GRE Psychology Subject Test
Paired-Associate Learning
Behaviorists believe that memory can be explained through a process in which one item is learned with, and then cues the recall of, another.
Ventricles
Chambers filled with cerebrospinal fluid that insulate the brain from shock.
Postsynaptic Potentials
Changes in a nerve cell's charge as a result of the stimulation
Garcia Effect
Conditioned Nausea where the connection between food and nausea is automatic. This is especially strong in children.
3 Steps of sensation
Reception, sensory transduction, electrical information travels down neural pathways to the brain.
Phobia
Recognized, unreasonable, intense anxiety symptoms and avoidance anchored to a stimulus.
Abuse
Recurrent use despite substance-related problems or danger.
Rehearsal
Repeating or practicing is the key to keeping items in the STM and to transferring items to the long-term memory (LTM).
Fitness
The ability to reproduce and pass on genes.
Tay-Sachs disease
A recessive, genetic deficiency of hexosaminidase A. Sufferers may have symptoms that resemble psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia or dementia.
State Dependent Learning
A type of learning that refers to the concept that what a person learns in one state is best recalled in that state, referring to a physiological state (state of sleep or wakefulness).
Positive Reinforcement
A type of reward or positive event acting as a stimulus that increases the likelihood of a particular response.
Process Schizophrenia
A type of schizophrenia that develops gradually. Lower rate of recovery.
Reactive Schizophrenia
A type of schizophrenia that develops suddenly in response to a particular event.
Saltatory Conduction
Action Potential travels down the axon, frequently jumping from one node of Ranvier to the next because of the increased insulation provided by the myelin sheath.
Prototypes
The representative or "usual" type of an event or object. "A scientist is someone who is good at math and does not write poetry."
Conditioned Response
The response that the CS elicits after conditioning. Often times, it is the same as the UCR.
Panic Attack
An attack that lasts only for a discrete period of time, often under 10 minutes. During this attack, an individual has overwhelming feelings of danger or of the need to escape.
Reactance
An attitude change in response to feeling that options are limited. For example, when an individual becomes set on a certain flavor of ice cream as soon as he is told it was sold out.
Top-down Processing
This type of processing is guided by larger concepts.
Bottom-up Processing
This type of processing is recognizing an item or pattern from data or details (data driven).
Automatic Processing
This type of processing is when a task is effortlessly done because the task is subsumed under a higher organization process.
Health psychology
This type of psychology studies the biological, behavioral, and social impacts on health and illness. Important findings: When your level of stress is increased, you're more likely to get sick. Having a lot of social support is associated with better health outcomes.
Deductive Reasoning
This type of reasoning leads to a specific conclusion that must follow from the information given. Starts general. "All coats are blue. She wears a coat. Therefore, her coat must be blue."
Inductive Reasoning
This type of reasoning leads to general rules that are inferred from specifics. Start specific. "Most of the Ph.D. students I know studied hard for their GRE. Therefore, studying hard probably helps one do well on the test and then get into school."
Cued Recall
This type of recall begins the task. Ex. Fill-in-the-ball tests.
Free Recall
This type of recall is remembering with no cue.
Stratified Sampling
This type of sampling aims to match the demographic characteristics of the sample to the demographics of the population.
Undifferentiated Schizophrenia
This type of schizophrenia is a grab bag of schizophrenia symptoms not fitting into a particular type.
Residual Schizophrenia
This type of schizophrenia is a watered-down version with few positive symptoms, if any.
Paranoid Schizophrenia
This type of schizophrenia is indicated by preoccupation with delusions or auditory hallucinations.
Catatonic Schizophrenia
This type of schizophrenia is indicated by the following: psychomotor disturbance, such as catalepsy (motor immobility or waxy figure); excessive motor activity; prominent posturing (gestures, mannerisms, grimacing); echolalia (parroting); or echopraxia (imitating the gestures of others).
Disorganized Schizophrenia
This type of schizophrenia, as known as hebephrenic, is indicated by disorganized speech and behavior, and flat affect.
Descriptive Statistics
This type of statistics organize data from a sample by showing it in a meaningful way. The 5 most common forms are percentiles, frequency distributions,graphs, measures of central tendency, and variability.
Achievement Test
This type of test measures how well you know a particular subject. They measure past learning.
Aptitude Test
This type of test supposedly measures your innate ability to learn. These tests are intended to predict later performance.
Behavior Therapy
This type of therapy argues that abnormal behavior is simply the result of learning. This therapy is generally short-term and directed. The therapist uses specific counterconditioning techniques to foster the learning of new responses in the client. Goal of the therapy is to change behavior in the desired or adaptive direction. Successful in treating phobias, fetishes, OCD, Sexual problems, and childhood disorders. Criticism: It has been accused of treating the symptoms rather than the underlying problem.
Cognitive Therapy
This type of therapy argues that maladaptive cognitions lead to abnormal behavior or disturbed affect. Directed therapy helps to expose and restructure maladaptive thought and reasoning patterns. This is generally short-term therapy in which the therapist focuses on tangible evidence of the client's logic. The goal of therapy is to correct maladaptive cognitions. Criticism: Removing the symptoms may not cure the problem. Band-aid cure.
Gestalt Therapy
This type of therapy is based on the idea that abnormal behavior is derived from disturbances of awareness. The client may not have insight or the client may not fully experience his present situation. The therapist engages in a dialogue with the client, rather than leading rhe client toward a particular goal. Together they focus on the here-and-now experience, rather than talking about the past. Goal is exploration of awareness and full experiencing of the present. A successful therapy connects the client and her present existence. Criticism: Not suited for low-functioning or disturbed clients.
Rational-Emotive Therapy
This type of therapy is based on the idea that psychological tension is created when (A) an activating event occurs, and (B) a client applies certain beliefs about the event, and this leads to the (C) consequence of emotional disruption. Therapy is highly directive. The therapist leads the client to dispute (D) the previously applied irrational beliefs. The goal is for (E) effective rational beliefs to replace previous self-defeating ones. Then a client's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can coexist. Criticism: Too sterile and mechanistic.
Ego, Id, Superego
3 parts of Freud's model of mental life.
Sweet, bitter, sour, salty, umami (meaty or savory)
5 basic tastes
Johannes Muller
A German physiologist at the University of Berlin. Postulated the existence of "specific nerve energies".
Closure
A Gestalt idea that is the tendency to complete incomplete figures.
Continuation/ Good Continuation
A Gestalt idea that is the tendency to create a whole or detailed figures based on expectations rather than what is seen.
Proximity
A Gestalt idea that is the tendency to group together items that are near each other.
Symmetry
A Gestalt idea that is the tendency to make figures out of symmetrical images.
Jean Piaget
A Swiss psychologist is a significant figure in developmental psychology. His most important work concerned cognitive development in children.
Serial-position Curve
A U-shaped curve on a graph that shows the savings effect of first and last items on a list.
Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
A behavior disorder often diagnosed in childhood that is indicated by problems with attention, behavior, and impulsivity. It is most frequently treated with stimulants (ex. Ritalin and Adderall).
Edward Tolman
A behaviorist who uniquely valued both behavior and cognition. His theory of purposive behavior asserted that learning acquired through meaningful behavior and that rats in mazes formed cognitive maps rather than blindly attempting various routes. Also created an expectancy-value theory of motivation in which performance= expectation x value.
Normal Distribution
A bell curve. It is unimodal (only one hump) and the majority of the scores fall in the middle range. The mean, median, and mode are all equal. Z-scores on this distribution range from -3 to +3. Ration of 34:14:2 explains the percentage of distribution of this curve.
Educational Psychology
A branch of psychology that is concerned with how people learn in educational settings. These psychologists are frequently employed by schools, and help when students have academic or behavioral problems.
Overshadowing
A classical conditioning concept referring to an animal's inability to infer a relationship between a particular stimulus and response due to the presence of a more prominent stimulus.
Classical/ Pavlovian Conditioning
A concept that involves teaching an organism to respond to a neutral stimulus by pairing the neutral stimulus with a not-so-neutral stimulus.
Higher Order/ Second-Oder Conditioning
A conditioning technique in which a previous CS now acts as a UCS.
Backward Conditioning
A conditioning technique in which the CS is presented after the UCS is presented. It proves to be ineffective. Produces an inhibitory conditioning effect.
Forward Conditioning
A conditioning technique in which the CS is presented before the UCS
Simultaneous Conditioning
A conditioning technique where the UCS and the CS are presented at the same time.
Photon
A discrete packet of energy associated with electromagnetic radiation (light). Measured by brightness (physical intensity).
Phoneme
A discrete sound that makes up works but carries no meaning, such as sh, ee.
Mental Retardation
A disorder often diagnosed in childhood/adolescence that indicated by an IQ of 70 or below. Mild= 55-70 IQ Moderate= 40-55 IQ Severe= 25-40 IQ profound= < 25.
Learning Disorders
A disorder often diagnosed in childhood/adolescence that is indicated by school achievement or standardized scores at least 2 standard deviations below the mean for the appropriate age and IQ.
Psychotic Disorder
A disorder where hallucinations or delusions are present.
Primary/ Instinctual Drive
A drive that an individual can be naturally motivated by, such as hunger or thirst.
Secondary/ Acquired Drive
A drive that is learned to motivate an individual, such as money.
Exploratory Drive
A drive where individuals are motivated simply to try something new or to explore their environment.
Myelin Sheath
A fatty, insulating sheath on some axons that allows faster conduction of axon impulses.
Incidental Learning
A form of learning that is accidental. Unrelated items are grouped together. It is the opposite of intentional learning.
Latent Learning
A form of learning that takes place without reinforcement. The actual learning is revealed at some other time. For example, watching someone play chess many times. The fact that you are learning while learning may not be evident, but when you play chess later, you find that you have learned some new tricks.
Phrase
A group of words that when put together function as a single syntactic part of a sentence.
Secondary Reinforcement
A learned reinforcer, often learned through society. Ex. Money
Serial Learning
A list is learned and recalled in order.
Free-recall Learning
A list of items is learned and then must be recalled in any order with no cue.
Slippery Slope
A logical fallacy that says a small, insignificant first step in one direction will eventually lead to greater steps that will eventually have a significant impact.
Karl von Frisch
A major figure in the study of animal behavior. Most famous for discovery that honeybees communicate through a dance that they perform. Also studied senses of fish.Honeybees communicate by dancing: A round dance indicates food that is extremely nearby. A waggle dance indicates food that is far away. Bees are exemplary navigators---use landmarks, sun, polarized light, and magnetic fields. Honeybees form a hierarchy: once queen, this bee produces a chemical that suppresses the ovaries in all of the other female bees, so that she is the one reproducer. Mating: very few male bees are produced. Flower selection: ultraviolet light: certain markers on flowers (honeyguides)
Dichotomous Thinking
A maladaptive cognition that is black-and-white thinking: "If I don't score a 750 on the GRE, I'll have no future."
Arbitrary Inference
A maladaptive cognition that is drawing a conclusion without solid evidence. "My boss thinks I'm stupid because he never asks me to play golf."
Personalizing
A maladaptive cognition that is inappropriately taking responsibility: "Our office's failed project was all my fault."
Magnifying/minimizing
A maladaptive cognition that is making too much or little of something: "It was luck that I did well on my exam."
Overgeneralization
A maladaptive cognition that is mistaking isolated incidents for the norm. "No one will ever want to be with me."
Klinefelter's Syndrome
A male with one Y and two X chromosomes
Meta-analysis
A method of study that mathematically combines and summarizes the overall effects or research findings for a particular topic. Best known for consolidating various studies of the effectiveness of psychotherapy, it can calculate overall effect size or conclusion drawn from a collection of different studies. This method is needed when conflicting results are found and when different studies use different methods.
Community Psychology
A model in which psychology is taken into the community via community centers or schools, as opposed to having individuals come to clinics and universities.
Serotonin
A monoamine that is linked to depression.
Dopamine
A monoamine where too little is associated with Parkinson's Disease and too much is associated with schizophrenia. Feelings of reward and addiction.
Discrete Motor Task
A motor task that is divided into different parts that do not facilitate the recall of each other. Ex. setting up the chessboard. It is harder to learn than continuous motor tasks.
Continuous Motor Task
A motor task that, once started, continues naturally. Ex. Bike riding. They are easier to learn than discrete motor tasks.
Hermann von Helmholtz
A natural scientist who studied sensation. Much of his work with hearing and color vision is the foundation for modern perception research. Like Wundt, he studied with Muller.
Punishment
A negative stimulus which decreases the likelihood that the earlier behavior will be repeated. Promotes the extinction of an undesirable behavior.
Agonists
A neuromodulator that increases the effects of the neurotransmitter. ex. SSRIs
Neonate
A newborn
Fixed Ratio Schedule
A partial reinforcement schedule where a reinforcement is delivered after a consistent number of responses. The power of drug addiction has been proven using this schedule. The behavior is vulnerable to extinction.
Variable Interval Schedule
A partial reinforcement schedule where rewards are delivered after differing time periods. It is the second most effective strategy in maintaining behavior.
Fixed Interval Schedule
A partial reinforcement schedule where rewards come after the passage of a certain period of time rather than the number of behaviors. This schedule does little to motivate an animal's behavior.
Self-efficacy
A person's belief that he or she can effectively perform a certain task.
California Personality Inventory (CPI)
A personality measure generally used for more "normal" and less clinical groups than the MMPI. It was developed by Harrison Gough at Berkeley.
Myer-Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI)
A personality test derived from Carl Jung's personality theory. It consists of 93 questions, which each have 2 answers. When scored, a person is given a 4-letter personality type with each letter representing 1 of 2 possible opposing characteristics: introverted vs. extroverted, sensing vs. intuition, feeling vs. thinking, and judgment vs. perception.
Attitude
A positive, negative, or neutral evaluation of a person, issue, or object.
Habituation
A process that decreases the responsiveness to a stimulus as a result of increasing familiarity with the stimulus.
Sensitization
A process that has increased sensitivity to the environment following the presentation of a strong stimulus.
Shaping/ Differential Reinforcement of Successive Approximations
A process where the experimenter gradually molds an organism by reinforcing any responses similar to the desired response.
Continuous Reinforcement Schedule
A schedule where every correct response is met with some form of reinforcement. This type of reinforcement strategy facilitates the quickest learning but most fragile learning (as soon as the rewards stop coming, the animal stops performing).
Modeling
A specific concept within social learning. Refers to learning and behaving by imitating others.
Neutral Stimulus
A stimulus that does not produce a specific response on its own.
Adrenocorticotrpoic Hormone (ACTH)
A stress hormone that increases the production of androgens and cortisol.
Hypnosis
A technique borrowed from Jean Charcot and Pierre Janet that Freud used and later switched to Free Association (developed by Breuer).
Social Learning Theory
A theory that posits that individuals learn through their culture. People learn what are acceptable and unacceptable behaviors through interacting in society.
Autonomic Conditioning
A type of conditioning that refers to evoking responses of the autonomic nervous system through training.
Avoidance Conditioning
A type of conditioning that teaches an animal how to avoid something the animal does not want.
Escape Conditioning
A type of conditioning that teaches an animal to perform a desired behavior to get away from a negative stimulus.
Aversive Conditioning
A type of conditioning that uses punishment to decrease the likelihood of a behavior. Example: the Drug antabuse.
Partial Report
A type of experiment where only some of the lines are reported back. This shows that sensory memory exists, but only for a few seconds.
Defense Mechanism
A way in which the ego protects itself from threatening unconscious material or environmental forces.
Parasomnias
Abnormal behaviors during sleep.
Ego integrity vs. Despair (Wisdom and integrity)
Erikson's final stage is during old age. Resolution in parantheses.
Diathesis-stress Theory
According to this theory, schizophrenia results from a physiological predisposition paired with an external stressor.
Reuptake
After a neurotransmitter has done its job, it may be reabsorbed by the presynaptic cell.
Horizontal cells-> Bipolar Cells-> Amacrine Cells
After light passes through the receptors, it travels through......
Striate Cortex -> Visual Association Areas
After the optic chiasm, the information travels through to _____to the ________.
