Vocabulary
- 5α-reductase
- An enzyme required to convert testosterone to 5α-dihydrotestosterone.
- Ablation
- Surgical removal of brain tissue.
- Absolute stability
- Consistency in the level or amount of a personality attribute over time.
- Absolute threshold
- The smallest amount of stimulation needed for detection by a sense.
- Action Potential
- A transient all-or-nothing electrical current that is conducted down the axon when the membrane potential reaches the threshold of excitation.
- Active person–environment transactions
- The interplay between individuals and their contextual circumstances that occurs whenever individuals play a key role in seeking out, selecting, or otherwise manipulating aspects of their environment.
- Adaptation
- The fact that after people first react to good or bad events, sometimes in a strong way, their feelings and reactions tend to dampen down over time and they return toward their original level of subjective well-being.
- Age effects
- Differences in personality between groups of different ages that are related to maturation and development instead of birth cohort differences.
- Aggression
- Any behavior intended to harm another person who does not want to be harmed.
- Aggression
- A form of social interaction that includes threat, attack, and fighting.
- Agnosia
- Loss of the ability to perceive stimuli.
- Agoraphobia
- A sort of anxiety disorder distinguished by feelings that a place is uncomfortable or may be unsafe because it is significantly open or crowded.
- Agreeableness
- A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be compassionate, cooperative, warm, and caring to others. People low in agreeableness tend to be rude, hostile, and to pursue their own interests over those of others.
- Alogia
- A reduction in the amount of speech and/or increased pausing before the initiation of speech.
- Ambulatory assessment
- An overarching term to describe methodologies that assess the behavior, physiology, experience, and environments of humans in naturalistic settings.
- Anchoring
- The bias to be affected by an initial anchor, even if the anchor is arbitrary, and to insufficiently adjust our judgments away from that anchor.
- Anhedonia
- Loss of interest or pleasure in activities one previously found enjoyable or rewarding.
- Anhedonia/amotivation
- A reduction in the drive or ability to take the steps or engage in actions necessary to obtain the potentially positive outcome.
- Animism
- The belief that everyone and everything had a “soul” and that mental illness was due to animistic causes, for example, evil spirits controlling an individual and his/her behavior.
- Anomalous face overgeneralization hypothesis
- Proposes that the attractiveness halo effect is a by-product of reactions to low fitness. People overgeneralize the adaptive tendency to use low attractiveness as an indicator of negative traits, like low health or intelligence, and mistakenly use higher-than-average attractiveness as an indicator of high health or intelligence.
- Anosmia
- Loss of the ability to smell.
- Anterograde amnesia
- Inability to form new memories for facts and events after the onset of amnesia.
- A pervasive pattern of disregard and violation of the rights of others. These behaviors may be aggressive or destructive and may involve breaking laws or rules, deceit or theft.
- Anxiety
- A mood state characterized by negative affect, muscle tension, and physical arousal in which a person apprehensively anticipates future danger or misfortune.
- Aromatase
- An enzyme that converts androgens into estrogens.
- Asylum
- A place of refuge or safety established to confine and care for the mentally ill; forerunners of the mental hospital or psychiatric facility.
- Attachment behavioral system
- A motivational system selected over the course of evolution to maintain proximity between a young child and his or her primary attachment figure.
- Attachment behaviors
- Behaviors and signals that attract the attention of a primary attachment figure and function to prevent separation from that individual or to reestablish proximity to that individual (e.g., crying, clinging).
- Attachment figure
- Someone who functions as the primary safe haven and secure base for an individual. In childhood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a parent. In adulthood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a romantic partner.
- Attachment patterns
- (also called “attachment styles” or “attachment orientations”) Individual differences in how securely (vs. insecurely) people think, feel, and behave in attachment relationships.
- Attraction
- A connection between personality attributes and aspects of the environment that occurs because individuals with particular traits are drawn to certain environments.
- Attractiveness halo effect
- The tendency to associate attractiveness with a variety of positive traits, such as being more sociable, intelligent, competent, and healthy.
- Attributional style
- The tendency by which a person infers the cause or meaning of behaviors or events.
- Attrition
- A connection between personality attributes and aspects of the environment that occurs because individuals with particular traits drop out from certain environments.
- Audience design
- Constructing utterances to suit the audience’s knowledge.
- Audition
- Ability to process auditory stimuli. Also called hearing.
- Auditory canal
- Tube running from the outer ear to the middle ear.
- Auditory hair cells
- Receptors in the cochlea that transduce sound into electrical potentials.
- Autobiographical memory
- Memory for the events of one’s life.
- Automatic
- Automatic biases are unintended, immediate, and irresistible.
- Availability heuristic
- The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the ease with which relevant instances come to mind.
- Aversive racism
- Aversive racism is unexamined racial bias that the person does not intend and would reject, but that avoids inter-racial contact.
- Avoidant
- A pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation.
- Awareness
- A conscious experience or the capability of having conscious experiences, which is distinct from self-awareness, the conscious understanding of one’s own existence and individuality.
- Axial plane
- See “horizontal plane.”
- Axon
- Part of the neuron that extends off the soma, splitting several times to connect with other neurons; main output of the neuron.
- Balancing between goals
- Shifting between a focal goal and other goals or temptations by putting less effort into the focal goal—usually with the intention of coming back to the focal goal at a later point in time.
- Basal ganglia
- Subcortical structures of the cerebral hemispheres involved in voluntary movement.
- Basic-level category
- The neutral, preferred category for a given object, at an intermediate level of specificity.
- Behaviorism
- The study of behavior.
- Biases
- The systematic and predictable mistakes that influence the judgment of even very talented human beings.
- Big Five
- Five, broad general traits that are included in many prominent models of personality. The five traits are neuroticism (those high on this trait are prone to feeling sad, worried, anxious, and dissatisfied with themselves), extraversion (high scorers are friendly, assertive, outgoing, cheerful, and energetic), openness to experience (those high on this trait are tolerant, intellectually curious, imaginative, and artistic), agreeableness (high scorers are polite, considerate, cooperative, honest, and trusting), and conscientiousness (those high on this trait are responsible, cautious, organized, disciplined, and achievement-oriented).
- Binocular disparity
- Difference is images processed by the left and right eyes.
- Binocular vision
- Our ability to perceive 3D and depth because of the difference between the images on each of our retinas.
- Biological vulnerability
- A specific genetic and neurobiological factor that might predispose someone to develop anxiety disorders.
- A model in which the interaction of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors is seen as influencing the development of the individual.
- Birth cohort
- Individuals born in a particular year or span of time.
- Blatant biases
- Blatant biases are conscious beliefs, feelings, and behavior that people are perfectly willing to admit, are mostly hostile, and openly favor their own group.
- Blocking
- In classical conditioning, the finding that no conditioning occurs to a stimulus if it is combined with a previously conditioned stimulus during conditioning trials. Suggests that information, surprise value, or prediction error is important in conditioning.
- Blood Alcohol Content (BAC)
- Blood Alcohol Content (BAC): a measure of the percentage of alcohol found in a person’s blood. This measure is typically the standard used to determine the extent to which a person is intoxicated, as in the case of being too impaired to drive a vehicle.
- Borderline
- A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity.
- “Bottom-up” or external causes of happiness
- Situational factors outside the person that influence his or her subjective well-being, such as good and bad events and circumstances such as health and wealth.
- Bottom-up processing
- Building up to perceptual experience from individual pieces.
- Bounded awareness
- The systematic ways in which we fail to notice obvious and important information that is available to us.
- Bounded ethicality
- The systematic ways in which our ethics are limited in ways we are not even aware of ourselves.
- Bounded rationality
- Model of human behavior that suggests that humans try to make rational decisions but are bounded due to cognitive limitations.
- Bounded self-interest
- The systematic and predictable ways in which we care about the outcomes of others.
- Bounded willpower
- The tendency to place greater weight on present concerns rather than future concerns.
- Brain stem
- The “trunk” of the brain comprised of the medulla, pons, midbrain, and diencephalon.
- Brain Stem
- The “trunk” of the brain comprised of the medulla, pons, midbrain, and diencephalon.
- Broca’s Area
- An area in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere. Implicated in language production.
- Callosotomy
- Surgical procedure in which the corpus callosum is severed (used to control severe epilepsy).
- Cartesian catastrophe
- The idea that mental processes taking place outside conscious awareness are impossible.
- Case study
- A thorough study of a patient (or a few patients) with naturally occurring lesions.
- Catatonia
- Behaviors that seem to reflect a reduction in responsiveness to the external environment. This can include holding unusual postures for long periods of time, failing to respond to verbal or motor prompts from another person, or excessive and seemingly purposeless motor activity.
- Categorize
- To sort or arrange different items into classes or categories.
- Category
- A set of entities that are equivalent in some way. Usually the items are similar to one another.
- Catharsis
- Greek term that means to cleanse or purge. Applied to aggression, catharsis is the belief that acting aggressively or even viewing aggression purges angry feelings and aggressive impulses into harmless channels.
- Cathartic method
- A therapeutic procedure introduced by Breuer and developed further by Freud in the late 19th century whereby a patient gains insight and emotional relief from recalling and reliving traumatic events.
- Cause-and-effect
- Related to whether we say one variable is causing changes in the other variable, versus other variables that may be related to these two variables.
- Central Nervous System
- The portion of the nervous system that includes the brain and spinal cord.
- Central route to persuasion
- Persuasion that employs direct, relevant, logical messages.
