design in which all possible orders of presenting the variables are included

null

Typically used to describe research findings in which the data fail to produce statistical significance

Sleep Stages

Usually sleepers pass through five stages: 1, 2, 3, 4 and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. These stages progress cyclically from 1 through REM then begin again with stage 1 Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep: You generally enter REM sleep about 90 minutes after initially falling asleep, and each REM stage can last up to an hour. An average adult has five to six REM cycles each night. During this final phase of sleep, your brain becomes more active.

Wilder Penfield

Voluntary muscle movements are of course triggered in the motor cortex...Once known as the 'greatest living Canadian' this neuroscientist was largely responsible for the first accurate mapping of the motor cortex

Somatotypes

Was a classification of body type devised by William H. Sheldon. He believed that all humans fit within 3 body types (mesomorph, ectomorph, and endomorph) to a certain degree. He defined particular ___________ as a series of three numbers; each a rating of 1 through 7. An example of one somatotype is a 1-6-3, i.e. medium build, medium height, and underweight. If you struggle remembering the order of body types, just remember s'mores: marshmallow-chocolate-graham cracker (short and fat-medium build-tall and skinny).

Anna O

Was the pseudonym of a patient of Josef Breuer, who published her case study in his book Studies on Hysteria, written in collaboration with Sigmund Freud. Her real name was Bertha Pappenheim (1859-1936), an Austrian-Jewish feminist and the founder of the Jüdischer Frauenbund (League of Jewish Women).

relative deprivation

We all have people to whom we compare ourselves. Don't worry, it's natural. But this is when you have the perception that you are worse off than these other people you compare yourself to. Having this feeling typically leads to frustration. For example, let's say you have a group of friends you study with (and you tend to compare yourself to them) and on a couple of exams they all do well and you do poorly, even though you all studied the same amount at the same times, etc. You may feel that you are worse off than them because they are doing better than you.

1/3

What percentage of people use their degrees in the field that they got their degree in?

Effect size

What the letter d typically refers to in the context of statistics

Zygote

When a female (human) egg is fertilized, it is no longer classified simply as an egg, but is now considered this

iatrogenic

When a patient acquires a new illness or is injured due to the services provided by a medical provider, the result is considered to be this

Neurotransmitter

When an action potential reaches an axon terminal, it causes the terminal to release packets of a chemical substance

learned helplessness

When an organism (person, animal, etc.) is prevented from avoiding some aversive stimulus repeatedly (e.g., continuous electric shocks) the organism will reach a state in which it becomes passive and depressed because he believes that there are no actions it can take to avoid the aversive stimulus. Esssentially, the organism just gives up trying to avoid it and just takes the aversive stimulus. Thus, the organism learns that it is helpless against the aversive stimulus.

social loafing

When more people are involved in a task, the task is done faster, more easily, and better...right? Not necessarily! Social loafing is the tendency for people in a group to put less effort into the task when the effort is pooled (when they are all supposed to work on the task) compared to when they are all responsible for their own contributions. By having more people involved in the group task, each person can put in a little less effort, thinking that others will make up for their lack of effort. You may have seen this type of situation with, for example, road crews...sometimes there are 10 on the crew, 3 are working hard, 2 are sort of working, and the other 5 are sitting around talking. Are they all putting in as much effort as they would if each worked alone? Probably not.

Group polarization

When people are placed into a group and these people have to deal with some situation, the group as a whole typically has some overriding attitude toward the situation. Over time and with group discussion, the group's attitude toward that situation may change. When it changes in such a way that the group attitude is enhanced and strengthened, then group polarization has occurred. For example, let's say a group of Republicans gather to discuss welfare reform and some new policy proposed by a democratic politician. The welfare policy calls for more money to be taken from private sector businesses and given to welfare centers. In the beginning of the discussion, the group as a whole may be somewhat against the welfare reform policy (thus having an initial group attitude). After discussing the policy, the group indicates that they are now more against the policy than ever. What has happened is that the initial attitude has been bolstered and the group is more polarized against the policy.

meta analysis

When the treatment effect (or effect size) is consistent from one study to the next, this can be used to identify this common effect.

Informational influence

When you make decisions about how to behave, there are many sources of information available to help you make these decisions. Sometimes you may need to seek out experts, conform to the way others or a group are behaving, or look to some other source of information. One other way is to use informational social influence; you look to the behaviors of others who are also in the same or similar situation to see how they behave. Then, you can follow their lead. For example, you travel to another planet, where some nice aliens offer to show you around. They decide to take you to one of their sporting events that is unlike anything you have ever seen. The problem is that, since you have no idea what the game is about, you don't know what is good, bad, when to cheer, boo, or how to act in general. What can you do? You can simply watch how others are behaving, what they react to, what is going on when they cheer, when they boo, etc. In this way, you seek information from your social surroundings, which influence your behavior.

Leipzig, Germany

Where was the first university-based psychology laboratory open?

Within

Which is also known as a repeated measures design? within vs. between subjects design

Nominal

Which is also known as categorical, with the numbers having no real meaning? interval, nominal, ordinal and ratio scales

Theory

Which is harder to disprove? theory or hypothesis

between

Which is higher in internal validity?within vs. between subjects design

Within

Which is more economical? within vs. between subjects design

Interval

Which is used most commonly in psychology? interval, nominal, ordinal and ratio scales

Nominal

Which of the following types of data would be most likely to require the use of a chi-square test - interval, nominal, ordinal. or ratio?

Ratio

Which permits the full range of statistical operations? interval, nominal, ordinal and ratio scales

Hypothesis

Which requires a logical opposite in the scientific method?

Mary Whiton Calkins

While she rightfully earned a doctorate degree in psychology from Harvard, the university refused to award her a degree because she was a woman

Carl Young

Who else was another speaker at Clark University?

Freud

Who was the key note speaker at Clark University?

Real self

Who you actually are

biopsychology

Wilder Penfield

Assent

Willingness to participate in research by persons who are by definition too young to give informed consent but who are old enough to understand the proposed research in general

Empathy

Women are often more helpful than men in situations where there is no danger; this is the factor usually called on to explain this gender difference

estrogen

Women's spatial abilities are lower when this is (cyclically) higher

Intrinsic motivation

Writes music for your own listening pleasure

Carl Jung

You are assigned to a famous psychotherapist (never mind that he is dead) and his main focus is dream interpretation. Your best bet on who this is?

Antisocial personality disorder

You are self-centered, destructive, and have absolutely no concern for the welfare of others. That's why you got this diagnosis.

Mere exposure effect

Zajonc; You begin to like something simply because you are exposed to it over and over again

normal curve

a bell-shaped curve showing a particular distribution of probability over the values of a random variable. Also called Gaussian curve, probability curve. Origin of normal curve.

Somatotypes

a classification of body type devised by William H. Sheldon. He believed that all humans fit within 3 body types (mesomorph, ectomorph, and endomorph) to a certain degree. He defined particular somatotypes as a series of three numbers; each a rating of 1 through 7. An example of one somatotype is a 1-6-3, i.e. medium build, medium height, and underweight. If you struggle remembering the order of body types, just remember s'mores: marshmallow-chocolate-graham cracker (short and fat-medium build-tall and skinny). What kind of s'more are you?

focus group

a demographically diverse group of people assembled to participate in a guided discussion about a particular product before it is launched, or to provide ongoing feedback on a political campaign, television series, etc.

paradigm

a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitutes legitimate contributions to a field

coverstory

a false statement of what the research was really about

functionalism

a functionalist theory might characterize pain as a state that tends to be caused by bodily injury, to produce the belief that something is wrong with the body and the desire to be out of that state, to produce anxiety, and, in the absence of any stronger, conflicting desires, to cause wincing or moaning. According to this theory, all and only creatures with internal states that meet these conditions, or play these roles, are capable of being in pain

paradigm

a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline

Nodes of Ranvier

a gap in the myelin sheath of a nerve, between adjacent Schwann cells

Ben Franklin effect

a person who has performed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than they would be if they had received a favor from that person

NEO-PI

a personality measure that was first published in 1990 as an update of the original inventory that was published in 1978. It uses a series of 240 questions to measure the big five personality traits: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience (The big five traits spell out the word OCEAN). The 240 questions are further broken down to 6 dimensions (or facets) of the main personality traits. This battery of questions was originally designed to measure personality changes associated with aging. Since then, it has been updated several times with the last update occurring in 2010.

Case Study

a process or record of research in which detailed consideration is given to the development of a particular person, group, or situation over a period of time.

Leptin

a protein produced by fatty tissue and believed to regulate fat storage in the body.

gestalt psychology

a school of psychological thought, founded in Germany, which emphasizes the idea that the mind must be understood in terms of organized wholes, not elementary parts

Materialism

a spirit or a soul is a meaningless concept and that exists but matter and energy (motion)

robust

a test merits this adjective if it is relatively impervious to having its assumptions violated

false positive

a test result which incorrectly indicates that a particular condition or attribute is present.

MMPI

a test that detects abnormal personality styles. This instrument is commonly used by clinicians to determine if a person may have a psychological disorder. It is also commonly used by psychologists to determine if people are fit to work in public safety occupations such as police officer.

independent variable

a variable (often denoted by x ) whose variation does not depend on that of another.

dependent variable

a variable (often denoted by y ) whose value depends on that of another

Stereotypes

a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

DTs

a withdrawal syndrome occurring in persons who have developed physiological dependence on alcohol, characterized by tremor, visual hallucinations, and autonomic instability. Abbreviation: d.t. Expand. Also called the d.t.'s. Origin of delirium tremens.

mind

an individual's sensations, perceptions, memories, thoughts, dreams, motives, emotions, and other subjective experiences

parasympathetic

anabolic-conservingenergy/homeostatic uses ACh

ANOVA

analysis of variance

functionalism

adapting to person's environment

Conformity

adjusting one's behavior or thinking to match those of other people or a group standard

psychotropics

affecting mental activity, behavior, or perception, as a mood-altering drug. noun. 2. a psychotropic drug, as a tranquilizer, sedative, or antidepressant.

