PSY 103: Complete Term List (SBU 2016)

Periodic Limb Movement Disorder

"Creepy Crawly" feelings on your legs strong enough to awake the person.

Stereotype

A belief or expectation about a group of people.

Belief in a Just World

A belief that maintains that life is fair and people usually get what they deserve.

Psychiatry

A branch of medicine that deals with emotional disturbances. Psychiatrists must first earn a medical doctor degree (MD) and take an additional four years of residency training in psychiatry.

Electroconvulsive Therapy

A brief electrical shock is administered across the patient's head to induce a convulsion similar to epilepsy (treatment for major depression)

Naturalistic Observation

A careful examination of what happens under more or less natural conditions. Jane Goodall and chimps.

Case Histories

A case history is a thorough description of someone, including abilities and disabilities, medical condition, life history, unusual experiences and whatever else seems relevant. Hard to draw conclusions unless similar case histories are drawn.

Hierarchy of Needs

A chart made by Maslow that describes an organization from the most insistent needs to the ones that receive attention only when all others are under control. Physical Safety Love Esteem Fulfilment Puppies Sometimes Lick Edna's Foot

Hypothesis

A clear predictive statement, often an attempt to explain the observations. Good hypothesis leads to predictions.

Korsakoff's Syndrome

A condition caused by a prolonged efficiency of vitamin B, usually as a result of chronic alcoholism that leads to prefrontal cortex damage.

Epilepsy

A condition in which cells somewhere in the brain emit abnormal rhythmic, spontaneous impulses.

Anorexia Nervosa

A condition in which someone intensely fears gaining weight and refuses to eat a normal amount. Occurs a little less than 1% for women and 0.3% for men People who have this condition, unlike other psychological conditions, are not more likely to develop other psychological conditions such as schizophrenia or depression, however many people who have this condition have obsessive compulsive disorder and a perfectionistic attitude.

Alzheimer's Disease

A condition occurring mostly in old age, characterized by increasingly severe memory loss, confusion, depression, disordered thinking, and impaired attention.

Hypnosis

A condition of focused attention and increased suggestibility that occurs in the context of a special hypnotist-subject relationship.

Trait

A consistent tendency in behavior, such as shyness, hostility, or talkativeness,

Operational Definition

A definition that specifies the operations (or procedures) used to produce or measure something, ordinarily a way to give it a numerical value.

Striving for Superiority

A desire to seek personal excellence and achievement.

Polygraph

A device that records sympathetic nervous system arousal by measuring blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, etc. The idea is that people who are asked questions that may incriminate them will become more nervous and therefore have a greater arousal of their sympathetic nervous system. Not very accurate and can falsely incriminate innocent people.

Attention Deficit Disorder

A disorder characterized by easy distraction, impulsiveness, moodiness, and failure to follow through on plans.

Antipsychotic Drug

A drug that can relive schizophrenia

Phobia

A fear that interferes with normal living.

Dejavu Experience

A feeling that an event is uncanny familiar.

Learning and Motivation

A field of developmental psychology focused on how behavior depends on the outcomes of past behaviors and current motivations.

Behaviorism

A field of psychology that concentrates on observable, measurable behaviors and not on mental processes. Behaviorists avoid the topics of thought and knowledge because they focus on observable behaviors, whereas thought and knowledge are unobservable processes within an individual.

Williams Syndrome

A genetic condition characterized by mental retardation in most regards but surprisingly good use of language relative to their other abilities.

Learning Curve

A graph of the changes in behavior that occur over the course of learning. An animal will try a list of responses to a situation to see which will result in the desired reward. The reward given after doing a specific action will reinforce doing that specific action.

Convenience Sample

A group chosen because of its ease to study. Overuse of college students for sample sizes in research environments due to their abundance. Interviewing every 10th person that walks by a street: not everyone had equal opportunity to walk by that street at that exact time.

Broaden-and-Build Hypothesis

A happy mood increases your readiness to explore new ideas and opportunities. When we face a moral decision, we often react emotionally. Those quick emotional feelings may be an evolved mechanism to steer our behavior toward what is usually the right choice.

Leptin

A hormone that maintains bodyweight that is released by the body's fat cells released in amounts proportional to their mass. __________ is your fat cell's way of saying "the body has enough fat already, so eat less".

Hippocampus

A large forebrain structure in the interior of the temporal lobe.

Set Point

A level that the body works to maintain. Maintaining the same constant weight depends on the hormone leptin.

Attitude

A like or dislike that influences behavior. Measured on an _________-scale.

Companionate Love

A long-lasting type of love that involves equal acceptance of both partners.

Personality Disorder

A maladaptive, inflexible way of dealing with the environment and other people, such as being unusually self-centered.

Sex Chromosomes

A male has one X and one Y chromosome whereas a female has two X chromosomes.

Stage 1: Excitement

A man's penis becomes erect and a woman's vagina becomes lubricated. Breathing is rapid and deep. Blood pressure increases and the skin might become flushed. Nervousness and stimulants such as caffeine might interfere with this stage.

Correlation Coefficient

A mathematical estimate of the relationship between two variables. +1 or -1 are perfectly correlated, with positive being a positive correlation and negative being a negative correlation.

Correlation

A measure of the relationship between two variables. Correlation does not necessarily mean causation: Just because A + B = C, we can't determine for certain that C happened because of A or because of B. We don't know if B caused A, A caused B, etc.

Antabuse

A medication that heightens the negative feelings that come from drinking so the addict becomes disassociated with the desire to drink.

Exposure Therapy

A method of gradually exposing people to the object of their fear.

Method of Loci

A mnemonic device that associates a series of places and associates these images in vivid imagery with something you want to remember.

Guilty-Knowledge Test

A modified version of the polygraph test, produces more accurate results by asking questions that should be threatening only to someone who knows the facts of the crime.

Major Depression

A more extreme condition lasting weeks at a time, during which the person experiences little pleasure, interest, or motivation.

Hypothalamus

A part of the brain that maintains the four F's (Fighting, Fleeing, Feeding, and Mating)(And more like thermoregulation)

Ventromedial Nucleus

A part of the hypothalamus that controls the release of insulin; damage to this can result in constantly increased levels of insulin, which lead to more weight gain.

Jet Lag

A period of discomfort and inefficiency while your internal clock is out of phase with your new surrounding.

Season of Birth Effect

A person born in the winter or early spring is slightly more likely to develop schizophrenia.

Placebo

A pill with no known pharmacological effects.

Rorschach Inkblots

A projective technique based on people's interpretations of 1p ambiguous inkblots. Confirmed opinions psychologists already had, not formed new ones.

Applied Behavior Analysis/Behavior Modification

A psychologist removes reinforcement for unwanted behaviors and provides reinforcement for more acceptable behaviors.

Individual Psychology

A psychology of the person as a while rather than parts such as id, ego, and superego.

Contempt

A reaction to a violation to community standards, such as when someone fails to do their share of the work or claims credit for something another person did.

Disgust

A reaction to something that would make you feel contaminated if it got into your mouth. A more objective level of contempt.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Mental Disorders

A reference book that sets specific criteria for each psychological diagnosis.

Positive Psychology

A relatively new field that studies predispositions and experiences that make people happy, productive, and successful. Studies the features that enrich life, such as happiness, hope, creativity, courage, spirituality, and responsibility.

Long-Term Memory

A relatively permanent storage of information.

Catharsis

A release of pent-up emotional tension.

Compulsion

A repetitive, almost irresistible action.

Obsession

A repetitive, unwelcome stream of thought, such as worrying about doing something shameful.

Unconscious

A repository of memories, emotions, and thoughts, many of them illogical, that affect our behavior even though we cannot talk about them.

Alfred Kinsey

A researcher from Indiana University who recorded responses of over 18,000 people on their sexual behaviors and actions, in order to better understand human sexuality.

Fear

A response to an immediate danger.

Regression

A return to more immature level of functioning.

Circadian Rhythms

A rhythm of activity and inactivity lasting about a day.

Subjective Well-Being

A self-evaluation of one's life as pleasant, interesting, satisfying, and meaningful Rich people are on average happier than poor people, however other factors such as sickness, and status also come into the equation. Easy to be happy and rich and sick, hard to be happy and poor and sick.