- Cerebellum
- The distinctive structure at the back of the brain, Latin for “small brain.”
- Cerebellum
- The distinctive structure at the back of the brain, Latin for “small brain.”
- Cerebral cortex
- The outermost gray matter of the cerebrum; the distinctive convoluti characteristic of the mammalian brain.
- Cerebral hemispheres
- The cerebral cortex, underlying white matter, and subcortical structures.
- Cerebrum
- Usually refers to the cerebral cortex and associated white matter, but in some texts includes the subcortical structures.
- Cerebrum
- Usually refers to the cerebral cortex and associated white matter, but in some texts includes the subcortical structures.
- Character strength
- A positive trait or quality deemed to be morally good and is valued for itself as well as for promoting individual and collective well-being.
- Chemical senses
- Our ability to process the environmental stimuli of smell and taste.
- Chromosomal sex
- The sex of an individual as determined by the sex chromosomes (typically XX or XY) received at the time of fertilization.
- Chronic stress
- Discrete or related problematic events and conditions which persist over time and result in prolonged activation of the biological and/or psychological stress response (e.g., unemployment, ongoing health difficulties, marital discord).
- Chutes and Ladders
- A numerical board game that seems to be useful for building numerical knowledge.
- Circadian Rhythm
- Circadian Rhythm: The physiological sleep-wake cycle. It is influenced by exposure to sunlight as well as daily schedule and activity. Biologically, it includes changes in body temperature, blood pressure and blood sugar.
- Classical conditioning
- The procedure in which an initially neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus, or CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (or US). The result is that the conditioned stimulus begins to elicit a conditioned response (CR). Classical conditioning is nowadays considered important as both a behavioral phenomenon and as a method to study simple associative learning. Same as Pavlovian conditioning.
- Cochlea
- Spiral bone structure in the inner ear containing auditory hair cells.
- Cognitive psychology
- The study of mental processes.
- Cohort effects
- Differences in personality that are related to historical and social factors unique to individuals born in a particular year.
- Collectivism
- Belief system that emphasizes the duties and obligations that each person has toward others.
- Commitment
- The sense that a goal is both valuable and attainable
- Common ground
- Information that is shared by people who engage in a conversation.
- Concept
- The mental representation of a category.
- Concrete operations stage
- Piagetian stage between ages 7 and 12 when children can think logically about concrete situations but not engage in systematic scientific reasoning.
- Conditioned compensatory response
- In classical conditioning, a conditioned response that opposes, rather than is the same as, the unconditioned response. It functions to reduce the strength of the unconditioned response. Often seen in conditioning when drugs are used as unconditioned stimuli.
- Conditioned response
- A learned reaction following classical conditioning, or the process by which an event that automatically elicits a response is repeatedly paired with another neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus), resulting in the ability of the neutral stimulus to elicit the same response on its own.
- Conditioned response (CR)
- The response that is elicited by the conditioned stimulus after classical conditioning has taken place.
- Conditioned stimulus (CS)
- An initially neutral stimulus (like a bell, light, or tone) that elicits a conditioned response after it has been associated with an unconditioned stimulus.
- Cones
- Photoreceptors of the retina sensitive to color. Located primarily in the fovea.
- Confidence interval
- An interval of plausible values for a population parameter; the interval of values within the margin of error of a statistic.
- Conformity
- Changing one’s attitude or behavior to match a perceived social norm.
- Confounds
- Factors that undermine the ability to draw causal inferences from an experiment.
- Conscientiousness
- A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be careful, organized, hardworking, and to follow rules.
- Conscious
- Having knowledge of something external or internal to oneself; being aware of and responding to one’s surroundings.
- Conscious experience
- The first-person perspective of a mental event, such as feeling some sensory input, a memory, an idea, an emotion, a mood, or a continuous temporal sequence of happenings.
- Conscious goal activation
- When a person is fully aware of contextual influences and resulting goal-directed behavior.
- Consciousness
- Consciousness: the awareness or deliberate perception of a stimulus
- Consciousness
- Awareness of ourselves and our environment.
- Conservation problems
- Problems pioneered by Piaget in which physical transformation of an object or set of objects changes a perceptually salient dimension but not the quantity that is being asked about.
- Consolidation
- The process occurring after encoding that is believed to stabilize memory traces.
- Consolidation
- Process by which a memory trace is stabilized and transformed into a more durable form.
- Contemplative science
- A research area concerned with understanding how contemplative practices such as meditation can affect individuals, including changes in their behavior, their emotional reactivity, their cognitive abilities, and their brains. Contemplative science also seeks insights into conscious experience that can be gained from first-person observations by individuals who have gained extraordinary expertise in introspection.
- Context
- Stimuli that are in the background whenever learning occurs. For instance, the Skinner box or room in which learning takes place is the classic example of a context. However, “context” can also be provided by internal stimuli, such as the sensory effects of drugs (e.g., being under the influence of alcohol has stimulus properties that provide a context) and mood states (e.g., being happy or sad). It can also be provided by a specific period in time—the passage of time is sometimes said to change the “temporal context.”
- Continuous development
- Ways in which development occurs in a gradual incremental manner, rather than through sudden jumps.
- Continuous distributions
- Characteristics can go from low to high, with all different intermediate values possible. One does not simply have the trait or not have it, but can possess varying amounts of it.
- Contralateral
- Literally “opposite side”; used to refer to the fact that the two hemispheres of the brain process sensory information and motor commands for the opposite side of the body (e.g., the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body).
- Contralateral
- Literally “opposite side”; used to refer to the fact that the two hemispheres of the brain process sensory information and motor commands for the opposite side of the body (e.g., the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body).
- Converging evidence
- Similar findings reported from multiple studies using different methods.
- Coronal plane
- A slice that runs from head to foot; brain slices in this plane are similar to slices of a loaf of bread, with the eyes being the front of the loaf.
- Corpus Callosum
- The thick bundle of nerve cells that connect the two hemispheres of the brain and allow them to communicate.
- Correlation
- Measures the association between two variables, or how they go together.
- Corresponsive principle
- The idea that personality traits often become matched with environmental conditions such that an individual’s social context acts to accentuate and reinforce their personality attributes.
- Cross-sectional study/design
- A research design that uses a group of individuals with different ages (and birth cohorts) assessed at a single point in time.
- Crowds
- Adolescent peer groups characterized by shared reputations or images.
- Cue overload principle
- The principle stating that the more memories that are associated to a particular retrieval cue, the less effective the cue will be in prompting retrieval of any one memory.
- Cues
- Cues: a stimulus that has a particular significance to the perceiver (e.g., a sight or a sound that has special relevance to the person who saw or heard it)
- Cultural display rules
- These are rules that are learned early in life that specify the management and modification of emotional expressions according to social circumstances. Cultural display rules can work in a number of different ways. For example, they can require individuals to express emotions “as is” (i.e., as they feel them), to exaggerate their expressions to show more than what is actually felt, to tone down their expressions to show less than what is actually felt, to conceal their feelings by expressing something else, or to show nothing at all.
- Cultural relativism
- The idea that cultural norms and values of a society can only be understood on their own terms or in their own context.
- Cumulative continuity principle
- The generalization that personality attributes show increasing stability with age and experience.
- Daily Diary method
- A methodology where participants complete a questionnaire about their thoughts, feelings, and behavior of the day at the end of the day.
- Dark adaptation
- Adjustment of eye to low levels of light.
- Day reconstruction method (DRM)
- A methodology where participants describe their experiences and behavior of a given day retrospectively upon a systematic reconstruction on the following day.
- Decay
- The fading of memories with the passage of time.
- Declarative memory
- Conscious memories for facts and events.
- Defeminization
- The removal of the potential for female traits.
- Deliberative phase
- The first of the two basic stages of self-regulation in which individuals decide which of many potential goals to pursue at a given point in time.
- Delusions
- False beliefs that are often fixed, hard to change even in the presence of conflicting information, and often culturally influenced in their content.
- Demasculinization
- The removal of the potential for male traits.
- Dendrites
- Part of a neuron that extends away from the cell body and is the main input to the neuron.
- Dependent
- A pervasive and excessive need to be taken care of that leads to submissive and clinging behavior and fears of separation.
- Dependent variable
- The variable the researcher measures but does not manipulate in an experiment.
- Depressants
- Depressants: a class of drugs that slow down the body’s physiological and mental processes.
- Depth perception
- The ability to actively perceive the distance from oneself of objects in the environment.
- Descriptive norm
- The perception of what most people do in a given situation.
- Deviant peer contagion
- The spread of problem behaviors within groups of adolescents.
- Diagnostic criteria
- The specific criteria used to determine whether an individual has a specific type of psychiatric disorder. Commonly used diagnostic criteria are included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, 5th Edition (DSM-5) and the Internal Classification of Disorders, Version 9 (ICD-9).
- Dichotic listening
- A task in which different audio streams are presented to each ear. Typically, people are asked to monitor one stream while ignoring the other.
- Dichotic listening
- An experimental task in which two messages are presented to different ears.
- Differential stability
- Consistency in the rank-ordering of personality across two or more measurement occasions.
- Differential susceptibility
- Genetic factors that make individuals more or less responsive to environmental experiences.
- Differential threshold (or difference threshold)
- The smallest difference needed in order to differentiate two stimuli. (See Just Noticeable Difference (JND))
- Diffuse optical imaging (DOI)
- A neuroimaging technique that infers brain activity by measuring changes in light as it is passed through the skull and surface of the brain.