Pineal gland

all vertebrates except hagfish have one in their brain, and it is the source of your supply of melatonin

retrospective study

also called a historic cohort study, is a longitudinal cohort study used in medical and psychological research.

Cerebrospinal fluid

also circulates nutrients and chemicals filtered from the blood and removes waste products from the brain

Dopamine

also involved in the brain's reward system and may play an important role in schizophrenia

IRB

also known as an independent ethics committee (IEC), ethical review board (ERB), or research ethics board (REB), is a type of committee used in research in the United States that has been formally designated to approve, monitor, and review biomedical and behavioral research

OCPD

also known as anankastic personality disorder, presents a persistent pattern of behavior that includes a fixation on orderliness, perfectionism, excessive attention to details, mental and interpersonal control, and a need for control over one's environment. Persons who suffer from this employ rituals in their daily life to the point of excluding leisure activities and experience a great of mental distress when in a situation that they cannot control.

response rate

also known as completion rate or return rate, is the number of people who answered the survey divided by the number of people in the sample. It is usually expressed in the form of a percentage.

Humoral theory

also known as humorism or the theory of the four humours, was a model for the workings of the human body. It was systemised in Ancient Greece, although its origins may go back further still.

Glial cells

among the many different types of this kind of cell are Schwann's cells; their name is taken from the Greek γλία

tricyclics

any of a class of antidepressant drugs having molecules with three fused rings.

SSRIs

any of a class of antidepressants (as fluoxetine or sertraline) that inhibit the inactivation of serotonin by blocking its reuptake by presynaptic nerve cell endings

Schwann cells

any of the cells in the peripheral nervous system that produce the myelin sheath around neuronal axons

Antipsychotics

are a class of medications used to treat psychotic behaviors (irrational or violent behavior that is usually based on hallucinations,delusions,extreme fear, or paranoia. Developed in the 1970s, these were developed to have fewer side effects (like involuntary body movements) and treat more symptoms in patients than the typical antipsychotic drugs that were developed in the 1950s. These affect dopamine and serotonin neurotransmitters in the brain and are used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and autism spectrum disorder.

MAO

are a family of enzymes that catalyze the oxidation of monoamines

Endorphins

are among the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters, which function to transmit electrical signals within the nervous system.

Rene Descartes

believed that even quite complex behaviors can occur through purely mechanical means, without involvement of the soul

structuralism

break down human behavior into basic elements

Parietal lobe

can be divided into two functional regions. One involves sensation and perception and the other is concerned with integrating sensory input, primarily with the visual system. The first function integrates sensory information to form a single perception (cognition)

EPSP

can be summated but transmitted only over short distances; they can stimulate production of action potentials when a threshold level of depolarization is reached

Afferent

carry sensory information to the brain

sympathetic

catabolic (releasing energy) fight or flight uses NE

Parkinson's disease

caused by the degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons whose axons originate and terminate in specific brain areas

Parkinson's disease

characterized by muscle tremors and severe difficulty in initiating and coordinating movements

developmental psychology

charts changes in people's abilities and styles of behaving as they get older and tries to understand the factors that produce or influence those changes

endorphins

chemicals that prevent pain

Concrete operation

children gain the abilities and mental operations that allow them to think logically about concrete events such as mathematical operations and principles, and conservation.

Procrastination

chronically avoid difficult tasks and deliberately look for distractions

Self-efficacy

coined by Albert Bandura is a person's belief in his or her ability to complete a future task or solve a future problem. For example, if a person believes he is a brilliant scientist and can complete any scientific experiment, he has a high self-efficacy in science because he believes in his competency to perform a future experiment. Whether it is true that he is brilliant in science or not doesn't really matter. It only matters what he believes. Self-Efficacy can also influence your goals, actions, and successes (or failures) in life. If your self-efficacy in an area is much lower than your ability, you will never challenge yourself or improve. If your self-efficacy in an area is much higher than your ability, you will set goals that are too high, fail, and possibly quit. The ideal self-efficacy is slightly above a person's ability: high enough to be challenging while still being realistic.

Attitude-behavior consistency

concerns the degree to which people's attitudes (opinions) predict their behavior (actions). This exists when there is a strong relation between opinions and actions. For example, a person with a positive attitude toward protecting the environment who recycles paper and bottles shows high attitude-behavior consistency. The study of attitude-behavior consistency is important because much of the usefulness of the attitude concept is derived from the idea that people's opinions help guide their actions.

Medulla

controls autonomic functions such as breathing, heart rate and blood pressure - usually damaged by hanging someone

Right hemisphere

coordinates the left side of the body, and performs tasks that have do with creativity and the arts

Adrenal glands

cortisol and aldosterone

John Watson

created conditioned fear in a toddler

L-DOPA

crosses the protective blood-brain barrier, whereas dopamine itself cannot

nucleus accumbens

crucial center for the behavioral effects of rewards

Self-esteem

defined by Manny Rosenberg as "positive or negative orientation toward oneself" - it's emphasis was criticized by Albert Ellis and others

bimodal

descriptive terms for the shape of the distribution above, reflecting central tendency of the charted data

central state theory

different drives correspond to neural activity in different sets of neurons in the brain

ADHD

differs from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) in regards to the impulsivity and hyperactivity components of the disorder. People with ADD mainly have issues with distractibility and do not exhibit the other traits of this disorder

Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning

divided his six stages of ethical behavior into 3 stages pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional (related to age and maturity) that are then subdivided into two other stages that describe the moral rationales for the adoption of ethical behaviors. For example, avoiding punishment, doing the "right thing", positive benefit to society, etc. These stages are based on the premise that mastering the lower stages of moral development is essential for aspiring to the higher levels of achievement.

left hemisphere

dominant for language

right hemisphere

dominant mood comprehension, spatial abilities

TAT

done by having people create stories about ambiguous characters, scenes, and situations

Terminal buttons

end bulb

sampling error

error in a statistical analysis arising from the unrepresentativeness of the sample taken.

False

et al. should be used whenever there are more than three authors

Random selection

everyone in the group has the probability of being in the study

functionalism

evolutionary psychology

Hypersomnia

excessive sleepiness

Discontinuity effect

explains human development as having distinct stages. So, in order to advance an individual must reach a behavioral goal in order to proceed; Developmental theories that support this are Freud's psychosexual stages, Piaget's stages of cognitive development, and Erikson's theories of development

Diffusion of responsibility

explains why we are less likely to take action or help someone in need when we are in a group compared to when we are alone. The more people around to observe an emergency, the less obligation each person feels to act because they think someone else will do it first. This principle of social psychology has been supported by numerous lab studies. In a classic experiment by Darley and Latané (1968), participants saw someone having a (fake) seizure. When participants believed they were the only witness to the incident, 81% went to get help; when participants thought there were four other witnesses, only 31% went for help.

Psychodynamic therapy techniques

focuses on unconscious processes as they are manifested in the client's present behavior.Several different approaches to brief this psychotherapy have evolved from psychoanalytic theory and have been clinically applied to a wide range of psychological disorders.

Choroid plexus

form a barrier between the blood and the cerebrospinal fluid.

Carl Rogers

founder of person-centered therapy and humanism

William james

founder of the functionalist approach

Brain lobes

frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal

Suprachiasmatic nucleus

functions as a master circadian pacemaker controlling the timing of the sleep-wake cycle and coordinating this with circadian rhythms in other brain areas and other tissues to enhance behavioral adaptation

3 predictors of happiness

good health, having something to do, social relationships

basal ganglia

group of nuclei

Reticular formation

has projections to the thalamus and cerebral cortex that allow it to exert some control over which sensory signals reach the cerebrum and come to our conscious attention

Type theory

have explained personality on the basis of physique and temperament. Temperament refers to emotional aspect of the personality like changes in mood, tensions, excitement, etc. A 'type' is simply a class of individuals said to share a common collection of characteristics.

Carl Rogers

he redirected psychology towards the study of the self

in vivo exposure

is a form of Cognitive Behavior Therapy that is used to reduce the fear associated with these triggers. There are two different kinds of Exposure Therapy, including: Flooding — this type of Exposure Therapy involves rapid exposure to feared situations.

EMDR

is a psychotherapy treatment that was originally designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories (Shapiro, 1989a, 1989b).

Linguistic relativity

holds that the structure of human language effects the way in which an individual conceptualizes their world. Working from the position that every language describes and conceptualizes the world in its own unique way, it holds that a person's native language limits their cross-cultural understanding. Every human language reflects the values of the place and culture where it originated and philosophers and linguists have long debated how this effects and shapes the mentality of the persons who speak those different languages

statistically significant

if the value of p is less than .05

Pituitary gland

important in controlling growth and development and the functioning of the other endocrine glands

tan

in finding the area he is known for, Broca was aiming to settle an argument when he autopsied a patient nicknamed ____________ because it was the only word he could say

Imprinting

in which certain birds and mammals form attachments during a critical period very early in their lives. During this point in development, the birds are so available to form attachments, that even if there is no mother bird, or no bird at all, they may develop attachments to a substitute. For example, if you hatched several baby geese and raised them without having a mother goose around, the chicks may perceive you as the mother and imprint to you. They would follow you around, try to mimic lots of your behaviors, etc., just as if you were the mother. This is the way they learn the behaviors and characteristics of their species.

descriptive statistics

include all numerical methods for summarizing a set of data

cupboard theory

infants become attached to those who provide the "cupboard" containing the food supply. The Harlow's sought to disprove this theory with their monkey experiment

Endorphins

interact with the opiate receptors in the brain to reduce our perception of pain and act similarly to drugs such as morphine and codeine.