Alcoholics Anonymous

A self-help group of people who are trying to abstain from alcohol use and help others do the same.

Social Interest

A sense of solidarity and identification with other people that leads to consecutive action.

Control Group

A set of individuals treated in the same way as the experimental group except for the procedure that the experiment is designed to test. Receives the placebo.

Social Phobia

A severe avoidance of other people and a fear of doing anything in public.

Dominant

A single copy of the gene is sufficient to produce its effect.

Axon

A single, log, thin, straight fiber with branches near its tip.

Prisoner's Dilemma

A situation where people choose between a cooperative act and a competitive act that benefits themselves but hurts others.

Stage 4: Resolution

A stage of relaxation wherein oxytocin is released and anxiety decreases as well as a sense of attachment to one's partner increases. Sex hormones influence brain development and produce differences between men and women in several areas of the brain. Hypothalamus produces prostaglandin which influences the shape of neuron dendrites.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

A standardized personality test that consists of true-false questions intended to measure certain personality dimensions, especially for identifying clinical conditions. (MMPI)

Cognitive Dissonance

A state of unpleasant tension that people experience when they hold contradictory attitudes or when their behavior contradicts their stated attitudes, especially if the inconsistency distresses them.

Drive

A state of unrest of irritation that energizes one behavior after another until one of them removes the irritation.

Primary Somatosensory Cortex

A strip in the anterior portion of the parietal lobe that has cells sensitive to touch.

Psychological Dependence

A strong desire for something without withdrawal symptoms.

Amygdala

A structure in the temporal lobe that responds strongly to emotional situations.

Experiment

A study in which the investigator manipulated at least one variable while measuring at lest one other variable.

Surveys

A study of the prevalence of certain beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors based on people's responses to questions.

Asch Line-Length Experiments

A study wherein one participant is among the other experimenters posed as peers, and they must determine which size line matched the sample line. It was very easy to distinguish. Some lines the experimenters unanimously chose the wrong line, participant either conformed or didn't. 75% of people conformed at least once 30% conformed most of the time Unanimous is a particularly strong force

Methandone

A substitute for opiates.

Posthypnotic Suggestion

A suggestion to do or experience something after coming out of hypnosis.

Normal Distribution

A symmetrical frequency of scores clustered around the mean.

Transformational Grammar

A system for converting a deep structure into a surface structure. Never threaten someone with a chainsaw => surface structure Deep Structure 1: You are holding a chainsaw. Don't threaten to use it to attack someone. Deep Structure 2: Some deranged person is holding a chain saw. Don't threaten him!

Working Memory

A system for working with current information.

Meditation

A systematic procedure for inducing a calm, relaxed state through the use of special techniques.

Nymphomaniac

A term coined by Kinsey that states "someone who wants sex more than you do".

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

A test of normal personality, loosely based on Carl Jung's theories. Extraversion versus intraversion.

Basic Emotions

A type of emotion that should emerge early in life without requiring much experience, should be similar across cultures, should have a distinct physiology, and have its own facial expression.

Morpheme

A unit of meaning, such as "thrill" and "s" in the word "thrills".

Phoneme

A unit of sound, such as "f" or "sh".

Anxiety

A vague sense that, "Something bad might happen". Level of anxiety depends on the situation. Can be measured by researchers to define __________ as an increase in the startle reflex. Amygdala damaged people will not react quickly to complex emotional signals. People with highly responsive amygdala will report more emotionally unpleasant experiences.

Selye's Concept of Stress

A wide variety of illnesses produce the same symptoms— fever, inactivity, sleepiness, loss of appetite, and release of cortisol.

Masking

A word or other stimulus appears on the screen for a fraction of a second, preceded and/or followed by an interfering stimulus.

Productivity

Ability to combine words into new sentences that express an unlimited variety of ideas.

Aptitude

Ability to learn.

Naturalist Skill

Ability to observe patterns in nature.

Verbal Skills

Ability to think in words and use language.

Interpersonal Skill

Ability to understand and interact with others.

Intrapersonal Skill

Ability to understand oneself.

Confirmation Bias

Accepting a hypothesis and then looking for evidence to support it instead of considering other possibilities.

Multiculturalism

Accepting, recognizing, and enjoying the difference among people and groups and the unique contributions that each person can offer.

Crystallized Intelligence

Acquired skills and knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge in specific situations.

All-or-none Law

Action potential is a light switch.

Law of Effect

Actions that are closely accompanied by satisfaction will result in a greater chance that those actions will occur.

Health Psychology

Addresses how people's behavior influences health, including such issues as why people smoke, why they sometimes ignore their physician's advice, and how they can reduce their pain.

Group Therapy

Administered to several people at once.

Resistance Stage

Adrenal glands release cortisol and other hormones to maintain prolonged alertness.

Spontaneous Recovery

After a delay in time, the conditioned response begins to reappear with the conditioned stimulus as the delay in time allowed for the subject to forget slightly about the lack of the controlled response.

Cell Signaling

After a neurotransmitter excites or inhibits a receptor, it separates from the receptor, thus ending the message. Sodium ions entering the postsynaptic neuron cause an excitatory response, whereas chlorine ions entering the postsynaptic neuron cause an inhibitory response.

Split-Brain Patients

After damage to the corpus callous, people can describe information only if it enters the left hemisphere. Such people in some ways act as if they have separate fields of consciousness, and in some ways they act as if they are unified.

Anal Stage

Ages 1 1/2 to 3 years old, the child gets psychosexual pleasure from the sensations of bowel movements.

Phallic Stage

Ages 3 to 6 year old, the child begins to play with his or her genitals.

Latent Period

Ages 6 to puberty, the child suppresses their psychosexual interest.

Psychosexual Pleasure

All strong, pleasant excitement arising from body stimulation

Conformity

Altering one's behavior to match other people's behavior or expectations.

Storage

An active process that involves maintaining memories.

Scientific-Management Approach

An approach to a job design that states that you should experiment to find the best way to do the job, select appropriate workers, and train them well to do it the right way. Increases speed, decreases effort, and doesn't expect workers to take much initiative or to show creativity.

Human-Relations Approach

An approach to job design that states that employees like variety in their job, a sense of accomplishment, and a sense of responsibility. Employers should enrich their, giving each employee responsibility for meaningful tasks. Takes longer to train the workers than it would with simpler jobs Workers preforming the tasks would expect to be paid more

Arcuate Nucleus

An area of the hypothalamus that contains a set of neurons that receives hunger signals. Output from this area controls the responses of salivation, swallowing, digestion, and the pleasure of eating.

Heritability

An estimate of the variance.

Unconditioned Stimulus

An event that automatically elicits an uncontrolled response.

Inferiority Complex

An exaggerated feeling of weakness, inadequacy and helplessness.

Theory

An explanation or model that fits many observations and makes accurate predictions.

Algorithm

An explicit procedure for calculating an answer or testing every hypothesis

Groupthink

An extreme form of group polarization that occurs when the members of a group suppress their doubts about a group's decision for fear of making a bad impression or disrupting group harmony.

Self-Concept

An image of what people really are.

Ideal Self

An image of what they would like to be.

Addiction

An inability to quit a self-destructive habit. Escape unpleasant feelings

False Memory

An inaccurate report that someone believes to be a memory.

Hierarchical Models of Intelligence

An intelligence test wherein verbal and spatial abilities correlate.

Prejudice

An unfavorable attitude towards a group of people.

Handwriting Test

Analyzing different samples of handwriting; proved to be inconclusive.

Mnemonic Devices

Any memory based aid based on encoding items in a special way.

Correlation Studies

Any type of research is a correlation study.

Disequilibrium Principle

Anything that prevents an activity produces disequilibrium, and an opportunity to return to equilibrium is reinforcing.

Transformational Leader

Articulated a vision of the future, intellectually stimulated subordinates, and motivates them to see their imagination to advance the organization. Mostly idealistic and a myth; when the organization runs smoothly, people perceive their leader as visionary, inspiring and _________________.