Optic Array
All of the things that a person sees. It trains people to perceive.
Dual Code Hypothesis
Allan Paivio suggested this hypothesis that states that items will be better remembered if they are encoded both visually (with icons or imagery) and semantically (with understanding).
Lateral Inhibition
Allows the eye to see contrast and prevents repetitive information from being sent to the brain. This complex process is the idea that once one receptor cell is stimulated the others nearby are inhibited.
Optic Chiasm
Along the pathway of the optic nerve, half of the fibers from the optic nerve of each eye cross over and join the optic nerve from the other eye. The pathways are 50% crossed. This ensures that input from each eye will come together for a full picture in the brain.
Shared Psychotic Disorder
Also known as folie a deux, this disorder is when two people have shared delusions.
Bipolar Disorder
Also known as manic depression, this disorder is indicated by depressive symptoms that alternate with manic symptoms (inflated self-esteem, decreased sleep, talkativeness, flight of ideas, intense goal-directed activity, excessive pleasure-seeking). It is equally prevalent in males and females.
James Cattell
An American who studied with Hall, Galton, and Wundt. He opened psychology laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania and at Columbia University. He thought that psychology should be more scientific than Wundt did.
Token Economy
An artificial mini-economy where individuals are motivated by secondary reinforcers. Desirable behaviors are reinforced with tokens, which can be cashed in for more primary reinforcers.
Sunk Cost
An expense that has been acquired and cannot be recovered. The best strategy is to ignore these when making decisions, because the money that has already been spent is irrelevant to the future.
Field Study
An experiment that takes place in an naturalistic setting. Generally have less control over environment. Generates more hypotheses than it is able to prove.
Fixation
An inability to move on to the next stage in Freud's psychosexual development.
Placebo
An inactive substance or condition disguised as a treatment substance or condition. It is used to form the control group.
Sir Francis Galton
An independently wealthy Englishman who traveled extensively and studied various things for fun. As a result, he made important, but random, contributions to psychology. He was the first to use statistics in psychology, and he created the correlation coefficient. He used Darwinian principles to promote eugenics. Eugenics was a plan for selective human breeding in order to strengthen the species.
Bogus pipeline
An instrument that measures physiological reactions in order to measure the truthfulness of attitude self-reporting.
Hermaphrodite
An intersex individual is someone born with both female and male genitals. This is most likely the result of a female fetus being exposed to a higher than normal level of testosterone.
Schema
An organized bunch of knowledge gathered from prior experiences that includes ideas about specific events or objects and the attributes that accompany them. New events and objects are categorized based on how well they match the existing categories.
Spearman r correlation coefficient
Another correlation used only when the data is in the form of ranks. It is the procedure for determining the line that describes a linear relationship.
Specific Phobia
Anxiety in response to a stimulus.
Stimulus
Any event that an organism reacts to.
Rapid Eye Movement
Approximately 20% of sleep time is spent in this state. It is interspersed with other forms of sleep every 30-40 minutes throughout the night. It is when dreams are experienced. It is characterized by the same fast-frequency, low-amplitude beta waves that characterize waking states. Beta waves are also known as neural desynchrony. In this state, beta waves and a person's physiological signs resemble those in a waking state,
Perceptual Development
As explained by James Gibson, it is the increasing ability of a child to make finer discriminations among stimuli.
Psychological Tests
Assessments of behavior, attitudes, mental constructs, personality, and mental health.
Illusory Correlation
Assuming that two unrelated things have a relationship. This is one way that stereotypes are formed.
Secondary Traits
At the bottom of Allport's hierarchy of traits.
Central Traits
At the middle of Allport's hierarchy of traits.
Cardinal Trait
At the top of Allport's hierarchy of traits.
Trust vs. Mistrust (Trust)
Erikson's first stage crisis from birth-18 months. Resolution in parantheses.
Mean
Average. Highly affected by extreme scores.
Sex-typed behavior
Behavior that seems stereotypical for gender is low during prepubescence, highest in young adulthood, and lower again in later life.
Altruism
Behavior that solely benefits another. It is incompatible with the idea that individuals do what has the greatest survival value for them.
Negative views about the self, the world, and the future
Beck postulated that three characteristics make up the cognitive triad that causes depression.
Impression Management
Behaving in ways that might make a good impression.
Instinctual/ Innate Behaviors
Behaviors that are present in all normal members of a species, stereotypic in form throughout the members of a species, and independent of learning or experience.
Displacement Activities
Behaviors that seem out of place, and illogical, and have no particular survival function.
Hindsight Bias
Believing after the fact that you knew something all along.
Wilhelm Wundt
Best known as the founder of psychology. He is credited with this title because he founded the first official laboratory for psychology. He began the first psychology journal. He attempted to study and analyze consciousness. His ideas were the forerunners of Edward Titchener's but they received less attention.
Inbreeding
Breeding within the same family. Evolutionary controls prevent this.
Gyri
Bumps on the surface of the cortex
Industry vs. Inferiority (Competency)
Erikson's fourth stage is from 6-puberty. Resolution in parantheses.
Multitrait-multimethod technique
Campbell and Fiske created this technique to determine the validity of tests.
Correlations
Can only show relationships between variables, not causation.
Pheromones
Chemicals detected by the vomeronasal organ that act as messengers between animals.
Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
Chomsky's idea that humans have an inborn ability to adopt generative grammar rules of the language that they hear.
Transformation Grammar
Chomsky's term that differentiates between surface structure and deep structure in language.
Walter Cannon
Coined the term fight or flight, referring to the internal physiological changes that occur in an organism in response to a perceived threat. Also proposed the idea of homeostasis, which is the internal regulation of body to maintain equilibrium.
Timbre
Comes from the complexity of the sound wave.
Concurrent Validity
Component of external validity; whether scores on a new measure positively correlate with other measures known to test the same construct. This process is cross validation.
Content Validity
Component of external validity; whether the content of the test covers a good sample of the construct being measured.
Face Validity
Component of external validity; whether the test items simply look like they measure the construct.
Construct Validity
Component of external validity; whether the test really taps the abstract concept being measured.
Selective Breeding
Contrived breeding.
Inoculation Theory
Created by McGuire, this theory asserts that people's beliefs are vulnerable if they have never faced challenge. Once they have experienced a challenge to their opinion, however, they are less vulnerable. Challenge is like a vaccination.
Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion
Created by R.E. Petty and J.T. Cacioppo, this model suggests that people who are very involved in an issue listen to the strength of the arguments of the issue rather than more superficial factors, such as the characteristics of the speaker.
Working Memory
Temporary memory that is needed to perform the task that someone is working on at that moment.
Broca's Aphasia
Damage to Broca's area, left frontal lobe. Can understand speech but has difficulty speaking.
Wernicke's Aphasia
Damage to Wernicke's area, left temporal lobe. Can speak but no longer understands how to correctly choose words. Fluent but nonsensical.
Self-perception theory
Daryl Bem's theory offers an alternative explanation to cognitive dissonance. He asserted that when people are unsure of their beliefs, they take their cues from their own behavior (rather than actually changing their belief to match their actions). For example, if a man demanded $1,000 to work on a Saturday, he would probably realize that he does not like his job all that much.
Stage 4 of sleep
Delta waves occur more than 50% of the time. These delta waves demarcate the deepest levels of sleep, when heart rate, respiration, temperature, and blood flow to the brain are reduced and growth hormones are secreted.
Group polarization
Developed by James Stone, this concept is that group discussion generally serves to strengthen the already dominant point of view. This explains the risky shift, or why groups will take greater risks than individuals.
Gate Control Theory of Pain
Developed by Melzack and Wall, this theory looks at pain as a process rather than just a simple sensation governed in one center in the brain. They assert that pain perception is related to the interaction of large and small nerve fibers that run to and from the spine. Pain may or may not be perceived depending on different factors, including cognition.
Cognitive Prototype Approach
Developed by Mischel and Nancy Cantor, this approach examines cognitive behavior (such as the formulation of and attention to prototypes) in social situations. In short, Mischel thought that consistency of behavior is the result of cognitive processes, rather than the result of personality traits per se.
Comparative psychology
Different species are compared in order to learn about their similarities and differences.
Insomnia
Difficult falling asleep or staying asleep.
Agnosia
Difficulty processing sensory information
Nodes of Ranvier
Dips between the beads of the myelin sheath. They help send the impulse down the axon.
Elimination Disorders
Disorders that are often diagnosed in childhood. Nocturnal enuresis is bed-wetting.These are usually treated with behavior modification.
Oppositional Defiant Disorder & Conduct Disorder
Disorders that are often diagnosed in childhood. They are indicated by patterns of behavior that violate rules, norms, ir the rights of others.
Tic Disorders
Disorders that are often diagnosed in childhood. Tourette's syndrome, for example, is indicated by motor and vocal tics.
Developmental Disorders
Disorders that are often diagnosed in childhood/adolescence that are indicated by severe problems with social skills, communication, and interests. Ex. Autism.
Retroactive Interference
Disrupting information that was learned after the new items were presented. Trying to recall something you've committed to memory in past and something you've learn since obstructs you to correctly recall.
Proactive Interference
Disrupting information that was learned before the new items were presented. When trying to recall something you've memorized relatively recently and a past memory muddles the one you wish to recollect.
Antimanics
Drugs by choice to manage bipolar disorder. They inhibit monoamines, such as norepinephrine and serotonin, based on the theory that mania results from excessive monoamines. Ex. Lithium.
Middle Ages
During this time of history, philosophy changed hands twice. Understanding the mysterious world temporarily became a question for the church. Then, at the brink of the modern world, philosophy was reclaimed by scholars.
Law of Effect
E.L. Thorndike's idea that postulated a cause-and-effect chain of behavior revolving around reinforcement. Any behavior that is followed by reward is likely to be repeated. One followed by unpleasant consequences is likely to be stopped.
Visual Cliff
Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk developed this apparatus to study whether depth perception is innate. It was a thick layer of glass above a surface that dropped off sharply. The glass provided solid, level ground for subjects to move across in spite of the cliff below. Animals and babies were used as subjects, and both groups avoided moving into the "cliff" area regardless of the glass.
Illusion of Control
Ellen Langer studied this belief that you can control things that you actually have no influence on. This illusion is the driving force behind manipulating the lottery, gambling, and superstition.
Circadian Rhythms
Endogenous rhythms that revolve around a 24-hour time period.
Identity vs. Role Confusion (Sense of self)
Erikson's fifth stage is during teen years. Gave rise to the term of identity crisis. Resolution in parantheses.
Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Independence)
Erikson's second stage crisis from 18 months- 3 years. Resolution in parantheses.
Productivity vs. Stagnation (Productivity and caring)
Erikson's seventh stage is during middle age. Resolution in parantheses.
Intimacy vs. Isolation (Love)
Erikson's sixth stage is during young adult years. Resolution in parantheses.
Initiative vs. Guilt (Purpose)
Erikson's third stage crisis from 3-6 years. Resolution in parantheses.
Social Comparison
Evaluating one's own actions, abilities, opinions, and ideas by comparing them to those of others. Because these "others" are generally familiar people from own social group or strata, it has been used as an argument against mainstreaming. When children with difficulties are thrown into classes with children without such difficulties, this comparison may result in lower self-esteem for the children with problems.
Hypersomnia
Excessive sleepiness.
Phenotype
External characteristics that is partially determined by heredity or genotype.
Stage 1 of sleep
Eyes begin to roll. Alpha waves give way to irregular theta waves (lower in amplitude and slower in frequency)
Acoustic Dissimilarity, Semantic Dissimilarity, Brevity, Familiarity, Concreteness, Meaning, Importance to the subject
Factors that make items on a list easier to learn and retrieve.
Narcolepsy
Falling asleep uncontrollably during routine daily activity.
William James
Father of experimental psychology. He wrote about the mind's stream of consciousness and about functionalist ideas that sharply contrasted with structuralist ideas of discrete conscious elements.
Efferent Fibers
Fibers that run away from the CNS
Afferent Fibers
Fibers that run toward the CNS
Ganglion Cells
Finally, the light information heads to these cells that make up the optic nerves.
Theory of Reasoned Action
Fischbein and Ajzen developed this theory that states that people's behavior in a given situation is determined by attitude about the situation and social norms.
Sulci
Fissures on the surface of the cortex.
Sexual selection
Form of natural selection where the greatest chance of being chosen as a mate.
Sleep terror
Frequent disruption of sleep because of screaming or crying.
Psychic Determinism
Freud's idea that pathological behavior, dreams, and unconscious behavior are all symptoms of underlying, unresolved conflict, which are manifested when the ego does not find acceptable ways to express conflict.
Carl Jung
Freud's most beloved student who broke from Freud because he felt that too much emphasis was placed on the libido or sexual instinct. His own movement is called analytic psychology, best known for its metaphysical and mythological components, such as the collective unconscious and the unconscious archetypes.
Schizophrenogenic Mother
From Fromm and Reichman, this refers to a type of mother who supposedly causes children to become schizophrenic.
Conformity
Going along with real or perceived group pressure. People go along publicly but not privately (compliance) or change actions and beliefs to conform (acceptance). An individual who speaks out against the majority is a dissenter. An individual is most likely to conform when: There is a majority opinion, the majority has a unanimous position, the majority has high status or the individual is concerned with her own status, the situation is in public, the individual was not previously committed to another position, the individual has low self-esteem, and the individual scores high on a measure of authoritarianism.
Morphology
Grammar rules; how to group morphemes.
Insight
Having a new perspective on an old problem: The a-ha! experience.
John B. Watson
He founded the school of behaviorism. He believed that everything can be explained by stimulus-response chains and that conditioning was the key factor in developing these chains. ONLY OBJECTIVE and OBSERVABLE elements were of importance to organisms and psychology.
Ivan Pavlov
He is famous for work on digestion. Developed Classical Conditioning.
Charles Darwin
He wrote Origin of Species and the Descent of Man. Though he did not create the concept of evolution, he made evolution a scientifically sound principle by positing that natural selection was its driving force.
Hawthorne Effect
Henry Landsberger coined this term in 1955 when he was analyzing old data that was collected in the late 1920s in order to increase worker productivity. The researchers reported that anything they did increased productivity, Landsberger postulated that this was because people's performance changes when they are being observed.
Place-Resonance Theory
Hermann von Helmholtz is famous for a theory of sound perception in which different parts of the basilar membrane respond to different frequencies.
Crystallized Intelligence
Horn and Cattell found that the knowing of a fact does not decline with old age.
Fluid Intelligence
Horn and Cattell found that this knowing how to do something decline with old age.
Concept
How one represents the relationship between two things. How we organize our world.
Interference
How other information or distractions cause one to forget items in STM.
Genetic Drift
How particular genotypes are selected out or eliminated from a population over time.
Variability
How scores are spread out overall.
Reliability
How stable the measure is. Repeatability.
Mere-exposure effect
How stimuli are rated. The more we see or experience something, the more positively we rate it.
Primacy Effect
How the first few items are learned are easiest to remember. First few items are remembered because they benefit from the most rehearsal/exposure.
Recency Effect
How the last few items are easiest to remember. The last few items are easy to remember because there has been less time for decay.
Validity
How well the test measures a construct
Heinz Dilemma
Hypothetical situation Kohlberg used for moral analysis. A woman is dying and needs an expensive medication. Because the woman's husband cannot afford the medication, the dilemma is whether he should steal it or let his wife die.
Hypothesis
Idea used to test relationships and then to form concepts.
Scripts
Ideas about the way events typically unfold. ex. "When people go to the movies, they sit in their seats and are quiet."
Syntax
The arrangement of words into sentences as prescribed by a particular language.
Kleptomania
Impulse control disorder that is an irresistable impulse to steal.
Pyromania
Impulse control disorder that is irresistable impulse to set fires.
Trichotillomania
Impulse control disorder that is the irresistable impulse to pull out one's own body hair.
Id
In Freud's model, the part of the mind that contains the unconscious biological drives and wishes.
Superego
In Freud's model, the part of the mind that imposes learned or socialized drives.
Ego
In Freud's model, the part of the mind that mediate between the environment and the pressures of the other parts of the mind.