Tolerance for ambiguity

intolerance is a psychological construct which describes the relationship that individuals have with ambiguous stimuli or events. Individuals view these stimuli in a neutral and open way or as a threat.

Amygdala

involved with the experiencing of emotions

factorial design

is one that involves more than one independent variable and assesses interactive effects.

mixed factorial

involves two or more independent variables, of which at least one is a within-subjects (repeated measures) factor and at least one is a between-groups factor. In the simplest case, there will be one between-groups factor and one within-subjects facto

Construct validity

is "the degree to which a test measures what it claims, or purports, to be measuring.

Pidgin language

is a 'makeshift' form of communication that has developed from two or more languages used by people who do not share a common language

Ethnocentrism

is a belief that your society, group, or culture is superior to all others. Very often this means that differences in groups (e.g., your group has more old people than ours) are seen as somehow bad

parametric statistics

is a branch of statistics which assumes that sample data comes from a population that follows a probability distribution based on a fixed set of parameters.

Hyperpolarization

is a change in a cell's membrane potential that makes it more negative

lithium

is a chemical compound that is useful in treating bipolar disorder (also known as manic depression). Many people are familiar with lithium but it's really the compound Lithium Carbonate that is uses to treat manic depression. This is found naturally in the body at about 1.3 parts per million in bone and 0.023 parts per million in muscle tissue.

korsakoff's syndrome

is a chronic memory disorder caused by severe deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B-1). This is most commonly caused by alcohol misuse, but certain other conditions also can cause the syndrome.

Schizoaffective disorder

is a chronic mental health condition characterized primarily by symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations or delusions, and symptoms of a mood disorder, such as mania and depression. This disorder is seen in about 0.3% of the population.

Dysthymic Disorder

is a chronic type of depression that occurs on most days and lasts for a period of 2 or more years. In children and adolescents, mood can be irritable and duration must be at least 1 year. Also, the person has to display at least two of the following symptoms during the 2 year period: poor appetite or overeating, insomnia or hypersomnia, low energy or fatigue, low self-esteem, poor concentration or difficulty making decisions, or feelings of hopelessness.

Cognitive triad

is a cognitive model developed by Aaron Beck to describe the cause of depression. He proposed that three types of negative thoughts lead to depression: thoughts about the self, the world/environment, and the future. People suffering from depression will attribute negative and unpleasant events to their personal failings (self) and to the unfair and unforgiving world. The future is perceived to be bleak and devoid of hope with their troubles lasting forever.

CBT

is a common type of talk therapy (psychotherapy). ... This can be a very helpful tool in treating mental health disorders, such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or an eating disorder.

RET/REBT

is a comprehensive, active-directive, philosophically and empirically based psychotherapy which focuses on resolving emotional and behavioral problems and disturbances and enabling people to lead happier and more

Hypersomnia

is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

Anhedonia

is a condition marked by a loss of pleasure and enjoyment from life and activities that are normally enjoyed. Someone experiencing this disorder would derive no pleasure from typically enjoyable things. It is associated with mood disorders, schizophrenia, and schizoid personality types.

ADHD

is a condition that is characterized by inability to pay attention, impulsivity, hyperactivity, and being distracted easily. Although all people have these traits from time to time people diagnosed with ADHD have them to an extreme degree to the point where it interferes with their lives in a negative way. Symptoms also must be present at least 6 months before a diagnosis can be made.

Rationalization

is a defense mechanism identified by Freud. According to Freud when people are not able to deal with the reasons they behave in particular ways, they protect themselves by creating self-justifying explanations for their behaviors. For example, if I flunk out of school because I didn't study properly it might be so hard for me to deal with that I rationalize my behaviors by saying that I simply didn't have enough time to study because I have a full-time job, a baby at home, and so many other demands on my time.

Sensitive period

is a developmental term and refers to a time when a child is particularly receptive to certain kinds of environmental experiences

Bipolar disorder I

is a disorder characterized by the occurrence of at least one manic or mixed episode. Most patients also, at other times, have one or more depressive episodes, and all experience a hypomanic stage before progressing to full mania.

Split-brain operation

is a drastic way of alleviating epileptic seizures, the occurrence of sporadic electrical storms in the brain

Menarche

is a female's first menstrual cycle...when a girl has her first "period".

Likert scale

is a five (or seven) point scale which is used to allow the individual to express how much they agree or disagree with a particular statement.

Flooding

is a form of behavior therapy used to treat people with fears or phobias. In this, the person with the fears is exposed to the thing that frightens them for a sustained period of time. The idea behind it is that, by exposing you to your fear, you will eventually see it as less fear-producing. For example, a therapist may take a person who is afraid of dogs into a kennel to expose them to a large number of dogs in a controlled situation.

Alzheimer's disease

is a form of dementia, or decreasing mental capacity, most often seen in people older than 65. Some of the earliest signs include memory loss and confusion. Other signs as the disease progresses are aggression and mood swings and withdrawal from normal activities

Apoptosis

is a form of programmed cell death in which a highly specific and orderly set of biochemical changes underlie the unique morphologic changes and the ultimate disposition of the dying cell and its contents

Objective assessment

is a form of questioning which has a single correct answer.

Subjective assessment

is a form of questioning which may have more than one correct answer (or more than one way of expressing the correct answer).

Sexual Response Cycle

is a four-stage model of physiological responses to sexual stimulation, which, in order of their occurrence, are the excitement phase, plateau phase, orgasmic phase, and resolution phase.

Phenylketonuria

is a genetic disorder that causes a mutation in the liver (hepatic) enzyme, phenylalanine hydroxylase, that is necessary to metabolize phenylalanine into the amino acid tyrosine. This condition, when untreated, leads to seizures and even mental retardation. However, when diagnosed early can be controlled by a strict diet. Testing for this is now standard for newborns

Huntington's disease

is a genetic disorder that usually strikes adults in mid-life. Its symptoms are involuntary muscle twitching, a decline in mental faculties and increasing psychiatric problems. Unfortunately, this decline continues until the condition becomes fatal. As a genetic condition, it is passed down from parent to child with a child of a victim of this disease having a 50% chance of developing this condition.

huntington's disease

is a genetic disorder that usually strikes adults in mid-life. Its symptoms are involuntary muscle twitching, a decline in mental faculties and increasing psychiatric problems. Unfortunately, this decline continues until the condition becomes fatal. As a genetic condition, it is passed down from parent to child with a child of a victim of this have a 50% chance of developing this condition.

Blood brain barrier

is a highly selective semipermeable membrane barrier that separates the circulating blood from the brain and extracellular fluid in the central nervous system (CNS)

IPSP

is a kind of synaptic potential that makes a postsynaptic neuron less likely to generate an action potential

Creole language

is a language that has developed due to a merging of two or more other languages and has evolved over time into its own native dialect or language

Minnesota Twin Studies

is a longitudinal study of twins conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota. It seeks to identify the genetic and environmental influences on the development of psychological traits

Minnesota Twin Studies

is a longitudinal study of twins conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota.[1] It seeks to identify the genetic and environmental influences on the development of psychological traits.

Social dominance orientation

is a measure of an individual's support for group-based hierarchies. It reflects a person's attitudes toward hierarchies in general, as well as beliefs about whether one's own group should dominate other groups. People with high this believe that society should be structured in terms of inequality, with some groups at the top (i.e., possessing more power and resources) and others at the bottom. People with low this, in contrast, believe that society should be structured in terms of equality, with no single group dominating others.

BMI

is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that applies to adult men and women.

cronbach's alpha

is a measure of internal consistency, that is, how closely related a set of items are as a group. It is considered to be a measure of scale reliability. A "high" value for alpha does not imply that the measure is unidimensional.

test-retest reliability

is a measure of reliability obtained by administering the same test twice over a period of time to a group of individuals. The scores from Time 1 and Time 2 can then be correlated in order to evaluate the test for stability over time

skewness

is a measure of the asymmetry of the probability distribution of a real-valued random variable about its mean. It can be positive or negative, or undefined

PTSD

is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.

content analysis

is a method used to analyse qualitative data (non-numerical data). In its most common form it is a technique that allows a researcher to take qualitative data and to transform it into quantitative data (numerical data).

mindfulness based therapy

is a modified form of cognitive therapy that incorporates mindfulness practices such as meditation and breathing exercises. Using these tools, these type of therapists teach clients how to break away from negative thought patterns that can cause a downward spiral into a depressed state so they will be able to fight off depression before it takes hold.

Prejudice

is a negative, usually unjustified attitude directed toward people simply because they are members of a specific social group

Medial Forebrain Bundle

is a neural pathway containing fibers from the basal olfactory regions, the periamygdaloid region and the septal nuclei, as well as fibers from brainstem regions, including the ventral tegmental area.

empirical

is a paper, or a selection of one, in which previous research on a topic is discussed.

Authoritative

is a parenting style that is child-centered, in that parents closely interact with their children, while maintaining high expectations for behavior and performance, as well as a firm adherence to schedules and discipline

Authoritarian

is a person who expects other people, especially subordinates, to automatically obey them without question. This is an inflexible state of mind common to people who consider themselves to always be right, and thus are intolerant of disobedience, non-compliance or being questioned or opposed on any matter. Picture someone with the attitude of an Army or Marine drill sergeant that inflicts that attitude on family, friends, coworkers and anyone else that they are involved with. In a mental health system this tendency can be measured by means of an inventory, authored by Theodor Adomo shortly after World War II, known as the F (Fascist) scale that measures a persons attitudes towards authority and control

Alexithymia

is a personality construct characterized by the subclinical inability to identify and describe emotions in the self.

schizoid personality disorder

is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary or sheltered lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, detachment, and apathy. This is considered to be a "schizophrenia-like personality disorder".