- Diffuse Optical Imaging (DOI)
- A neuroimaging technique that infers brain activity by measuring changes in light as it is passed through the skull and surface of the brain.
- Dihydrotestosterone (DHT)
- A primary androgen that is an androgenic steroid product of testosterone and binds strongly to androgen receptors.
- Discontinuous development
- Discontinuous development
- Discrimination
- Discrimination is behavior that advantages or disadvantages people merely based on their group membership.
- Discriminative stimulus
- In operant conditioning, a stimulus that signals whether the response will be reinforced. It is said to “set the occasion” for the operant response.
- Disorganized behavior
- Behavior or dress that is outside the norm for almost all subcultures. This would include odd dress, odd makeup (e.g., lipstick outlining a mouth for 1 inch), or unusual rituals (e.g., repetitive hand gestures).
- Disorganized speech
- Speech that is difficult to follow, either because answers do not clearly follow questions or because one sentence does not logically follow from another.
- Dissociation
- Dissociation: the heightened focus on one stimulus or thought such that many other things around you are ignored; a disconnect between one’s awareness of their environment and the one object the person is focusing on
- Dissociative amnesia
- Loss of autobiographical memories from a period in the past in the absence of brain injury or disease.
- Distinctiveness
- The principle that unusual events (in a context of similar events) will be recalled and recognized better than uniform (nondistinctive) events.
- Distractor task
- A task that is designed to make a person think about something unrelated to an impending decision.
- Distribution
- The pattern of variation in data.
- Divided attention
- The ability to flexibly allocate attentional resources between two or more concurrent tasks.
- Dopamine
- A neurotransmitter in the brain that is thought to play an important role in regulating the function of other neurotransmitters.
- Dorsal pathway
- Pathway of visual processing. The “where” pathway.
- Drive state
- Affective experiences that motivate organisms to fulfill goals that are generally beneficial to their survival and reproduction.
- Early adversity
- Single or multiple acute or chronic stressful events, which may be biological or psychological in nature (e.g., poverty, abuse, childhood illness or injury), occurring during childhood and resulting in a biological and/or psychological stress response.
- Ecological momentary assessment
- An overarching term to describe methodologies that repeatedly sample participants’ real-world experiences, behavior, and physiology in real time.
- Ecological validity
- The degree to which a study finding has been obtained under conditions that are typical for what happens in everyday life.
- EEG
- (Electroencephalography) The recording of the brain’s electrical activity over a period of time by placing electrodes on the scalp.
- Ego defenses
- Mental strategies, rooted in the ego, that we use to manage anxiety when we feel threatened (some examples include repression, denial, sublimation, and reaction formation).
- Ego-depletion
- The exhaustion of physiological and/or psychological resources following the completion of effortful self-control tasks, which subsequently leads to reduction in the capacity to exert more self-control.
- Electroencephalography (EEG)
- A neuroimaging technique that measures electrical brain activity via multiple electrodes on the scalp.
- Electroencephalography (EEG)
- A neuroimaging technique that measures electrical brain activity via multiple electrodes on the scalp.
- Electronically activated recorder, or EAR
- A methodology where participants wear a small, portable audio recorder that intermittently records snippets of ambient sounds around them.
- Emerging adulthood
- A new life stage extending from approximately ages 18 to 25, during which the foundation of an adult life is gradually constructed in love and work. Primary features include identity explorations, instability, focus on self-development, feeling incompletely adult, and a broad sense of possibilities.
- Empirical methods
- Approaches to inquiry that are tied to actual measurement and observation.
- Empiricism
- The belief that knowledge comes from experience.
- Encoding
- Process by which information gets into memory.
- Encoding
- The initial experience of perceiving and learning events.
- Encoding specificity principle
- The hypothesis that a retrieval cue will be effective to the extent that information encoded from the cue overlaps or matches information in the engram or memory trace.
- Endocrine gland
- A ductless gland from which hormones are released into the blood system in response to specific biological signals.
- Engrams
- A term indicating the change in the nervous system representing an event; also, memory trace.
- Episodic memory
- The ability to learn and retrieve new information or episodes in one’s life.
- Episodic memory
- Memory for events in a particular time and place.
- Estrogen
- Any of the C18 class of steroid hormones, so named because of the estrus-generating properties in females. Biologically important estrogens include estradiol and estriol.
- Ethics
- Professional guidelines that offer researchers a template for making decisions that protect research participants from potential harm and that help steer scientists away from conflicts of interest or other situations that might compromise the integrity of their research.
- Etiology
- The causal description of all of the factors that contribute to the development of a disorder or illness.
- Eugenics
- The practice of selective breeding to promote desired traits.
- Euphoria
- Euphoria: an intense feeling of pleasure, excitement or happiness.
- Eureka experience
- When a creative product enters consciousness.
- Evocative person–environment transactions
- The interplay between individuals and their contextual circumstances that occurs whenever attributes of the individual draw out particular responses from others in their environment.
- Exemplar
- An example in memory that is labeled as being in a particular category.
- Experience-sampling method
- A methodology where participants report on their momentary thoughts, feelings, and behaviors at different points in time over the course of a day.
- Experimenter expectations
- When the experimenter’s expectations influence the outcome of a study.
- External cues
- Stimuli in the outside world that serve as triggers for anxiety or as reminders of past traumatic events.
- External validity
- The degree to which a finding generalizes from the specific sample and context of a study to some larger population and broader settings.
- Extinction
- Decrease in the strength of a learned behavior that occurs when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus (in classical conditioning) or when the behavior is no longer reinforced (in instrumental conditioning). The term describes both the procedure (the US or reinforcer is no longer presented) as well as the result of the procedure (the learned response declines). Behaviors that have been reduced in strength through extinction are said to be “extinguished.”
- Extraversion
- A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be sociable, outgoing, active, and assertive.
- Extrinsic motivation
- Motivation stemming from the benefits associated with achieving a goal such as obtaining a monetary reward.
- Facets
- Broad personality traits can be broken down into narrower facets or aspects of the trait. For example, extraversion has several facets, such as sociability, dominance, risk-taking and so forth.
- Factor analysis
- A statistical technique for grouping similar things together according to how highly they are associated.
- False memories
- Memory for an event that never actually occurred, implanted by experimental manipulation or other means.
- Fear conditioning
- A type of classical or Pavlovian conditioning in which the conditioned stimulus (CS) is associated with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US), such as a foot shock. As a consequence of learning, the CS comes to evoke fear. The phenomenon is thought to be involved in the development of anxiety disorders in humans.
- Feminization
- The induction of female traits.
- Fight or flight response
- A biological reaction to alarming stressors that prepares the body to resist or escape a threat.
- First-person perspective
- Observations made by individuals about their own conscious experiences, also known as introspection or a subjective point of view. Phenomenology refers to the description and investigation of such observations.
- Five-Factor Model
- Five broad domains or dimensions that are used to describe human personality.
- Five-Factor Model
- (also called the Big Five) The Five-Factor Model is a widely accepted model of personality traits. Advocates of the model believe that much of the variability in people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can be summarized with five broad traits. These five traits are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
- Fixed action patterns (FAPs)
- Sequences of behavior that occur in exactly the same fashion, in exactly the same order, every time they are elicited.
- Flashback
- Sudden, intense re-experiencing of a previous event, usually trauma-related.
- Flashbulb memory
- Vivid personal memories of receiving the news of some momentous (and usually emotional) event.
- Flashbulb memory
- A highly detailed and vivid memory of an emotionally significant event.
- Flat affect
- A reduction in the display of emotions through facial expressions, gestures, and speech intonation.
- Flavor
- The combination of smell and taste.
- Flexible Correction Model
- Flexible Correction Model: the ability for people to correct or change their beliefs and evaluations if they believe these judgments have been biased (e.g., if someone realizes they only thought their day was great because it was sunny, they may revise their evaluation of the day to account for this “biasing” influence of the weather)
- Flourishing
- To live optimally psychologically, relationally, and spiritually.
- Foils
- Any member of a lineup (whether live or photograph) other than the suspect.
- Foot in the door
- Obtaining a small, initial commitment.
- Foreclosure
- Individuals commit to an identity without exploration of options.
- Forgiveness
- The letting go of negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors toward an offender.
- Formal operations stage
- Piagetian stage starting at age 12 years and continuing for the rest of life, in which adolescents may gain the reasoning powers of educated adults.
- Framing
- The bias to be systematically affected by the way in which information is presented, while holding the objective information constant.
- Frontal Lobe
- The front most (anterior) part of the cerebrum; anterior to the central sulcus and responsible for motor output and planning, language, judgment, and decision-making.
- Frontal lobe
- The front most (anterior) part of the cerebrum; anterior to the central sulcus and responsible for motor output and planning, language, judgment, and decision-making.
- Full-cycle psychology
- A scientific approach whereby researchers start with an observational field study to identify an effect in the real world, follow up with laboratory experimentation to verify the effect and isolate the causal mechanisms, and return to field research to corroborate their experimental findings.
- Functional capacity
- The ability to engage in self-care (cook, clean, bathe), work, attend school, and/or engage in social relationships.
- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): A neuroimaging technique that infers brain activity by measuring changes in oxygen levels in the blood.
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): A neuroimaging technique that infers brain activity by measuring changes in oxygen levels in the blood.
- Functionalism
- A school of American psychology that focused on the utility of consciousness.
- G
- Short for “general factor” and is often used to be synonymous with intelligence itself.