Will to Power
In Individual Theory, it is a quest for feelings of superiority. On this quest, a healthy individual will pursue goals that are outside of himself and beneficial to society. Unhealthy individuals are too much affected by inferior feelings to pursue the will to power. If they do pursue goals, these are likely to be self-serving and egotistical.
Semantic Priming
In a word-recognition task, the presentation of a related item (such as "test") before the next item (such as "GRE"). Semantic priming decreases reaction time because it activates the nodes of the second time in the semantic hierarchy.
Catharsis/Abreaction
In psychoanalysis, the discharge of repressed emotion
Alpha Level
In order to acknowledge something as statistically significant (and to reject the null), this must be either less than .05 or .01. This means that the chance that seemingly significant errors are due to random variation rather than to true, systematic variance is less than 5/100 or 1/100.
Countertransference
In psychoanalysis, how a therapist feels about his or her patient.
Transference
In psychoanalysis, patients would react to the therapist much like they reacted to their parents. The therapist-patient relationship then serves a metaphor for the patients' repressed emotions about their parents and, thus, as a way of examining those unconscious feelings.
Hippocampus
In the Forebrain, involved in memory, specifically transferring short-term memory into long-term memory. Recent research indicates that new neuron can form here in an adult mammalian brain.
Hypothalamus
In the Forebrain, it controls ANS biological motivations such as hunger and thirst and the pituitary gland. Maintaining homeostasis.
Pituitary Gland
In the Forebrain, the "master gland" of the endocrine/hormone system.
Limbic System
In the forebrain, a group of structures around the brainstem involved in the four F's (fleeing, feeding, fighting, and fornication).
Thalamus
In the forebrain, it channels sensory information to the cerebral cortex and regulate consciousness, sleep, and alertness.
Amygdala
In the forebrain, it controls emotional reactions, such as fear and anger.
Cingulate Gyrus
In the forebrain, it links areas in the brain dealing with emotion and decisions.
Tectum
In the midbrain, controls vision and hearing.
Tegmentum
In the midbrain, it houses the rest of the reticular formation. It is also involved in the sensorimotor system, and the alagesic effect of opiates.
Postsynaptic Receptors
In the postsynaptic cell, they detect the presence of neurotransmitters and cause the ion channels to open.
Free nerve endings
In the skin, these detect pain and temperature changes.
Variable Ratio Schedule
In this partial reinforcement schedule, reinforcements are delivered after different numbers of correct responses. The ratio cannot be predicted. Learning takes the most time to occur, but the learning is least likely to become extinguished. Ex. Slot Machines
Partial Reinforcement Schedule
In this schedule, not all correct responses are met with reinforcement. This type of reinforcement strategy may require a longer learning time, but once learned, these behaviors are more resistant to extinction. There are four types of this schedule.
Individual Theory
In this type of therapy created by Alfred Adler, people are viewed as creative, social, and whole as opposed to Freud's more negative and structural approach. He described people in the process of realizing themselves or in the process of "becoming." The individual is motivated by social needs and feelings of inferiority that arise when the current self does not match the self-ideal. Goal of psychodynamic Alderian therapy is to reduce feelings of inferiority and to foster social interest and social contribution in patients.
Apraxia
Inability to organize movement
Alexia
Inability to read
Agraphia
Inability to write
Sham Rage
Incredible rage easily provoked when the cerebral cortex is removed.
Eye Movements & Gaze Durations
Indicators of information processing while reading?
Kinesthetic Sensation/ Proprioception
Information from receptors in joints and muscles that tells us about the positioning of our own body.
Retroactive Inhibition
Inhibition is caused by retroactive interference.
Proactive Inhibition
Inhibition that is caused by proactive interference
Goodenough Draw-A-Man Test
Intelligence test for children is notable for its relatively cross-cultural application and simple directions: "Make a picture of man. Make the very best picture that you can." Children are scored based on detail and accuracy, not artistic talent.
Biological Clocks
Internal rhythms that keep an animal in sync with the environment.
Self-serving Attributional Bias
Interpreting one's own actions and motives in a positive way, blaming situations for failures and taking credit for successes. We like to think we are better than average.
Secondary (Elaborative) Rehearsal
Involves organizing and understanding material in order to transfer it to LTM.
Primary (Maintenance) Rehearsal
Involves repeating material in order to hold it in STM.
Reality Principle/ Secondary Process
It's guided by the ego and responds to the demands of the environment by delaying gratification.
Internal-External Locus of Control Scale
Julian Rotter created this scale to determine whether a person feels responsible for the things that happen or that he has no control over the events in life.
Terminal Buttons
Jumping-off points for impulses. They contain synaptic vessels that hold neurotransmitters
Archetypes
Jung's term that are universally meaningful concepts, passed down through the collective unconscious since the beginning of man. Most common ones are persona (mask to outer world), shadow (person's dark side), Anima (female elements man possesses), Animus (male elements female possesses), Self.
Collective Unconscious
Jung's term that is the dynamics of the psyche inherited from ancestors. This is common to all people and contains the archetypes.
Personal Unconscious
Jung's term that is the material from an individual's own experiences; this can become conscious.
Analytical Theory
Jung's theory of psychology where psychopathology is a signal that something is wrong in the makeup of the psyche. It provides clues about how one could become more aware. This approach is psychodynamic and in order to become more aware, unconscious material is explored through the analysis of an individual's dreams, artwork, and personal symbols. Many scientists think this is too mystical.
Doll Preference Studies
Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted these studies which factored into the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education. The studies demonstrated the negative effects that group segregation had on African-American children's self-esteem. The African-American children thought the white dolls were better.
Self-esteem
Knowing that you are worthwhile and being in touch with your actual strengths. About 50% of people perceive themselves accurately and about 35% perceive themselves narcissistically.
Encoding Specificity Principle
LTM is subject to this principle that says that material is more likely to be remember if it is retrieved in the same context in which it was stored.
Aphasia
Language disorder
Perceptual/Concept Learning
Learning about something in general rather than learning-specific stimulus-response chains. Tolman's experiments with animals forming cognitive maps of mazes rather than simple escape routes are an example of this.
Observational Learning
Learning by watching.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Leon Festinger's theory that suggests that it is uncomfortable for people to have beliefs that do not match their actions. After making a difficult decision, people are motivated to back their actions up by touting corresponding beliefs. Also, the less the act is justified by circumstance, the more we feel the need to justify it by bringing out attitude in line with the behavior.
Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
Leonard Berkowitz developed this theory that posits a relationship between frustration in achieving a goal (no matter how small) and the show of aggression.
Endorphins
Linked to pleasure and analgesia.
Lens
Located behind the cornea.
Retina
Located behind the eye, this apparatus receives light images from the lens. It is composed of about 132 million photoreceptors cells and of other cell layers that process information.
Confirmation Bias
Logical reasoning error in which remembering and using information that confirms what you already think.
Atmosphere Effect
Logical reasoning error when a conclusion is influenced by the way information is given.
Semantic Effect
Logical reasoning error when believing in conclusions because of what you know or think to be correct rather than what logically follows from the information given.
Fixed Action Patterns
Lorenz developed this idea where instinctual, complex chains of behaviors triggered by releasing stimuli. Uniform patterns, performed by most members of the species, more complex than simple reflexes, and cannot be interrupted or stopped in the middle.
Imprinting
Lorenz discovered this phenomenon where in certain species, the young attach to or imprint on the first moving object they see after birth. "following response." A sensitive learning period.
Animal Aggression
Lorenz studied this concept and argued that certain kinds of _______ were necessary for survival of species. Instinctual behavior.
Releasing Stimuli/ Signl Stimuli
Lorenz. Elicits an automatic, instinctual chain of behaviors from another individual in the same species.
Just World Bias
M.J. Lerner studied the belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bag people. It is uncomfortable for people to accept that bad things happen to good people, so they blame the victim.
Split-half reliability
Measured by comparing an individual's performance on two halves of the same test. This reveals internal consistency. Another way to test internal consistency is to perform an item analysis, analyzing how a large group responded to each item on the measure.
Test-retest Reliability
Measured by the same individual taking the same test more than once.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
Measures oxygen flow in different areas of the brain. Used most frequently with cognitive psychology research.
Internal Validity
Measures the extent to which the different items within a measure "hang together" and test the same thing.
Screen Memory
Memories that serve as representations of important childhood.
Mnemonics
Memory cues that help learning and recall
Sociotechnical Systems
Method of work design that acknowledges the interaction between people and technology in the workplace.
Reaction Time
Most frequently used to measure cognitive processing. Called Latency. Response speed for all types of tasks declines significantly with age.
Echolocation
Most sophisticated type of perception, which generally replaces sight. Marine mammals use it but bats are probably the most commonly used examples. Bats emit high-frequency bursts of sound and locate nearby objects from the echo that bounces off these objects.
Robber's Cave Experiment
Muzafer Sherif showed that win/lose game-type competition can also trigger serious conflict in groups. This experiment showed that group conflict is most effectively overcome by the need for cooperative attention to a higher subordinate goal. This experiment had 2 groups of 12 year old boys in summer camp. Dynamics noticed: 1. the in-group phase where people bonded with their own group. 2. the friction phase where the 2 groups met and became competitive. 3. the integration phase in which the 2 teams had to work together toward a common goal.
Antagonists
Neuromodulators that decrease the effects of a specific neurotransmitter.
Endorphins
Neuromodulators that kick in to reduce or eliminate the perception of pain.
Parameters
Numbers that describe a population.
Statistics
Numbers that describe a sample
Tinbergen
One of the founders of modern ethology. Most famous for experiments involving stickleback fish and herring gull chicks. Stickleback fish: the red belly acted as the releasing stimulus for fights. They attacked the red-bellied models rather than the detailed but non-red models. Herring Gull Chicks: peck at end of their parents' bills which have a red spot on the tip. Red spot on bill is what signals the chick to peck. The greater the contrast between the bill and the red spot the more vigorously the chicks would peck= supernormal sign stimulus.
Karen Horney
One of the neofreudians who emphasized culture and society over instinct. Suggested that neuroticism is expressed in movement toward, against, and away from people.
Sympathetic Nervous System
One part of the ANS that controls arousal mechanisms such as blood circulation, pupil dilation, and threat and fear response. Lie detector tests rely on the premise that lying activates the sympathetic nervous system and causes things like an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration.
Parasympathetic Nervous System
One part of the ANS that is responsible for recuperation after arousal by doing things like lowering heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration.
Stimulus generalization
Opposite of stimulus discrimination. To make the same response to a group of similar stimuli.
Theory of Association
Organisms associate certain behaviors with certain rewards and certain cues with certain situations. Precursor to Pavlov's Classical Conditioning.
Hyperphagia
Overeating with no satiation of hunger. Leads to obesity. Damage to ventromedial region of the hypothalamus has produced this in animals.
Base-rate Fallacy
Overestimating the general frequency of things we are most familiar with.
Deficient dopamine activity
Parkinson's is caused by what ...
Myelencephalon/Medulla
Part of the hindbrain that mainly controls reflexes but also controls sleep, attention, and movement.
Dispositionists
People who emphasized internal determinants of behavior.
Social Phobia
Pertains to anxiety around social or performance situations.
Amplitude
Physical intensity of a sound wave largely determines loudness.
Lexical Approach
Picking all of the possible traits out of the dictionary and Allport gathered about 5,000 possible traits and then created a trait hierarchy.
Aristotle
Plato's pupil who is recognized as the world's first professor. His studies were based on order and logic. He believed that truth would be found in the physical world.
Excitatory Postsynaptic Potential
Positive charges from the outside are allowed into the cell in a process call depolarization. They increase the change that a cell will fire.
Positive Transfer
Previous learning that makes it easier to learn another task later.
Negative Transfer
Previous learning that makes it more difficult to learn a new task.
Algorithms
Problem-solving strategies that consider every possible solution and eventually kit on the correct solution. This may take a great deal of time.
Heuristics
Problem-solving strategies that use rules of thumb or shortcuts based on what was worked in the past. It cannot guarantee a solution but is faster than an algorithm.
Tri-color Theory/ Component Theory
Proposed by Thomas Young & Hermann von Helmhotz. This theory suggests that there are three types of receptors in the retina: cones that respond to red, blue, or green. This theory seems to be at work in the RETINA.
Mimicry
Refers to an evolved form of deception
Autoshaping
Refers to experiments in which an apparatus allows an animal to control its reinforcements through behaviors. The animal, in a sense, is shaping its own behavior.
Visual Field
Refers to the entire span that can be perceived or detected by the eye at a given moment.
Figure and Ground Relationship
Refers to the relationship between the meaningful part of a picture and the background.
Negative Reinforcement
Reinforcement through the removal of a negative event.
Trait
Relatively stable characteristics of behavior that a person exhibits.
Correct Rejection
Response in Signal Detection in which you rightly state that no stimulus exists.
False Alarm
Response in Signal Detection that says that you detect a stimulus that is not there.
Hit
Response in Signal Detection where you correctly sense a stimulus
Miss
Response in Signal Detection where you fail to detect a present stimulus.
State-dependent Memory
Retrieval of a memory is more successful if it occurs in the same emotional state or physical state in which encoding occurred.
Receptor Cells
Rods and cones on the retina are responsible for sensory transduction (converting the image into an electrical message the brain can understand). This happens through the chemical alteration of photopigments.
Experimenter Bias
Rosenthal effect. When researchers see what they want to see. Minimized in a double-blind experiment.
Taste Buds/ Papillae
Saliva mixes with food, so that the flavor can flow easily into the tongue's taste receptors. These taste receptors are called...
Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
Scans glucose metabolism to measure activity in various brain regions.
Self-handicapping
Self-defeating behavior that allows one to dismiss or excuse failure.
Echoic Memory
Sensory memory for auditory sensations.
Haptic Memory
Sensory memory for touch.
Reproductive Isolating Mechanisms
Serve to prevent interbreeding between two different species. 4 forms are: Behavioral isolation, geographic isolation, mechanical isolation, and isolation by season.
Dyssomnias
Sleep abnormalities
Plato
Socrates' pupil who declared that the physical world was not all that could be known. He asserted the presence of universal forms and innate knowledge. It was abstract and unsystematic.
Primary Reinforcement
Something that is reinforcing on its own without the requirement of learning. Ex. Water and Food.
Excitation-Transfer Theory
Sometimes we attribute our excitement or physiological arousal about one thing to something else. For example, if you go bungee jumping on your first date, you may end up thinking you like your date more than you do because you might think the excitement and physiological arousal is from being around your date instead of from the bungee jumping.
Telegraphic Speech
Speech without the articles or extras, similar to how it would appear in a telegram. Ex. "Me go."
Gamete
Sperm or ovum in humans. It is haploid (contains 23 single chromosomes).
Stage 0 of sleep
Stage: Prelude to sleep.Low amplitude and fast frequency alpha waves appear in brain. Neural Synchrony.
Stimulus-overload theory
Stanley Milgram explains why urbanites are less prosocial than country people are; urbanites don't need any more interaction.
Type A Personality
Studied by Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman. This personality is characterized by drive, competitiveness, aggressiveness, tension, and hostility and is most commonly found in middle to upper-class men. Grant Dahlstrom linked this personality type to heart disease and other health problems. The connection between personality and health is currently a popular area of study.
Situationists
Such as behaviorists, have argued that only circumstances determine behavior.
Big Five
Superfactors or five dimensions that seem to encompass all of personality. O(openness to experience, intellectual curiosity), C (Conscientiousness), E(Extroversion), A(Agreeableness), N (Neuroticism).
Stage 3 of sleep
Takes place about 30 minutes after falling asleep. Fewer sleep spindles occur: high amplitude and low frequency delta waves appear.
States
Temporary feelings or characteristics.
Trace Conditioning
The CS stimulus is presented and terminated before the UCS is presented.
Multiaxial Assessment
The DSM uses this technique where clients are assessed across 5 axes for a complete picture of their functioning. Axis I: clinical disorders and other conditions Axis II: Personality disorders and mental retardation Axis III: General medical conditions Axis IV: Psychosocial and environmental problems Axis V: Global assessment of functioning.