Sensation seeking

is a personality trait defined by the search for experiences and feelings, that are "varied, novel, complex and intense", and by the readiness to "take physical, social, legal, and financial risks for the sake of such experiences."

Social dominance orientation

is a personality trait which predicts social and political attitudes, and is a widely used social psychological scale.

Need for cognition

is a personality variable reflecting the extent to which individuals are inclined towards effortful cognitive activities.

transference

is a phenomenon where patients undergoing clinical therapy begin to transfer their feelings of a particular person in their lives to the therapist. For example, the patient may begin to feel the same feelings towards his or her therapist as the patient does for his or her lover. These types of feelings may be positive or negative. The therapist must be aware of this phenomenon and may even be able to use it to help the patient. For example, role playing with the patient.

William Dement

is a pioneering US sleep researcher and founder of the Sleep Research Center at Stanford University.

Oxytocin

is a powerful hormone that acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain. ... When we hug or kiss a loved one, oxytocin levels increase; hence, oxytocin is often called "the love hormone." In fact, the hormone plays a huge role in all pair bonding.

lobotomy

is a procedure that was once used to reduce uncontrollably violent or emotional people. Technically this is a type of psychosurgery (surgery for psychological purpose that destroys brain tissue to change a person's behavior) in which the nerves that connect the frontal lobes to the parts of the brain that control emotions are severed. Used in the 1930's, the patient would be shocked into a coma then the surgeon would drive a big pick-like tool through the person's eye socket and then move it around to cut the nerves. Nasty!

ECT

is a procedure, done under general anesthesia, in which small electric currents are passed through the brain, intentionally triggering a brief seizure. This seems to cause changes in brain chemistry that can quickly reverse symptoms of certain mental illnesses.

Disclosure reciprocity

is a process that leads two individuals to share increasingly personally significant details about themselves. This is part of the process of increasing intimacy in a relationship, but works only when both parties of willing to share equally. This is part of the process that two people go through while moving from a casual dating relationship to an intimate relationship. Think about your closest friends - you didn't start out that close when you first met them. As time went on disclosure reciprocity occurred and you shared more and more information as you got to know each other

TAT

is a projective psychological test. Proponents of the technique assert that subjects' responses, in the narratives they make up about ambiguous pictures of people, reveal their underlying motives, concerns, and the way they see the social world.

Central sulcus

is a prominent landmark of the brain, separating the parietal lobe from the frontal lobe and the primary motor cortex from the primary somatosensory cortex

schizotypal personality disorder

is a psychiatric disorder with symptoms that include severe social anxiety and paranoia along with unconventional or delusional beliefs. Individuals who are diagnosed with this disorder have problems maintaining personal relationships due to the paranoid belief that their peers are having negative thoughts. People who suffer from this disorder also react strangely during conversations, fail to respond to others, and sometimes talk to themselves. Because of their social and relationship problems these people often lead idle and unproductive lives.

Catharsis effect

is a psychodynamic principle that, in its most basic sense, is simply an emotional release. This maintains that aggressive or sexual urges are relieved by "releasing" aggressive or sexual energy, usually through action or fantasy. For example, a young male may watch a film in which an attractive woman engages in sexual behavior. The young male may become sexually aroused from this and subsequently frustrated because of his inability to act out his sexual desires. To release this sexual tension, the young male may go outside and play sports or engage in fantasies about himself and the woman

Likert scale

is a psychological measurement device that is used to gauge attitudes, values, and opinions. It functions by having a person complete a questionnaire that requires them to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with a series of statements.

sociometry

is a quantitative method for measuring social relationships.

Autism spectrum

is a range of symptoms that are mostly characterized by impairment in social interactions, communication difficulties, and repetitive behaviors. It is typically diagnosed within the first two years of life and is first noticed when the child has difficulty with normal social interactions (like eye contact and communication) and they appear to withdraw from others. It is called a spectrum disorder because the severity and level of impairment in individuals can range from barely present to very severe

Autism Spectrum Disorder

is a range of symptoms that are mostly characterized by impairment in social interactions, communication difficulties, and repetitive behaviors. This disorder is typically diagnosed within the first two years of life and is first noticed when the child has difficulty with normal social interactions (like eye contact and communication) and they appear to withdraw from others. It is called a spectrum disorder because the severity and level of impairment in individuals can range from barely present to very severe.

Progeria

is a rare genetic condition that causes a person to age prematurely. Children with this appear healthy, but by the age of 2 years, they look as if they have become old too fast

Dissociative fugue

is a really interesting type of disorder in which a person suffers a bout of amnesia and then flees their home and identity. Often the person will travel far away from their home, assume a new identity, and live as a different person until they "snap" out of their amnesic state.

Nucleus Accumbens

is a region in the basal forebrain rostral to the preoptic area of the hypothalamus.

Broca's area

is a region in the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere (usually the left) of the hominid brain with functions linked to speech production

Tectum

is a region of the brain, specifically the dorsal part of the midbrain

content analysis

is a research technique used to make replicable and valid inferences by interpreting and coding textual material.

Circadian Rhythm

is a roughly 24 hour cycle in the physiological processes of living beings, including plants, animals, fungi and cyanobacteria.

semantic differential

is a scale used for measuring the meaning of things and concepts. There are two aspects of meaning: denotative and connotative. The semantic differential measures connotative meaning.

BIRGing

is a self identity concept meaning "basking in reflected glory." It suggests that individuals bolster their self-esteem and self-worth by identifying with another group or individual's success. It is usually used in regards to sports team fans but can also apply to the pride of sharing a hometown or home state with a famous person and religious groups. Note the name is basking in REFLECTED glory - this success is not their own, the individual did not help or earn it themselves.

Ventricular system

is a set of four interconnected cavities (ventricles) in the brain, where the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is produced

schizoprenic disorder

is a severe mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. This disorder may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling.

Countertransference

is a situation in which a therapist, during the course of therapy, develops positive or negative feelings toward the patient. These feelings may be the therapist's unconscious feelings that are stirred up during therapy which the therapist directs toward the patient. A therapist might start feeling uneasy about therapy or the patient, unhappy with the way therapy is going, or unhappy with themselves. Just like transference, this is not an uncommon situation in the therapeutic situation. Of course, therapists must not act on any feelings they have

hypersomnolence disorder

is a sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness, excessive sleep periods each day (usually taken to mean more than 10 hours)

pilot testing

is a small scale preliminary study conducted in order to evaluate feasibility, time, cost, adverse events, and effect size (statistical variability) in an attempt to predict an appropriate sample size and improve upon the study design prior to performance of a full-scale

Catatonia

is a state of general unresponsiveness in a person who is fully conscious. There are two manifestations of catatonia: one presents itself as a stupor while the other is a highly excitable state. Typical symptoms for the lethargic type of catatonia include not speaking, loss of motor function, repeating the words or movements of others, and catalepsy ('waxy flexibility', holding the same fixed posture after someone else positions it that way). A person with the excitable form of catatonia may exhibit highly exaggerated and excitable displays of behavior, impulsivity, and aggression.

regression

is a statistical process for estimating the relationships among variables. It includes many techniques for modeling and analyzing several variables, when the focus is on the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables (or 'predictors').

type 2 error

is a statistical term used within the context of hypothesis testing that describes the error that occurs when one accepts a null hypothesis that is actually false. The error rejects the alternative hypothesis, even though it does not occur due to chance.

parametric statistics

is one that makes assumptions about the parameters (defining properties) of the population distribution(s) from which one's data are drawn

Oppositional defiant disorder

is a syndrome that is diagnosed in children and teenagers that involves multiple negative attitudes and behaviors such as an ongoing pattern of anger, hostility, and extreme stubbornness and defiance towards authority figures that is beyond what is normally seen or expected in children and teens. This diagnosis is frequently used with children that present with Conduct Disorder, and is often a precursor to the adult diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder.

Attitude inoculation

is a technique used to strengthen someone's will against persuasive messages by initially exposing an individual to small or weak arguments that are against their stance or position. The individual, exposed to a small and practiced amount of the persuasive argument, will develop counter-arguments and a defense that can be used when actually exposed to the persuasion.

Manipulation Check

is a term in experimental research in the social sciences which refers to certain kinds of secondary evaluations of an experiment.

Schemes

is a term put forward by psychologist Jean Piaget. It refers to cognitive structures (pervasive thought patterns) that first appear during childhood and help children organize knowledge. This, in turn, helps them learn ways to view, understand and interpret the world around them, and then to adapt to the demands of that world.

Instrumental aggression

is a term that refers to a premeditated aggressive action that is carried out in order to achieve a specific goal. A simple example of this is a "playground bully" who forces other children to give him or her their lunch money

Hostile

is a term that refers to any form of emotionally-charged angry or aggressive behavior

Inferiority complex

is a term used to describe people who compensate for feelings of inferiority (feeling like they're less than other people, not as good as others, worthless, etc.) by acting ways that make them appear superior. They do this because controlling others may help them feel less personally inadequate.

Visual cliff

is a test given to infants to see if they have developed depth perception. The way it works is there is a platform that is covered with a cloth that is draped all over the place (on the platform, down to the floor, all over...). Then, a piece of glass or other clear material is placed on top of the platform and extends well off of the platform, creating a sort of bridge. An infant is then placed on the platform, and the infant's mother stands on the other side of the clear bridge. The mother calls for the child who, if it crawls off the platform and onto the clear bridge, it does not yet have depth perception. If it stops when it gets to the edge of the platform, looks down, and either is reluctant to cross or refuses to cross, then the child has depth perception. The reason is that the end of the platform looks like a cliff (the child doesn't yet understand that there is some kind of bridge there) and going off the edge of the platform would have bad consequences.

Locus of control

is a theory developed in 1954 by researcher Julian B, Rotter

Hierarchy of Needs

is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" in Psychological Review. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity.