- Generalizability
- Related to whether the results from the sample can be generalized to a larger population.
- Generalize
- Generalizing, in science, refers to the ability to arrive at broad conclusions based on a smaller sample of observations. For these conclusions to be true the sample should accurately represent the larger population from which it is drawn.
- Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
- Excessive worry about everyday things that is at a level that is out of proportion to the specific causes of worry.
- Gestalt psychology
- An attempt to study the unity of experience.
- Goal
- The cognitive representation of a desired state (outcome).
- Goal-directed behavior
- Instrumental behavior that is influenced by the animal’s knowledge of the association between the behavior and its consequence and the current value of the consequence. Sensitive to the reinforcer devaluation effect.
- Gonadal sex
- The sex of an individual as determined by the possession of either ovaries or testes. Females have ovaries, whereas males have testes.
- Good genes hypothesis
- Proposes that certain physical qualities, like averageness, are attractive because they advertise mate quality—either greater fertility or better genetic traits that lead to better offspring and hence greater reproductive success.
- Gradually escalating commitments
- A pattern of small, progressively escalating demands is less likely to be rejected than a single large demand made all at once.
- Grandiosity
- Inflated self-esteem or an exaggerated sense of self-importance and self-worth (e.g., believing one has special powers or superior abilities).
- Gratitude
- A feeling of appreciation or thankfulness in response to receiving a benefit.
- Gray matter
- The outer grayish regions of the brain comprised of the neurons’ cell bodies.
- Group level
- A focus on summary statistics that apply to aggregates of individuals when studying personality development. An example is considering whether the average score of a group of 50 year olds is higher than the average score of a group of 21 year olds when considering a trait like conscientiousness.
- Gustation
- Ability to process gustatory stimuli. Also called taste.
- Gyri
- (plural) Folds between sulci in the cortex.
- Gyrus
- A fold between sulci in the cortex.
- Habit
- Instrumental behavior that occurs automatically in the presence of a stimulus and is no longer influenced by the animal’s knowledge of the value of the reinforcer. Insensitive to the reinforcer devaluation effect.
- Hallucinations
- Perceptual experiences that occur even when there is no stimulus in the outside world generating the experiences. They can be auditory, visual, olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), or somatic (touch).
- Hallucinogens
- Hallucinogens: substances that, when ingested, alter a person’s perceptions, often by creating hallucinations that are not real or distorting their perceptions of time.
- Happiness
- The popular word for subjective well-being. Scientists sometimes avoid using this term because it can refer to different things, such as feeling good, being satisfied, or even the causes of high subjective well-being.
- Heterotypic stability
- Consistency in the underlying psychological attribute across development regardless of any changes in how the attribute is expressed at different ages.
- Heuristics
- cognitive (or thinking) strategies that simplify decision making by using mental short-cuts
- Heuristics
- Mental shortcuts that enable people to make decisions and solve problems quickly and efficiently.
- HEXACO model
- The HEXACO model is an alternative to the Five-Factor Model. The HEXACO model includes six traits, five of which are variants of the traits included in the Big Five (Emotionality [E], Extraversion [X], Agreeableness [A], Conscientiousness [C], and Openness [O]). The sixth factor, Honesty-Humility [H], is unique to this model.
- Highlighting a goal
- Prioritizing a focal goal over other goals or temptations by putting more effort into the focal goal.
- High-stakes testing
- Settings in which test scores are used to make important decisions about individuals. For example, test scores may be used to determine which individuals are admitted into a college or graduate school, or who should be hired for a job. Tests also are used in forensic settings to help determine whether a person is competent to stand trial or fits the legal definition of sanity.
- Histrionic
- A pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking.
- Homeostasis
- The tendency of an organism to maintain a stable state across all the different physiological systems in the body.
- Homeostatic set point
- An ideal level that the system being regulated must be monitored and compared to.
- Homophily
- Adolescents tend to associate with peers who are similar to themselves.
- Homotypic stability
- Consistency of the exact same thoughts, feelings, and behaviors across development.
- Honeymoon effect
- The tendency for newly married individuals to rate their spouses in an unrealistically positive manner. This represents a specific manifestation of the letter of recommendation effect when applied to ratings made by current romantic partners. Moreover, it illustrates the very important role played by relationship satisfaction in ratings made by romantic partners: As marital satisfaction declines (i.e., when the “honeymoon is over”), this effect disappears.
- Horizontal plane
- A slice that runs horizontally through a standing person (i.e., parallel to the floor); slices of brain in this plane divide the top and bottom parts of the brain; this plane is similar to slicing a hamburger bun.
- Hormone
- An organic chemical messenger released from endocrine cells that travels through the blood to interact with target cells at some distance to cause a biological response.
- Hostile attribution bias
- The tendency to perceive ambiguous actions by others as aggressive.
- Hostile attribution bias
- The tendency of some individuals to interpret ambiguous social cues and interactions as examples of aggressiveness, disrespect, or antagonism.
- Hostile expectation bias
- The tendency to assume that people will react to potential conflicts with aggression.
- Hostile perception bias
- The tendency to perceive social interactions in general as being aggressive.
- Humility
- Having an accurate view of self—not too high or low—and a realistic appraisal of one’s strengths and weaknesses, especially in relation to other people.
- Humorism (or humoralism)
- A belief held by ancient Greek and Roman physicians (and until the 19th century) that an excess or deficiency in any of the four bodily fluids, or humors—blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm—directly affected their health and temperament.
- Hypersomnia
- Excessive daytime sleepiness, including difficulty staying awake or napping, or prolonged sleep episodes.
- Hypnosis
- Hypnosis: the state of consciousness whereby a person is highly responsive to the suggestions of another; this state usually involves a dissociation with one’s environment and an intense focus on a single stimulus, which is usually accompanied by a sense of relaxation
- Hypnotherapy
- Hypnotherapy: The use of hypnotic techniques such as relaxation and suggestion to help engineer desirable change such as lower pain or quitting smoking.
- Hypothalamus
- A portion of the brain involved in a variety of functions, including the secretion of various hormones and the regulation of hunger and sexual arousal.
- Hypotheses
- A logical idea that can be tested.
- Hysteria
- Term used by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to describe a disorder believed to be caused by a woman’s uterus wandering throughout the body and interfering with other organs (today referred to as conversion disorder, in which psychological problems are expressed in physical form).
- Identity achievement
- Individuals have explored different options and then made commitments.
- Identity diffusion
- Adolescents neither explore nor commit to any roles or ideologies.
- Implemental phase
- The second of the two basic stages of self-regulation in which individuals plan specific actions related to their selected goal.
- Implicit Association Test
- Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures relatively automatic biases that favor own group relative to other groups.
- Implicit Associations Test
- Implicit Associations Test (IAT): A computer reaction time test that measures a person’s automatic associations with concepts. For instance, the IAT could be used to measure how quickly a person makes positive or negative evaluations of members of various ethnic groups.
- Implicit motives
- These are goals that are important to a person, but that he/she cannot consciously express. Because the individual cannot verbalize these goals directly, they cannot be easily assessed via self-report. However, they can be measured using projective devices such as the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).
- Inattentional blindness
- The failure to notice a fully visible, but unexpected, object or event when attention is devoted to something else.
- Inattentional blindness
- The failure to notice a fully visible object when attention is devoted to something else.
- Inattentional deafness
- The auditory analog of inattentional blindness. People fail to notice an unexpected sound or voice when attention is devoted to other aspects of a scene.
- Independent
- Two characteristics or traits are separate from one another-- a person can be high on one and low on the other, or vice-versa. Some correlated traits are relatively independent in that although there is a tendency for a person high on one to also be high on the other, this is not always the case.
- Independent variable
- The variable the researcher manipulates and controls in an experiment.
- Individual differences
- Ways in which people differ in terms of their behavior, emotion, cognition, and development.
- Individual level
- A focus on individual level statistics that reflect whether individuals show stability or change when studying personality development. An example is evaluating how many individuals increased in conscientiousness versus how many decreased in conscientiousness when considering the transition from adolescence to adulthood.
- Individualism
- Belief system that exalts freedom, independence, and individual choice as high values.
- Industrialized countries
- The economically advanced countries of the world, in which most of the world’s wealth is concentrated.
- Information processing theories
- Theories that focus on describing the cognitive processes that underlie thinking at any one age and cognitive growth over time.
- Informational influence
- Conformity that results from a concern to act in a socially approved manner as determined by how others act.
- Ingroup
- Group to which a person belongs.
- Instrumental conditioning
- Process in which animals learn about the relationship between their behaviors and their consequences. Also known as operant conditioning.
- Intelligence
- An individual’s cognitive capability. This includes the ability to acquire, process, recall and apply information.
- Interference
- Other memories get in the way of retrieving a desired memory
- Internal bodily or somatic cues
- Physical sensations that serve as triggers for anxiety or as reminders of past traumatic events.
- Internal validity
- The degree to which a cause-effect relationship between two variables has been unambiguously established.
- Interoceptive avoidance
- Avoidance of situations or activities that produce sensations of physical arousal similar to those occurring during a panic attack or intense fear response.
- Interpersonal
- This refers to the relationship or interaction between two or more individuals in a group. Thus, the interpersonal functions of emotion refer to the effects of one’s emotion on others, or to the relationship between oneself and others.
- Intrapersonal
- This refers to what occurs within oneself. Thus, the intrapersonal functions of emotion refer to the effects of emotion to individuals that occur physically inside their bodies and psychologically inside their minds.