Anton Mesmer
The Viennese creator of a kind of popular science. He believed that the healing of physical ailments came from the manipulation of people's bodily fluids. He thought that "animal magnetism" (the mind control of one person over another) was responsible for his patients' recoveries. Mesmer's technique of mesmerism began to be used by others under the general term of hypnotism.
Stimulus Discrimination
The ability to discriminate between different but similar stimuli. Ex. A doorbell ringing means something different from a phone ringing.
Chaining
The act of linking together a series of behaviors that ultimately result in reinforcement. One behavior triggers the next and so on. Learning the alphabet is an example.
Manifest Content
The actual content of the dream.
Fovea
The area of the retina with the greatest visual acuity, meaning it is the best at seeing fine details.
Olivary nucleus, the inferior colliculus, medial geniculate body
The auditory system that leads to the auditory cortex consists of ....
Reticular Formation
The base is located in the hindbrain and the rest is located in the midbrain. This is considered the oldest part of the brain; controls alertness, thirst, sleep, and involuntary muscles such as the heart.
Genes
The basic unit of heredity. Composed of DNA molecules and are organized in chromosomes.The nucleus of human cells contains 23 pairs of chromosomes.
Postsynaptic Cell
The beginning of another neuron (the dendrites)
Learned Helplessness
The brainchild of Martin Seligman. It demonstrates how experience can change people's personalities. After a series of events in which one may feel helpless or out of control, a negative or pessimistic explanatory style develops. The person basically gives up in general and exhibits a helpless disposition.This can be countered with cognitive training that fosters learned optimism for the person.
Industrial/Organizational Psychology
The branch of psychology that deals with the workplace. These psychologists work to increase an organization's efficiency and functionality by improving the performance and well-being of the people in the organization.
Applied Psychology
The branch of psychology that uses principles or research findings to solve people's problems.
Intelligence
The capacity to use knowledge to improve achievement in an environment.
Cornea
The clear protective coating on the outside of the eye.
Inclusive Fitness
The concept that animals will be invested in the survival of not only their own genes but also the genes of their kin (since they are carrying the same genes.)
Reciprocal Interaction
The constant exchange of influences between people is a constant factor in our behavior.
DSM IV
The current psychological diagnostic bible. It has 16 separate categories of mental disorders, the diagnostic criteria for the various disorders included in each category, and the official numerical codes assigned to each disorder. First published in 1952. The fifth edition is currently available.
Predictive Value
The degree to which an independent variable can predict a dependent variable.
Sound Localization
The degree to which one of our ears hears a sound prior to and more intensely than the other can give us information about the origin of the sound. Specifically, high-frequency sounds are localized by intensity differences, whereas low-frequency sounds are localized by phase differences.
Reactive Depression
The depression resulting from particular events. It has been noted for its similarity to Martin Seligman's idea of learned helplessness.
Authoritarianism
The disposition to view the world as full of power relationships. These individuals are highly domineering or highly submissive. These individuals are also likely conventional, aggressive, stereotyping, and anti-introspective. It is measured by the F-Scale (Fascism Scale).
Hue
The dominant wavelength of light, also known as color.
Yerkes-Dodson Effect
The effect of arousal on performance. Too little or too much arousal could hamper performance of tasks. For simple tasks, the optimal level of arousal is toward the high end. For complex tasks, the optimal level of arousal is toward the low end, so that the individual is not too anxious to perform well. On a graph, optimal arousal looks like an inverted U-curve, with lowest performance at the extremes of arousal.
Cohort Effects
The effects that might result when a group is born and raised in a particular time period.
Presynaptic Cell
The end of one neuron (terminal buttons).
External Validity
The extent to which a test measures what it intends to measures. 4 aspects of this: concurrent validity, construct validity, content validity, face validity.
Herbert Spencer
The father of psychology of adaptation. He used principles from Lamarkian evolution, physiology, and associationism to understand people. He asserted that different species or races were elevated because of the greater number of associations that their brains could make.
Sensation
The feeling that results from physical stimulation, while perception is how we organize or experience the sensations.
Zygote
The fertilized egg cell where the two separate sets of 23 chromosomes come together to form 23 chromosome pairs. Diploid.
Inhibitory Postsynaptic Potential
The few positive charges in the cell body are let out and the cell becomes hyperpolarized (even more negative compared to the outside). They decrease the chance that a cell will fire.
Aaron Beck
The figure most associated with cognitive therapeutic techniques. Problems arise from maladaptive ways of thinking about the world. Thus, cognitive therapy involves reformulating illogical cognitions rather than searching for a life-stress cause for these cognitions.
Antipsychotics
The first drugs used for psychopathology. They were usually used to treat positive symptoms of schizophrenia by blocking dopamine receptors and inhibiting dopamine production. Ex. Thorazine and Haldol.
Response learning
The form of learning in which one links together chains of stimuli and responses.
Lorenz
The founder of ethology as a distinct research area.
Gustav Fechner
The founder of experimental psychology. He had carried out the first systematic psychology experiment to result in mathematical conclusions. Previously, it was thought that the mind could not be studied empirically.
Edward Titchener
The founder of structuralism. Structuralism focused on the analysis of human consciousness. Through introspection, lab assistants attempted to objectively describe the discrete sensations and content of their minds. He was an Englishman who studied with Wundt. The structuralist method dissolved after Titchener's death.
Pleasure Principle/ Primary Process
The human motivation to seek pleasure and avoid pain. It's particularly salient in early life. This is the principle by which the id operates.
Performance=Drive x Habit
The idea that individuals are first motivated by drive, and then they act according to old successful habits. They will do what has worked in the past to satisfy the drive.
Performance=Expectation x Value/ Expectancy-Value Theory
The idea that people are motivated by goals that they think they might actually meet. Another factor is how important the goal is to them.
Functional Fixedness
The idea that people develop closed minds about the functions of certain objects.
Equity Theory
The idea that people feel most comfortable in situations in which rewards and punishments are equal, fitting, or highly logical. Overbenefited people tend to feel guilty. Random or illogical punishments make people anxious.
Prosopagnosia
The inability to recognize faces. Know that you are looking at a face, but cannot tell whose face you are seeing. Describe seeing a jumble of facial features.
Resting Potential
The inactivated state of a neuron. The neuron is negatively charged at this point and the cell membrane does not let positive charges (ions) in.
Mediation
The intervening mental process that occurs between stimulus and response. It reminds us what to do or how to respond based on ideas or past learning.
Cell Body/Soma
The largest central portion and makes up gray matter. It has a nucleus that directs the neuron's activity.
Edward Tolman
The man that proposed that Performance= Expectation x Value, expectancy-value theory.
Clark Hull
The man who proposed that performance=Drive x habit.
Language
The meaningful arrangement of sounds.
Range
The most basic measure of variability. Found by subtracting the lowest value from the highest value in a data set.. This is the overall spread.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
The most commonly used intelligence test for adults. It is organized by subtests that provide subscales and identify problem areas. The version in current use is the fourth edition. Also one for Children aged 6-16 and preschool and primary--4-6 year olds.
Mode
The most frequently occurring value.
Unconditioned Response
The naturally occurring response to the UCS.
Conditioned Stimulus
The neutral stimulus once it has been paired with the UCS.
Menarche
The onset of the menstrual cycle which occurs during puberty.
Socrates
The original philosophic mentor who pondered the abstract ideas of truth, beauty, and justice.
Glial Cells
The other type of cell in the Nervous system. They mainly help support neurons. Two types: Oligodendrocytes (provide myelin in CNS) and Schwann Cells (provide myelin in PNS).
Cerebral cortex
The outer half-inch of the cerebral hemispheres. It's the seat of sensory and intellectual functions and is split into lobes. Ninety perception is Neocortex. The other 10 percent has fewer than 6 layers and is more primitive.
Grammar
The overall rules of the interrelationship between morphemes and syntax that make up a certain language.
Frequency
The pace of vibrations or sound waves per second for a particular sound. This determines pitch. Measured hertz (Hz) and humans best hear around 1000 Hz.
Peripheral Nervous System
The pathway that run to and from the CNS.
Estrus
The period in which a female of the species is sexually receptive
Apparent Motion
The phenomenon when there is perceived motion of two successive stimuli separated by a brief flash.
Mental set/ set
The preconceived notion of how to look at a problem. This may help future problem solving.
Delayed Conditioning
The presentation of the CS begins before that of the UCs and lasts until the UCS is presented.
Self-Monitoring
The process in which people pay close attention to their actions. Often, as a result, people change their behaviors to be more favorable.
Sensory Transduction
The process in which physical sensation is changed into electrical messages that the brain can understand. It is at the heart of the senses.
Statistics
The process of representing of analyzing numerical data.
Q-Sort
The process of sorting cards into a normal distribution. Each card has a different statement on it pertaining to personality. The subject places the cards that he is neutral about at the hump of the curve. Toward one end, he places cards that he deems "very characteristic" of himself and toward the other end, he places the "not characteristic" cards.
Metacognition
The process of thinking about your own thinking. It might involve knowing what solving strategies to apply and when to apply them, or knowing how to adapt your thinking to new situations.
Selective Attention
The process of tuning in to something specific while ignoring all of the other stimuli in the background.
Spontaneous Recovery
The reappearance of an extinguished response, even in the absence of further conditioning of training.
Reactance
The refusal to conform that may occur as a result of blatant attempt to control. Also, people will often not conform if they are forewarned that others will attempt to change them.
Learning
The relatively permanent or stable change in behavior as the result of experience
Extinction
The reversal of conditioning. Goal is to encourage an organism to stop doing a particular behavior. It is generally accomplished by repeatedly withholding reinforcement for a behavior or by disassociating the behavior from a particular cue.
Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
The revised version of Alfred Binet's original intelligence test. Lewis Terman was the first to revise it. It is used with children and is organized by age level. Of all of the intelligence tests, this one is the best predictor of future academic achievement. Terman is also famous for his studies with gifted children and for the finding that children with higher IQs are better adjusted.
Standard Normal Distribution
The same thing as a normal distribution but it has been standardized so that the mean for every distribution is 0 and the standard deviation is 1. Allow us to compare one person's scores on two different distributions.
Developmental Psychology
The study of changes and transitions that accompany physical growth or maturation.
Iconic Memory
The sensory memory for vision studied by George Sperling. He found that people could see more than they can remember.
Role
The set of behavior norms that seem suitable for a particular person.
Morpheme
The smallest unit of meaning in language. Made up of phonemes. Ex: boy, -ing.
Synapse/ synaptic gap
The space between two neurons where they communicate.
Sexual Dimorphism
The structural differences between the sexes.
Stanley Hall
The student of James and received America's first PhD in psychology from Harvard. He coined the term adolescence, started the American Journal of Psychology, and founded the American Psychological Association.
Ethology
The study of animal behaviors, especially innate behaviors that occur in a natural habitat.
Social Psychology
The study of how people relate to and influence each other.
Clinical Psychology
The study of the theory, assessment, and treatment of mental and emotional disorders.
Personality
The study of why people act the way that they do and why different people act differently.
Problem space
The sum total of possible moves that one might make in order to solve a problem.
Social Facilitation
The tendency for the presence of others to either enhance or hinder performance. Norman Triplett discovery applies. Robert Zajonc found that the presence of others helps with easy tasks but hinders complex tasks.
Diffusion of Responsibility
The tendency that the larger the group, the less likely individuals in the group will act or take responsibility.
Barnum Effect
The tendency to agree with and accept personality interpretations that are provided.
Oversimplification
The tendency to make simple explanations for complex events. People also hold onto original ideas about cause even when new factors emerge.
Minimum Principle
The tendency to see what is easiest or logical to see.
Orienting Reflex
The tendency to turn toward an object that has touched you.
Social Loafing
The tendency to work less hard in a group as the result of diffusion of responsibility. It is guarded against when each individual is closely monitored.
Hedonism
The theory that individuals are motivated solely by what brings the most pleasure and the least pain.
Raymond Cattell
This psychologist used factor analysis in data reduction of Allport's 5,000 traits. Eventually he identified sixteen bipolar source traits.
Stage 2 of sleep
The theta wave stage, characterized by fast frequent bursts of brain activity called sleep spindles. Marked by muscle tension and accompanied by a gradual decline in heart rate,respiration, and temperature.
Absolute Refractory Period
The time after a neuron fires in which it cannot response to stimulation.
Relative Refractory Period
The time after the absolute refractory period when the neuron can fire, but it needs a much stronger stimulus.
Genotype
The total of all genetic material that an offspring receives. Composed of dominant and recessive genes and they pair up into alleles.
Latent Content
The unconscious forces the dreams are trying to express.
Deep Structure
The underlying meaning of a sentence.
Psychopharmacology
The use of medication to treat mental illness. Based on the idea that some emotional disturbances are at least partly caused by biological factors, and therefore, can be successfully treated with medication. Criticism: Drugs that take away symptoms do not provide interpersonal support.
Amphetamines
The use of these increases dopamine activity and thus produces schizophrenic-like paranoid symptoms.
Decay Theory/ Trace Theory
Theory that posits that memories fade with time. This theory has been called too simplistic because other activities are known to interfere with retrieval.
Zero Correlation
There is no relationship between variables in this correlation.
Ciliary Muscles
These allow it to bend (accommodate) in order to focus an image of the outside world onto the retina.
Implicit Theories
These are assumptions that people often make about the dispositions of an individual based on the actions of that person.
Bayley Scales of Infant Development
These are not intelligence tests. They measure the sensory and motor development of infants in order to identify mentally retarded children. They are poor predictors of later intelligence.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, California Personality Inventory
These are probably the two best known personality tests.
Meissner's Corpuscles
These are receptors in the skin that detect touch or contact.
Flashbulb Memories
These are recollections that seem burned into the brain.
Empathy, Unconditional Positive Regard, Genuineness/ Congruence
These are three things that the therapist of a client-centered therapy must be/do.
Osmoreceptors
These deal with thirst.
Dissociative Disorders
These disorders all involve the disruption of memory or identity. Formerly known as psychogenic disorders.
Personality Disorders
These disorders are characterized by rigid, pervasive, culturally abnormal personality structures.
Somatoform Disorder
These disorders are manifested by physical or bodily symptoms that cause reduced functioning.
Antidepressants
These drugs are used to reduct depressive symptoms by taking the opposite action of antimanics. the theory is that abnormally low levels of monoamines cause depression. These drugs act to increase the production and transmission of various monoamines. Three types: Tricyclic Antidepressants (TCAS: have a tricyclic chemical structure), Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs), and SSRIs.
Weber's Law
This law states that a stimulus needs to be increased by a constant fraction of its original value in order to be noticed as noticeably different.
Cross Fostering Experiments
These experiments attempt to separate the effects of heredity and environment. Ex. Sibling mice are separated at birth and placed with different parents or in different situations. Later differences in aggression can be attributed to experience rather than genetics.
Luteinizing Hormone (LH) & Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH)
These hormones are associated with the menstrual cycle and regulate the development of the ovum. In males, they regulate the development of sperm cells and the production of testosterone.
Fergus Craik & Robert Lockhart
These men asserted that learning and recall depend on the depth of processing. Different levels of processing exist from the most superficial phonological level to the deep semantic level. The deeper an item is processed, the easier it is to learn and recall.
Henry Murray & David McClelland
These men studied the possibility that people are motivated by a need for achievement (nAch). This may be manifested through a need to pursue success or a need to avoid failure.
Seymour Epstein, Walter Mischel
These psychologists asserted that trait and type theories have always had a big problem: Both theories assume that a person's behavior is stable across situations and that people fail to take circumstances into account. People often act differently in different situations.
Cooper & Zubek
These psychologists demonstrates the interaction between heredity and environment. The selectively bred bright rats performed better than the dull rats in maze problem solving only when both sets of rats were raised in normal conditions. Both the bright and dull rats performed well when raised in an enriched environment. Both the bright and dull rats performed poorly when raised in an impoverished condition.
Costa & McCrae
These psychologists found that personality changes very little after age 30.
Eleanor Maccoby, Carol Jacklin
These psychologists scrutinized studies of sex differences and found that relatively few existed that could not be explained away by simple social learning. The most consistent difference that seems independent of social influence is that females have greater verbal ability and males have greater visual/spatial ability.