Eclectic treatment

is a therapeutic approach that incorporates a variety of therapeutic principles and philosophies in order to create the ideal treatment program to meet the specific needs of the patient or client.

Alpha

is a threshold value used to judge whether a test statistic is statistically significant. It is chosen by the researcher. Alpha represents an acceptable probability of a Type I error in a statistical test.

FACS

is a tool for measuring facial expressions. It is an anatomical system for describing all observable facial movement.

hypochondriasis

is a type of "somatoform" disorder in which a person misinterprets their normal physical experiences as symptoms of some type of disease. A true person with this is not the person who often believes that they have a tumor when they have a headache. A real hypochondriac is someone who looks for physical problems in their normal experiences on a very regular basis (like, all the time). A headache will be perceived as a tumor; a sneeze is pneumonia; etc.

Generalized anxiety disorder

is a type of anxiety disorder (obviously) in which a person feels tense and apprehensive on a very regular basis (sometimes it seems like they feel this way all the time). In addition, these feelings are accompanied by actual increases in the autonomic nervous system, such as increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, increased blood flow to the muscles and away from the GI tract, etc. A person with GAD may feel tense, upset, jittery, on edge, etc. almost all the time, have a very difficult time relaxing, feel muscle aches and pains quite often, be consistently looking around for danger, hardships, and problems, and may also be depressed. Most often there isn't a definable, tangible source of the anxiety. Instead these people have anxieties about general situations and life events. They worry about situations that may arise somehow, some way in the future. But most often the source is so general that the person can't even identify it. They just know that something bad is out there and will happen to them.

Existential therapy

is a type of counseling that uses a philosophical focus on treatment. The human condition is used as a framework - emphasis is placed on the faculties, successes, and limitations of humans.

type 1 error

is a type of error that occurs when a null hypothesis is rejected although it is true. The error accepts the alternative hypothesis, despite it being attributed to chance. Also referred to as a "false positive

counterbalancing

is a type of experimental design in which all possible orders of presenting the variables are included. Avoids confounds in this method

Symbolic play

is a type of play behavior when a child uses one thing to represent something else. For example, holding a rectangular wooden block to his ear and talking into it like a telephone, or getting into a box and pretending to drive a spaceship.

Hawthorne Effect

is a type of reactivity in which individuals modify an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed.

incremental validity

is a type of validity that is used to determine whether a new psychometric assessment will increase the predictive ability beyond that provided by an existing method of assessment.

Babbling

is a very early stage of language development, usually occurring around ages 3-4 months, in which children spontaneously produce all sorts of nonsensical, unrelated sounds. No real words are formed at this point

Anorexia Nervosa

is a very serious, pathological loss of appetite and self induced limiting of food intake. This can lead to severe psychological, emotional, and physical problems, including death. This disorder most often affects females (although males do suffer from anorexia as well), and is typically associated with a tremendous amount of concern for and misperception of one's own body image.

neologism

is a word, phrase, or expression that has recently entered a language and is gaining popularity of use.

Myers-Briggs

is an "assessment" that is designed to measure basic personality traits that influence how a person deals with the world

Paul Ekman

is an American psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco who is a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions.

Paul Elkman

is an American psychologist who is a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He has created an "atlas of emotions" with more than ten thousand facial expressions, and has gained a reputation as "the best human lie detector in the world".

Empathy

is an ability to understand and feel what another person is feeling, not in a physical sense, but in an emotional sense; The expression, "put yourself in someone else's shoes" is actually a description of this

confederate

is an accomplice of the experimenter who pretends to be a participant

GABA

is an amino acid which acts as a neurotransmitter in the central nervous system

OCD

is an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, images, and sensations (obsessions) and engage in behaviors or mental acts in response to these thoughts or obsessions.Often the person carries out the behaviors to reduce the impact or get rid of

Debrief

is an ethical requirement whenever deception is used in a study

Attachment theory

is an evolutionary based theory that suggests that infants are biologically predisposed to form attachments with primary caregivers in early life as a means to increase their likelihood of survival

Between Subjects Design

is an experiment that has two or more groups of subjects each being tested by a different testing factor simultaneously.

Ideal self

is an idealized version of yourself created out of what you have learned from your life experiences, the demands of society, and what you admire in your role models.

intermittent explosive disorder

is an impulse-control disorder characterized by sudden episodes of unwarranted anger. The disorder is typified by hostility, impulsivity, and recurrent aggressive outbursts. People with this disorder essentially "explode" into a rage despite a lack of apparent provocation or reason.

Alcoholics Anonymous

is an international organization that is dedicated to helping alcoholics find and retain sobriety through education and support. It was founded in 1935 in Akron, Ohio and has since spread worldwide. The program uses meeting attendance and a comprehensive 12-step program as a structure for reaching the goal of alcohol abstinence. The program also advocates the use of the "Big Book" which is a guide and source of support in the goal of sobriety. Anonymity (non disclosure or identification of members) is a major component of this program. Associated with AA are Ala-non and Ala-teens which are support organizations for the family members of alcoholics. Alcoholics Anonymous has also served as a model for Narcotics Anonymous (NA or Narcanon), an organization for individuals who are trying to abstain from addictive drugs.

State-trait anxiety

is an introspective psychological inventory consisting of 40 self-report items pertaining to anxiety affect. The STAI was constructed by Charles Spielberger, R.L. Gorsuch, and R.E.

longitudinal study

is an observational research method in which data is gathered for the same subjects repeatedly over a period of time.

Teratogens

is anything that can disrupt the development of an embryo or fetus in a pregnant mother's womb

Learned Helplessness

is behavior typical of a human or non-human animal and occurs where an animal endures repeatedly painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it is unable to escape or avoid.

Huntington's disease

is caused by an inherited defect in a single gene

Anorexia Nervosa

is characterized by a distorted body image, with an unwarranted fear of being overweight.

Dependent personality disorder

is characterized by extreme dependency on others, lack of independence, and a fear of being alone. Individuals with this disorder believe they need others to care for them and have extreme fears of abandonment and separation from those close to them. They are very submissive and tend to think negatively about themselves with extreme manifestations of self-doubt. Sufferers minimize their positive qualities and think they are worthless or stupid.

histrionic personality disorder

is characterized by long-lasting, chronic patterns of attention-seeking behaviors and extreme emotionality. Individuals with histrionic personality disorder typically want to be the center of attention in social settings and are uncomfortable when they are not. Their emotionality is wide ranging, shifts rapidly, and can appear shallow. Sufferers of this disorder are often described as being dramatic and theatrical and use provocative or sexual behavior to get attention. They think relationships are more intimate than they actually are in reality and are highly susceptible to the influence of others. This disorder is more common in females and is typically diagnosed in adulthood. Symptoms often decrease in severity with age. Treatment is usually therapy but sometimes medication is used.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

is characterized by patterns of disregard to others and callous behaviors and attitudes towards the wishes of others. This disorder cannot be diagnosed in anyone under the age of 18 but these behavior patterns typically begin to exhibit themselves around the age of 15.

panic disorder

is classified as an Anxiety Disorder that includes a panic attack. During the attack, the person suffers from unexpected and repeated periods of strong fear and physical symptoms such as chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, or abdominal problems.

Hindbrain

is composed of the medulla, the pons, and the cerebellum

peripheral nervous system

is comprised of the cranial/spinal nerves

primary prevention

is concerned with preventing the onset of disease; it aims to reduce the incidence of disease. It involves interventions that are applied before there is any evidence of disease or injury. Examples include protection against the effects of a disease agent, as with vaccination.

qualitative

is data about characteristics of something

Sequential design

is defined as a combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional designs, by following several different aged cohorts over time

seasonal affective disorder

is depression that recurs yearly around the same time. The most common time for the symptoms of this to recur is in the fall, lasting through the winter, earning it the nickname "winter blues." It is characterized by changes in sleeping habits and difficulty getting out of bed, overeating, withdrawal from people and activities, and general loss of interest.

Cerebrum

is divided into four sections, called "lobes": the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe

Interrater Reliability

is established by having multiple raters demonstrate agreement on their observations.

priori

is independent of all particular experiences

Temporal lobe

is involved in primary auditory perception, such as hearing, and holds the primary auditory cortex. The primary auditory cortex receives sensory information from the ears and secondary areas process the information into meaningful units such as speech and words

quantitative

is involving numbers

Endocrine system

is made up of glands that produce and secrete hormones, chemical substances produced in the body that regulate the activity of cells or organs. These hormones regulate the body's growth, metabolism (the physical and chemical processes of the body), and sexual development and function

Projection

is one of the defense mechanisms identified by Freud and still acknowledged today. According to Freud, projection is when someone is threatened by or afraid of their own impulses so they attribute these impulses to someone else. For example, a person in psychoanalysis may insist to the therapist that he knows the therapist wants to rape some women, when in fact the client has these awful feelings to rape the woman.

Motor cortex

is one of the principal brain areas involved in motor function

Striatum

is one of the principal components of the basal ganglia, a group of nuclei that have a variety of functions but are best known for their role in facilitating voluntary movement

Objective assessment

is one that utilizes research to determine results. When you take an pre-employment pencil and paper test, chances are this is an example of this. The results are given in the form of statistics and probabilities. Some of the most common of these tests include the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Second Edition (MMPI-2), the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and any of the major tests of intelligence.

Gender identity

is one's own perception or sense of being male or female. Please do not confuse this with sexual orientation (as heterosexual or homosexual) or the strength of one's gender-typing; it is just a person's own knowledge and feelings of being a male or female.

ceiling effect

is present if the scores on a measure are clustered at the high end

Basic Research

is research that fills in the knowledge we don't have; it tries to learn things that aren't always directly applicable or useful immediately.

applied research

is research that seeks to answer a question in the real world and to solve a problem

Left hemisphere

is responsible for controlling the right side of the body. It also performs tasks that have to do with logic, such as in science and mathematics

Thanatos

is the Greek word for death. ... The death drive controls aggression, risky behaviors, and death. You can say that our death instinct takes the 'born to die' approach, often making humans engage in activities that bring them closer to death. Examples are war and murder.