- Intrinsic motivation
- Motivation stemming from the benefits associated with the process of pursuing a goal such as having a fulfilling experience.
- Introspection
- A method of focusing on internal processes.
- IQ
- Short for “intelligence quotient.” This is a score, typically obtained from a widely used measure of intelligence that is meant to rank a person’s intellectual ability against that of others.
- Jet Lag
- Jet Lag: The state of being fatigued and/or having difficulty adjusting to a new time zone after traveling a long distance (across multiple time zones).
- Just noticeable difference (JND)
- The smallest difference needed in order to differentiate two stimuli. (see Differential Threshold)
- Lateralized
- To the side; used to refer to the fact that specific functions may reside primarily in one hemisphere or the other (e.g., for the majority individuals, the left hemisphere is most responsible for language).
- Law of effect
- The idea that instrumental or operant responses are influenced by their effects. Responses that are followed by a pleasant state of affairs will be strengthened and those that are followed by discomfort will be weakened. Nowadays, the term refers to the idea that operant or instrumental behaviors are lawfully controlled by their consequences.
- Lesion
- A region in the brain that suffered damage through injury, disease, or medical intervention.
- Letter of recommendation effect
- The general tendency for informants in personality studies to rate others in an unrealistically positive manner. This tendency is due a pervasive bias in personality assessment: In the large majority of published studies, informants are individuals who like the person they are rating (e.g., they often are friends or family members) and, therefore, are motivated to depict them in a socially desirable way. The term reflects a similar tendency for academic letters of recommendation to be overly positive and to present the referent in an unrealistically desirable manner.
- Lexical hypothesis
- The lexical hypothesis is the idea that the most important differences between people will be encoded in the language that we use to describe people. Therefore, if we want to know which personality traits are most important, we can look to the language that people use to describe themselves and others.
- Lexicon
- Words and expressions.
- Life satisfaction
- A person reflects on their life and judges to what degree it is going well, by whatever standards that person thinks are most important for a good life.
- Light adaptation
- Adjustment of eye to high levels of light.
- Limbic system
- Includes the subcortical structures of the amygdala and hippocampal formation as well as some cortical structures; responsible for aversion and gratification.
- Limbic System
- Includes the subcortical structures of the amygdala and hippocampal formation as well as some cortical structures; responsible for aversion and gratification.
- Limited capacity
- The notion that humans have limited mental resources that can be used at a given time.
- Linguistic inquiry and word count
- A quantitative text analysis methodology that automatically extracts grammatical and psychological information from a text by counting word frequencies.
- Linguistic intergroup bias
- A tendency for people to characterize positive things about their ingroup using more abstract expressions, but negative things about their outgroups using more abstract expressions.
- Lived day analysis
- A methodology where a research team follows an individual around with a video camera to objectively document a person’s daily life as it is lived.
- Longitudinal study
- A study that follows the same group of individuals over time.
- Longitudinal study/design
- A research design that follows the same group of individuals at multiple time points.
- Lordosis
- A physical sexual posture in females that serves as an invitation to mate.
- Magnetic resonance imaging
- A set of techniques that uses strong magnets to measure either the structure of the brain (e.g., gray matter and white matter) or how the brain functions when a person performs cognitive tasks (e.g., working memory or episodic memory) or other types of tasks.
- Maladaptive
- Term referring to behaviors that cause people who have them physical or emotional harm, prevent them from functioning in daily life, and/or indicate that they have lost touch with reality and/or cannot control their thoughts and behavior (also called dysfunctional).
- Manipulation
- A connection between personality attributes and aspects of the environment that occurs whenever individuals with particular traits actively shape their environments.
- Margin of error
- The expected amount of random variation in a statistic; often defined for 95% confidence level.
- Masculinization
- The induction of male traits.
- Maternal behavior
- Parental behavior performed by the mother or other female.
- Maturity principle
- The generalization that personality attributes associated with the successful fulfillment of adult roles increase with age and experience.
- Mechanoreceptors
- Mechanical sensory receptors in the skin that response to tactile stimulation.
- Medial temporal lobes
- Inner region of the temporal lobes that includes the hippocampus.
- Melatonin
- Melatonin: A hormone associated with increased drowsiness and sleep.
- Memory traces
- A term indicating the change in the nervous system representing an event.
- Mere-exposure effect
- The tendency to prefer stimuli that have been seen before over novel ones. There also is a generalized mere-exposure effect shown in a preference for stimuli that are similar to those that have been seen before.
- Mere-exposure effects
- The result of developing a more positive attitude towards a stimulus after repeated instances of mere exposure to it.
- Mesmerism
- Derived from Franz Anton Mesmer in the late 18th century, an early version of hypnotism in which Mesmer claimed that hysterical symptoms could be treated through animal magnetism emanating from Mesmer’s body and permeating the universe (and later through magnets); later explained in terms of high suggestibility in individuals.
- Metabolite
- A substance necessary for a living organism to maintain life.
- Mindfulness
- Mindfulness: a state of heightened focus on the thoughts passing through one’s head, as well as a more controlled evaluation of those thoughts (e.g., do you reject or support the thoughts you’re having?)
- Misinformation effect
- When erroneous information occurring after an event is remembered as having been part of the original event.
- Misinformation effect
- A memory error caused by exposure to incorrect information between the original event (e.g., a crime) and later memory test (e.g., an interview, lineup, or day in court).
- Mnemonic devices
- A strategy for remembering large amounts of information, usually involving imaging events occurring on a journey or with some other set of memorized cues.
- Mock witnesses
- A research subject who plays the part of a witness in a study.
- Model minority
- A minority group whose members are perceived as achieving a higher degree of socioeconomic success than the population average.
- Moratorium
- State in which adolescents are actively exploring options but have not yet made identity commitments.
- Morph
- A face or other image that has been transformed by a computer program so that it is a mixture of multiple images.
- Motivation
- The psychological driving force that enables action in the course of goal pursuit.
- Motor cortex
- Region of the frontal lobe responsible for voluntary movement; the motor cortex has a contralateral representation of the human body.
- Multimodal perception
- The effects that concurrent stimulation in more than one sensory modality has on the perception of events and objects in the world.
- Myelin
- Fatty tissue, produced by glial cells (see module, “Neurons”) that insulates the axons of the neurons; myelin is necessary for normal conduction of electrical impulses among neurons.
- Myelin Sheath
- Fatty tissue, that insulates the axons of the neurons; myelin is necessary for normal conduction of electrical impulses among neurons.
- Narcissistic
- A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.
- Nature
- The genes that children bring with them to life and that influence all aspects of their development.
- Negative feelings
- Undesirable and unpleasant feelings that people tend to avoid if they can. Moods and emotions such as depression, anger, and worry are examples.
- Nervous System
- The body’s network for electrochemical communication. This system includes all the nerves cells in the body.
- Neural impulse
- An electro-chemical signal that enables neurons to communicate.
- Neurodevelopmental
- Processes that influence how the brain develops either in utero or as the child is growing up.
- Neurons
- Individual brain cells
- Neuropsychoanalysis
- An integrative, interdisciplinary domain of inquiry seeking to integrate psychoanalytic and neuropsychological ideas and findings to enhance both areas of inquiry (you can learn more by visiting the webpage of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society at http://www.neuropsa.org.uk/).
- Neuroticism
- A personality trait that reflects the tendency to be interpersonally sensitive and the tendency to experience negative emotions like anxiety, fear, sadness, and anger.
- Neurotransmitter
- A chemical messenger that travels between neurons to provide communication. Some neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine, can leak into the blood system and act as hormones.
- Neurotransmitters
- Chemical substance released by the presynaptic terminal button that acts on the postsynaptic cell.
- Nociception
- Our ability to sense pain.
- Nomenclature
- Naming conventions.
- Nonconscious goal activation
- When activation occurs outside a person’s awareness, such that the person is unaware of the reasons behind her goal-directed thoughts and behaviors.
- Non-industrialized countries
- The less economically advanced countries that comprise the majority of the world’s population. Most are currently developing at a rapid rate.
- Norm
- Assessments are given to a representative sample of a population to determine the range of scores for that population. These “norms” are then used to place an individual who takes that assessment on a range of scores in which he or she is compared to the population at large.
- Normative influence
- Conformity that results from a concern for what other people think of us.
- Numerical magnitudes
- The sizes of numbers.
- Nurture
- The environments, starting with the womb, that influence all aspects of children’s development.
- Obedience
- Responding to an order or command from a person in a position of authority.
- Object permanence task
- The Piagetian task in which infants below about 9 months of age fail to search for an object that is removed from their sight and, if not allowed to search immediately for the object, act as if they do not know that it continues to exist.
- Object relations theory
- A modern offshoot of the psychodynamic perspective, this theory contends that personality can be understood as reflecting mental images of significant figures (especially the parents) that we form early in life in response to interactions taking place within the family; these mental images serve as templates (or “scripts”) for later interpersonal relationships.
- Observational learning
- Learning by observing the behavior of others.
- Obsessive-compulsive
- A pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- A disorder characterized by the desire to engage in certain behaviors excessively or compulsively in hopes of reducing anxiety. Behaviors include things such as cleaning, repeatedly opening and closing doors, hoarding, and obsessing over certain thoughts.
- Occipital lobe
- The back most (posterior) part of the cerebrum; involved in vision.
- Occipital Lobe
- The back most (posterior) part of the cerebrum; involved in vision.
