Vocabulary

Ablation
Surgical removal of brain tissue.
Acceptance and commitment therapy
A therapeutic approach designed to foster nonjudgmental observation of one’s own mental processes.
Action potential
A transient all-or-nothing electrical current that is conducted down the axon when the membrane potential reaches the threshold of excitation.
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.
Adherence
In health, it is the ability of a patient to maintain a health behavior prescribed by a physician. This might include taking medication as prescribed, exercising more, or eating less high-fat food.
Adoption study
A behavior genetic research method that involves comparison of adopted children to their adoptive and biological parents.
Affect
Feelings that can be described in terms of two dimensions, the dimensions of arousal and valence (Figure 2). For example, high arousal positive states refer to excitement, elation, and enthusiasm. Low arousal positive states refer to calm, peacefulness, and relaxation. Whereas “actual affect” refers to the states that people actually feel, “ideal affect” refers to the states that people ideally want to feel.
Affective forecasting
Predicting how one will feel in the future after some event or decision.
Afferent nerves
Nerves that carry messages to the brain or spinal cord.
A-fibers
Fast-conducting sensory nerves with myelinated axons. Larger diameter and thicker myelin sheaths increases conduction speed. Aβ-fibers conduct touch signals from low-threshold mechanoreceptors with a velocity of 80 m/s and a diameter of 10 μm; Aδ-fibers have a diameter of 2.5 μm and conduct cold, noxious, and thermal signals at 12 m/s. The third and fastest conducting A-fiber is the Aα, which conducts proprioceptive information with a velocity of 120 m/s and a diameter of 20 μm.
Agender
An individual who may have no gender or may describe themselves as having a neutral gender.
Aggression
Any behavior intended to harm another person who does not want to be harmed.
Agnosias
Due to damage of Wernicke’s area. An inability to recognize objects, words, or faces.
Agonists
A drug that increases or enhances a neurotransmitter’s effect.
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 core personality trait that includes such dispositional characteristics as being sympathetic, generous, forgiving, and helpful, and behavioral tendencies toward harmonious social relations and likeability.
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.
Allodynia
Pain due to a stimulus that does not normally provoke pain, e.g., when a light, stroking touch feels painful.
Alogia
A reduction in the amount of speech and/or increased pausing before the initiation of speech.
Altruism
A motivation for helping that has the improvement of another’s welfare as its ultimate goal, with no expectation of any benefits for the helper.
Ambivalent sexism
A concept of gender attitudes that encompasses both positive and negative qualities.
Amygdala
A brain structure in the limbic system involved in fear reactivity and implicated in the biological basis for social anxiety disorder.
Analgesia
Pain relief.
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.
Antagonist
A drug that blocks a neurotransmitter’s effect.
Anterograde amnesia
Inability to form new memories for facts and events after the onset of amnesia.
Anxiety
A state of worry or apprehension about future events or possible danger that usually involves negative thoughts, unpleasant physical sensations, and/or a desire to avoid harm.
Anxiety
A mood state characterized by negative affect, muscle tension, and physical arousal in which a person apprehensively anticipates future danger or misfortune.
Aphasia
Due to damage of the Broca’s area. An inability to produce or understand words.
Arcuate fasciculus
A fiber tract that connects Wernicke’s and Broca’s speech areas.
Arousal: cost–reward model
An egoistic theory proposed by Piliavin et al. (1981) that claims that seeing a person in need leads to the arousal of unpleasant feelings, and observers are motivated to eliminate that aversive state, often by helping the victim. A cost–reward analysis may lead observers to react in ways other than offering direct assistance, including indirect help, reinterpretation of the situation, or fleeing the scene.
Asylum
A place of refuge or safety established to confine and care for the mentally ill; forerunners of the mental hospital or psychiatric facility.
Attitude
A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor.
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.
Audience design
Constructing utterances to suit the audience’s knowledge.
Autobiographical memory
Memory for the events of one’s life.
Automatic
Automatic biases are unintended, immediate, and irresistible.
Automatic
A behavior or process has one or more of the following features: unintentional, uncontrollable, occurring outside of conscious awareness, and cognitively efficient.