Animism

is the belief that objects that are inanimate (not living) have feelings, thoughts, and have the mental characteristics and qualities of living things

Phenomenology

is the belief that the personal concept of "reality" is a product of the events and objects that are experienced by an individual's consciousness and does not include anything outside of human experience.

Broca's Area

is the brain part that controls your ability to speak grammatically; it is located in the frontal lobe

Assimilation

is the cognitive process of fitting new information into existing cognitive schemas, perceptions, and understanding. This means that when you are faced with new information, you make sense of this information by referring to information you already have (information processed and learned previously) and try to fit the new information into the information you already have. A similar process is accommodation (another one of Piaget's processes), but with accommodation the information you already have has to be adjusted to incorporate the new information

ZPD

is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she cannot do. It is a concept introduced, yet not fully developed, by Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) during the last ten years of his life.

Main effect

is the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable averaging across the levels of any other independent variables.

EQ

is the emotional equivalent of an IQ or the individual's skill level at reading, understanding, and empathizing with the emotions of others. All of us have known in our lives people who are very empathetic and easy to talk to--these people have a high this. We all have also met people who are self-centered and "clueless" when it comes to other people's feelings--these people would be considered to have a low this.

variance

is the expectation of the squared deviation of a random variable from its mean. Informally, it measures how far a set of (random) numbers are spread out from their average value.

statistical validity

is the extent to which the conclusions drawn from a statistical test are accurate and reliable

social anxiety disorder

is the fear of social situations that involve interaction with other people. You could say social anxiety is the fear and anxiety of being negatively judged and evaluated by other people. It is a pervasive disorder and causes anxiety and fear in most all areas of a person's life.

Depersonalization disorder

is the feeling of being disengaged and withdrawn from yourself and your surroundings. The world around you feels surreal. As if you are watching everything happen to you but have no control. While these feelings can emerge anytime, they generally happen to someone who has experienced trauma, such as the death of a loved one, and is having difficultly handling it.

Narcissism

is the ingrained belief found in some people that they exist at the center of the universe and that everyone and everything around exists to serve them

Proceptivity

is the initial period in a relationship when organisms are "courting" each other, prior to the acceptive phase when copulation occurs.

Language acquisition device

is the innate biological ability of humans to acquire and develop language. It was developed by linguist Noam Chomsky who contributed to the field of cognitive psychology through his language research

Agoraphobia

is the irrational fear of being in public places. A person with this disorder may fear going to the mall because it is a wide open space with many people, leaving them feeling exposed, or they may feel they can't get out should they need to suddenly. The fear of leaving their comfort zone causes them to limit the places they go, and sometimes they may stop leaving their house altogether. Thoughts of leaving might cause extreme anxiety over what they perceive as humiliating or harmful and lead to panic attacks.

Cerebrum

is the largest part of the human brain

REM rebound

is the lengthening and increasing frequency and depth of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep which occurs after periods of sleep deprivation. When people have been prevented from experiencing REM, they take less time than usual to attain the REM state.

ceiling effect

is the level at which an independent variable no longer has an effect on a dependent variable, or the level above which variance in an independent variable is no longer measured or estimated.

p-value

is the level of marginal significance within a statistical hypothesis test representing the probability of the occurrence of a given event.

null hypothesis

is the logical opposite of the specific prediction made by the researcher.

degrees of freedom

is the number of values in the final calculation of a statistic that are free to vary

embryonic stage

is the period after implantation, during which all of the major organs and structures within the growing mammal are formed.

Affective forecasting

is the prediction of one's affect (emotional state) in the future.

germinal stage

is the prenatal, developmental stage that begins at conception and lasts through the second week (that is still prenatal/before birth) of pregnancy. During this time, the fertilized egg (now called a zygote, and consists of a single cell) makes it way down the fallopian tube, and begins to have cell reproduction. Eventually, the single celled zygote becomes a multi celled ball that attaches itself to the wall of the uterus around the end of the second week, which constitutes the beginning of the embryonic stage

Superior colliculi

is the principal midbrain nucleus of the auditory pathway and receives input from several peripheral brainstem nuclei in the auditory pathway, as well as inputs from the auditory cortex

p-value

is the probability of obtaining a test statistic at least as extreme as the one that was actually observed, assuming that the null hypothesis is true.

statistical significance

is the probability of some result from a statistical test occurring by chance

DSM-5

is the product of more than 10 years of effort by hundreds of international experts in all aspects of mental health.

Wernicke's area

is the region of the brain that is important for language development

meta analysis

is the statistical procedure for combining data from multiple studies. When the treatment effect (or effect size) is consistent from one study to the next, meta-analysis can be used to identify this common effect.

Grammer

is the study of rules governing the use of language. Is part of the general study of language called linguistics. The subfields of contemporary this are phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Gerontology

is the study of the social, cultural, psychological, cognitive, and biological aspects of aging

epigentrics

is the study of what role genetics and environment take in the shaping of behavior. This is chiefly the study of how nurture (upbringing and experiences) affects and shapes behavior (hereditary nature of the subject).

Depressive Realism

is the tendency for mildly depressed people to make judgments that are typically more accurate than people who are not depressed. Those who are not depressed often make judgments and attributions that are self-serving. For example, if you did well on a psychology test you might say that you did so because you're a genius and know everything about psychology. This would be a pretty self-serving attribution, wouldn't you say? But a mildly depressed person who got an A might make a more accurate attribution such as saying it was not because she is a genius, but because she studied well or the test was particularly easy. Your way might make you feel better, but it also might be less accurate.

durability bias

is the tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of future feeling states.

Lateralization

is the tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be more dominant in one hemisphere than the other

Cerebellum

it contains half of all the neurons in the brain but comprises only 10% of the brain's mass

Nucleus accumbens

its operation is based chiefly on two essential neurotransmitters: dopamine, which promotes desire, and serotonin, whose effects include satiety and inhibition

Deception

its use in research is still somewhat controversial, but the practice is widespread... at least for the passive version of it

Impulsivity

is the tendency to act without thinking. This type of behavior reflects having little or no forethought, reflection, or consideration of consequences. This trait is common in children; common examples include hitting or kicking as a result of anger or chasing a ball into a street without considering traffic. The tendency towards impulsive behavior reduces with age. In adults, however, impulsivity sometimes manifests itself in behavior that is self-sabotaging. Examples include behavior that is inappropriate to a situation, plans that are poorly conceived and/or prematurely expressed, and actions that are unduly risky. This can include some types of criminal behavior (shoplifting and petty theft, causing injury or death due to sudden anger), relationship failures (getting involved too seriously or quickly with strangers), or dysfunctional workplace behavior (arguing with superiors, refusing to follow rules and procedures). Extreme impulsivity can be a symptom of some personality disorders including borderline personality disorder and psychopathy.

Sensation seeking

is the tendency to pursue sensory pleasure and excitement. It's the trait of people who go after novelty, complexity, and intense sensations, who love experience for its own sake, and who may take risks in the pursuit of such experience

Prenatal periods

is the time between conception and birth. This period is generally divided into three stages: the germinal stage, the embryonic stage, and the fetal stage

Self-esteem

is the understanding a person creates of his or her worth, based on emotions and beliefs about how he or she fits into or performs in any given situation in life

external validity

is the validity of generalized (causal) inferences in scientific research, usually based on experiments as experimental validity. In other words, it is the extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people.

Occipital lobe

is the visual processing center of the mammalian brain containing most of the anatomical region of the visual cortex. The primary visual cortex is Brodmann area 17, commonly called V1 (visual one)

Set Point Theory

is the weight range in which your body is programmed to function optimally.

Motor cortex

is to generate neural impulses that control the execution of movement

Hypothalamus

is to link the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland

Cohort Effect

is used in social science to describe variations in the characteristics of an area of study (such as the incidence of a characteristic or the age at onset) over time among individuals who are defined by some shared temporal experience or common life experience

Incremental Validity

is used to determine if a new psychological measure will provide more information than measures that are already in use

one-way design

is used to determine whether there are any statistically significant differences between the means of three or more independent (unrelated) groups.