- Odorants
- Chemicals transduced by olfactory receptors.
- OECD countries
- Members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, comprised of the world’s wealthiest countries.
- Olfaction
- Ability to process olfactory stimuli. Also called smell.
- Olfactory epithelium
- Organ containing olfactory receptors.
- Openness to Experience
- A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to seek out and to appreciate new things, including thoughts, feelings, values, and experiences.
- Operant
- A behavior that is controlled by its consequences. The simplest example is the rat’s lever-pressing, which is controlled by the presentation of the reinforcer.
- Operant conditioning
- See instrumental conditioning.
- Operational definitions
- How researchers specifically measure a concept.
- Opponent-process theory
- Theory proposing color vision as influenced by cells responsive to pairs of colors.
- Ossicles
- A collection of three small bones in the middle ear that vibrate against the tympanic membrane.
- Outgroup
- Group to which a person does not belong.
- Overconfident
- The bias to have greater confidence in your judgment than is warranted based on a rational assessment.
- Oxytocin
- A peptide hormone secreted by the pituitary gland to trigger lactation, as well as social bonding.
- Panic disorder (PD)
- A condition marked by regular strong panic attacks, and which may include significant levels of worry about future attacks.
- Parameter
- A numerical result summarizing a population (e.g., mean, proportion).
- Paranoid
- A pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent.
- Parental behavior
- Behaviors performed in relation to one’s offspring that contributes directly to the survival of those offspring
- Parietal lobe
- The part of the cerebrum between the frontal and occipital lobes; involved in bodily sensations, visual attention, and integrating the senses.
- Parietal Lobe
- The part of the cerebrum between the frontal and occipital lobes; involved in bodily sensations, visual attention, and integrating the senses.
- Participant demand
- When participants behave in a way that they think the experimenter wants them to behave.
- Paternal behavior
- Parental behavior performed by the father or other male.
- Pavlovian conditioning
- See classical conditioning.
- Perception
- The psychological process of interpreting sensory information.
- Peripheral Nervous System
- All of the nerve cells that connect the central nervous system to all the other parts of the body.
- Peripheral route to persuasion
- Persuasion that relies on superficial cues that have little to do with logic.
- Personality
- Characteristic, routine ways of thinking, feeling, and relating to others.
- Personality
- Enduring predispositions that characterize a person, such as styles of thought, feelings and behavior.
- Personality disorders
- When personality traits result in significant distress, social impairment, and/or occupational impairment.
- Personality traits
- Enduring dispositions in behavior that show differences across individuals, and which tend to characterize the person across varying types of situations.
- Person–environment transactions
- The interplay between individuals and their contextual circumstances that ends up shaping both personality and the environment.
- Person-situation debate
- The person-situation debate is a historical debate about the relative power of personality traits as compared to situational influences on behavior. The situationist critique, which started the person-situation debate, suggested that people overestimate the extent to which personality traits are consistent across situations.
- Phantom limb
- The perception that a missing limb still exists.
- Phantom limb pain
- Pain in a limb that no longer exists.
- Phonemic awareness
- Awareness of the component sounds within words.
- Photo spreads
- A selection of normally small photographs of faces given to a witness for the purpose of identifying a perpetrator.
- Phrenology
- A now-discredited field of brain study, popular in the first half of the 19th century that correlated bumps and indentations of the skull with specific functions of the brain.
- Piaget’s theory
- Theory that development occurs through a sequence of discontinuous stages: the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages.
- Pinna
- Outermost portion of the ear.
- Placebo effect
- When receiving special treatment or something new affects human behavior.
- Population
- A larger collection of individuals that we would like to generalize our results to.
- Positive feelings
- Desirable and pleasant feelings. Moods and emotions such as enjoyment and love are examples.
- Positive psychology
- The science of human flourishing. Positive Psychology is an applied science with an emphasis on real world intervention.
- Positron emission tomography
- A technique that uses radio-labelled ligands to measure the distribution of different neurotransmitter receptors in the brain or to measure how much of a certain type of neurotransmitter is released when a person is given a specific type of drug or does a particularly cognitive task.
- Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
- A neuroimaging technique that measures brain activity by detecting the presence of a radioactive substance in the brain that is initially injected into the bloodstream and then pulled in by active brain tissue.
- Positron emission tomography (PET)
- A neuroimaging technique that measures brain activity by detecting the presence of a radioactive substance in the brain that is initially injected into the bloodstream and then pulled in by active brain tissue.
- Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- A sense of intense fear, triggered by memories of a past traumatic event, that another traumatic event might occur. PTSD may include feelings of isolation and emotional numbing.
- Practitioner-Scholar Model
- A model of training of professional psychologists that emphasizes clinical practice.
- Prediction error
- When the outcome of a conditioning trial is different from that which is predicted by the conditioned stimuli that are present on the trial (i.e., when the US is surprising). Prediction error is necessary to create Pavlovian conditioning (and associative learning generally). As learning occurs over repeated conditioning trials, the conditioned stimulus increasingly predicts the unconditioned stimulus, and prediction error declines. Conditioning works to correct or reduce prediction error.
- Prejudice
- Prejudice is an evaluation or emotion toward people merely based on their group membership.
- Preoperational reasoning stage
- Period within Piagetian theory from age 2 to 7 years, in which children can represent objects through drawing and language but cannot solve logical reasoning problems, such as the conservation problems.
- Preoptic area
- A region in the anterior hypothalamus involved in generating and regulating male sexual behavior.
- Preparedness
- The idea that an organism’s evolutionary history can make it easy to learn a particular association. Because of preparedness, you are more likely to associate the taste of tequila, and not the circumstances surrounding drinking it, with getting sick. Similarly, humans are more likely to associate images of spiders and snakes than flowers and mushrooms with aversive outcomes like shocks.
- Prevention focus
- One of two self-regulatory orientations emphasizing safety, responsibility, and security needs, and viewing goals as “oughts.” This self-regulatory focus seeks to avoid losses (the presence of negatives) and approach non-losses (the absence of negatives).
- Primacy of the Unconscious
- The hypothesis—supported by contemporary empirical research—that the vast majority of mental activity takes place outside conscious awareness.
- Primary auditory cortex
- Area of the cortex involved in processing auditory stimuli.
- Primary somatosensory cortex
- Area of the cortex involved in processing somatosensory stimuli.
- Primary visual cortex
- Area of the cortex involved in processing visual stimuli.
- Priming
- A stimulus presented to a person reminds him or her about other ideas associated with the stimulus.
- Priming
- Priming: the activation of certain thoughts or feelings that make them easier to think of and act upon
- Principle of inverse effectiveness
- The finding that, in general, for a multimodal stimulus, if the response to each unimodal component (on its own) is weak, then the opportunity for multisensory enhancement is very large. However, if one component—by itself—is sufficient to evoke a strong response, then the effect on the response gained by simultaneously processing the other components of the stimulus will be relatively small.
- Processing speed
- The speed with which an individual can perceive auditory or visual information and respond to it.
- Progesterone
- A primary progestin that is involved in pregnancy and mating behaviors.
- Progestin
- A class of C21 steroid hormones named for their progestational (pregnancy-supporting) effects. Progesterone is a common progestin.
- Progress
- The perception of reducing the discrepancy between one’s current state and one’s desired state in goal pursuit.
- Prohormone
- A molecule that can act as a hormone itself or be converted into another hormone with different properties. For example, testosterone can serve as a hormone or as a prohormone for either dihydrotestosterone or estradiol.
- Projective hypothesis
- The theory that when people are confronted with ambiguous stimuli (that is, stimuli that can be interpreted in more than one way), their responses will be influenced by their unconscious thoughts, needs, wishes, and impulses. This, in turn, is based on the Freudian notion of projection, which is the idea that people attribute their own undesirable/unacceptable characteristics to other people or objects.
- Prolactin
- A protein hormone that is highly conserved throughout the animal kingdom. It has many biological functions associated with reproduction and synergistic actions with steroid hormones.
- Promotion focus
- One of two self-regulatory orientations emphasizing hopes, accomplishments, and advancement needs, and viewing goals as “ideals.” This self-regulatory focus seeks to approach gains (the presence of positives) and avoid non-gains (the absence of positives).
- Thoughts, actions, and feelings that are directed towards others and which are positive in nature.
- Prototype
- A typical, or average, member of a category. Averageness increases attractiveness.
- Psychic causality
- The assumption that nothing in mental life happens by chance—that there is no such thing as a “random” thought or feeling.
- Psychogenesis
- Developing from psychological origins.
- Psychological control
- Parents’ manipulation of and intrusion into adolescents’ emotional and cognitive world through invalidating adolescents’ feelings and pressuring them to think in particular ways.
- Psychological essentialism
- The belief that members of a category have an unseen property that causes them to be in the category and to have the properties associated with it.
- Psychological reactance
- A reaction to people, rules, requirements, or offerings that are perceived to limit freedoms.
- Psychological vulnerabilities
- Influences that our early experiences have on how we view the world.
- Psychomotor agitation
- Increased motor activity associated with restlessness, including physical actions (e.g., fidgeting, pacing, feet tapping, handwringing).
- Psychomotor retardation
- A slowing of physical activities in which routine activities (e.g., eating, brushing teeth) are performed in an unusually slow manner.
- Psychopathology
- Illnesses or disorders that involve psychological or psychiatric symptoms.
- Psychophysics
- Study of the relationships between physical stimuli and the perception of those stimuli.