Rodin, Langer
These psychologists showed that nursing home residents who have plants to care for have better health and lower morality rates.
Lev Vygotsky & Alexander Luria
These psychologists studied the development of word meanings and found them to be complex and altered by interpersonal experience. Also, they asserted that language is a tool involved in (not just a byproduct of) the development of abstract thinking. SOCIAL component.
Cones
These receptor cells are concentrated in the center of the retina (in the area called the fovea). They are particularly sensitive to color and daylight vision. These see better because there are fewer cones per ganglion cell.
Rods
These receptor cells are particularly sensitive to dim light and are used for night vision. They are also concentrated along the sides of the retina, making them extremely important for peripheral vision.
Domain-referenced tests
These tests attempt to measure less-defined properties and need to be checked for reliability and validity.
T-tests
These tests compare the means of two groups to see if the two groups are truly different. They analyze differences between means on continuous data (anything that is measured such as height) and are particularly useful with samples that have small "n" (few subjects). They cannot test for differences between more than two groups.
Criterion-referenced tests
These tests measure mastery in a particular area or subject
Fritz Heider's Balance Theory, Charles Osgood & Percy Tannenbaum's Congruity Theory, Leon Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Theory, & Hull's Drive Reduction Theory
These theories assert that humans are primarily motivated to maintain physiological or psychological homeostasis. Argument against these theories: Individuals often seek out stimulation, novel experience, or self-destruction.
Allen Newell & Herbert Simon
These two men introduced the first computer simulation models that are designed to solve problems as humans do. First one (logic theorist) was revamped to General Problem Solver.
Allan Collins & Ross Quillian
These two psychologists asserted that people make decisions about the relationship between items by searching their cognitive semantic hierarchies. The farther apart in the hierarchy, the longer it will take to see a connection. The searching and cognitive semantic hierarchies has been termed parallel distributive processing (or connectionism).
Hubel & Weisel
These two psychologists found that cells in the visual cortex are so complex and specialized that they respond only to certain types of stimuli. For example, some cells respond only to vertical lines, whereas some respond only to right angles and so on.
Elizabeth Loftus & Allan Collins
These two psychologists that found that people have hierarchical semantic networks in their memory that group together related items. The more closely related two items are, the more closely that are located in hierarchy, and the more quickly a subject can link them.
Objective Tests
These types of personality tests do not allow subjects to make up their own answers, so these tests are relatively structured. Structured tests are often seen as more objectively scored than projective tests. Most objective tests are self-reported- in other words, the subject records her own responses. However, these tests are not completely objective, because any self-report measure allows for the subject to bias her answers.
Vocational Test
These types of tests assess to what extent an individual's interests and strengths match those already found by professionals in a particular job field.
Simulations
These use perceptual cues to make artificial situations seem real.
Halo Effect
Thinking that if someone has one good quality than he has only good qualities.
John B. Watson
This American psychologist who expanded on the ideas of Pavlov and founded the school of behaviorism. He studied conditioning, stimulus-response chains, and objective, observable behaviors. He saw humans as "squirming bits of flesh" ready to be trained by the environment.
Carl Jung
This Freudian broke away from Freud because he felt that Freud placed too much emphasis on the libido. His new analytical theory postulated that the psyche was directed toward life and awareness. The unconscious has two types: Personal Unconscious & Collective Unconscious. He formed Analytical Theory
Autonomic Nervous System
This PNS system interacts with internal environment and is responsible for the "fight or flight" response. It controls the involuntary functions including movement of smooth muscles, digestion, blood circulation, and breathing.
Somatic Nervous System
This PNS system interacts with the external environment by controlling voluntary movements of striated muscles.
Regression
This allows you to not only identify a relationship between two variables but also to make predictions about one variable based on another variable.
Linear Regression
This allows you to use correlation coefficients in order to predict one variable y from another variable x. It is when the least-squares line of regression line is fit to the data. This line would be situated so that the distance between each point of data and the line is as small as possible.
Glutamate
This amino acid is the most abundant excitatory neurotransmitter in the nervous system.
GABA
This amino acid is the most abundant inhibitory transmitter in the nervous system.
Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA)
This analysis test examines whether at least two groups co-vary. It can adjust for preexisting differences between groups.
Factorial Analysis of Variance
This analysis test is used when an experiment involves more than one independent variable. It can isolate the main effects and can identify interaction effects
Symbolic Play
This behavior usually begins when children are 1-2 years old and involved pretend roles, imagination, and using objects to represent other things. when children reach this point, it is apparent that they can understand the concept of having one object stand for another.
Parallel Play
This behavior usually occurs when children are 2 to 3 years old. It is when 2 children are standing next to each other and playing in similar styles but are playing by themselves and not interacting with one another.
Role Playing
This behavioral technique allows a client to practice new behaviors and responses.
Flooding/ Implosive Therapy
This behavioral technique applied classical conditioning in order to relieve anxiety. The client is repeated exposed to an anxiety-producing stimulus, so that, eventually, the overexposure simply leads to lessened anxiety.
Systematic Desensitization
This behavioral technique developed by Joseph Wolpe applies classical conditioning in order to relieve anxiety. The patient is exposed to increasingly anxiety-provoking stimuli until the anxiety associated with those stimuli is decreased.
Modeling
This behavioral technique employs social learning principles; this method exposes the client to more adaptive behaviors.
Aversion Therapy
This behavioral technique employs the operant principle of negative reinforcement in order to increase anxiety. An anxiety-reaction is created where there previously was none. This is generally used to treat addiction and fetishes.
Assertiveness Training
This behavioral technique provides tools and experience through which the client can become more assertive.
Shaping
This behavioral technique uses operant conditioning to change behavior. The client is reinforced for behaviors that come closer and closer to the desired action.
Cognitive Psychology
This branch of psychology is the study of thinking, processing, and reasoning.
Standard Error of mean
This calculates how "off" the mean might be in either direction.
Tardive Dyskinesia
This can result from the long-term use of neuroleptics or psychotropics. This disorder is characterized by involuntary, repetitive movements of the tongue, jaw, or extremities.
Kitty Genovese case
This case, the murder of a woman witnessed by scores of people, led to the investigation of the bystander effect, or why people are less likely to help when others are present.
Presynaptic Cell
This cell fires and releases neurotransmitters from its terminal buttons as a messenger to other neurons.
Impossible Objects
This classical illusion are objects that have been drawn and can be perceived but are geometrically impossible.
Ambiguous Figures
This classical illusion can be perceived as two different things depending on how you look at them. Ex. Duck & Bunny figure.
Figure-Ground Reversal Patterns
This classical illusion is ambiguous figures, such as the Rubin vase. They can be perceived as two different things depending on which part you see as the figure and which part you see as the background.
Phi Phenomenon
This classical illusion is the tendency to perceive smooth motion. This explains why motion is inferred when there actually is none, often by the use of flashing lights or rapidly show still-frame pictures, such as in the perception of cartoons.
Muller-Lyer Illusion
This classical illusion is when two horizontal lines of equal length appear unequal because of the orientation of the arrow marks at the end. Inward facing arrowheads make a line appear shorter than another line of the same length with outward facing arrowheads.
Ponzo Illusion
This classical illusion is when two horizontal lines of equal length appear unequal because of two vertical lines that slant inward.
Moon Illusion
This classical illusion shows how context affects perception. The moon looks larger when we see it on the horizon than when we see it in the sky. This is because horizon contains visual cues that make the moon seem more distant than the overheard sky. In the overheard sky, we cannot correct for distance when we perceive the size of the moon because we have no cues to work with.
Beck Depression Inventory
This cognitive test measures the cognitive triad and is used to gauge the severity of diagnosed depression
Peter Principle
This concept is that people are promoted at work until they reach a position of incompetence, the position in which they remain.
Operant Conditioning/ Instrumental Conditioning
This concept of behavior being influenced primarily by reinforcement. The Skinner Box was used to develop this idea: to condition rats to perform an unnatural behavior--pressing the lever in the skinner box.
Aptitude
This concept refers to a set of characteristics that are indicative of a person's ability to learn.
Learning Curve
This concept was first described by Hermann Ebbinghaus. Refers to the fact that when learning something new, the rate of learning usually changes over time. Different types of learning curves: Positive acceleration: rate of learning is increasing and a Negative acceleration: the rate of learning is decreasing.
Groupthink
This concept, studied by Irving Janis, is likely to occur in a group that has unquestioned beliefs, pressure to conform, invulnerability, censors, cohesiveness within, isolation from without, and a strong leader.
Approach-avoidance conflict
This conflict refers to the state one feels when a certain goal has both pros and cons. Typically the further one is from the goal, the more one focuses on the pros or the reasons to approach the goal. The close one is to the goal, the more one focuses on the cons or the reasons to avoid the goal.
Inferior Colliculus
This controls auditory reflexes.
Basal Ganglia
This controls large, voluntary muscle movements. Their degeneration is related to motor dysfunction in Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases.
Superior Colliculus
This controls visual reflexes
Negative Correlation
This correlation is simple and linear. As one variable goes up, the other goes down.
Positive Correlation
This correlation is simple and linear. As one variable increases, the other does as well.
Cell Membrane
This covers the whole neuron and has selective permeability. Sometimes it lets positive charges (ions) through.
Forgetting Curve
This curve depicts a sharp drop in saving immediately after learning and then levels off, with a slight downward trend. However, some psychologists doubt that results obtained from having subjects memorize lists of nonsense syllables generalize to other types of memory.
Projection
This defense mechanism is accusing others of having one's own unacceptable feelings.
Countertransference
This defense mechanism is an analyst's transfer of unconscious feelings or wishes (often about central figures in the analyst's life) onto the patient.
Sublimation
This defense mechanism is channeling threatening drives in acceptable outlets.
Reaction Formation
This defense mechanism is embracing feelings or behaviors opposite to the true threatening feelings that one has.
Compensation
This defense mechanism is excelling in one area to make up for shortcomings in another.
Identification
This defense mechanism is imitating a central figure in one's life, such as a parent.
Rationalization
This defense mechanism is justifying behavior or feelings that cause guilt.
Repression/Denial
This defense mechanism is not allowing threatening material into awareness.
Undoing
This defense mechanism is performing an often ritualistic activity in order to relieve anxiety about unconscious drives.
Displacement
This defense mechanism is shifting unacceptable feelings or actions to a less threatening recipient.
Apparent Size
This depth perception cue gives us clues about how far away an object is if we know about how big the object should be.
Linear Perspective
This depth perception cue is gained by features we are familiar with, such as two seemingly parallel lines that converge with distance.
Motion Parallax
This depth perception cue is how movement is perceived through the displacement of objects over time, and how this motion takes place at seemingly different paces for nearby or faraway objects. Ships far away seem to move more slowly than nearby ships moving at the same speed.
Interposition
This depth perception cue is the overlap of objects that shows which objects are closer.
Texture Gradient
This depth perception cue refers to how we see texture or fine detail differently from different distances.
Cohort-sequential Design
This design combines longitudinal and cross-sectional approaches.
Between-subjects design
This design compares 2 groups of people at the same time point.
Quasi-experimental design
This design compares 2 groups of people like an experiment, but this design is used when it is not feasible or ethical to use random assignment.
Longitudinal Design
This design is used in developmental research because researchers need to study people at different ages. It involves studying the same objects at different points in the lifespan and provides better, more valid results than most other methods. But costly, and require big time commitment.
Within-subject Design
This design tests the same person at multiple time points and looks at changes within that person.
Cross-sectional design
This design uses different subjects of different ages and compares them.
Delusional Disorder
This disorder has persistent delusions of various types: erotomanic (that another person is in love with the individual); grandiose (that one has special talent or status); jealousy; persecutory; somatic (bodily, such as, believing a part of the body is ugly or misshapen).
Schizoaffective Disorder
This disorder has schizophrenic symptoms accompanying a depressive episode.
Agoraphobia
This disorder is a fear of a situation in which panic symptoms might arise and escape would be difficult; this usually means fear and avoidance of being outside the home or in crowds.
Major Depressive Disorder
This disorder is a when a depressive episode evidenced by depressed mood, loss of usual interests, changes in weight or sleep, low energy, feelings of worthlessness, or thoughts of death; the symptoms are present nearly every day for at least 2 weeks. It is twice as common in females as it is in males.
Charles Spearmen
This psychologist believed there was a general factor in human intelligence, which he termed "g".
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
This disorder is characterized by obsessions (persistent thoughts) or compulsions (repetitive behaviors or mental acts) that are time consuming, distressing, and disruptive. Typical obsessions might be uncontrollable thoughts of worrying about locking the door or about becoming contaminated. Typical compulsions might be checking behavior, praying, counting, or hand washing.
Panic Disorder
This disorder is characterized by recurrent panic attacks and persistent worry about another attack; this disorder is often accompanied by a mitral valve heart problem.
Adjustment disorder
This disorder is emotional difficulty resulting from an identifiable stressor.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
This disorder is exposure to trauma that results in decreased ability to function and recurrent thoughts and anxiety about the trauma. This disorder is often linked to war veterans or victims of violence.
Factitious Disorder
This disorder is when one creates physical complaints through fabrication or self-infliction in order to assume the sick role.
Identity Disorder
This dissociative disorder is called also multiple personality disorder, which is the assumption of two or more identities that control behavior in different situations.
Fugue
This dissociative disorder is suddenly fleeing to a new location, forgetting true identity, and/or establishing a new identity.
Amnesia
This dissociative disorder is the inability to recall information relating to trauma.
Positively skewed distribution
This distribution has more of distribution on the lower end of the values. It is pointing towards positive.
Negatively skewed distribution
This distribution has more of the distribution on the high end of the values. It is pointing towards the negative.
Antabuse
This drug changes the metabolism of alcohol, resulting in severe nausea and vomiting when combined with alcohol; it can be used to countercondition alcoholics.
Anxiolytics
This drug is used to reduce anxiety or to induce sleep, usually by increasing the effectiveness of GABA. They also have high potential for causing habituation and addiction. Ex. Barbiturates and benzodiazepines, Valium, Xanax.
Arnold Gessell
This early child developmentalist believed that nature provided only a blueprint for development through maturation and that environment or nurture filled in the details.
Bulimia Nervosa
This eating disorder is binge eating accompanied by harmful ways to prevent weight gain (induced vomiting or laxative use).
Anorexia Nervosa
This eating disorder is refusing to eat enough to maintain a healthy body weight; showing excessive concern about becoming obese.
Autokinetic Effect
This effect is the way that a single point of light viewed in darkness will appear to shake or move. The reason for this is the constant movements of our own eyes.
Type 1 error
This error occurs when you incorrectly reject the null hypothesis. You thought your findings were significant when they were caused by chance.
Type 2 error
This error occurs when you wrongly accept the null hypothesis- in other words, tests showed your findings to be insignificant when in fact they were significant.
Stroop Effect
This explains the decreased speed of naming the color of ink used to print words when the color of ink and the word itself are of different colors.
IQ
This formula is for..... (Mental age/ chronological age) x 100. Mean:100 with SD of 15 or 16.
Histogram
This graph consists of vertical bars in which the sides of the vertical bars touch. Useful for discrete variables that have clear boundaries and for interval variables in which there is some order. The bars are lined up in order.
Frequency Polygon
This graph has plotted point connected by lines. These are often used to plot variables that are continuous (categories without clear boundaries).
Bar Graph
This graph is like a histogram except that the vertical bars do not touch. The various vertical columns are separated by spaces.
Vasopressin
This hormone helps to regulate water levels in the body and blood pressure.
Oxytocin
This hormone is released from the pituitary and facilitates birth and breast feeding. It is also involved in pair bonding.
Overjustification Effect
This idea follows from self-perception theory. It is the tendency to assume that we must not want to do things that we are paid or compensated to do. A person who loves to sing, and is then paid to do so will lose pleasure in singing because the activity is overjustified.
Interactionists
This idea is in the forefront of personality. These psychologists assert a combination of stable, internal factors and situations.
Carl Rogers
This psychologist came up with Client-Centered Therapy.