L-DOPA

is used to increase dopamine concentrations in the treatment of Parkinson's disease and dopamine-responsive dystonia

Halo effect

is when a general impression of a person influences others' perceptions of their character. People who are rated as more attractive and likable will have more favorable ratings of their overall character, personality traits, and actions. In legal settings a person who is attractive is less likely to be convicted. Those rated as attractive are also rated as more intelligent, trustworthy, and reliable. An example is when a celebrity who is attractive is perceived by the public to be likable and friendly although their true character is ultimately unknown

Insufficient justification

is when a person finds an internal cause for an explanation to a behavior because there isn't an external cause. This effect reduces cognitive dissonance be justifying a behavior internally when there is insufficient external justification

Displacement

is when a person shifts his/her impulses from an unacceptable target to a more acceptable or less threatening target

Androgen insensitivity syndrome

is when a person who is genetically male (who has one X and one Y chromosome) is resistant to male hormones (called androgens)

Tolerance for ambiguity

means that an individual tends to perceive situations as threaten- ing rather than promising

Lateralization

means that there are certain mental processes that are mainly specialized to one side or the other

criterion validity

measures how well one measure predicts an outcome for another measure

Electromyogram

measures muscle response or electrical activity in response to a nerve's stimulation of the muscle. The test is used to help detect neuromuscular abnormalities. During the test, one or more small needles (also called electrodes) are inserted through the skin into the muscle

hindbrain

medulla, pons, cerebellum

EEG

monitor sleep

Epinephrine

more commonly known as adrenaline, is a hormone secreted by the medulla of the adrenal glands

Chronotype

more or less alert

deception

most controversial ethical issue in human psychological research

Humoral theory

one of the central principles in Western medicine from the ancient Greeks through the 19th century, this theory also attempted to explain personality as a function of bodily fluids.

quasi experiment

no random assignment of participants to groups

Visual cortex

occupying the entire surface of the occipital lobe and receiving the visual data from the lateral geniculate body of the thalamus. Also called visual area

Cohort effect

occur when a commonly aged group of people in research indirectly affect results due to their common age-related influences

Rooting reflex

occurs in infants (we outgrow it) and is a tendency for the infant, when stroked on the side of the face, to move its face in the direction being stroked, open its mouth, and search for a nipple. This reflex is for survival as it helps infants locate food

under extension

occurs when a categorical term (a word used to describe a group of things) is used in language improperly by only using it for one object instead of all objects that belong in that category. This often occurs in children when they are initially acquiring and developing language. Children will frequently not apply a new word to objects that it should be applied to.

overextension

occurs when a categorical term (a word used to describe a group of things) is used in language to represent more categories than it actually does. This happens in particular with very young children. An example is when a child refers to all animals as 'doggie' or refers to a lion as a 'kitty.' The child is overextending the definition of dog to encompass all animals and using the term 'kitty' for all felines instead of just house cats.

somatic symptom disorder

occurs when a person feels extreme anxiety about physical symptoms such as pain or fatigue. The person has intense thoughts, feelings, and behaviors related to the symptoms that interfere with daily life. The pain and other problems are real. They may be caused by a medical problem.

Social referencing

occurs when individuals (most typically infants) use cues from people in their environment to learn what behaviors, emotions, and actions are appropriate in the particular setting. This is a type of social learning and is an integral part of the developmental process in human infants. The observation of others' behaviors leads to the eventual imitation of these behaviors. Infants learn to analyze the facial expressions and actions of others in order to determine socially appropriate emotions and behaviors

Subtyping

occurs when perceivers respond to members of a target group who disconfirm their stereotypes by seeing them as exceptions to the rule and placing them in a separate subcategory apart from members who confirm the stereotype

Anchoring bias

occurs when we make a decision or evaluation based on the first piece of information received. Our first impression acts as an anchor or reference point to which all subsequent and related information is compared. If the anchor contains incomplete or irrelevant information we can end up making a bad decision. Retailers rely on the anchoring effect to sell goods and services. For example, if we are shopping for a bicycle and we see an ad for one at 30% off, we will approach that item with the impression that it is a great deal, even though it may still be more expensive than other bikes and may be out of our budget.

Terminal buttons

of a neuron are the small knobs at the end of an axon that release chemicals called neurotransmitters

Ventral

of, on, or relating to the underside

Dorsal

of, on, or relating to the upper side

cross-sectional

one type of study in which people of different ages are examined at the same time(s). This is usually done with cohorts, so that researchers can examine how people of different ages perform, behave, or respond to a particular function. For example, a researcher may give one type of test to children in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades, to examine the differences in performance across these age groups.

Wundt

opened the first university-based psychology laboratory

determinism

opposite view of free will

falsifiability

or defeasibility, is an important concept in the philosophy of science. It is the principle that in hypothesis testing a proposition or theory cannot be considered scientific if it does not admit the possibility of being shown to be false.

Diazepam

originally trademarked as Valium), is a GABAnergic drug and among the most widely used in the world. Interestingly, this costs an average of $0.40 per dose to US consumers, but only a penny to the average consumer elsewhere in the world.

Prefrontal cortex

plans and strategies and not just movements

informed consent

permission granted in the knowledge of the possible consequences, typically that which is given by a patient to a doctor for treatment with full knowledge of the possible risks and benefits.

True

personal communications (e-mail, memos, letters) are excluded from the reference list

Adrenal glands

produce hormones that help the body control blood sugar, burn protein and fat, react to stressors like a major illness or injury, and regulate blood pressure

Erikson's model

proposed a psychoanalytic theory of psychosocial development comprising eight stages from infancy to adulthood. During each stage, the person experiences a psychosocial crisis which could have a positive or negative outcome for personality development.

Restoration theory

proposed by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan

Personal construct theory

proposes that an individual's personality is made up of mental lenses or frameworks through which we experience reality

Personal construct theory

proposes that an individual's personality is made up of mental lenses or frameworks through which we experience reality. Developed by George Kelly, personal construct theory focuses on mental structures called constructs that individuals use to interpret information and events. Constructs are unique and vary from person to person because they are formed based on individual experiences. This theory differed from behaviorism and psychoanalysis when it was introduced because it placed emphasis on an individual's influence on their personality instead of focusing solely on the environment or the unconscious. For example, two friends are at a carnival and see a roller coaster. The first person gets excited and immediately wants to ride it. The second person is horrified, has a fear response, and wants to go on another ride. Personal construct theory would suggest these two different responses are explained by differing constructs- the two people have different individual experiences and mental frameworks that make them perceive the roller coaster in wildly different ways.

token economy

refers to a reward system used in a behavior modification programs. It involves providing tangible rewards (tokens, food, stickers, etc.) for positive behaviors. The underlying premise is reinforcing the desirable behavior. For example, a child may earn a sticker as a reward for completing a chore.

Client-centered therapy

refers to a school of psychological therapy that uses a humanistic approach focusing on the human need for self-actualization and emphasizes healthy psychological growth. For instance, this can be where a person who doesn't appear to have any specific emotional or behavioral problem seeks help to "get more out of life" such as enhancing relationships or getting ahead at work.

science

refers to all attempts to answer questions through the systematic collection and logical analysis of objectively observable data

Optimism and health

refers to an emotional and psychological perspective on life. It is a positive frame of mind and means that a person takes the view of expecting the best outcome from any given situation. An __________ person is one who sees the glass as 'half-full' instead of 'half-empty'. In psychology levels of optimism can be measured by use of the Life Orientation Test and Attributional Style Questionnaire. Levels of optimism (and its reverse pessimism) appear to have some links to heredity but are heavily influenced by health and environmental factors.

need for Achievement

refers to an individual's desire for significant accomplishment, mastering of skills, control, or high standards.

Extrinsic Motivation

refers to behavior that is driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades, and praise. This type of motivation arises from outside the individual, as opposed to intrinsic motivation, which originates inside of the individual.

Intrinsic Motivation

refers to behavior that is driven by internal rewards. In other words, the motivation to engage in a behavior arises from within the individual because it is naturally satisfying to you.

Self-regulation

refers to our ability to direct our behavior and control our impulses so that we meet certain standards, achieve certain goals, or reach certain ideals. Self regulation involves being able to set goals, monitoring one's behavior to ensure that it is in line with those goals, and having the willpower to persist until goals are reached. One example of a situation that requires self regulation is when you go on a diet with a goal of losing X number of pounds. In order to be successful, you must stick to a diet and exercise plan, at least until you reach your target weight. This means being able to say no to certain foods that are not part of your meal plan, getting yourself to eat certain food that you might not like very much, being able to motivate yourself to get up and do your daily workout, and other things that are needed to achieve your goal. In this case, good self-regulation may spell the difference between achieving your ideal weight and being healthy, or spiralling out of control into obesity and ill health.

positive symptoms

refers to symptoms that exist in association with a disorder that are not present in normal conditions. The term positive doesn't mean good or beneficial in this instance - it is used in an empirical sense to mean that something is present.

Theory of mind

refers to the ability humans have to recognize and attribute mental states not only in themselves but in other people, and to understand that feelings and beliefs we have may be different than others. For example, you may view yourself as a happy, good natured person, but recognize that others may not always be exactly like you - others may be angry, hurtful, etc.

Temperament

refers to the characteristics and aspects of personality that we are born with. For that reason, they are similar to traits in that they are both innate (born with these things) and enduring. Infants who are anxious and nervous tend to be the same way when they are older. One difference though is that temperament more often relates to emotionality...the specific emotional characteristics such as calm, anxious, or nervous.

Internal validity

refers to the extent to which an experiment's findings have just one plausible explanation

ecological validity

refers to the extent to which the findings of a research study are able to be generalized to real-life settings

Empiricism

refers to the idea that human knowledge and thought derive ultimately from sensory experience (vision, hearing, touch)

Autonomic nervous system

regulates functioning of internal organs (including sensory organds), glands & involuntary (smooth/cardiac) muscle

structuralism

relies on a method called introspection

single blind procedure

research method is a specific research procedure in which the researchers (and those involved in the study) do not tell the participants if they are being given a test treatment or a control treatment.

medial forebrain bundle

research showed that rats and other animals will work hardest and longest to stimulate this tract in the brain

cultural psychology

research speciality that attempts to explain mental experiences and behavior in terms of the culture in which the person developed

cognitive psychology

research specialty to explain behavior or mental experiences in terms of the cognitions that underlie the behavior or experience

statistically significant

saying that the probability is acceptably small that they could be caused by chance alone

Restoration theory

says we sleep to restore the body's ability to function at the end of the day.

behaviorism

school of psychological thought that holds that the proper subject of study is observable behavior, not the mind, and that behavior should be understood in terms of its relationship to observable events in the environment rather than in terms of hypothetical events within the individual

Hypothalamus

section of the brain responsible for the production of many of the body's essential hormones, chemical substances that help control different cells and organs. The hormones from this govern physiologic functions such as temperature regulation, thirst, hunger, sleep, mood, sex drive, and the release of other hormones within the body. This area of the brain houses the pituitary gland and other glands in the body

Attachment styles

secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive/avoidant, fearful/avoidant.

double blind procedure

studies are particularly useful for preventing bias due to demand characteristics or the placebo effect.