Automatic empathy
A social perceiver unwittingly taking on the internal state of another person, usually because of mimicking the person’s expressive behavior and thereby feeling the expressed emotion.
Automatic thoughts
Thoughts that occur spontaneously; often used to describe problematic thoughts that maintain mental disorders.
Autonomic nervous system
A part of the peripheral nervous system that connects to glands and smooth muscles. Consists of sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions.
Availability heuristic
The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the ease with which relevant instances come to mind.
Availability heuristic
A heuristic in which the frequency or likelihood of an event is evaluated based on how easily instances of it 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.
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.
Basal ganglia
Subcortical structures of the cerebral hemispheres involved in voluntary movement.
Behavioral genetics
The empirical science of how genes and environments combine to generate behavior.
Behavioral medicine
A field similar to health psychology that integrates psychological factors (e.g., emotion, behavior, cognition, and social factors) in the treatment of disease. This applied field includes clinical areas of study, such as occupational therapy, hypnosis, rehabilitation or medicine, and preventative medicine.
Behaviorism
The study of behavior.
Benevolent sexism
The “positive” element of ambivalent sexism, which recognizes that women are perceived as needing to be protected, supported, and adored by men.
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).
Big-C Creativity
Creative ideas that have an impact well beyond the everyday life of home or work. At the highest level, this kind of creativity is that of the creative genius.
Bigender
An individual who identifies as two genders.
Binary
The idea that gender has two separate and distinct categories (male and female) and that a person must be either one or the other.
Binocular advantage
Benefits from having two eyes as opposed to a single eye.
Biofeedback
The process by which physiological signals, not normally available to human perception, are transformed into easy-to-understand graphs or numbers. Individuals can then use this information to try to change bodily functioning (e.g., lower blood pressure, reduce muscle tension).
Biological vulnerability
A specific genetic and neurobiological factor that might predispose someone to develop anxiety disorders.
Biomedical Model of Health
A reductionist model that posits that ill health is a result of a deviation from normal function, which is explained by the presence of pathogens, injury, or genetic abnormality.
Biopsychosocial model
A model in which the interaction of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors is seen as influencing the development of the individual.
Biopsychosocial Model of Health
An approach to studying health and human function that posits the importance of biological, psychological, and social (or environmental) processes.
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.
“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.
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.
Broca’s area
An area in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere. Implicated in language production.
Bystander intervention
The phenomenon whereby people intervene to help others in need even if the other is a complete stranger and the intervention puts the helper at risk.
Callosotomy
Surgical procedure in which the corpus callosum is severed (used to control severe epilepsy).
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.
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.
C​athartic 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.
Cell membrane
A bi-lipid layer of molecules that separates the cell from the surrounding extracellular fluid.
Central route to persuasion
Persuasion that employs direct, relevant, logical messages.
Central sulcus
The major fissure that divides the frontal and the parietal lobes.
Cerebellum
A nervous system structure behind and below the cerebrum. Controls motor movement coordination, balance, equilibrium, and muscle tone.
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
Consists of left and right hemispheres that sit at the top of the nervous system and engages in a variety of higher-order functions.
C-fibers
C-fibers: Slow-conducting unmyelinated thin sensory afferents with a diameter of 1 μm and a conduction velocity of approximately 1 m/s. C-pain fibers convey noxious, thermal, and heat signals; C-tactile fibers convey gentle touch, light stroking.
Chameleon effect
The tendency for individuals to nonconsciously mimic the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one’s interaction partners.
Chronic disease
A health condition that persists over time, typically for periods longer than three months (e.g., HIV, asthma, diabetes).
Chronic pain
Persistent or recurrent pain, beyond usual course of acute illness or injury; sometimes present without observable tissue damage or clear cause.
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).
Chunk
The process of grouping information together using our knowledge.
Chutes and Ladders
A numerical board game that seems to be useful for building numerical knowledge.
Cingulate gyrus
A medial cortical portion of the nervous tissue that is a part of the limbic system.