Beck Depression Inventory
This inventory is not used to diagnose depression. Rather, it is used to assess the severity of depressive symptoms and can be used by a researcher or clinician to track the course of depressive symptoms.
Primary Prevention
This involves attempts to prevent documented psychosocial problems through direct contact with an at-risk (but thus far unaffected) group. This attempt is executed through proactive intervention, meaning that the intervention takes place before the problems arise rather than as a result of the problems. ****
Reciprocity of Disclosure
This is a factor in attraction. It is sharing secrets/feelings and facilitates emotional closeness.
Cretinism
This is a form of mental retardation that is caused by iodine deficiency.
Humanistic Theory
This is a general term that refers to theories that emphasize the positive, evolving free will in people. Client-centered, Gestalt, Existential therapy. This type of theory is optimistic about human nature. It is also known as the "Third Force" in psychotherapy in reaction to psychoanalysis and behavioralism.
Psychodynamic Theory
This is a general term that refers to theories that emphasize the role of the unconscious.
Receiver Operation Characteristic Curves
This is a graphical representation of a subject's sensitivity to a stimulus.
ANOVA/ Analysis of Variance
This is a highly utilized test because of its flexibility. It is similar to T-test in that it analyzes the differences among means of continuous variables but it is more flexible than the t-test because it can analyze the difference among more than 2 groups, even if they have different sample sizes.
Internal Locus of Control
This is a personality characteristic that causes a person to view events as the outcome of his/her own actions. Too much of this can breed self-blame. Developed by Julian Rotter.
External Locus of Control
This is a personality characteristic that causes one to view events as the result of luck or fate. Too much of this breeds helplessness. Developed by Julian Rotter.
Phenylketonuria (PKU)
This is a recessive, infant disease related to excess amino acids. It is an inborn error of metabolism.
Door-in-the-face
This is a sales tactic in which people ask for more than they would ever get and then "settle" for less (the realistic amount hoped for.)
Self-awareness
This is a state; it is the temporary condition of being aware of how you are thinking, feelings, or doing.
Pearson r Correlation coefficient
This is a way of numerically calculating and expressing correlation. These values range from -1 to +1. A value of -1 indicates a perfect negative correlation and +1 a perfect positive correlation. 0= no relationship.
Objective Self-Awareness
This is achieved through self-perception, high self-monitoring, internality, and self-efficacy. Some experimenters will facilitate object self-awareness by having subjects perform tasks while looking in a mirror. Deindividuation would work against this.
Tachtiscope
This is an instrument often used in cognitive or memory experiments. It presents visual material (words or images) to subjects for a fraction of a second.
False Consensus Bias
This is assuming most other people think as you do.
Self-monitoring
This is characterized by scrutiny of one's own behavior. motivation to act appropriately rather than honestly, and ability to mask true feelings.
Dementia
This is cognitive problems (with memory, spatial tasks, or language) that result from a medical condition. May be a result of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's disease, or Pick's Disease.
Binocular Disparity
This is considered the most important depth cue. Our eyes view objects from two slightly different angles, which allows us to create a three-dimensional picture.
Pituitary Gland
This is controlled by the hypothalamus and is involved in the regulation of hormones in the body.
Schizophrenia
This is disorder formerly called dementia praecox was renamed by Eugene Bleuler. Means "split brain" Symptoms may be positive (abnormally present) or negative (abnormally absent). Positive symptoms include delusions, perceptual hallucinations, nonsensical or disorganized speech (neologisms= use of made-up words) and disorganized behavior (inappropriate dress, agitation, shouting). Negative symptoms include flat affect (absence of appropriate emotion) or restrictions in thought, speech, or behavior. Onset is usually late adolescence and mid 30's. The biological factor most associated with Schizophrenia is excessive dopamine.
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
This is how doing a small favor makes people more willing to do larger ones later.
Constancy
This is how people perceive objects in the way they are familiar with them, regardless of changes in the actual retinal image. A book, for example, is perceived as rectangular in shape no matter what angle it is seen from.
Corticospinal Tract
This is in the forebrain and is the connection between brain and spine.
Delirium
This is indicated by disturbed consciousness (awareness, attention, focus) and cognition (memory, disorientation).
Dependence
This is indicated by some combination of the following: Continued use despite substance-related problems; need for increased amount of substance; a desire but inability to stop use; withdrawal; lessening of outside interests; lots of time spent getting,using,or recovering from the substance.
Pattern Recognition
This is most often explained by template matching and feature detection. In order to pick the letter o out of a page of letters, we would probably first concentrate only on letters with rounded edges (feature detection) and then look for one to match a typical o (template matching).
Dichotic Presentation
This is often used in studies of auditory perception and selective attention. In these tasks, a subject is presented with a different verbal message in each ear. Often subjects are asked to shadow, or repeat, one of the messages to ensure that the other message is not consciously attended to.
Afterimages/ McCollough Effect
This is perceived because of fatigued receptors. Because our eyes have a partially oppositional system for seeing colors, such as red-green or black-white receptors, once one side is overstimulated and fatigued, it can no longer respond and is overshadowed by its opposite. This explains why you see a dark afterimage after staring at a white light.
Subliminal Perception
This is perceiving a stimulus that one is not consciously aware of.
Eidetic Imagery
This is photographic memory. This is more common in children and rural cultures.
Empirical-Keying/ Criterion-keying approach
This is the approach to constructing assessment instruments that involves the selection of items that can discriminate between various groups. An individual's responses to the items determine if he is like a particular group or not. The strong-campbell interest inventory is an example of this.
Clustering
This is the brain's tendency to group together similar items in memory whether they are learned together or not.
Anterograde amnesia
This is the forgetting of events that occurred after the trauma.
Retrograde Amnesia
This is the forgetting of events that occurred before the trauma
American Psychology Association
This is the governing body of the field of psychology in America. It was founded in 1892 by Stanley Hall. Its purpose is to "advance psychology as a science, as a profession, and as a means of promoting human welfare." American Psychologist is the official journal. Psychological Bulletin is published bimonthly by this organization. Psychological Abstracts is an index published by them too. PsycINFO data is the online or computer access format of Psychological Abstracts.
Absolute Threshold
This is the minimum amount of a stimuli that can be detected 50% of the time.
Differential Threshold/ Just Noticeable Difference
This is the minimum difference that must occur between two stimuli, in order for them to be perceived as having different intensities. Defined by E.H. Weber.
Down Syndrome
This is the most common cause of mental retardation. It results from a chromosomal abnormality, a trisomy of chromosome 21. This person has three copies of the 21st chromosome.
Pragnanz
This is the overarching Gestalt idea that experience will be organized as meaningful, symmetrical, and simple whenever possible.
Color Constancy
This is the phenomenon of knowing the color of an object even with tinted glasses on, for example.
Size Constancy
This is the phenomenon that one knows that an elephant, for example, is large no matter how it might appear.
Consistency Paradox
This is the possibility that a person may behave inconsistently. It presents real problems for labeling people as having one internal disposition.
Two-point threshold
This is the smallest separation at which two points applied simultaneously to the skin can be distinguished. It is largely determined by the density and layout of nerves in the skin.
Attribution Theory
This is the study of how people infer the causes of others' behavior. People will actually attribute intentions and emotions to just about everything-- even moving geometrical shapes on a screen. Found by Fritz Heider.
Balance Theory
This is the study of how people make their feelings and/or actions consistent to preserve psychological homeostasis.
Physiological Zero
This is the temperature that is sensed as neither warm nor cold.
Dispositional Attribution/ Fundamental Attribution Error
This is the tendency for others to think that actions are caused more by a person's personality than by the situation.
Actor-Observer Attributional Divergence
This is the tendency for the person who is doing the behavior to have a different perspective on the situation than a person watching the behavior.
Zeigarnik Effect
This is the tendency to recall uncompleted tasks better than completed ones.
Terminal Threshold
This is the upper limit above which the stimuli can no longer be perceived. Ex. The highest pitch sound a human can hear.
Purkinje Shift
This is the way that perceived color brightness changes with the level of illumination in the room. With lower levels of illumination, the extremes of the color spectrum (especially red) are seen as less bright.
Olfactory Bulb
This is where messages from the hair receptors in the nostrils are sent. It lies at the base of the brain.
Axon Hillock
This is where the soma and the axon connect.
Fechner's Law
This law says that the strength of a stimulus must be significantly increased to produce a slight difference in sensation. Sensation Strength= k Log R (Logarithm of the original intensity)
Victor Vroom
This man applied the expectancy-value theory to individual behavior in large organizations. Individuals who are lowest on the totem pole do not expect to receive company incentives, so these carrots do little to motivate them. Theory based on: Valence, Expectancy, Instrumentality.
Ulric Neisser
This man coined the term icon for brief visual memory and found that an icon lasts for about one second.
Albert Bandura
This man conducted the Bobo Doll study to find the concept of modeling of aggression by children.
B.F. Skinner
This man developed operant conditioning.
Kurt Lewin
This man developed the theory of association, forerunner of behaviorism.
Roger Brown
This man found that children's understanding of grammatical rules develops as they make hypotheses about how syntax works and then self-correct with experience.
Frederick Bartlett
This man found that memory is reconstructive rather than role. People are more likely to remember the ideas or semantics of a story than the details or grammar of the story.
George Miller
This man found that short-term memory has the capacity of about seven items (+ or - 2 items).
E.L. Thorndike
This man is credited with writing the first educational psychology textbook in 1903.
Noam Chomsky
This man is the important figure in psycholinguistics. Nativist view of psycholinguistics.
John Garcia
This man performed classical conditioning experiments in which it was discovered that animals are programmed through evolution to make certain connections. Preparedness.
M.E. Olds
This man performed experiments in which electrical stimulation of pleasure centers in the brain were used as positive reinforcement. Animals would perform behaviors to receive the stimulation. This was viewed as evidence against drive-reduction theory.
Benjamin Whorf/ Whorfian Hypothesis
This man posited that language, or how a culture says things, influences that culture's perspective.
Donald Hebb
This man postulated a medium amount of arousal is best for performance. Too little or too much arousal could hamper performance of tasks.
Neil Miller
This man proposed the approach-avoidance conflict.
Wolfgang Kohler
This man studied chimpanzees and insight in problem solving. Under Gestalt theory, by perceiving the whole of the situation, chimps were able to create novel solutions to problems. Used tools, props to retrieve rewards. The moment of insight has been called the a-ha! experience.
John Atkinson
This man suggested a theory of motivation in which people who set realistic goals with intermediate risk sets feel pride with accomplishment, and want to succeed more than they fear failure.
E.L. Thorndike
This man suggested the law of effect, precursor of operant conditioning.
Hermann Ebbinghaus
This man was the first to study memory systematically. He proposed the forgetting curve.
EEG
This measure brain-wave patterns and has made it possible to study waking and sleeping states.
Savings
This measures how much information about a subject remains in LTM by assessing how long it takes to learn something the second time as opposed to the first time.
Generation-Recognition Model
This model suggests that anything one might recall should easily be recognized. This is why a multiple-choice test is easier than an essay test.
Harry Stack Sullivan
This neofreudian emphasized social and interpersonal relationships.
Optic Nerve
This nerve connects each eye to the brain.
Acetylcholine
This neurotransmitter is released at the neuromuscular junction to cause the contraction of skeletal muscles. It is also involved in the parasympathetic nervous system.
Phantom Limb Pain
This occurs when amputees feel sensations of pain in limbs that have been amputated and no longer exist.
Instinctual Drift
This occurs when an animal replaces a trained or forced response with a natural or instinctive response.
Deindividuation
This occurs when individual identity or accountability is de-emphasized. This may be the result of mingling in a crowd, wearing uniforms, or otherwise adopting a larger group identity.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
This occurs when one's expectations somehow draw out, or in a sense cause, the very behavior that is expected.
Rebound Effect
This occurs when people are deprived of REM sleep. They will compensate by spending more time in REM sleep later in the night,
Androgen
This organizational hormone increases in males and causing genitals and secondary sex characteristics to form. Testosterone.
H-Y antigen
This organizational hormone is present during development and causes a fetus to develop into a male.
Estrogen
This organizational hormones is in females during puberty and causes the genitals to mature and secondary sex characteristics to develop.
Spinal Cord
This part consists of an inner core of gray matter (cell bodies and dendrites) and an outer covering of white matter (nerve fibers, axon bundles, and myelin sheathing) that go to and from the brain.
Reception
This part of sensation takes place when receptors for a particular sense detect a stimulus. The receptive field is the part of the world that triggers a particular neuron.
Frontal Lobe
This part of the cerebral cortex controls speech, reasoning, and problem solving. Houses Broca's Area for speech.
Temporal Lobe
This part of the cerebral cortex is responsible for hearing. also includes Wernicke's area, which is related to speech.
Parietal Lobe
This part of the cerebral cortex is responsible for the somatosensory system.
Occipital Lobe
This part of the cerebral cortex is responsible for vision.
Middle Ear
This part of the ear begins with the tympanic membrane (eardrum) which is stretched across the auditory canal. Behind this membrane are the ossicles (two small bones), the last of which is the stapes. Sound vibrations bump against the tympanic membrane, causing the ossicles to vibrate.
Inner Ear
This part of the ear is responsible for both hearing and balance. Begins with the oval window, which is tapped upon by the stapes. These vibrations then activate the fluid-filled, snail-shell-like cochlea, which contain the ear parts for hearing (the basilar membrane and the organ of corti). The movement of the cochlear fluid activates the hair-cell receptors on the basilar membrane and the organ of corti. This movement on the basilar membrane is called the travelling wave. The vestibular sacs (which also respond to hair movement) are sensitive to tilt and provide our sense of balance. Receptor cells in the inner ear activate nerve cells that change the information into an electrical message the brain can process.
Metencephalon
This part of the hindbrain contains the pons (connects brain parts to spine) and cerebellum (controls muscle coordination, balance, and posture).
Outer Ear
This part of the year consists of the pinna and the auditory canal. Vibrations from sound move down this canal to middle ear.
Antisocial Personality Disorder
This personality disorder is marked by a disregard for the rights of others and absence of guilt.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
This personality disorder is marked by a need for admiration and idea of superiority.
Dependent Personality Disorder
This personality disorder is marked by a need to be taken care of, clinging.
Borderline Personality Disorder
This personality disorder is marked by an instability in relationships and emotions, impulsivity.
Schizoid Personality Disorder
This personality disorder is marked by detachment and small range of emotions.
Paranoid Personality Disorder
This personality disorder is marked by distrust and suspicion.
Schizotypal Personality Disorder
This personality disorder is marked by eccentricity, and distorted reality.
Histrionic Personality Disorder
This personality disorder is marked by excess emotion and attention-seeking.
Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
This personality disorder is marked by excessive orderliness and control, perfectionism.
Avoidant Personality Disorder
This personality disorder is marked by social inhibitions, hypersensitivity, and perceptions of inadequacy.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
This personality test was originally created to determine mental illness, but now it is used as a personality measure. It consists of 550 true/false/not sure questions. Most notably, the MMPI contains items that have been found to discriminate between different disorders and that subjects could not "second guess." The test has high validity primarily because it was constructed with highly discriminatory items and because it has three validity scales (questions that assess lying, carelessness, and faking.)
Mesomorph
This personality type by William Sheldon was muscular, athletic body= energetic, aggressive behavior.
Endomorph
This personality type by William Sheldon was short, plump body= pleasure-seeking, social behavior.
Ectomorph
This personality type by William Sheldon was skinny, fragile body= inhibited, intellectual behavior.
Socially useful type (Sanguine)
This personality type created by Adler is high in activity and high in social contribution; healthy.
Ruling-dominant type (choleric)
This personality type created by Adler is high in activity but low in social contribution; dominant.
Geting-Leaning Type (Phelgmatic)
This personality type created by Adler is low in activity and high in social contribution; dependent.
Avoiding Type (Melancholic)
This personality type created by Adler is low in activity and low in social contribution; withdrawn.
Sleeper Effect
This phenomenon explains why persuasive communication from a source of low credibility may become more acceptable after the fact.
Muzafer Sherif
This psychologist conducted the classic experiment that found that people's descriptions of the autokinetic effect were influenced by other's descriptions.