Tectum

sensory component of the midbrain

Afferent neurons

sensory neurons that carry nerve impulses from sensory stimuli towards the central nervous system and brain,

Rostral

situated or occurring near the front end of the body, especially in the region of the nose and mouth or (in an embryo) near the hypophyseal region

Suprachiasmatic nucleus

sleep

hypersomnia

sleep 10 or more hours a day

somnambulism

sleep walking

stage 3

sleep walking and talking

Somnambulism

sleepwalking.

MRI

studies the water molecule's hydrogen nuclei

Facial Feedback Effect

states that facial movement can influence emotional experience. For example, an individual who is forced to smile during a social event will actually come to find the event more of an enjoyable experience.

central limit theorem

states that the mean of any large sample will exhibit a normal distribution.

Ghrelin

stimulates our appetite.

Synaptic vesicles

store various neurotransmitters that are released at the synapse

MRI

structural imaging views at a high resolution the differences between tissue types with respect to space

Freud

structural model says that personality consists of three interworking parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The five stages of psychosexual theory of development include the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages

Multiple sclerosis

the Myelin sheath is attacked causing inflammation or damage. Areas of scarring result and these scars can disrupt or even block signals within the brain and spinal cord. These scars may cause loss of nerve fibres as well as their ensheathing myelin

Procrastination

the action of delaying or postponing something.

functionalism

the attempt to explain behavior in terms of what it completes for the behaving individual

dualism

the body is part of natural world and can be studied scientifically

Metabolism

the chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life.

gender dysphoria

the condition of feeling one's emotional and psychological identity as male or female to be opposite to one's biological sex.

80%

the cortex comprises this percentage of the brain's total volume (must be within 5%)

face validity

the degree to which a procedure, especially a psychological test or assessment, appears effective in terms of its stated aims.

phrenology

the detailed study of the shape and size of the cranium as a supposed indication of character and mental abilities.

determinism

the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their action

Authoritarianism

the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom

Random Assignment

the feature that assures equivalent groups

clinical psychology

the field of practice and research that is directed toward helping people who suffer from psychological problems and disorders

Activation-synthesis theory

the hypothesis suggests that dreams are created by changes in neuron activity that activates the brainstem during REM sleep.

Nativism

the idea that certain elementary ideas are innate to the human mind and do not need to be gained through experience

Beauty bias

the idea that physically attractive individuals are rewarded socially as well as biologically: Gorgeous women may be at a disadvantage when seeking jobs in which. appearance is deemed irrelevant

behavior

the observable actions of a person or an animal

Autonomic nervous system

the part of the nervous system responsible for control of the bodily functions not consciously directed, such as breathing, the heartbeat, and digestive processes

Ghrelin

the peptide that is secreted by endocrine cells in the stomach that binds to growth hormone receptors in the hypothalamus and anterior pituitary.

Insomnia

the person has trouble in one of the following areas of sleep: falling asleep, staying asleep throughout the night, or not being able to fall back asleep after a disturbance/awakening

introspection

the personal observations of one's thoughts, perceptions, and feelings.

Catharsis

the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.

Real self

the real self and the ideal self are terms used to describe personality domains. The real self is who I am and the ideal self is who I want to be. The degree to which the two selves are congruent, is equal to the degree of peace of mind

Behavioral genetics

the research specialty that attempts to explain psychological differences among individuals in terms of differences in their genes

Syntax

the rules that specify how words should be ordered in a sentence to make the sentence meaningful

Psychology

the science of behavior and the mind

Piaget's model

the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational period

Phenotype

the set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment

fetal stage

the sex organs of the fetus begin to form

dualism

the soul is a supernatural entity that operates according to its own free will, not natural law, and therefore cannot be studied scientifically

Locus of control

theory developed in 1954 by researcher Julian B, Rotter. The theory refers to individual perceptions of "causality" or "how and why" things happen in a person's life. These perceptions are generally referred to as either: a) intrinsic, in which a person believes that they exert control on their environment actions; or b) extrinsic, which refers to a belief system where a person feels controlled by outside forces and events and believes that they have little or no control over their own circumstances and environment. For example, if you had an Internal Locus of Control and you got a perfect score on your Statistics exam, you would tend to attribute your success to how much time and effort you spent studying for the test. If you had an External Locus of Control, you would probably say that it was because the teacher made the test easy, or it was just your lucky day.

Formal operation

they acquire the ability to think logically about abstract concepts. They can extrapolate about events that occurred at different times (does not have to be occurring right then and there), think about people that are not there, etc.

humanism

third force of psychology

voyeuristic disorder

this disorder refers to (for over a period of at least 6 months) having recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving the act of observing an unsuspecting person who is naked, in the process of disrobing, or engaging in sexual activity.

paradigm

thomas kuhn

Cerebrospinal fluid

to cushion the brain within the skull and serve as a shock absorber for the central nervous system

Axon

transmits information to different neurons, muscles and glands.

Dorothea Dix

traveled half of the United States and Europe inspecting institutions, jails, etc. for mistreatment

Axon

typically conducts electrical impulses away from the neuron's cell body

RLS

typically occurs while sitting or lying down. It generally worsens with age and can disrupt sleep.

Borderline Personality Disorder

unstable and intense interpersonal relationships chronic fears of abandonment chronic intense anger and loneliness self-destructive behavior a range of cognitive problems or distortions such as suspiciousness, unusual feelings of having a sixth sense, and unusual superstitiousness unstable social relations and repeated failures in job situations impulsive behavior such as fighting, running away, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, promiscuity, and binge eating

Inferiority complex

used to describe people who compensate for feelings of inferiority (feeling like they're less than other people, not as good as others, worthless, etc.) by acting ways that make them appear superior. They do this because controlling others may help them feel less personally inadequate. According to Alfred Adler, a feeling of inferiority may be brought about by upbringing as a child (for example, being compared to a sibling), physical and mental limitations, or experiences of social discrimination (for example, having limited opportunities due to race, economic situation, or gender). An Inferiority Complex may cause an individual to overcompensate for his weaknesses. For example, someone who feels inferior because he is shorter than average may become overly concerned with his appearance - he may go on a strict diet or engage in rigorous exercise, hoping that a slimmer body will make him appear taller. If this is taken to the extreme, it becomes a neurosis.

Trait theory

uses traits as a means of studying personality. Traits are long standing patterns of behavior that are typically used to identify a person. This approach identifies personality traits and measures individuals on how much of each trait they display. Traits are usually measured on a spectrum.

Trait theory

uses traits as a means of studying personality. Traits are long standing patterns of behavior that are typically used to identify a person. This approach identifies personality traits and measures individuals on how much of each trait they display. Traits are usually measured on a spectrum. Gordon Allport was the first psychologist to use a trait approach to study personality. He identified 4,000 traits in 1936 and divided them into three categories: central traits, secondary traits, and cardinal traits. Central traits dominate a person's behavior and personality. Secondary traits are not as important to a person's identity and can be situational by only occurring occasionally (like being afraid of heights). A cardinal trait is one central trait that becomes dominant to a person's personality. Cattell continued the trait approach and narrowed down Allport's traits to 16. Eysenck identified three trait domains: introversion/extroversion, neuroticism/emotional stability, and psychoticism. A current approach to trait theory is the Big 5 personality trait theory which breaks down personality into five traits: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, aggreableness, and neuroticism. An advantage of trait theory is that it is objective because it uses statistical data. A disadvantage is that it doesn't explain why or how traits develop or any interactions between traits.

OCPD

victims are known to bathe multiple times per day, repeatedly check doors and windows before leaving home, cleaning compulsively, or spend hours arranging pictures or straightening fringe on rugs. Some use counting rituals such as chewing food a specific number of times before swallowing. Research has shown that their may be an overlap between this disorder, Asperger's syndrome, and eating disorders.

John Locke

viewed a child's mind as a tabula rasa

medical model

views mental illness as coming from an underlying physiological or biological cause. Clinicians using this model view psychological issues as symptoms of a biological disease or brain injury. There is heavy focus on genetics and neuroanatomy.

Centration

which refers to the tendency to focus on only one aspect of a situation, problem or object. For example, a child may complain that there is little ice cream left in a big bowl. The child will be satisfied if the ice cream is transferred to a little bowl, even though nothing is added, because he only considers how full the bowl appears to be.

Kohlberg

was an influential US psychologist who is most recognized for the stages of moral development which identify the development of moral reasoning and ethical behavior in humans. He based his research on the work of Piaget and built upon it to develop his own theories. He based his Stages of Moral Development on his belief that moral judgment progresses with age and is primarily concerned with justice. He divided his six stages of ethical behavior into 3 stages which are related to age and maturity: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. These three are then subdivided into two other stages that describe the moral rationales for the adoption of ethical behaviors. These stages are based on the premise that mastering the lower stages of moral development is essential for aspiring to the higher levels of achievement.

James-Lange Theory

was proposed by psychologist William James and physiologist Carl Lange in the mid 1880s. This theory states that our emotions are caused by our interpretation of bodily reactions.

introspection

was used experimental studies by Wundt and other early psychologists, but the subjective nature of such observations made it an inappropriate source of scientific data

social psychology

way to explain mental experiences and behavior, therefore, is to identify how they are influenced by other people or by one's beliefs about other people

stage 2

we spend most time in what stage of sleep?

anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.

what are the 6 basic emotions?

random assignment and manipulation of IV

what is needed for a true experiment?

45%

what percentage do we spend in stage 2?

Downward comparison

when we compare themselves to others who are worse off than ourselves

posteriori

which derives from experience

Rorschach

which has individuals describe various ambiguous inkblot pictures is a classic example of a projective test.

humanist

you have all the answers within yourself

Psychodynamic

your anger is really not towards your girlfriend. It's your anger you never expressed with your mother

ZPD

zone of proximal development