Description of Neuron Signaling

As the signal moves down the axon, the threshold of the axon (-55millivolts) is surpassed due to the excitation of the neuron, which causes the sodium-potassium pump to open leading to a rapid flow of sodium ions into the negatively charged axon. This rapid flow stimulates the next point along the axon, and so on and so forth. The sodium leaves the axon after the signal passes by because the potassium pumps remain open while the sodium pumps shut, this allows for the potassium to flow to a lower concentration outside of the cell. Sodium enters the cell (excitation), potassium leaves the cell (return to resting potential).

Conditioned Taste Aversion

Associating food with an illness. Good for evolution as this will keep people from eating more ill-causing foods.

Rationalization

Attempt to show that their actions are justifiable.

Psychodynamic Techniques

Attempt to understand conflicting impulses, including some that the individual does not consistently recognize.

Human Factors Specialist/Ergonomist

Attempts to facilitate the operation of machinery so that ordinary people can use it efficiently and safely. Original profession was used in the military to help soldiers understand how to use complex military technology, make life or death decisions, and understand speech in loud environments.

Bisexuality

Attraction to both sexes.

Projection

Attributing one's own undesirable characteristics to other people.

Self-Serving Bias

Attributions that we adopt to maximize credit for success and minimize blame for failure.

Unconditioned Reflexes

Automatic connections between stimuli Stimulus such as food and response such as secreting digestive enzymes and salivating

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Avoidance of social contact, lack of friends.

Prevention

Avoiding behavior from the start.

Action Potential

Axons convey information by means of action potential; an excitation that travels along an axon at a constant strength, no matter how far it travels. Think of it as an off or on switch, as action potential isn't varied by the axon in terms of velocity or strength.

Cerebellum

Balance and fine motor movement.

Intrinsic

Based on the pleasure of the act itself provides.

Extrinsic Motivation

Based on the rewards the act might bring or the punishments it might avoid.

Behavior Therapy

Begins with a clear, well-defined goal, such as eliminating test anxiety, and then attempts to achieve it through learning.

Choice Blindness

Being unaware to what choices you made and accepting the story of you accepting a similar but different choice. Which girl is more attractive? => Shown picture of two girls => Chooses girl A => Show girl B => Asked to defend why girl B is more attractive => "Makes up story" to defend choice.

Delusion of Persecution

Belief that enemies are persecuting you.

Delusion

Belief that someone holds strongly despite evidence against it.

Delusion of Grandeur

Belief that you are unusually important.

Far Transfer

Benefit from practicing something less similar.

Near Transfer

Benefit to a new skill based on practice of a similar skill.

Mental Set

Bias to solving a problem using a similar approach.

Biological Psychology

Biopsychologists explain in terms of biological factors, such as activities of the nervous system, the effects of drugs and hormones, genetics, and evolutionary pressures.

Oral Stage

Birth to 1 1/2 years old, the infant derives intense pleasure for stimulation of the mouth, particularly while sucking on the mother's breast.

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors

Block reuptake of serotonin.

Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors

Block the metabolic breakdown of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.

BMI

Body Mass Index; defined as weight in kilograms divided by height.

Double-Blind Study

Both the observer and the participants are unaware of which participants received the treatment.

Aphasia

Brain damage to the temporal lobe at various points can have alternate effects on the way in which language is communicated in the sufferer.

That's-not-all

But wait, there's more. (Cupcake Example)

Occipital Damage

Can name but not draw objects.

Prosopagnosia

Can recognize objects, but can't differentiate faces. Can still make inferences based on voice, clothes, etc.

Parietal Damage

Can't name a viewed object but can copy it.

Mathematical Skill

Carry out math operations.

Coma

Caused by traumatic brain damage, the brain shows a steady but low level of activity and no response to any stimulus.

Sympathetic Nervous System

Chains of neuron clusters just to the left and right of the spinal cord which arouse the body for vigorous action. Psychologists measure responses from this nervous system arousal in the form of breathing rate, heart rate, and electrical conductivity across the skin, to determine changes in emotion.

Epigenetics

Changes in gene expression without modification of the DNA sequences. Heritability for example.

REM Sleep

Characterized by rapid eye movement [Stage in Sleep]

Hormones

Chemicals released by glands and conveyed by the blood to alter activity in various other organs.

Neurotransmitters

Chemicals that activate receptors in other neurons. These neurotransmitters are sent by the terminal branches and are held in the terminal bouton.

Recognition

Choosing a correct item among several items.

Choice-Delay Task

Choosing between receiving a smaller reward now or a larger reward later—people with ADHD are more likely to pick the immediate reward.

Free Association

Client says everything that comes to mind

Proximity

Closeness, people have a better chance of becoming friends if they interact with each other more.

Myelin

Coats the axons in an insulating sheath that speeds up the transmission of impulses along an axon.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Cognitive impairments and interpersonal deficits.

Meta-Analysis

Combines the results of many studies as if they were all part of a single study. Taking the results of many experiments, weighting each one on proportion to the number of participants, and determining the overall average effect.

Cross-Cultural Psychology

Compares the behavior of people from different cultures.

Idiographic Approach

Concentrates on intensive studies of individuals, looking for what makes someone special.

Tardive Dyskinesia

Condition characterized by tremors and involuntary movements.

Somatic Nervous System

Connects the skin and muscles.

Automatic Nervous System

Connects to the heart, stomach, and other organs. Influences the endocrine system: glands that produce hormones and release them into the blood.

Making a Decision

Considering possibilities and investigating them.

Personality

Consists of all the consistent ways in which the behavior of one person differs from that of others, especially in social situations.

Peripheral Nervous System

Consists of nerves connecting the spinal cord with the rest of the body.

Parasympathetic Nervous System

Consists of neurons whose axons extend from the medulla and the lower part of the spinal cord to neuron clusters near the organs. Decreases the heart rate and promotes digestion and other nonemergency functions.

Central Nervous System

Consists of the brain and the spinal cord.

Mania

Constantly active, uninhibited, and often irritable.

Superego

Contains the memory of rules and prohibits we learned from our parents and others.

Cell Body

Contains the nucleus of the nerve cell

Pons and Medulla

Control muscles of the head: chewing, talking, swallowing, breathing.

Spinal Cord

Controls the muscles from the neck down

Consolidation

Converting a short-term memory into a long-term memory. Memories changing in ways after a passage of time that make them available much later to be recalled.

Illusory Correlations

Correlations we think we see, but do not actually exist. An apparent relationship based on casual observations of unrelated weakly related events.

Demand Characteristics

Cues that can tell participants what is expected of them and what the experimenter hopes to find. Experimenters attempt to diminish their prevalence as they may interfere with the data.

Broca's Aphasia

Damage to an area in the temporal lobe wherein the patient has extreme difficulties in language production. Difficulty to articulate and speak at a normal pace.

Wernicke's Aphasia

Damage to an area in the temporal lobe wherein the patient has impaired recall of nouns and impaired language comprehension, despite fluent and grammatical speech. Difficulty developing cohesive sentences (babbling idiot).

Darwin and the Study of Animal Intelligence

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection had an enormous impact on psychology as well as biology. Argued that humans and other species share a remote common ancestor and therefore should have similarities in some features and intelligence.

Humanistic Psychology

Deals with consciousness, values, and abstract beliefs, including spiritual experiences and the beliefs that people live and die for.

Applied Research

Deals with practical problems, such as how to help children with learning disabilities. Understanding the basic processes helps applied researchers develop effective interventions.

Delay of Gratification

Declining a pleasant activity now in order to get greater pleasure later. As people advance from childhood to adulthood, they gradually improve their ability to resist temptation and ____________.

Endorphins

Decrease pain and increase pleasure.

Punishment

Decreases the probability of a response.

Negative Symptoms

Defined by the absence of some behavior.

Positive Symptoms

Defined by the presence of some behavior.

M'Naghten Rule

Defines guiltiness due to insanity. People must be so disordered that they do not know what they are doing.

Sleeper Effect

Delayed persuasion by an initially rejected message.

Copy Number Variants

Deletions and duplications of tiny parts of a chromosome.

Top-Down Process

Deliberately deciding to shift your attention to one specific thing.

Short-Term Hunger

Describes how several mechanisms process food immediately after eating, and talks about the relationship between insulin and glycogen levels in relation to blood-glucose levels.