Tip-of-the-tongue Phenomenon
This phenomenon is when one is on the verge of retrieval but does not successfully retrieve.
Thomas Hobbes
This philosopher asserted that humans and other animals were machines and that sense-perception was all that could be known. From this, he suggested that a science could be formed to explain people just as physics explained the machines of the world.
Rene Descartes
This philosopher believed "I think, therefore I am." His focus was figuring out truths through reason and deduction (top-down). He pondered dualism or the mind-body problem, which posits that the mind is a nonphysical substance that is separate from the body.
Immanuel Kant
This philosopher during the Enlightenment countered Locke's previous claim by asserting that our minds were active, not passive.
John Locke
This philosopher is famous for asserting that, upon entering the world, man's mind is a tabula rasa or blank slate. He asserted that what we know and what we are comes from experience. Knowledge was not innate.
Nonequivalent Control Group
This problematic type of control group is used when an equivalent one cannot be isolated.
Natural Selection
This process in which only the fit survive.
Draw-a-person test
This projective test asks the subject to draw a person of each sex and to tell a story about them.
Rosenzweig Picture Frustration (P-F) Study
This projective test consists of cartoons in which one person is frustrating another person. The subject is asked to describe how the frustrated person responds.
Thematic Apperception Test
This projective test is made up of 31 cards (1 blank and 30 with pictures). The pictures show various interpersonal scenes. The subject tells a story about each of the cards, which reveals aspects of her personality. It is often used to measure need for achievement. Needs, press, and personology are terms that go along with interpreting the test.
Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank
This projective test is similar to word association. Subjects finish incomplete sentences.
Rorschach Inkblot Test
This projective test requires that the subject describe what he sees in each of ten inkblots. Scoring is complex. The validity of the test is questionable, but its fame is not.
Word Association Test
This projective test was originally used in conjunction with free-association techniques. A word is called out by a psychologist, and the subject says the next word that comes to mind.
Blood-brain Barrier
This protects the brain by making it extremely difficult for toxic substances to pass from the blood into the brain, since the cells that make up the blood vessels in the brain are very tightly packed.
Radical Behavioralism
This psychological theory is associated with Skinner's operant ideas that behavior is related only to its consequences.
Behavior Theory
This psychological theory is the application of classical and operant conditioning principles to human abnormal behavior. It is a model of behavior based on learning. These psychologists change maladaptive behavior through new learning.
Neobehavioralism
This psychological theory uses Pavlov's classical counterconditioning principles to create new responses to stimuli.
Cognitive Theory
This psychological theory, originated by Aaron Beck, gives conscious thought patterns the starring role in people's lives.The way a person interprets experience, rather than the experience itself, is what's important.
Gestalt Theory
This psychological theory, originated by Fritz Perls, encourages people to stand apart from beliefs, biases, and attitudes derived from the past. The goal is to fully experience and perceive the present in order to become a whole and integrate person.
Anna Freud
This psychologist applied Freudian ideas to child psychology and development.
Paul Ekman
This psychologist argued that humans have six basic emotions: sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust. Cross-cultural studies that show that individuals in a variety of different cultures were able to recognize facial expressions corresponding to those emotions. FACS coding.
Carol Gilligan
This psychologist asserted that Kohlberg's moral development theory was biased towards males because it was dominated by rules, whereas women's morality focuses more on compassion.
Jean Piaget
This psychologist asserted that humans experience an interaction between internal maturation and external experience that creates qualitative change. This adaptation happens through assimilation (fitting new information into existing ideas) and accommodation (modification of cognitive schemata to incorporate new information). He did also dabbled with moral development in children.
Norman Triplett
This psychologist conducted the first official social psychology type experiment in 1897 on social facilitation. He found that cyclists performed better when paced by others than when they rode alone.
Alfred Adler
This psychologist created his own individual psychology. He asserted that people were largely motivated by inferiority. He also created a four-type theory of personality: Choleric (dominant), phlegmatic (dependent), melancholic (withdrawn), and sanguine (healthy).
Hans Eysenck
This psychologist criticized the effectiveness of psychotherapy after analyzing studies that indicated psychotherapy was no more successful than no treatment at all. Other studies have since contradicted this point.
Alfred Binet
This psychologist developed both the concept of the IQ and the first intelligence test.
Henry Murray
This psychologist developed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) which consists of ambiguous story cards. He asserted that people would project their own "needs" onto these cards, such as the need for achievement.
Gordon Allport
This psychologist emphasized an ideographic approach to personality theory. Captures an individual's unique characteristics. He was concerned with the conscious motives governed by the proprium or propriate function (his version of the ego). He developed traits and trait theory
Alice Eagly
This psychologist found an interaction between gender and social status with regard to how easily an individual might be influenced or swayed.
Robert Fantz
This psychologist found that infants prefer relatively complex and sensical displays.
Katherine Nelson
This psychologist found that language really begins to develop with the onset of active speech rather than during the first year of only listening.
Karl Lashley
This psychologist found that memories are stored diffusely in the brain.
Elizabeth Loftus
This psychologist found that memory of traumatic events is altered by the event itself and by the way that questions about the event are phrased.
Philip Zimbardo
This psychologist found that people who were wearing hood were more willing to administer higher levels of shock than people without hoods. He found that normal subjects could easily be transformed into sadistic prison guards. He showed that people will step into some surprising roles. He also thought that antisocial behavior positively correlates with population density.
Kay Deaux
This psychologist found that women's successes at stereotypical "male" tasks are often attributed to luck, while men's successes are often attributed to skill. This suggests that gender is a social construct.
Solomon Asch
This psychologist had subjects listen to the staged "opinion" of others about which lines on a board were equal. The subjects then gave their own opinion. Subjects conformed to the clearly incorrect opinion of others about 33% of the time. The unanimity seemed to be the influential factor.
Hazel Markus
This psychologist has found that Eastern countries value interdependence over independence. These individuals are more likely to demonstrate conformity, modesty, and pessimism. On the other hand, US individuals are more likely to show optimism, self-enhancement, and individuality.
Victor Frankl
This psychologist is a kew figure in existential psychology. It posits that people innately seek meaningfulness in their lives and that perceived meaninglessness is the room of emotional difficulty. He devised logotherapy, a form of therapy that focuses on the person's will to learning.
Kurt Lewin
This psychologist is considered to be the founder of the field of social psychology. He applied Gestalt ideas to social behavior. He conceived field theory, which is the total of influences upon individual behavior. A person's life space is the collection of forces upon the individual. Valence, vector, and barrier are forces in the life space.
Hermann von Helmholtz
This psychologist is famous for a theory of color blindness.
Carl Rogers
This psychologist is famous for his creation of client-centered therapy. The client directs the course of therapy and receives unconditional positive regard from the therapist. This therapy is classified as humanistic because of its positive view of humans. Rogers also made a contribution to research: He was the first to record his sessions for later study and reference.
Stanley Milgram
This psychologist is known for his very famous study in which participants were given the role of "teacher" and ordered by the experimenter to administer painful electric shock to a learner in an adjacent room when the learner answered incorrectly. Experiment explored how people responded to orders of others. Conditions that facilitated conformity were remoteness of the victim, proximity of the experimenter/commander, a legitimate-seeming commander, and the conformity of other subjects. Subjects went along through the entire experiment 66% of the time.
John Dewey
This psychologist is recognized as one of America's most influential philosophers. He attempted to synthesize philosophy and psychology and is best known in psychology for his work on the reflex arc. He denied that animals respond to their environment through disjointed stimulus and response chains. He asserted instead that animals are constantly adapting to their environment rather than processing isolated stimuli. This work was the foundation of functionalism. Drawn from Darwinian ideas, functionalism examined the adaptive nature of the mind and body through observational methods.
Erik Erikson
This psychologist is the best known for a development scheme that addresses the entire life span. He viewed each stage of life as having its own unique psychosocial conflict to resolve.
Melanie Klein
This psychologist pioneered object-relations theory and psychoanalysis with children.
Donald Hebb
This psychologist posited that memory involves changes in the synapses and neural pathways, making a "memory tree."
Neil Miller
This psychologist proved experimentally that abnormal behavior can be learned.
Harry Harlow
This psychologist researched development with rhesus monkeys, specifically social isolation and maternal stimulation. With isolated monkeys, a lack of interaction and socialization hampered their social development. They did not display normal sexual functioning and isolated female moneys lacked maternal behaviors. Attachment: Feeding bottle on wire mother vs. no feeding bottle on terrycloth mother. Infant spent most time with terrycloth mother. Comfort experience rather than through feeding. Demonstrated that monkeys became better at learning tasks as they acquired different learning experiences: "learning to learn."
Anne Anastasi
This psychologist researched intelligence in relation to performance.
Clark Hull
This psychologist secured a place for himself in the history of psychology with his mechanistic behaviorial ideas. Explained motivation using math: Performance= Drive x Habit. In other words, we do what we need to do and we do what has worked best in the past. Kenneth Spence later modified this theory.
R.C. Tyron
This psychologist selectively bred "maze bright" and "maze dull" rats to demonstrate the heritability of behavior.
Rochel Gelman
This psychologist showed that Piaget might have underestimated the cognitive ability of preschoolers. He said they can deal with ideas such as quantity in small sets of objects.
Richard Nisbett
This psychologist showed that we lack awareness for why we do what we do.
William Labov
This psychologist studied "Black" english (ebonics) and found that it had its own complex internal structure. It is not simply incorrect English.
Sandra Bem
This psychologist studied androgyny (possessing both male and female qualities) and created the Bem Sex Role Inventory. Adrogenous individuals also have been found to have higher self-esteem, lower anxiety, and more adaptability than their highly masculine or feminine counterparts.
Mary Ainsworth
This psychologist studied attachment through the use of the strange situation. Found infants cried when a stranger entered the room (stranger anxiety) and when their mothers left the room (separation anxiety). Also found that mothers respond differently to their mothers returning to the room. Securely attached infants ran and clung to their mothers. Avoidant infants ignored or avoided their mothers. Ambivalent infants squirmed or kicked if their mothers tried to comfort them. Securely attached infants more readily explore their environment.
Stuart Valins
This psychologist studied environmental influences on behavior. Architecture matters. Students in long-corridor dorms feel more stressed and withdrawn than students in suite-style dorms.
Rokeach
This psychologist studied racial bias and the similarity of beliefs. People prefer to be with like-minded people more than with like-skinned people. Also, racial bias decreases as attitude similarity between people increases.
Eric Kandel
This psychologist studied sea slug Aplysia and posited that learning and memory are evidenced by changes in synapses and neural pathways.
Charles Osgood
This psychologist studied semantics, or word meanings. He created semantic differential charts, which allowed people to plot the meanings of words on graphs. The results were that people with similar backgrounds and interests plotted words similarly. This indicates that words have similar connotations (implied meaning) for cultures or subcultures. High CULTURAL impact.
Richard Lazarus
This psychologist studied stress and coping. He differentiated between problem-focused coping (which is changing the stressor) and emotion-focused coping (which is changing our response to a stressor).
David Rosenhan
This psychologist studied the effect of diagnostic labels on the perception of behavior. Normal pseudopatients were admitted to hospitals feigning disorders. Once inside, the individual acted normally, but their behaviors were construed as fitting the diagnosis anyway.
Robert Zajonc
This psychologist studied the relationship between birth order and intelligence. He found that firstborns were slightly more intelligent than secondborns and so on. He also found that the more children present in a family, the less intelligent they were likely to be. This relationship seems to also be affected by the spacing of the children, with greater spaces between children leading to higher intelligence.
Diana Baumrind
This psychologist studied the relationship between parenting style and personality development. Authoritarian parents had children who were withdrawn and unhappy. Permissive parents had children who were happy but lacking in self-control and self-reliance. Authoritative parents had self-reliant, self-confident, assertive, friendly, happy, high-functioning kids.
Alfred Adler
This psychologist suggested a personality typology that is more modern than William Sheldon's.
Matina Horner
This psychologist suggested that females shunned masculine-type successes not because of fear of failure or lack of interest, but because they feared success and its negative repercussions, such as resentment and rejection.
John Bowlby
This psychologist suggested that infants are motivated to attach to their mothers for positive reasons (wanting closeness) and for negative reasons (avoiding fear). Emphasized the importance of the mother-infant attachment during the infant's sensitive period to prevent character and stability problems.
George Kelley
This psychologist suggested that personal constructs (conscious ideas about the self, others, and situations) determine personality and behaviors.
Harold Kelley
This psychologist thought that the attributions we make about our actions or those of others are usually accurate. He said we base this on the consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus of the action.
Brenda Miller
This psychologist used about patient HM who was given a lesion of the hippocampus to treat severe epilepsy. While he remembered things from before the surgery, and his short-term memory was still intact, he could not store any new long-term memories.
Hans Eysenck
This psychologist used factor analysis to identify the underlying traits of the two personality-type dimensions- Introversion-extraversion and stable-unstable (neuroticism). These two dimensions formed a cross and, therefore, four quadrants: Phlegmatic, Melancholic, Choleric, and Sanguine.
Morton Deutsch
This psychologist used the prisoner's dilemma and the trucking company game story to illustrate the struggle between cooperation and competition.
William Sheldon
This psychologist used the type theory and devised a system based on somatotypes (body types). He had three physiques and the corresponding personality types.
Thomas Szasz
This psychologist viewed the schizophrenic world as simply misunderstood or artistic. He felt that schizophrenics should not be treated.
Seymour Epstein
This psychologist was critical of personality trait theory.
Walter Mischel
This psychologist was extremely critical of personality trait-theory and of personality tests in general. He felt that situations (not traits) decide actions.
Fritz Heider
This psychologist was founder of the Attribution theory and Balance theory.
Walter Dill Scott
This psychologist was one of the first people to apply psychology principles to business, by employing psychological principles in advertising. He was involved in helping the military to implement psychological testing to aid with personnel selection.
Abraham Maslow
This psychologist was the leader of the humanistic movement in psychology. He is best known not for any contribution to therapy, but for his pyramid-like hierarchy of needs, which really pertains to human motivation. He asserted that humans start at the bottom and work their way up the hierarchy toward self-actualization by satisfying the needs at the previous level.
Elaine Hatfield
This psychologists looked at different kinds of love. The two basic types of love are passionate love and companionate love. Passionate love is intense longing for the union with another and a state of profound physiological arousal. Companionate Love is the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined.
Lee Ross
This psychologists studied subjects who were first made to believe a statement and then later told it was false. The subjects continued to believe the statement if they had processed it and devised their own logical explanation for it.
Research Design
This refers to how a research attempts to examine a hypothesis.
Z-scores
This refers to how many standard deviations a score is from the mean. For a normal distribution, it ranges from -3 to +3.
All-or-none Law
This refers to the fact that once a minimum threshold for stimulation is met, the nerve impulses will be sent. The intensity of the nerve impulse is always the same, regardless of the amount of stimulation.
Depressive Realism
This refers to the finding that depressed people tend to be more realistic about life than the nondepressed.
Culturally competent Interventions
This refers to treatment or prevention programs that recognize and are tailored to cultural differences. Therapists are beginning to be trained for this, which means that they learn the language, customs, and norms of the various cultures they serve. This minimizes Eurocentric bias and assumptions and prevents individuals from having to constantly explain their culture.
Sucking Reflex
This reflex is elicited by placing an object in the baby's mouth.
Head Turning Reflex
This reflex is elicited by stroking the baby's cheek.
Babinski Reflex
This reflex is the fanning of the toes elicited by touching the bottom of the baby's foot.
Palmar Reflex
This reflex is the hand grasping elicited by placing an object in the baby's hand.
Moro Reflex
This reflex is throwing out of arms and legs elicited by loud and frightening noises.
Curvilinear
This relationship is not simple and linear. It looks like a curve line. Ex. Arousal and performance. Low arousal and high arousal lead to poor performance, but a medium amount of arousal leads to successful performance.
Recognition
This requires subjects to recognize things learned in the past. Multiple-choice tests tap into this.
Recall
This requires that subjects generate information on their own.
Hypochondriasis
This somatoform disorder is when one has an irrational concern about having a serious disease.