Cisgender
A term used to describe individuals whose gender matches their biological sex.
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.
Classical conditioning
Describes stimulus-stimulus associative learning.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
Psychotherapy approach that incorporates cognitive techniques (targeting unhelpful thoughts) and behavioral techniques (changing behaviors) to improve psychological symptoms.
Cognitive bias modification
Using exercises (e.g., computer games) to change problematic thinking habits.
Cognitive psychology
The study of mental processes.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
A family of approaches with the goal of changing the thoughts and behaviors that influence psychopathology.
Collectivism
Belief system that emphasizes the duties and obligations that each person has toward others.
Common ground
Information that is shared by people who engage in a conversation.
Comorbidity
Describes a state of having more than one psychological or physical disorder at a given time.
Computerized axial tomography
A noninvasive brain-scanning procedure that uses X-ray absorption around the head.
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 aversions and preferences
Likes and dislikes developed through associations with pleasurable or unpleasurable sensations.
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 that operate in lighted environments and can encode fine visual details. There are three different kinds (S or blue, M or green and L or red) that are each sensitive to slightly different types of light. Combined, these three types of cones allow you to have color vision.
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.
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
Process by which a memory trace is stabilized and transformed into a more durable form.
Consolidation
The process occurring after encoding that is believed to stabilize memory traces.
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.”
Contingency management
A reward or punishment that systematically follows a behavior. Parents can use contingencies to modify their children’s behavior.
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).
Contrast
Relative difference in the amount and type of light coming from two nearby locations.
Contrast gain
Process where the sensitivity of your visual system can be tuned to be most sensitive to the levels of contrast that are most prevalent in the environment.
Control
Feeling like you have the power to change your environment or behavior if you need or want to.
Convergent thinking
The opposite of divergent thinking, the capacity to narrow in on the single “correct” answer or solution to a given question or problem (e.g., giving the right response on an intelligence tests).
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.
Correlation
Measures the association between two variables, or how they go together.
Cost–benefit analysis
A decision-making process that compares the cost of an action or thing against the expected benefit to help determine the best course of action.
C-pain or Aδ-fibers
C-pain fibers convey noxious, thermal, and heat signals
Crowds
Adolescent peer groups characterized by shared reputations or images.
C-tactile fibers
C-tactile fibers convey gentle touch, light stroking
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.
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.
Culture
Shared, socially transmitted ideas (e.g., values, beliefs, attitudes) that are reflected in and reinforced by institutions, products, and rituals.
Cutaneous senses
The senses of the skin: tactile, thermal, pruritic (itchy), painful, and pleasant.
Daily hassles
Irritations in daily life that are not necessarily traumatic, but that cause difficulties and repeated stress.
Dark adaptation
Process that allows you to become sensitive to very small levels of light, so that you can actually see in the near-absence of light.
Decay
The fading of memories with the passage of time.
Declarative memory
Conscious memories for facts and events.
Delusions
False beliefs that are often fixed, hard to change even in the presence of conflicting information, and often culturally influenced in their content.
Dendrite
Part of a neuron that extends away from the cell body and is the main input to the neuron.
Dependent variable
The variable the researcher measures but does not manipulate in an experiment.
Depth perception
The ability to actively perceive the distance from oneself of objects in the environment.
Descending pain modulatory system
A top-down pain-modulating system able to inhibit or facilitate pain. The pathway produces analgesia by the release of endogenous opioids. Several brain structures and nuclei are part of this circuit, such as the frontal lobe areas of the anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and insular cortex; and nuclei in the amygdala and the hypothalamus, which all project to a structure in the midbrain called the periaqueductal grey (PAG). The PAG then controls ascending pain transmission from the afferent pain system indirectly through the rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM) in the brainstem, which uses ON- and OFF-cells to inhibit or facilitate nociceptive signals at the spinal dorsal horn.
Descriptive norm
The perception of what most people do in a given situation.
Developmental intergroup theory
A theory that postulates that adults’ focus on gender leads children to pay attention to gender as a key source of information about themselves and others, to seek out possible gender differences, and to form rigid stereotypes based on gender.
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).