Likert Scale

Describing attitudes or situations on a scale from 1 to 7, 1 being strongly disagree and 7 being strongly agree.

Norms

Descriptions of how frequently various scores occur.

Projective Techniques

Designed to encourage people to project their personality characteristics onto ambiguous stimuli.

Savings/Relearning Method

Detects weak memories by comparing the speed of original learning to the speed of relearning. If it takes you less time than when you first learned that material, some memory has persisted.

Nitric Oxide

Dilates blood vessels in the most active brain areas.

Schizophrenia

Dissociative identity disorder exhibiting a prolonged deterioration of daily activities and some combination of: hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and thought, movement disorder, loss of normal emotional responses and social behaviors.

Displacement

Diverting a behavior or thought away from its natural target toward a less threatening target.

Problem Focused Coping

Doing something to improve the situation. [Stress Coping]

Compliance

Doing what someone else wants when they have no formal authority over you.

Activation-Synthesis Theory of Dreams

Dreams occur because the cortex takes whatever haphazard activity occurs during REM sleep and triggers stimuli to try and make sense of the activity.

Depressants

Drugs that decrease arousal, such as alcohol and anxiolytics.

Stimulants

Drugs that increase energy, alertness, and activity.

Hallucinogens

Drugs that induce sensory distortions.

Narcotics

Drugs that produce drowsiness, insensitivity to pain, and decreased responsiveness.

Reconstruction

During an experience, you construct a memory. When you try to retrieve that memory, you reconstruct an account based partly on distinct memories and partly on your expectations of what must have happened.

Scatter Plots

Each dot represents a given individual, with one measurement for that individual on the x-axis and one on the y-axis.

Single-Blind Study

Either observer or the participants are unaware of which participants received the treatment.

Big Five Model of Personality

Emotional stability, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to new experience.

Biopsychosocial Model

Emphasizes biological, psychological, and sociological aspects of abnormal behavior.

Corpus Callosum

Enables the left and the right hemispheres of the brain to communicate with each other. When damaged, the two hemispheres cannot share information.

Cortisol

Enhances metabolism and increases the supply of sugar and other fuels to the cells. A moderate and brief increase in cortisol can result in an improvement of attention and memory.

Norepinephrine

Enhances storage of memory of emotions or otherwise meaningful events.

Shaping

Establishing a new response by reinforcing successive approximations to it. Slowly "nudging" the subject in the direction of doing a specific action.

Anchoring Heuristic

Estimating an amount by adjusting from a (sometimes arbitrary) reference point.

Conflict in Attention

Even when people are paying full attention to one thing, peoples' minds wander and focus on other things in their periphery.

Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary psychologists try to explain behavior in therms of the evolutionary history of the species, including why evolution might have favored a tendency to act in particular ways.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Exaggerated self-regard, disregard for others.

Agoraphobia

Excessive fear of open or public places.

Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder

Excessive preoccupation with details.

Stage 3: Climax

Excitement builds until there is a sudden relate of tension, known as an orgasm, which the entire body feels.

Stage 2: Plateau

Excitement remains high and might remain this way for varying periods of time.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Expectations that increase the probability of the predicted event.

Expertise

Experts in their field recognize and memorize meaningful patterns more rapidly than less experienced people do.

Internal Attribution

Explanations based on someone's attitudes, personality traits, abilities, or other characteristics. Dispositional.

External Attribution

Explanations based on the situation, including events that would influences almost anyone. Situational.

Inoculation

Exposing yourself to small amounts of stressful events.

Prototypes

Familiar or typical example.

Evaluating the Results

First an investigator uses descriptive statistics: three ways to represent these mathematical results are mean, median, and mode.

Source Amnesia

Forgetting when, where, or how you learned something is.

Mirror Neurons

Found especially in the frontal cortex, activate when you make a movement and also when you watch someone else make a similar movement.

Measuring Human Intelligence

Francis Galton wanted to see if knowledge and success was hereditary-tried to determine intelligence based on simple sensory and motor tasks. French researcher Alfred Binet developed first useful intelligence test-testing intelligence became popular in the United States and other Western countries during this point.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Frequent and exaggerated worries.

Panic Disorder

Frequent periods of anxiety and occasional attacks of panic—rapid breathing, increased heart rate, chest pains, sweating, faintness, and trembling.

Psychoanalysis

Freud's method of explaining and dealing with personality, based on the interplay between conscious and unconscious forces. Tries to bring unconscious thoughts and emotions to consciousness.

fMRI

Functional MRI uses detectors outside the head to compare the amounts of hemoglobin with and without oxygen in different brain areas.

Hypermnesia

Gain of a memory over time.

Adaptive Testing

Giving the subject a series of questions for a specific age group and increasing the age after each set of questions until a majority of the answers are missed.

Goal Setting

Goals must be specific, realistic, have a certain time frame, and be measurable

Executive Functioning

Governs shifts of attention

Chunking

Grouping items into meaningful sequences or clusters.

Cross-Cultural Sample

Groups of people from at least two cultures. Difficult because of the expense, language barriers, and reluctance of some people in other cultures to perform certain tasks.

Clinical Psychologists

Have an advanced degree in psychology (master's degree, doctor of philosophy, or doctor of psychology) with specialty in understanding and helping people with psychological problems.

Down-Syndrome

Having a variety of physical and mental impairments as a result of having an extra copy of chromosome #21.

Temporal Lobe

Hearing, language.

Counseling Psychologists

Help people with educational, vocational, marriage, health-related, and other decisions. Life decisions, career or family/life adjustments. PhD, PsyD, or EdD plus supervised experience in counseling.

Altruistic Behavior

Helping others without a benefit to ourselves. People want a reputation for being fair and helpful People who cooperate punish those that don't.

Latent Content

Hidden ideas that the dream experience represents symbolically.

Type A Personalities

Highly competitive, insisting on always winning. They are impatient and often hostile.

Encoding

How a memory is made and established.

Base-Rate Information

How close the two categories are in a representativeness heuristic.

Nature vs Nurture

How do differences in behavior relate to differences in heredity and environment?

Binding Problem

How do separate areas of the brain combine forces to produce one unified perception and experience?

Depth Processing Principle

How easily you retrieve a memory is dependent on the number and types of associations your form. Reading a list or a chapter represents "shallowing processing" wherein not much information is retained. Relating what you are reading to memories or personal experiences makes them more easily remembered as there is a greater number of associations with the memory.

Consensus Information

How the person's behavior compares with other people's behavior.

Distinctiveness

How the person's behavior varies from one situation to another.

Consistency Information

How the person's behavior varies from one time to the next.

Reciprocation

Human Society example; Even toward computer partner) Charities asking for money give a nickel in a bag with their information on how to donate, feel guilty so you donate.

Drive-Reduction Theory

Humans and other animals eat to reduce their hunger, drink to reduce their thirst, and have sexual activity to reduce their sex-drive. Once all needs are satisfied, you become inactive—ultimate goal is to have nothing to do. Assumes that we only drive to reduce stimulation, not to increase it.

The Physiology of Hunger and Satiety

Hunger serves to keep fuel available for the body. The complexity of hunger requires multiple mechanisms to control intake.

How To "Do a Science"

Hypothesis, Method, Results, Interpretation, Replicability.

General factor (g)

IQ Tests: "mental energy"

Specific factors (s)

IQ Tests: less complex tasks

Word Superiority Effect

Identify the letter more accurately when it is part of a word than when it is presented by itself.

Intervention

Identifying problem in the early stages and relieving it.

Peripheral Route To Persuasion

If for any reason you associate something with feeling happy, you form a favorable attitude to it.

Group Polarization

If nearly all the people who compose a group lean the same direction on a particular issue, then a group discussion moves the group as a while even further in that direction.

Backward Masking

If the interfering stimulus (mask) follows but does not proceed the stimulus.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Impaired communication, social relationships, and increased stereotyped behaviors

Visual Agnosia

Impairment of higher visual processes for recognizing objects (eyes might be perfectly fine)

Primary Motor Cortex

Important for controlling fine movements such as moving a finger or wiggling a toe.

Prefrontal Cortex

Important for decision making and directing attention. 20's years old for this to be fully developed

Dopamine

Important for movement, memory, and cognition.