Conversion Disorder
This somatoform disorder is when psychological problems are converted to bodily symptoms. The symptoms generally relate to voluntary movement and may be manifested as "paralysis" in part of the body. This disorder was formerly known as "hysteria" from Freud's work.
Genital Stage
This stage in Freud's theory is adolescence-adulthood. Hormones reawaken sexual instincts; love object is now nonfamilial.
Anal Stage
This stage in Freud's theory is from 18 months- 3 years. Receives pleasure with the control and release of feces.
Gestalt Psychology
This theory of perception revolves around perception and asserts that people tend to see the world as comprised of organized wholes. The world is understood through top-down processing.
Phallic Stage
This stage in Freud's theory is from 3-6 years. Receives pleasure from self-stimulation of genitals. Boys develop the Oedipus complex (jealous of father, in love with mother). Girls develop an electra complex (angry with mother, in love with father because of penis envy). Both resolve this conflict at the end of this stage by identifying with the same-sex parent. Boys are motivated to suppress their lust by castration anxiety (fear of castration).
Oral Stage
This stage in Freud's theory is from birth- 8 months. Received pleasure orally through sucking, eating, biting.
Latency Stage
This stage in Freud's theory is in adolescence. Repressed sexuality; identification with same-sex friends; focus on school and growing up.
Sensorimotor Stage
This stage of Jean Piaget's Cognitive development is from ages 0-2. First, reflexive behavior cued by sensations; then, circular reactions (repeated behavior intended to manipulate environment); later, development of object permanence (knowing an object exists even which it can no longer be seen); finally, acquiring the use of representation (visualizing or putting words to objects).
Postconventional/ Morality of Self-Accepted Principles
This stage of Kohlberg's moral development consists of Level 5: Beyond the black and white of laws; attentive to rights and social welfare and Level 6: makes decisions based on abstract ethical principles.
Preconventional/Premoral Stage
This stage of Kohlberg's moral development consists of level 1: should avoid punishment and level 2: should gain rewards.
Conventional/Morality of Conformity
This stage of Kohlberg's moral development consists of level 3: should gain approval and level 4: should follow law and authority.
Formal Operational
This stage of Piaget's cognitive development is from 12 years and older. This understanding of abstract relationships, such as logic, ratios, and values.
Preoperational Stage
This stage of Piaget's cognitive development is from 2-7 years old. Egocentric understanding; rapidly acquiring words as symbols for things; inability to perform mental operations, such as causality or true understanding of quantity.
Concrete Operational Stage
This stage of Piaget's cognitive development is from 7-12 years old. Understanding of concrete relationships, such as simple math and quantity; development of conservation (knowing changes in shape are not changes in volume).
Germinal Stage
This stage of gestation lasts for two weeks, during which time the zygote moves down the fallopian tube, grows into 64 cells through cell division, and implants itself into the wall of the uterus.
Fetal Stage
This stage of gestation lasts from the third month until birth. Quantitative growth occurs during this time, as well as movement (called "quickening".)
Embryonic Stage
This stage of gestation lasts until the end of the second month and consists of organ formation.
Korsakoff's Syndrome
This syndrome is caused by Vitamin B deficiency and is the loss of memory and orientation. Sufferers often make up events to fill in the gaps (confabulations). Usually result from years of heavy drinking.
Wernicke's Syndrome
This syndrome is caused by thiamine deficiency is characterized by memory problems and eye dysfunctions. Usually results from years of heavy drinking.
Central Nervous System
This system is made up of two parts: Brain & Spinal Cord.
Variance/ Standard Devation
This tells us how much variation there is among n number of scores in a distribution. If this number is large, then scores are highly dispersed.
Chi-square test
This test is used when the n-cases in a sample are classified into categories or cells. The result tells us whether the groups are significantly different in size. Look at patterns of distributions. Analyze categorical or discrete data. Can also assess the "goodness to fit" of distributions or whether the pattern is what would be expected.
Lie Detector Test
This test measures the arousal of the sympathetic nervous system, which becomes stimulated by lying and anxiety.
Opponent-color/ Opponent-process theory
This theory for color vision proposed by Ewald Hering. It suggests that two types of color-sensitive cells exist: cones respond to blue-yellow colors and cones that respond to red-green. When one color of the pair on a cone is stimulated, the other is inhibited. This is why if you look at something red for a long time, and then focus on a white image, you'll see a green afterimage. This theory seems to be at work in the LATERAL GENICULATE BODY.
Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion/ Emergency Theory
This theory of cognition and emotion asserts that emotions and bodily reactions occur simultaneously. In emotional situations, our body is cued to react in the brain (emotion) and in the body (biological response). We tremble and feel scared in response to danger.
Schachter-Singer Theory
This theory of cognition and emotion asserts that emotions are the product of physiological reactions. But, they claim that cognitions are the missing link in the chain. A particular bodily state is felt. Since many different situations produce similar bodily reactions, how we interpret the state is key. The cognition we attach to a situation determines which emotion we feel in response to physiological arousal. For example, when a situation causes us to tremble, we feel fear or anger depending on the ideas we have about what emotion fits the situation.
James-Lange Theory of Emotion
This theory of cognition and emotion claims that bodily reactions to situations cause emotion. First, physiological responses are present in situations; then they feel the emotion that comes with these bodily reactions. We feel scared because we are trembling.
Nativist Theory
This theory of perception asserts that perception and cognition are largely innate.
Structuralist Theory
This theory of perception asserts that perception is the sum total of sensory input. The work is understood through bottom-up processing.
Psychoanalytic Theory
This theory of psychology views conflict as central to human nature. The conflict is between different drives vying for expression. The individual is motivated by drive reduction. Originally thought the greatest conflict was between libido and ego. But then postulated that it is between Eros (life instinct) and Thanatos (the death instinct).
Type Theory
This theory originally dominated personality theory. As far back as Hippocrates, people were placed in personality categories. In the 1800's, phrenology was used to discern personality.
Rational-Emotive Theory
This theory originated by Albert Ellis includes elements of cognitive, behavioral, and emotion theory. Ellis believed that intertwined thoughts and feelings produce behavior.
Existential Theory
This theory originated by Victor Frankel revolves around age-old philosophical issues, particularly the issue of meaning. A person's greatest struggles are those of being vs. nonbeing and of meaningfulness vs. meaninglessness. An individual is constantly striving to rise above a simple behavioral existence and toward a genuine and meaningful existence. Frankl called this "will to meaning." Rollo May is a major contributor.
Interference Theory
This theory suggests that competing information blocks retrieval.
Social Exchange Theory
This theory suggests that humans interact in ways that maximize reward and minimize costs.
Gain-Loss Theory
This theory suggests that people act in order to obtain gain and avoid loss. People feel more favorably toward situations that start out negatively but end positively (even when compared to completely positive situations).
J.A. Swet's Theory of Signal Detection (TSD)
This theory suggests that subjects detect stimuli not only because they can but also because they want to. Factors motivation into picture. Individuals are partly motivated by rewards and costs in detection. This is a response bias. The interplay between response bias and stimulus intensity determines responses.
Electroconvulsive Shock Therapy (ECT)
This therapy delivers electric current to the brain and induces convulsions. It is an effective interventions for severely depressed patients.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
This therapy employs principles from cognitive and behavioral theory.
Object Relations Therapy
This therapy is when the therapist uses the patient's transference to help him or her resolve problems that were the result of previous relationships.
Stress-Inoculation Training
This therapy was developed by Donald Meichenbaum. It prepares people for foreseeable stressors.
Two-way ANOVA
This type of ANOVA can test the effects of two independent variables or treatment conditions at once.
One-way ANOVA
This type of ANOVA simply tests whether the means on one outcome or dependent variable are significantly different across groups.
Dark Adaptation
This type of adaptation takes the longest because it is the result of regeneration of retinal pigment.
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)
This type of antidepressants act only on serotonin. They are the most frequently prescribed antidepressants because they have fewer side effects than the others. Ex. Prozac, Zoloft.
Superstitious Behavior
This type of behavior occurs when someone "learns" that a specific action causes an event, when in reality the two are unrelated.
Experimental Design
This type of design takes place in a controlled setting. In order to draw causal conclusions, the researcher must have independent variable, dependent variable, and minimize confounding variables.
Incidental Learning
This type of learning is measured through presenting subjects with items they are not supposed to try to memorize and then testing for learning.
Serial-anticipation Learning
This type of learning is similar to serial learning, however, instead of being asked to recall the entire list at once, the subject is asked to recall one item at a time.
Scaffold Learning
This type of learning occurs when a teacher encourages the student to learn independently and only provides assistance with topics or concepts that are beyond the student's capability.
Episodic Memory
This type of memory consists of details, events, and discrete knowledge.
Semantic Memory
This type of memory consists of general knowledge of the world.
Long-term Memory
This type of memory is capable of permanent retention. Most items are learned semantically, for meaning. It is measured by recognition, recall, and savings.
Procedural Memory
This type of memory is knowing "how to" do something.
Declarative Memory
This type of memory is knowing a fact.
Explicit Memory
This type of memory is knowing something and being consciously aware of knowing it, such as knowing a fact.
Implicit Memory
This type of memory is knowing something without being aware of knowing it.
Short-term Memory
This type of memory is temporary and lasts for seconds or minutes. It is thought to be largely auditory and items are coded phonologically.
Sensory Memory
This type of memory only lasts for seconds. It forms the connection between perception and memory.
Projective Tests
This type of personality test allows the subject to create his own answer, thus facilitating the expression of conflicts, needs, and impulses. The content of the response is interpreted by the test administrator. Some are scored more objectively than others.
Existential Therapy
This type of therapy is based on the idea that the response to perceived meaninglessness in life is neurosis or neurotic anxiety. This is talking therapy in which deep questions relating to the client's perception and meaning of existence are discussed. The goal is to increase a client's sense of being and meaningfulness. This will alleviate neurotic anxiety. Criticism: Too abstract for severely disturbed individuals.
Client-Centered Therapy
This type of therapy is humanistic in that it has an optimistic outlook on human nature. Its main tenet is that individuals have an actualizing tendency that can direct them out of control and toward their full potential. People who lack congruence between their real selves and their conscious self-concept develop psychological tension. This therapy is directed by the patient. The therapist is non-directive. The therapist provides a trusting atmosphere in which the client can engage in self-directed growth. Evidence of growth includes a congruent self-concept, positive self-regard, an internal locus-of-evaluation, and willingness to experience. Criticism: He did not use diagnostic tools.
Play Therapy
This type of therapy is used with child clients. During play, a child client may convey emotions, situations, or disturbances that might otherwise go unexpressed.
Interval Variables
This type of variables are capable of showing order and spacing because equal spaces lie between the values. These variables, however, do not include a real zero. Ex. Temperature is order and equally spaced but has an arbitrary zero. There is no point that signifies the absence of temperature.
Nominal Variables
This type of variables has no order or relationship between each other other than to separate them into groups. Ex. male vs. female.
Ratio Variables
This type of variables have order, equal intervals, and a real zero. Ex. Age.
Ordinal Variables
This type of variables imply order. Variables need to be arranged by order. Nothing else can be known because the variables are not necessarily equally spaced. Ex. Marathon finishers. But we do not know how far apart their finishing times were.
Phenomenological view
This view of personality theory focuses on the individual's unique self and experiences.
Dorothea Dix
This women spearheaded the 19th century movement to provide better care for the mentally ill through hospitalization.
Sensory, Short term, Long term
Three stages of memory
Prosody
Tone inflections, accents, and other aspects of pronunciation that carry meaning.
Pacinian Corpuscles
Touch receptors that respond quickly to displacements of skin.
Meninges
Tough connective tissues that cover and protect the brain and spinal cord.
Axon
Transmits impulses of the neuron. Bundles of these are nerve fibers, also known as white matter. The wider a nerve fiber, the faster its conduction of impulses.
Evidence-based Treatment
Treatment for mental health problems that has been shown to produce results in empirical research studies. Many clinics and researchers argue that only treatment that has been shown to work in research is ethical. Other clinics and researchers argue that controlled experiments are nothing like a real treatment environment and so the results are not as useful as one might suppose.
Convergent thinking
Type of thinking used to find the one solution to a problem. Math is an example. Defined by J.P. Guildford.
Divergent Thinking
Type of thinking used when more than one possibility exists in a situation. Playing chess or creative thinking are examples.
Backward Masking
Ulric Neisser found that when subjects are exposed to a bright flash of light or a new pattern before the iconic image fades, the first image will be erased. This works for the auditory system as well.
Alexia
Unable to read
Agraphia
Unable to write
Franz Gall
Used ideas from physiology and philosophy to create a "science" later termed phrenology. Phrenology was the idea that the nature of a person could be known by examining the shape and contours of the skull. Because he saw the brain as the seat of the soul, certain features on the head were said to be indicators of particular personality traits. J. Spurzheim carried on his work even though other scientists proved the theory incorrect.
Representative Heuristic
Using a shortcut about typical assumptions to guess at an answer rather than relying on actual logic. For example, one might assume that a woman who is 6 feet tall and beautiful is more likely to be a model than a lawyer, even thought there are many more lawyers than models.
Median
Value that lies in center of ordered values.
Paired-associate Learning
We use this type of learning when learning a foreign language. Ex. We pair spanish words with english words.
Gestalt Psychology
Wertheimer, Kohler, and Koffka forged this school of psychology around the early 1900's in reaction to attempts to study the mind and experience in distinct parts. Asserts that in perception the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Illusory Correlation
When a relationship is inferred when there actually is none. For example, many people insist a relationship exists between physical and personality characteristics despite evidence that no such relationship exists.
Holophrastic Speech
When a young child uses one word (holophrases) to convey a whole sentence. Ex. "Me" may mean "give that to me."
Ingroup/Outgroup Bias
When individuals in one group think their members have more positive qualities and fewer negative qualities than members of the other group even though the qualities are the same in each. This is the basis for prejudice.
Pluralistic Ignorance
When most of the people in a group privately disagree with something but incorrectly believe that most people in the group agree with it.
Acquiescence
When people agree with opposing statements.
Availability Heuristic
When people think there is higher proportion of one thing in a group than there really is because examples of that one thing come to mind more easily. For example, if someone has read a list of names, half of which were names of celebrities and the other half of which were names randomly selected from a phone book, the person would later report that there were more celebrities than phone book names on the list, because the celebrity names were easier to remember.
Convenience Sampling
When random sampling is not feasible, people use this type of sampling Ex. students in an intro to psych class).
Placebo Effect
When subject behave differently just because they think that they have received the treatment substance or condition.
Demand characteristics
When subjects act in ways they think the experimenter wants or expects.
Hawthorne Effect
When subjects alter their behavior because they are being observed. This also applies to workers altering their behavior for the same reason.
Social desirability
When subjects do and say what they think puts them in a favorable light
Selective Attrition
When the subjects that drop out of an experiment are different from those that remain. The remaining sample is no longer random.
Reciprocal Socialization
When two parties adapt to or are socialized to each other. For example, when parents pick up new lingo, such as "phat" and when children learn to respect rules and traditions.
Dysthymic Disorder
With this disorder, symptoms of major depressive disorder are present more days than not for more than two years, but there is never an actual depressive episode.
Unconditioned Stimulus
Without conditioning, this stimulus elicits a response.
Decision Making
Working on solving a problem until an acceptable solution is found. Common techniques: list of pros and cons, flipping a coin, divination (ex. tarot cards), and consulting an expert.
Overextension
generalizing with names for things. Ex. calling any furry thing a doggie.
Dendrites
neuron branches that receive impulses.
Overregularization
overapplication of grammar rules. Ex. I founded a toy.
Psycholinguistics
study of the psychology of language.
Undergeneralization
the failure to generalize a stimulus.
The Premack Principle
the idea that people are motivated to do what they do not want to do by rewarding themselves afterward with something they like to do.
Abnormal Psychology
the study of behavior that is deemed not normal.
T-scores
the transformation of a z-score in which the mean is 50 and the standard deviation is 10. Thus, the formula for calculating is 10(Z) + 50.
Surface Structure
the way that words are organized.