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
A treatment often used for borderline personality disorder that incorporates both cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness elements.
Dialectical worldview
A perspective in DBT that emphasizes the joint importance of change and acceptance.
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 susceptibility
Genetic factors that make individuals more or less responsive to environmental experiences.
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.
Diffusion
The force on molecules to move from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration.
Diffusion of responsibility
When deciding whether to help a person in need, knowing that there are others who could also provide assistance relieves bystanders of some measure of personal responsibility, reducing the likelihood that bystanders will intervene.
Directional goals
The motivation to reach a particular outcome or judgment.
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.
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.
Distribution
The pattern of variation in data.
Divergent thinking
The opposite of convergent thinking, the capacity for exploring multiple potential answers or solutions to a given question or problem (e.g., coming up with many different uses for a common object).
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.
Drive state
Affective experiences that motivate organisms to fulfill goals that are generally beneficial to their survival and reproduction.
Drug diversion
When a drug that is prescribed to treat a medical condition is given to another individual who seeks to use the drug illicitly.
Durability bias
A bias in affective forecasting in which one overestimates for how long one will feel an emotion (positive or negative) after some event.
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.
Ectoderm
The outermost layer of a developing fetus.
Efferent nerves
Nerves that carry messages from the brain to glands and organs in the periphery.
Ego depletion
The idea that people have a limited pool of mental resources for self-control (e.g., regulating emotions, willpower), and this pool can be used up (depleted).
Egoism
A motivation for helping that has the improvement of the helper’s own circumstances as its primary goal.
Electroencephalography
A technique that is used to measure gross electrical activity of the brain by placing electrodes on the scalp.
Electroencephalography (EEG)
A neuroimaging technique that measures electrical brain activity via multiple electrodes on the scalp.
Electrostatic pressure
The force on two ions with similar charge to repel each other; the force of two ions with opposite charge to attract to one another.
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.
Emotion regulation
The ability to recognize emotional experiences and respond to situations by engaging in strategies to manage emotions as necessary.
Emotion-focused coping
Coping strategy aimed at reducing the negative emotions associated with a stressful event.
Emotions
Changes in subjective experience, physiological responding, and behavior in response to a meaningful event. Emotions tend to occur on the order of seconds (in contract to moods which may last for days).
Empathic concern
According to Batson’s empathy–altruism hypothesis, observers who empathize with a person in need (that is, put themselves in the shoes of the victim and imagine how that person feels) will experience empathic concern and have an altruistic motivation for helping.
Empathy–altruism model
An altruistic theory proposed by Batson (2011) that claims that people who put themselves in the shoes of a victim and imagining how the victim feel will experience empathic concern that evokes an altruistic motivation for helping.
Empirical methods
Approaches to inquiry that are tied to actual measurement and observation.
Empiricism
The belief that knowledge comes from experience.
Encoding
The initial experience of perceiving and learning events.
Encoding
Process by which information gets into memory.
Encoding
The pact of putting information into memory.
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.
Endophenotypes
A characteristic that reflects a genetic liability for disease and a more basic component of a complex clinical presentation. Endophenotypes are less developmentally malleable than overt behavior.
Endorphin
An endogenous morphine-like peptide that binds to the opioid receptors in the brain and body; synthesized in the body’s nervous system.
Engrams
A term indicating the change in the nervous system representing an event; also, memory trace.
Enzyme
A protein produced by a living organism that allows or helps a chemical reaction to occur.
Enzyme induction
Process through which a drug can enhance the production of an enzyme.
Episodic memory
Memory for events in a particular time and place.
Episodic memory
The ability to learn and retrieve new information or episodes in one’s life.
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.
Evaluative priming​ task
An implicit attitude task that assesses the extent to which an attitude object is associated with a positive or negative valence by measuring the time it takes a person to label an adjective as good or bad after being presented with an attitude object.
A physiological measure of large electrical change in the brain produced by sensory stimulation or motor responses.
Measures the firing of groups of neurons in the cortex. As a person views or listens to specific types of information, neuronal activity creates small electrical currents that can be recorded from non-invasive sensors placed on the scalp. ERP provides excellent information about the timing of processing, clarifying brain activity at the millisecond pace at which it unfolds.