Spontaneous Remission

Improvement without therapy.

Studying Sensation

In the 1800's and 1900's, many of the abnormalities of human behavior were covered by psychiatrists, and often left to solely them and not psychologists. Early psychologists discovered differences between physical stimuli and psychological perceptions. For example, a light that is twice as intense as another one doesn't look twice as bright.

Anterograde Amnesia

Inability to store new memories.

Incentive Theories

Incentives are external stimuli that attracts us even if we have no biological need for them.

Neo PI-R

Includes 240 items to measure neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

Negative Reinforcement

Increase in behavior results in a decrease in pain.

Positive Reinforcement

Increase in the behavior results in an increase in reward.

Readiness Potential

Increased motor cortex activity prior to the start of the movement.

Histamine

Increases arousal and alertness.

Acetylcholine

Increases brain arousal.

Insulin

Increases the flow of glucose and several other nutrients into the body cells. Released when blood sugar is too high.

Job Pay and Satisfaction

Increasing pay will increase quantity of work but not necessarily quality.

Information Processing View of Memory

Information that enters the system is processed, coded, and stored.

Environmental Influences

Intellectual development depends on many aspects of the environment, including physical health in early childhood. Extensive interventions can help children's intellectual development, if started early in life and continued for years.

Flynn Effect

Intelligence test scores have been increasing for 100 years

Self-Handicapping Strategies

Intentionally putting yourself at a disadvantage to provide an excuse for failure.

Tricyclic Drugs

Interfere with the axon's ability to reabsorb the neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.

Openness to Experience

Inventive/curious vs cautious/conservative Appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, ambiguity variety of experience.

Recessive

Its effects appear only if the dominant gene is absent.

Burden of Proof

Karl Popper emphasized scientists' willingness to disconfirm their theories by saying the purpose of research is to find which theories are incorrect. Obligation to present evidence to support one's claim. Present clear evidence that it is true.

Person-Centered Therapy

Known as nondiruecive or client-centered therapy, the therapist listen to the client with total acceptance and unconditional regard.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

Lack of affection for others, lack of guilt feelings.

Occipital Lobe

Located at the rear of the head, it is specialized for vision.

The Early Era

Long before any people of the science fields (astronomy, physics, chemistry, and biology) called themselves scientists, or universities began including these fields as worthy fields of study, many of the first experiments and research topics were conducted by amateur researchers in these fields. They proposed to attack the age-old questions of mind by using the methods of science.

Job Burnout

Long-lasting sense of mental and physical exhaustion and discouragement. Feel detached from job and coworkers—common in people in helping professions as they are expected to be supportive and encouraging at all times.

Amnesia

Loss of a memory.

Retrograde Amnesia

Loss of memory for events that occurred shortly before the brain damage.

Wilhelm Wundt and the First Psychological Laboratory

Maintained the idea that psychology's elements were sensations and feelings, and that these elements would merge into something known as your experience. Believed that experience is partially under your own control, and you can change your own experience by paying attention to different things.

Allostasis

Maintaining levels of biological conditions that vary according to an individuals needs and circumstances.

Fundamental Attribution Error

Making internal attributions fore people's behavior even when we see evidence for an external influence on behavior. Correspondance bias

John B. Watson

Many claim that Watson was the founder of behaviorism.

Recent Trends

Many of today's psychologists are less confident that the grand theory of behavior will emerge; psychologists today attempt to answer more limited questions.

Psychologists in Teaching and Research

Many psychologists, especially those who are not clinical psychologists, teach and conduct research in colleges and universities.

Alarm Stage

Marked by activity of the sympathetic nervous sympathetic nervous system to prepare the body for vigorous activity.

Exhaustion Stage

Marked by fatigue, inactivity, and decreased ability to resist illness.

Vegetative State

Marked by limited responsiveness, increased heart rate and responsiveness to pain.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Marked by prolonged anxiety and depression. People with this condition on average have a smaller hippocampus, and this condition was prior to the trauma.

Descriptive Statistics

Mathematical summaries of results.

Grice's Conversational Maxims

Maxim is a rule: 4 main maxims/rules that we must follow: Quantity, Quality, Relation, Manner

Electroencephalograph (EEG)

Measures and amplifies tiny electrical charges on the scalp that reflect patterns of brain activity.

Polysomnograph

Measures brain activity with a simultaneous measure of eye movements.

Implicit Association Test

Measures reactions to combinations of categories.

Implicit Personality Test

Measures some aspect of your personality without your awareness.

Procedural Memories

Memories of how to do something. Such as walking, eating with chopsticks, etc.

Declarative Memories

Memories we can readily state in words.

Methods of Testing Memory

Memory is not an all-or-none thing; things may be forgotten deepening on the test.

Semantic Memory

Memory of principles and facts What you were taught in school.

Serotonin

Modifies many types of motivated and emotional behavior.

Type B Personalities

More easygoing, less hurried, and less hostile.

Skeletal Responses

Movements of muscles are the resulted responses of operant conditioning scenarios.

Retrieval

Moving a memory from long term storage to short term storage so that it can be used an applied.

Conflicting Motivations

Multiple motivations that cannot satisfy all wants or conditions.

Neurons

Nerve cells that make up the brain in enormous amounts

Psychological Accounting Heuristic

Not all $10s are equal.

Insomnia

Not enough sleep for the person to feel rested the next day.

Blocking Effect

One controlled response to one controller stimulus will block out any other association of a controlled response to a different stimulus. Rats shocked with the presence of light = rats tense up Repeated over and over. Shown light without shock = rats tense up. Tone is then played along with the light and the rats are shocked Tone played = no response by rats Rats already associated shock with light and therefore only tense up with light.

Random Sample

One in which every individual in the population has an equal chance of being selected.

Maxim of Quality

One of Grice's 4 conversational maxims: Be accurate. Don't lie.

Maxim of Quantity

One of Grice's 4 conversational maxims: Be as informative as is required, but not more so.

Maxim of Manner

One of Grice's 4 conversational maxims: Be clear, not obscure or overly wordy.

Maxim of Relation

One of Grice's 4 conversational maxims: Be relevant to the ongoing conversation.

Dualism

One of the beliefs of the Mind-Brain Problem that states that the mind is separate from the brain, but somehow controls the brain and therefore the rest of the body. Contradicts the Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy.

Standardized Test

One test that is administered according to rules that specify how to interpret the results.

Attentive Process

One that requires searching through items in a series.

Representative Sample

One that resembles the population. Investigator determines what percentage of the residents belong to each category and then selects people to match those percentages.

State

Opposite of a trait, a temporary activation of a particular behavior.

Surveyors Biases

Organizations word questions of a survey to encourage the answers they hope to receive.

Glia

Other nerve cells that support the neurons by insulating them, synchronizing activity among neighboring neurons, and removing waster products.

Test Bias

Overstates or understates the true performance of one or more groups.

Opiates

Pain receivers of this class that are synthetically modified to mimic natural opiates found in opium, or natural opiates themselves.

Pavlov and Classical Conditioning

Pavlov was studying digestion in dogs by measuring salvia samples, however he discovered that after a while of feeding the dog, the dog secreted saliva upon seeing Pavlov as opposed to when eating the food.

Bulimia Nervosa

People alternate between self-deprivation and periods of excessive eating, while feeling a loss of control. People who have this condition might induce vomiting, take laxatives, or do enemas to rid themselves of the food, or they might exercise heavily to lose the perceived weight.

Actor-Observer Effect

People are more likely to make internal attributions for other people's behavior and more likely to make external attributions for their own.

Attention Bottleneck

People are only able to attend to a few stimuli at once.

Narcolepsy

People experience sudden attacks of sleepiness throughout the day.

Inoculation Effect

People first hear a weak argument and then a stronger argument supporting the same conclusion. Rejecting the first argument causes them to reject the second one too.

Minimally Conscious State

People have brief periods of purposeful actions and speech comprehension.

Trait Approach to Personality

People have consistent characteristics in their behavior.

Reaction Formation

People presenting themselves as the opposite of what they really are to avoid awareness on some weakness.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

People repeatedly become depressed during a particular season of the year.

Job Satisfaction

People want to spend time on a job that they like since you will be dedicating most of your time to it. Depends on job itself, interest level, pay, also highly heritable.