- Psychosexual stage model
- Probably the most controversial aspect of psychodynamic theory, the psychosexual stage model contends that early in life we progress through a sequence of developmental stages (oral, anal, Oedipal, latency, and genital), each with its own unique mode of sexual gratification.
- Punisher
- A stimulus that decreases the strength of an operant behavior when it is made a consequence of the behavior.
- Punishment
- Inflicting pain or removing pleasure for a misdeed. Punishment decreases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated.
- P-value
- The probability of observing a particular outcome in a sample, or more extreme, under a conjecture about the larger population or process.
- Qualitative changes
- Large, fundamental change, as when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly; stage theories such as Piaget’s posit that each stage reflects qualitative change relative to previous stages.
- Quantitative changes
- Gradual, incremental change, as in the growth of a pine tree’s girth.
- Quantitative law of effect
- A mathematical rule that states that the effectiveness of a reinforcer at strengthening an operant response depends on the amount of reinforcement earned for all alternative behaviors. A reinforcer is less effective if there is a lot of reinforcement in the environment for other behaviors.
- Quasi-experimental design
- An experiment that does not require random assignment to conditions.
- Random assignment
- Assigning participants to receive different conditions of an experiment by chance.
- Random assignment
- Using a probability-based method to divide a sample into treatment groups.
- Random sampling
- Using a probability-based method to select a subset of individuals for the sample from the population.
- Reactive person–environment transactions
- The interplay between individuals and their contextual circumstances that occurs whenever attributes of the individual shape how a person perceives and responds to their environment.
- Realism
- A point of view that emphasizes the importance of the senses in providing knowledge of the external world.
- Receptor
- A chemical structure on the cell surface or inside of a cell that has an affinity for a specific chemical configuration of a hormone, neurotransmitter, or other compound.
- Recoding
- The ubiquitous process during learning of taking information in one form and converting it to another form, usually one more easily remembered.
- Reference group effect
- The tendency of people to base their self-concept on comparisons with others. For example, if your friends tend to be very smart and successful, you may come to see yourself as less intelligent and successful than you actually are. Informants also are prone to these types of effects. For instance, the sibling contrast effect refers to the tendency of parents to exaggerate the true extent of differences between their children.
- Reinforced response
- Following the process of operant conditioning, the strengthening of a response following either the delivery of a desired consequence (positive reinforcement) or escape from an aversive consequence.
- Reinforcer
- Any consequence of a behavior that strengthens the behavior or increases the likelihood that it will be performed it again.
- Reinforcer devaluation effect
- The finding that an animal will stop performing an instrumental response that once led to a reinforcer if the reinforcer is separately made aversive or undesirable.
- Relational aggression
- Intentionally harming another person’s social relationships, feelings of acceptance, or inclusion within a group.
- Reliablility
- The consistency of test scores across repeated assessments. For example, test-retest reliability examines the extent to which scores change over time.
- Renewal effect
- Recovery of an extinguished response that occurs when the context is changed after extinction. Especially strong when the change of context involves return to the context in which conditioning originally occurred. Can occur after extinction in either classical or instrumental conditioning.
- Retina
- Cell layer in the back of the eye containing photoreceptors.
- Retrieval
- The process of accessing stored information.
- Retrieval
- Process by which information is accessed from memory and utilized.
- Retroactive interference
- The phenomenon whereby events that occur after some particular event of interest will usually cause forgetting of the original event.
- Retrograde amnesia
- Inability to retrieve memories for facts and events acquired before the onset of amnesia.
- Reward value
- A neuropsychological measure of an outcome’s affective importance to an organism.
- Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) focuses on value conflicts but endorses respect for obedience and authority in the service of group conformity.
- Rods
- Photoreceptors of the retina sensitive to low levels of light. Located around the fovea.
- SAD performance only
- Social anxiety disorder which is limited to certain situations that the sufferer perceives as requiring some type of performance.
- Sagittal plane
- A slice that runs vertically from front to back; slices of brain in this plane divide the left and right side of the brain; this plane is similar to slicing a baked potato lengthwise.
- Sample
- The collection of individuals on which we collect data.
- Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
- The hypothesis that the language that people use determines their thoughts.
- Satiation
- The state of being full to satisfaction and no longer desiring to take on more.
- Schema (plural: schemata)
- A memory template, created through repeated exposure to a particular class of objects or events.
- Schizoid
- A pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of expression of emotions in interpersonal settings.
- Schizotypal
- A pervasive pattern of social and interpersonal deficits marked by acute discomfort with, and reduced capacity for, close relationships as well as perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behavior.
- Scientist-practitioner model
- A model of training of professional psychologists that emphasizes the development of both research and clinical skills.
- Selection
- A connection between personality attributes and aspects of the environment that occurs whenever individuals with particular attributes choose particular kinds of environments.
- Selective attention
- The ability to select certain stimuli in the environment to process, while ignoring distracting information.
- Selective listening
- A method for studying selective attention in which people focus attention on one auditory stream of information while deliberately ignoring other auditory information.
- Self-categorization theory
- Self-categorization theory develops social identity theory’s point that people categorize themselves, along with each other into groups, favoring their own group.
- Self-control
- The capacity to control impulses, emotions, desires, and actions in order to resist a temptation and adhere to a valued goal.
- Self-enhancement bias
- The tendency for people to see and/or present themselves in an overly favorable way. This tendency can take two basic forms: defensiveness (when individuals actually believe they are better than they really are) and impression management (when people intentionally distort their responses to try to convince others that they are better than they really are). Informants also can show enhancement biases. The general form of this bias has been called the letter-of-recommendation effect, which is the tendency of informants who like the person they are rating (e.g., friends, relatives, romantic partners) to describe them in an overly favorable way. In the case of newlyweds, this tendency has been termed the honeymoon effect.
- Self-regulation
- The processes through which individuals alter their emotions, desires, and actions in the course of pursuing a goal.
- Semantic memory
- The more or less permanent store of knowledge that people have.
- Sensation
- The physical processing of environmental stimuli by the sense organs.
- Sensorimotor stage
- Period within Piagetian theory from birth to age 2 years, during which children come to represent the enduring reality of objects.
- Sensory adaptation
- Decrease in sensitivity of a receptor to a stimulus after constant stimulation.
- Sex determination
- The point at which an individual begins to develop as either a male or a female. In animals that have sex chromosomes, this occurs at fertilization. Females are XX and males are XY. All eggs bear X chromosomes, whereas sperm can either bear X or Y chromosomes. Thus, it is the males that determine the sex of the offspring.
- Sex differentiation
- The process by which individuals develop the characteristics associated with being male or female. Differential exposure to gonadal steroids during early development causes sexual differentiation of several structures including the brain.
- Shadowing
- A task in which the individual is asked to repeat an auditory message as it is presented.
- Shape theory of olfaction
- Theory proposing that odorants of different size and shape correspond to different smells.
- Sibling contrast effect
- The tendency of parents to use their perceptions of all of their children as a frame of reference for rating the characteristics of each of them. For example, suppose that a mother has three children; two of these children are very sociable and outgoing, whereas the third is relatively average in sociability. Because of operation of this effect, the mother will rate this third child as less sociable and outgoing than he/she actually is. More generally, this effect causes parents to exaggerate the true extent of differences between their children. This effect represents a specific manifestation of the more general reference group effect when applied to ratings made by parents.
- Signal detection
- Method for studying the ability to correctly identify sensory stimuli.
- Situation model
- A mental representation of an event, object, or situation constructed at the time of comprehending a linguistic description.
- Society refers to a system of relationships between individuals and groups of individuals; culture refers to the meaning and information afforded to that system that is transmitted across generations. Thus, the social and cultural functions of emotion refer to the effects that emotions have on the functioning and maintenance of societies and cultures.
- A condition marked by acute fear of social situations which lead to worry and diminished day to day functioning.
- The hypothesis that the human brain has evolved, so that humans can maintain larger ingroups.
- Social dominance orientation (SDO) describes a belief that group hierarchies are inevitable in all societies and even good, to maintain order and stability.
- Social identity theory notes that people categorize each other into groups, favoring their own group.
- The theory that people can learn new responses and behaviors by observing the behavior of others.
- Authorities that are the targets for observation and who model behaviors.
- Networks of social relationships among individuals through which information can travel.
- The mental shortcut based on the assumption that, if everyone is doing it, it must be right.
- This refers to the process whereby individuals look for information from others to clarify a situation, and then use that information to act. Thus, individuals will often use the emotional expressions of others as a source of information to make decisions about their own behavior.
- Zeitgeber is German for “time giver.” Social zeitgebers are environmental cues, such as meal times and interactions with other people, that entrain biological rhythms and thus sleep-wake cycle regularity.
- Sociocultural theories
- Theory founded in large part by Lev Vygotsky that emphasizes how other people and the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the surrounding culture influence children’s development.
- Socioeconomic status (SES)
- A person’s economic and social position based on income, education, and occupation.
- Soma
- Cell body of a neuron that contains the nucleus and genetic information, and directs protein synthesis.
- Somatogenesis
- Developing from physical/bodily origins.
- Somatosensation
- Ability to sense touch, pain and temperature.
- Somatosensory (body sensations) cortex
- The region of the parietal lobe responsible for bodily sensations; the somatosensory cortex has a contralateral representation of the human body.
- Somatotopic map
- Organization of the primary somatosensory cortex maintaining a representation of the arrangement of the body.
- Sound waves
- Changes in air pressure. The physical stimulus for audition.