Excitatory postsynaptic potentials
A depolarizing postsynaptic current that causes the membrane potential to become more positive and move towards the threshold of excitation.
Experimenter expectations
When the experimenter’s expectations influence the outcome of a study.
Explicit attitude
An attitude that is consciously held and can be reported on by the person holding the attitude.
Exposure therapy
A form of intervention in which the patient engages with a problematic (usually feared) situation without avoidance or escape.
Exposure treatment
A technique used in behavior therapy that involves a patient repeatedly confronting a feared situation, without danger, to reduce anxiety.
External cues
Stimuli in the outside world that serve as triggers for anxiety or as reminders of past traumatic events.
Exteroception
The sense of the external world, of all stimulation originating from outside our own bodies.
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.
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.
False-belief test
An experimental procedure that assesses whether a perceiver recognizes that another person has a false belief—a belief that contradicts reality.
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.
Fear of negative evaluation
The preoccupation with and dread of the possibility of being judged negatively by others.
Fear of positive evaluation
The dread associated with favorable public evaluation or acknowledgment of success, particularly when it involves social comparison.
Feelings
A general term used to describe a wide range of states that include emotions, moods, traits and that typically involve changes in subjective experience, physiological responding, and behavior in response to a meaningful event. Emotions typically occur on the order of seconds, whereas moods may last for days, and traits are tendencies to respond a certain way across various situations.
Fight or flight response
A biological reaction to alarming stressors that prepares the body to resist or escape a threat.
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.
Foils
Any member of a lineup (whether live or photograph) other than the suspect.
Folk explanations of behavior
People’s natural explanations for why somebody did something, felt something, etc. (differing substantially for unintentional and intentional behaviors).
Foot in the door
Obtaining a small, initial commitment.
Forebrain
A part of the nervous system that contains the cerebral hemispheres, thalamus, and hypothalamus.
Foreclosure
Individuals commit to an identity without exploration of options.
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.
Fornix
(plural form, fornices) A nerve fiber tract that connects the hippocampus to mammillary bodies.
Framing
The bias to be systematically affected by the way in which information is presented, while holding the objective information constant.
Free association
In psychodynamic therapy, a process in which the patient reports all thoughts that come to mind without censorship, and these thoughts are interpreted by the therapist.
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 most forward region (close to forehead) of the cerebral hemispheres.
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
(or fMRI) A noninvasive brain-imaging technique that registers changes in blood flow in the brain during a given task (also see magnetic resonance imaging).
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
Entails the use of powerful magnets to measure the levels of oxygen within the brain that vary with changes in neural activity. That is, as the neurons in specific brain regions “work harder” when performing a specific task, they require more oxygen. By having people listen to or view social percepts in an MRI scanner, fMRI specifies the brain regions that evidence a relative increase in blood flow. In this way, fMRI provides excellent spatial information, pinpointing with millimeter accuracy, the brain regions most critical for different social processes.
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.
Gender
The cultural, social, and psychological meanings that are associated with masculinity and femininity.
Gender constancy
The awareness that gender is constant and does not change simply by changing external attributes; develops between 3 and 6 years of age.
Gender discrimination
Differential treatment on the basis of gender.
Gender identity
A person’s psychological sense of being male or female.
Gender roles
The behaviors, attitudes, and personality traits that are designated as either masculine or feminine in a given culture.
Gender schema theory
This theory of how children form their own gender roles argues that children actively organize others’ behavior, activities, and attributes into gender categories or schemas.
Gender stereotypes
The beliefs and expectations people hold about the typical characteristics, preferences, and behaviors of men and women.
Genderfluid
An individual who may identify as male, female, both, or neither at different times and in different circumstances.
Genderqueer or gender nonbinary
An umbrella term used to describe a wide range of individuals who do not identify with and/or conform to the gender binary.
General Adaptation Syndrome
A three-phase model of stress, which includes a mobilization of physiological resources phase, a coping phase, and an exhaustion phase (i.e., when an organism fails to cope with the stress adequately and depletes its resources).