Neo-Freudians

People who kept parts of Freud's theory while modifying other aspects. All de-emphasized Freud's personal unconscious and emphasis on sex Alfred Adler argued that personality is guided by desire to overcome inferiority and achieve superiority.

Intersex

People with an anatomy that appears intermediate between male and female.

Stereotype Threat

People's perceived risk of performing poorly and thereby supporting an unfavorable stereotype about their group.

Anecdotes

People's reports of isolated events, such as a dream or a hunch, that comes true.

Hallucinations

Perceptions that do not correspond to anything in the real world.

Fixation

Person continues to be preoccupied with pleasure area associated with that stage.

Bodily-Kinesthetic Skill

Physical proficiency.

Frontal Lobe

Planning, Thinking, Working, Memory, Self-Control-last part of the brain to develop.

The Behaviorist View in Relation to Learning

Position that psychology should concern itself only with what people and other animals do, and the circumstances in which they do it.

Parsimony

Preferring explanations to certain things where assumptions are fewer. We stick with ideas that work and try hard to avoid new assumptions.

Deadlines

Prevent procrastination and allow for tasks to be done.

Before and After Studies

Problematic because correlation does not imply causation.

Forensic Psychologists

Provide advice and consolation to police, lawyers, and courts. Clinical or counseling psychologists who have additional training in legal issues. Advise on whether the defendant is mentally competent to stand trail or whether someone eligible for parole is dangerous.

Continuous Reinforcement

Provide reinforcement for every correct response.

The Wechsler Tests

Provides an overall IQ, a Verbal IQ, and a Performance IQ

Fixed-Ratio Schedule

Provides reinforcement only after a certain (fixed) number of correct responses

Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Psychological study of people at work. Helps evaluate workplace situations and worker issues, and seeks to find solutions in eliminating these counterproductive worker-related issues.

Libido

Psychosexual energy

Genital Stage

Puberty and on, young people take a strong sexual interest in other people.

Sodium-Potassium Pump:

Pushes the potassium ions outside of the axon while pulling sodium ions in. The inside of the axon is negative as there is a higher concentration of sodium outside of the axon than potassium inside the axon.

Procrastination

Putting something off until later. Making a detailed plan of when, where, and how you will do something is another way in combatting ____________.

Categorizing

Putting things into categories.

Saccade

Quick eye movements from one point to another.

Hyperventilation

Rapid deep breathing—depletes CO2 in blood and can lead to suffocation.

Priming

Reading or hearing that word has temporarily results in priming that word and increasing the chance you will use it yourself.

Experimental Group

Receives treatment that the experiment is designed to test.

Cued Recall

Receiving significant hints about the material being memorized.

MEG

Records magnetic changes

PET

Records radioactivity of various brain areas emitted from injected chemicals.

Dissociation

Referring to memory that one has stored but cannot retrieve.

Emotional Focused Coping

Regulating one's own emotional reaction. Social support, relaxing, exercise, distractions. [Stress Coping]

Variable-Ratio Schedule

Reinforcement for an unpredictable number of responses that varies around a mean value.

Fixed-Interval Schedule

Reinforcement for the first response that follows a given delay since the previous reinforcement.

Variable-Interval Schedule

Reinforcement for the first response that follows an unpredictable delay (varying around a mean value) since the previous reinforcement.

Secondary Reinforcers

Reinforcing because of their association with something else. Money and coupons for sex.

Primary Reinforcers

Reinforcing because of their own properties. Food and water and probably sex.

Reappraisal Coping

Reinterpreting the situation to make it seem less threatening. [Stress Coping]

Psychodynamic Theory

Relates personality to the interplay of conflicting forces, including unconscious ones, within the individual. Sigmond Freud interpreted dreams, slips of the tongue and so forth to infer unconscious thoughts and motivations.

Atypical Antipsychotic Drugs

Relieve schizophrenia without TD.

Retrieval Cues

Reminders that prompt your memory later.

Recovered Memories

Reports of long lost memories, prompted by clinical techniques.

Central Route To Persuasion

Requires investing enough time and effort to evaluate the evidence and reason logically about a decision.

Visceral Responses

Responses of internal organs such as salivation and digestion.

Freud

Revolutionized and popularized psychotherapy with methods of analyzing patients' dreams and memories.

Contingency Management

Rewarding people from abstaining from drugs is sometimes effective.

Schedules of Reinforcement

Rules for the delivery of reinforcement.

Eye Movements

Saccades versus fixations.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Same as ADD except with an added level of fidgetiness and excessive activity.

Neurodevelopment Hypothesis

Schizophrenia originates with nervous system impairments that develop before birth or in early environment, especially prenatal environment.

Satisficing

Searching only until you find something satisfactory [decision making]

Genes

Sections along chromosomes that control the chemical reactions that direct development.

Nomothetic Approach

Seeks broad, general principles of personality based on studies of groups of people. Statement: Extraverted people are more likely to introduce themselves to a stranger.

Basic Research

Seeks theoretical knowledge for its own sake, such as understanding the processes of learning and memory.

Cognitive Therapy

Seeks to improve psychological well-being by changing people's interpretation of events.

Musical Skill

Sensitivity to rhythm, tone, melody.

Anandamide

Sent by postsynaptic neuron back to the presynaptic neuron to decrease further release of transmitters.

Cognitive-Behavior Therapy

Set explicit behavioral goals, but also try to change people's interpretation of situations.

Rape

Sexual activity without the consent of the partner. Only half of the victims consider the sexual act __________.

Id

Sexual and other biological drives that demand immediate gratification.

Compassionate Love

Sexual attraction and lust, short-lived.

Mere Measurement Effect

Simply estimating your probability of doing some desirable activity increases your probability of doing that action.

Forewarning Effect

Simply informing someone that they are about to hear a persuasive speech activates their resistance and weakens the persuasion.

Social Psychology

Social psychologists study how an individual influences there people and how the group influences an individual.

Exchange/Equity Theories

Social relationships are transactions in which partners exchange goods and services Marriage and similar relationships often break up because of problems that were present at the start, such as displays of anger.

Extrasensory Perception

Some people sometimes acquire information without receiving any energy through any sense organ. Long standing controversy, no evidence so therefore we can never accept it.

Blindsight

Some people with cortical blindness may experience the ability to point to or otherwise indicate the direction to a visual stimulus, without any conscious perception of seeing anything at all.

Criminal Profiling

Some psychologists try to aid police investigations by constructing personality profiles of the kind of person who would commit a certain crime. Research so far suggests low accuracy of personality profiles.

Bipolar Disorder

Someone alternates between mood extremes.

Clinical Social Worker

Someone who is similar to a clinical psychologist but with different training. Master's degree in social work with a specialization in psychological problems.

Blind Observer

Someone who records data without knowing the researcher's predictions.

Bottom-Up Process

Something loud or bright catches your attention over other things—controlled by peripheral stimuli. Paying attention to whatever is most obvious/obnoxious.

Controlled Stimulus

Something that is paired with the uncontrolled stimulus in order to build association between the two

Pre-Attentive Process

Something that stands out immediately.

Psychometric Approach

Spearman's approach to intelligence based on the measurement of individual differences in performance.

Sunk Cost Effect

Special case of the framing effect that defines the willingness to do something undesirable because of money or effort already spent. Professor Franklin holding on to her 2 $50 tickets and not selling them for $15 a piece even though they would be worthless if she held on to them.

Comparative Psychologists

Specialists who compare different animal species-set out to measure animal intelligence. Study stopped due to inconsistencies between animals (some animals dull-witted on one task but very intelligent in another) Psychologists changed direction from comparing animal intelligence to that of humans, to "what can we learn from animal studies of mechanisms of intelligent behavior?"

Military Psychologists

Specialists who provide services to the military in many ways. Consult with leadership about strategies, challenges of dealing with enemies of a different culture.

School Psychology

Speciality in the psychological condition of students, usually K through 12.

Foot-in-the-door

Start small, then go bigger ("Drive Carefully" study)

Door-in-the-face

Start too big, then make more "reasonable" request (chaperoning example

Falsifiable

Stated in such clear and precise terms that we can see what evidence would count against it. Sign of a well-formed theory if it is falsifiable.