- Spatial Resolution
- A term that refers to how small the elements of an image are; high spatial resolution means the device or technique can resolve very small elements; in neuroscience it describes how small of a structure in the brain can be imaged.
- Spatial resolution
- A term that refers to how small the elements of an image are; high spatial resolution means the device or technique can resolve very small elements; in neuroscience it describes how small of a structure in the brain can be imaged.
- Specific vulnerabilities
- How our experiences lead us to focus and channel our anxiety.
- Split-brain Patient
- A patient who has had most or all of his or her corpus callosum severed.
- Split-brain patient
- A patient who has had most or all of his or her corpus callosum severed.
- Spontaneous recovery
- Recovery of an extinguished response that occurs with the passage of time after extinction. Can occur after extinction in either classical or instrumental conditioning.
- Standardize
- Assessments that are given in the exact same manner to all people . With regards to intelligence tests standardized scores are individual scores that are computed to be referenced against normative scores for a population (see “norm”).
- Statistic
- A numerical result computed from a sample (e.g., mean, proportion).
- Statistical significance
- A result is statistically significant if it is unlikely to arise by chance alone.
- Stereotype Content Model
- Stereotype Content Model shows that social groups are viewed according to their perceived warmth and competence.
- Stereotype threat
- The phenomenon in which people are concerned that they will conform to a stereotype or that their performance does conform to that stereotype, especially in instances in which the stereotype is brought to their conscious awareness.
- Stereotypes
- Stereotype is a belief that characterizes people based merely on their group membership.
- Stimulants
- Stimulants: a class of drugs that speed up the body’s physiological and mental processes.
- Stimulus control
- When an operant behavior is controlled by a stimulus that precedes it.
- Storage
- The stage in the learning/memory process that bridges encoding and retrieval; the persistence of memory over time.
- Strange situation
- A laboratory task that involves briefly separating and reuniting infants and their primary caregivers as a way of studying individual differences in attachment behavior.
- Stress reaction
- The tendency to become easily distressed by the normal challenges of life.
- Structural model
- Developed to complement and extend the topographic model, the structural model of the mind posits the existence of three interacting mental structures called the id, ego, and superego.
- Structuralism
- A school of American psychology that sought to describe the elements of conscious experience.
- Subcortical
- Structures that lie beneath the cerebral cortex, but above the brain stem.
- Subjective well-being
- The name that scientists give to happiness—thinking and feeling that our lives are going very well.
- Subjective well-being scales
- Self-report surveys or questionnaires in which participants indicate their levels of subjective well-being, by responding to items with a number that indicates how well off they feel.
- Subliminal perception
- The ability to process information for meaning when the individual is not consciously aware of that information.
- Subtle biases
- Subtle biases are automatic, ambiguous, and ambivalent, but real in their consequences.
- Suicidal ideation
- Recurring thoughts about suicide, including considering or planning for suicide, or preoccupation with suicide.
- Sulci
- (plural) Grooves separating folds of the cortex.
- Sulcus
- A groove separating folds of the cortex.
- Superadditive effect of multisensory integration
- The finding that responses to multimodal stimuli are typically greater than the sum of the independent responses to each unimodal component if it were presented on its own.
- Supernatural
- Developing from origins beyond the visible observable universe.
- Synapses
- Junction between the presynaptic terminal button of one neuron and the dendrite, axon, or soma of another postsynaptic neuron.
- Synaptic Gap
- Also known as the synaptic cleft; the small space between the presynaptic terminal button and the postsynaptic dendritic spine, axon, or soma.
- Syndrome
- Involving a particular group of signs and symptoms.
- Syntax
- Rules by which words are strung together to form sentences.
- System 1
- Our intuitive decision-making system, which is typically fast, automatic, effortless, implicit, and emotional.
- System 2
- Our more deliberative decision-making system, which is slower, conscious, effortful, explicit, and logical.
- Systematic observation
- The careful observation of the natural world with the aim of better understanding it. Observations provide the basic data that allow scientists to track, tally, or otherwise organize information about the natural world.
- Target cell
- A cell that has receptors for a specific chemical messenger (hormone or neurotransmitter).
- Tastants
- Chemicals transduced by taste receptor cells.
- Taste aversion learning
- The phenomenon in which a taste is paired with sickness, and this causes the organism to reject—and dislike—that taste in the future.
- Taste receptor cells
- Receptors that transduce gustatory information.
- Temporal Lobe
- The part of the cerebrum in front of (anterior to) the occipital lobe and below the lateral fissure; involved in vision, auditory processing, memory, and integrating vision and audition.
- Temporal lobe
- The part of the cerebrum in front of (anterior to) the occipital lobe and below the lateral fissure; involved in vision, auditory processing, memory, and integrating vision and audition.
- Temporal resolution
- A term that refers to how small a unit of time can be measured; high temporal resolution means capable of resolving very small units of time; in neuroscience it describes how precisely in time a process can be measured in the brain.
- Temporal Resolution
- A term that refers to how small a unit of time can be measured; high temporal resolution means capable of resolving very small units of time; in neuroscience it describes how precisely in time a process can be measured in the brain.
- Temporally graded retrograde amnesia
- Inability to retrieve memories from just prior to the onset of amnesia with intact memory for more remote events.
- Tertiary education
- Education or training beyond secondary school, usually taking place in a college, university, or vocational training program.
- Testosterone
- The primary androgen secreted by the testes of most vertebrate animals, including men.
- The norm of reciprocity
- The normative pressure to repay, in equitable value, what another person has given to us.
- The rule of scarcity
- People tend to perceive things as more attractive when their availability is limited, or when they stand to lose the opportunity to acquire them on favorable terms.
- The triad of trust
- We are most vulnerable to persuasion when the source is perceived as an authority, as honest and likable.
- Theories
- Groups of closely related phenomena or observations.
- Third-person perspective
- Observations made by individuals in a way that can be independently confirmed by other individuals so as to lead to general, objective understanding. With respect to consciousness, third-person perspectives make use of behavioral and neural measures related to conscious experiences.
- Thought-action fusion
- The tendency to overestimate the relationship between a thought and an action, such that one mistakenly believes a “bad” thought is the equivalent of a “bad” action.
- Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
- The inability to pull a word from memory even though there is the sensation that that word is available.
- “Top-down” or internal causes of happiness
- The person’s outlook and habitual response tendencies that influence their happiness—for example, their temperament or optimistic outlook on life.
- Top-down processing
- Experience influencing the perception of stimuli.
- Topographic model
- Freud’s first model of the mind, which contended that the mind could be divided into three regions: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. (The “topographic” comes from the fact that topography is the study of maps.)
- “Traitement moral” (moral treatment)
- A therapeutic regimen of improved nutrition, living conditions, and rewards for productive behavior that has been attributed to Philippe Pinel during the French Revolution, when he released mentally ill patients from their restraints and treated them with compassion and dignity rather than with contempt and denigration.
- Trance States
- Trance: a state of consciousness characterized by the experience of “out-of-body possession,” or an acute dissociation between one’s self and the current, physical environment surrounding them.
- Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)
- A neuroscience technique that passes mild electrical current directly through a brain area by placing small electrodes on the skull.
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
- A neuroscience technique whereby a brief magnetic pulse is applied to the head that temporarily induces a weak electrical current that interferes with ongoing activity.
- Transduction
- The conversion of one form of energy into another.
- Transformation
- The term for personality changes associated with experience and life events.
- Transverse plane
- See “horizontal plane.”
- Trephination
- The drilling of a hole in the skull, presumably as a way of treating psychological disorders.
- Trichromatic theory
- Theory proposing color vision as influenced by three different cones responding preferentially to red, green and blue.
- Trigger features
- Specific, sometimes minute, aspects of a situation that activate fixed action patterns.
- Tympanic membrane
- Thin, stretched membrane in the middle ear that vibrates in response to sound. Also called the eardrum.
- Typicality
- The difference in “goodness” of category members, ranging from the most typical (the prototype) to borderline members.
- Unconditioned response (UR)
- In classical conditioning, an innate response that is elicited by a stimulus before (or in the absence of) conditioning.
- Unconditioned stimulus (US)
- In classical conditioning, the stimulus that elicits the response before conditioning occurs.
- Unconscious
- Not conscious; the part of the mind that affects behavior though it is inaccessible to the conscious mind.
- Validity
- Evidence related to the interpretation and use of test scores. A particularly important type of evidence is criterion validity, which involves the ability of a test to predict theoretically relevant outcomes. For example, a presumed measure of conscientiousness should be related to academic achievement (such as overall grade point average).
- Ventral pathway
- Pathway of visual processing. The “what” pathway.
- Vestibular system
- Parts of the inner ear involved in balance.
- Vicarious reinforcement
- Learning that occurs by observing the reinforcement or punishment of another person.
- Violence
- Aggression intended to cause extreme physical harm, such as injury or death.
- Visual hemifield
- The half of visual space (what we see) on one side of fixation (where we are looking); the left hemisphere is responsible for the right visual hemifield, and the right hemisphere is responsible for the left visual hemifield.
- Weber’s law
- States that just noticeable difference is proportional to the magnitude of the initial stimulus.
- White coat hypertension
- A phenomenon in which patients exhibit elevated blood pressure in the hospital or doctor’s office but not in their everyday lives.
- White matter
- The inner whitish regions of the cerebrum comprised of the myelinated axons of neurons in the cerebral cortex.
- Working memory
- The ability to maintain information over a short period of time, such as 30 seconds or less.