Inferential Statistics

Statements about a large population based on an inference from a small sample.

Glucagon

Stimulates the liver to release stored glucose back into the blood. Released when the blood sugar is too low.

Incentives

Stimuli that pull us towards an action.

Chromosomes

Strands of hereditary material present in every cell nucleus. Human nuclei have 23 chromosomes.

Heuristics

Strategies for simplifying a problem and generating a satisfactory guess.

Health Affects of Stress

Stress impairs health in a number of ways: loss of appetite, sleep, forgetting to take medications, increased engagement in risky behaviors to cope with the stress. Activates part of your immune system to prepare it to fight anything bad that comes into your body. Intense and prolonged stress by itself can lead to fever, fatigue, and sleepiness.

Hereditary Influences

Studies of twins and adopted children suggest hereditary influences on individual IQ performance, although no one gene has a major effect.

Cognitive Psychology

Studies the process of thought and knowledge.

Developmental Psychologists

Study how behavior changes with age, "from womb to tomb".

Health Psychologists

Study how people's health is influence by their behaviors, such as smoking, drinking, sexual activities, diet, exercise, and reaction to stress.

Vicarious Reinforcement or Punishment

Substituting someone else's experience for your own. People learning a classically conditioned fear response by watching others get scared and producing this fear response.

Maintenance

Taking steps to keep a disorder from becoming more serious.

Long-Term Hunger

Talks about leptin levels in relation to body size, and how leptin levels vary to maintain the same bodyweight. Levels Increase with increasing body size. Levels Decrease with decreasing body size.

Short-Term Memory

Temporary storage of recent events.

Extraversion

Tend to be enthusiastic, stimulus-seeking, socially oriented.

Neuroticism

Tend toward anger, anxiety, depression More likely to interpret ordinary situations threatening.

Sexual Orientation

Tendency to respond sexually to male or female partners or both or neither.

Delusion of Reference

Tendency to take all sorts of messages personally.

Conscientiousness

Tendency toward self-discipline and duty. Prefer planning over spontaneity Need for achievement.

Oxytocin

The "love hormone" released by women during nursing and both men and women during sexual activity.

Language and General Intelligence

The ability to communicate is independent of brain mass between mammals—humans have a more complex way of communicating than mammals with larger brain mass.

Bilingual

The ability to speak two languages.

Self-Actualization

The achievement of one's full potential.

Uncontrolled Response

The action that the uncontrolled stimulus elicits.

Binocular Rivalry

The alternation between seeing the pattern in the left retina and the pattern in the right retina.

Unshared Environment

The aspects of environment that differ from one individual to another, even within a family.

Encoding Specificity Principle

The associations you form at the time of learning will be the most effective retrieval cues later.

Representativeness Heuristic

The assumption that an item that resembles members of a category is probably also in that category.

Stimulus-Response Psychology

The attempt to explain behavior in terms of how each stimulus triggers a response.

Pure Autonomic Failure

The autonomic nervous system stops regulating the organs; failure in responses to certain stimuli.

Mental Age

The average age of children who perform as well as the child being tested.

Self-Efficacy

The belief of being able to perform the task successfully. Estimating our chances of success to that of a professional by comparing our strengths and weaknesses between them.

Free Will

The belief that behavior is cause by a person's independent decisions.

General Adaptation Syndrome

The body's response to stressful events of any type.

Brain Death

The brain shows no activity and no response to any stimulus.

Plasticity

The brain structures change as a result of experience: new connections are made.

GABA

The brain's main inhibitory transmitter.

Glutamate

The brains main excitatory transmitter, present at most synapses; essential for almost all brain activities.

Critical Thinking

The careful evaluation of evidence for and against any conclusion

Unconditional Positive Regard

The complete, unqualified acceptance of another person as he or she is, much like the love of a parent for a child.

Preparedness

The concept that evolution has prepared us to learn some associations more easily than others.

Temptation

The conflict between doing some work and procrastinating it until later.

Manifest Content

The content that appears on the surface of a dream [Freud's Theory of Dreams]

Test-Retest Reliability

The correlation between scores on a first test and a retest. [IQ Test]

Collective Unconscious

The cumulative experience of preceding generations (coined by Carl Jung).

Validity

The degree to which evidence and theory support the interpretations of test scores for the intended purposes.

Defense Mechanisms

The ego's defense against itself against anxieties by regulating unpleasant thoughts and impulses to the unconscious mind.

Resting Potential

The electrical polarization across the membrane of an axon. Typically -70millivolts

Self-Esteem

The evaluation of one's own abilities, performance, and worth.

Obesity

The excessive accumulation of body fat.

Random Assignment

The experimenter randomly assigns people to one group or the other, giving every participant equal chance to be a part of that group.

Stimulus Generalization

The extension of a conditioned response from the training stimulus to a similar stimulus. Fearing bees after being stung = fearing wasps and hornets as well.

Change Blindness

The failure to detect changes in parts of a scene.

Primacy Effect

The first information we learn about someone influences us more than later information does.

Flash Suppression

The flashing of one stimulus that distracts you from the appearance of another stimulus. Flashing blue dots distract you from the presence of yellow dots in the background.

Gender Identity

The gender that someone regards him or herself as being.

Family Systems Therapy

The guiding assumption is that most people's problems develop in a family setting and that the best way to deal with them is to improve family relationships and communication.

Alcoholism

The habitual overuse of alcohol.

Determinism

The idea that everything that happens has a cause, or determinant, that someone could observe or measure.

Schachter and Singer's Theory of Emotions

The intensity of the physiological state—that is, the degree of sympathetic nervous system arousal—determines the intensity of the emotion, but a cognitive appraisal of the situation identifies the type of emotion. Arousal in one form can translate to arousal in another form; on a first date, you will more likely go on a second date with a girl after going to a rollercoaster park than an art gallery as the arousal and excitement you get from the action.

Independent Variable

The item that the experimenter changes or controls.

Dependent Variable

The item that the experimenter measures to determine the outcome.

Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

The main cause of anger and aggression is frustration—an obstacle that stands in the way of doing something or obtaining something. Low self esteem causes aggressiveness.

Homeostasis

The maintenance of an optimum level of biological conditions within an organism. Motivations tend to maintain body states near some optimum intermediate level. They may react to current needs and anticipate future needs. Doesn't explain incentives and external stimuli.

Psychophysical Function

The mathematical description of the relationship between the physical stimulus and its perceived properties.

Terminal Branches (Presynaptic Ending)

The message-sending branch of a neuron.

Mere Exposure Effect

The more often we come in contact with someone or something, the more we tend to like that person or object.

Glucose

The most abundant sugar in the blood, is an important energy source for the body and by far the main energy source for the brain.

Self-Actualization (Fulfillment)

The need for creative activities to fulfill your potential.

Postsynaptic Neuron

The neuron on the receiving end of the synapse. Receives the neurotransmitters that fit into their receptors in the model of a lock and key (only some neurotransmitters can bind to certain receptors on the postsynaptic neuron.

Retroactive Interference

The new materials increase forgetting of the old materials.

Stress

The nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it. ___________ is an event pr events that are interpreted as threatening to an individual and which elicit physiological and behavioral responses.

Proactive Interference

The old materials increase forgetting of new materials.

Cerebral Cortex

The outer covering of the forebrain. Especially prominent in humans

Thematic Apperception Test

The person is asked to make up a life story for each picture, describing what events led up to this scene, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future.

The Mind-Brain Problem

The philosophical question of how experience relates to the brain.

Fluid Intelligence

The power of reasoning and using information. Perceive relationships, solve unfamiliar problems, and acquire new knowledge.

Experimenter Bias

The predisposition of an experimenter to misperceive the results.

Probability Value

The probability that randomly generated results would resemble the observed results. Any p value < 0.05 indicated this probability as less than 5%. The smaller the p, the more statistically significant the data.

Classical Conditioning

The process by which an organism learns a new association between two stimuli—a neutral stimulus and one that already evokes a reflexive response. Unconditioned stimulus —> Uncontrolled response Unconditioned stimulus + Conditional stimulus Conditioned stimulus —> Controlled response Creates new associations off of previous associations and events The subject's behavior has no effect on the outcome (presentation of either the CS or the UCS)

Operant Conditioning

The process of changing behavior by providing a reinforcer after a response. The subject's behavior produces an outcome that affects future behavior. Subject operates on environment to produce an outcome. Also known as instrumental conditioning as the subject's behavior is instrumental in producing the outcome.

Standardization of Tests

The process of evaluating the questions, establishing the rules for administering the test, and interpreting the scores

Reinforcement

The process of increasing the future probability of the most recent response.

Repression

The process of moving an unacceptable memory or impulse from the conscious mind to the unconscious mind.

Motivation

The process that determines the reinforcement value of an outcome.

Social Perception and Cognition

The processes for learning about others and making inferences from that information.

Ego

The rational, decision-making aspect of the personality.

Denial

The refusal to believe unpleasant information.

Destitutionalization

The removal of patients from mental hospitals.

Reliability

The repeatability of an IQ test's scores

Population Samples

The results of a study of one group of people may or may not apply to other groups of people.

Memory

The retention of information.

Early Childhood Amnesia

The scarcity of early episodic memories

Autonomic Nervous System

The section of the nervous system that controls organs such as the heart and intestines.

Attribution

The set of thought processes we use to assign causes to our own behaviors and that of others.

Synapses

The specialized junction between one neuron and another. A neuron releases a chemical that either excites or inhibits the next neuron.

Consciousness

The subjective experience of perceiving oneself and one's own surroundings.

Psychology

The systematic study of behavior and experience.

Social Loafing

The tendency to "loaf" when sharing work with other people.

Barnum Effect

The tendency to accept vague descriptions of your personality. People identifying with horoscope readings.

Functional Fixedness

The tendency to adhere to a single approach or a single way of using an item.

Framing Effect

The tendency to answer a question differently when it is framed differently.

Availability Heuristic

The tendency to assume that if we easily think of examples of a category, then that category must be common. You remember more reports of airplane crashes than car crashes, so you think air travel is more dangerous.

Hindsight Bias

The tendency to mold our recollection of the past to fit how events later turned out. "I knew that was going to happen"

Stroop Effect

The tendency to read the words instead of saying the color of ink.

Recency Effect

The tendency to remember the final items.

Primacy Effect:

The tendency to remember well the first items.

Attention

The tendency to respond to and remember some stimuli more than others.

Stanford-Binet IQ Test

The test that was designed by Binet and Simon for English speakers.

Sensitive Period

The time period in an adolescents life (first year) wherein the most learning occurs. Human children learn language most easily when they are young

Sublimation

The transformation of sexual or aggressive energies into culturally acceptable, even admirable behaviors.

Monism

The view that states that conscious experience is inseparable from the physical brain. Mental activity is brain activity.

Language Acquisition Device

Theory that states that humans possess a built-in mechanism for acquiring language. This theory is agreed upon when considering the ability of deaf people to develop their own sign language despite them not being taught it.

Empirically Supported Treatments

Therapies demonstrated to be helpful.

Psychoanalysts

Therapy providers who rely heavily on the theories and methods pioneered by the early 20th-century Viennese physician Sigmund Freud and later modified by others. Freud and psychoanalysts try to find symbolic meaning behind people's words and actions. Psychiatry or clinical psychology plus 4 more years in a psychoanalytic institute

Sexual Arousal

There are four stages of ______________; in order for this to occur, their must the presence of a suitable partner, a willingness to be aroused, and a lack of anxiety.

Spatial Skill

Think multi-dimensionally.

Spreading Activation

Thinking about one of the concepts shown in this guide will activate, or prime, the concepts linked to it.

Type 1

Thinking is described as quick, automatic processing (such as recognizing familiar faces and routine actions) and for questions we think are easy. (Two definitions)

Type 2

Thinking is for mathematical calculations, evaluating evidence, and anything else that requires attention.

Maximizing

Thoroughly considering all available choices to find the best one [decision making].

Replicable Results

Those that anyone can obtain, at least approximately, by following the same procedures.

Comparisons by Culture and Cohort

Throughout much of the world, it is unlikely to have premarital sex or engage in sexual activities as a teenager. However, the percentages of teenage sex in the United States and Western Europe are much larger than the rest of the world.

Sleep Apnea

To breathe for a minute and then wake up gasping for air

Extinction

To decrease a conditioned response. To extinguish a classically conditioned response, repeatedly present the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus. Someone blows a puff of air in your eyes whenever a buzzer goes off, causing you to blink. Over time, you will begin to blink every single time you hear a buzzer. If no puff of air is given after a buzzer, the puff of air will not be expected and the blinking will slowly begin to decrease and then become extinct whenever a buzzer is heard.

Introspect

To look within yourself; encouraged by Wilhelm Wundt.

Free Recall

To produce a response, as you do on essay tests or short-answer tests.

Discrimination

To respond differently to stimuli that predict different outcomes. Distinguishing the sound of a baby's rattle and the sound of a snake's rattle. Alarm signaling the end of class versus the fire alarm [Stimuli]

Parietal Lobe

Touch, sensory integration, processing of numbers.

Sex-Linked Genes

Traits linked to a particular sex chromosome. Occurs equally in both sexes but exerts its effects mainly or entirely i one or he other.

Psychotherapy

Treatment of psychological disorders by methods that include a personal relationship between a trained therapist and a client.

Transactional Leader

Tries to make the organization more efficient at doing what it is already doing by providing rewards (mainly pay) for effective work. Effective in organizations where activities stay constant from year to year

Community Psychologists

Try to help people change their environment, both to prevent disorders and promote a positive sense of wellbeing

Intelligence Quotient Tests

Try to predict someone's performance in school and similar settings.

Stem Cells

Undifferentiated cells

Discrimination

Unequal treatment of different groups.

Gardener's Theory of Eight Intelligences

Unrelated forms of intelligence coined by this psychologist: Verbal, Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalist.

Borderline Personality Disorder

Unstable self-image, no lasting relationships or firm decisions, repeated self-endangering behaviors.

Drug Tolerance

Users of certain drugs experience progressively weaker effects after taking the drugs repeatedly. After a number of injections, the body will begin to build up defense to the drug in anticipation of the injection when the needle/ environment is seen. This association means that a larger dosage is required to give that "high" to overcome the already established defenses to the drug.

Physical Dependence

Uses a drug to reduce unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.

EEG

Uses electrodes on the scalp to record rapid changes in brain electrical activity.

Archetypes

Vague images hat have always been part of the human experience.

Agreeableness

Value social harmony Tend to be considerate, friendly, willing to compromise, trusting of others.

Near And Far Transfer

Varying applicability of information to different fields.

Microexpressions

Very brief, sudden emotional expressions that are harder to control than normal emotions.

Social Learning Approach

We can learn about many behaviors by observing the behaviors of others. Learning how to do something by first watching someone else do it.

Diffusion of Responsibility

We feel less responsibility to act when other people are equally able to act.

Kohlberg's View of Moral Reasoning

We should evaluate moral reasoning on the basis of reasons people give for a decision rather than the decision itself.

Achievement

What someone has already learned.

Conditioned Response

Whatever response the conditioned stimulus elicits as the result of conditioning. -Hearing a click every time your alarm clock goes off to wake you up:

Oedipus Complex

When he develops a sexual interest in his mother and competitive aggression toward his father.

Retrieval and Interference

When you try to remember somethings you might confuse it with something else.

Fixations

When your eyes are stationary.

Confabulations

Which are attempts to fill in the gaps in their [people suffering with prefrontal cortex damage] memory.

Dendrites

Widely branching structures that receive input from other neurons

Self-Help Group

Without a therapist

Implicit/Indirect Memories

You are asked to generate words, without necessarily regarding them as memories.

Transference

You might react to your therapist, or your husband or wife, or other people in a particular way because they remind you of someone else. Transfer onto the therapist the behaviors and feelings they originally established toward family members or important person

James-Lange Theory

Your interpretation of a stimulus evokes autonomic changes and sometimes muscle actions. Your perception of those changes is the feeling aspect of your emotion. Situation -> Appraisal (cognitive aspect of emotion) -> Actions (physiological and behavioral aspects) -> Perception of the actions (feeling aspect of the emotion)