Generalizability
Related to whether the results from the sample can be generalized to a larger population.
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.
Globus pallidus
A nucleus of the basal ganglia.
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.
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).
Gray matter
The outer grayish regions of the brain comprised of the neurons’ cell bodies.
Gray matter
Composes the bark or the cortex of the cerebrum and consists of the cell bodies of the neurons (see also white matter).
Gustation
The action of tasting; the ability to taste.
Gyri
(plural) Folds between sulci in the cortex.
Gyrus
(plural form, gyri) A bulge that is raised between or among fissures of the convoluted brain.
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.
Habituation
Occurs when the response to a stimulus decreases with exposure.
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).
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.
Health
According to the World Health Organization, it is a complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Health behavior
Any behavior that is related to health—either good or bad.
Helpfulness
A component of the prosocial personality orientation; describes individuals who have been helpful in the past and, because they believe they can be effective with the help they give, are more likely to be helpful in the future.
Helping
Prosocial acts that typically involve situations in which one person is in need and another provides the necessary assistance to eliminate the other’s need.
Heritability coefficient
An easily misinterpreted statistical construct that purports to measure the role of genetics in the explanation of differences among individuals.
Heuristics
A mental shortcut or rule of thumb that reduces complex mental problems to more simple rule-based decisions.
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.
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.
Hippocampus
(plural form, hippocampi) A nucleus inside (medial) the temporal lobe implicated in learning and memory.
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.
Homo habilis
A human ancestor, handy man, that lived two million years ago.
Homo sapiens
Modern man, the only surviving form of the genus Homo.
Homophily
Adolescents tend to associate with peers who are similar to themselves.
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.
Hostile attribution bias
The tendency to perceive ambiguous actions by others as aggressive.
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.
Hostile sexism
The negative element of ambivalent sexism, which includes the attitudes that women are inferior and incompetent relative to men.
Hostility
An experience or trait with cognitive, behavioral, and emotional components. It often includes cynical thoughts, feelings of emotion, and aggressive behavior.
Hot cognition
The mental processes that are influenced by desires and feelings.
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.
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.
Hypothalamus
Part of the diencephalon. Regulates biological drives with pituitary gland.
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.
Immunocytochemistry
A method of staining tissue including the brain, using antibodies.
Impact bias
A bias in affective forecasting in which one overestimates the strength or intensity of emotion one will experience after some event.
Implicit Association Test
An implicit attitude task that assesses a person’s automatic associations between concepts by measuring the response times in pairing the concepts.
Implicit Association Test
Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures relatively automatic biases that favor own group relative to other groups.
Implicit attitude
An attitude that a person cannot verbally or overtly state.
Implicit learning
Occurs when we acquire information without intent that we cannot easily express.
Implicit measures of attitudes
Measures of attitudes in which researchers infer the participant’s attitude rather than having the participant explicitly report it.
Implicit memory
A type of long-term memory that does not require conscious thought to encode. It's the type of memory one makes without intent.
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.
Incidental learning
Any type of learning that happens without the intention to learn.
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 self
A model or view of the self as distinct from others and as stable across different situations. The goal of the independent self is to express and assert the self, and to influence others. This model of self is prevalent in many individualistic, Western contexts (e.g., the United States, Australia, Western Europe).
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.
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.
Inhibitory postsynaptic potentials
A hyperpolarizing postsynaptic current that causes the membrane potential to become more negative and move away from the threshold of excitation.
Instrumental conditioning
Process in which animals learn about the relationship between their behaviors and their consequences. Also known as operant conditioning.
Integrative ​or eclectic psychotherapy​
Also called integrative psychotherapy, this term refers to approaches combining multiple orientations (e.g., CBT with psychoanalytic elements).
Integrative or ​eclectic psychotherapy
Also called integrative psychotherapy, this term refers to approaches combining multiple orientations (e.g., CBT with psychoanalytic elements).
Intention
An agent’s mental state of committing to perform an action that the agent believes will bring about a desired outcome.
Intentional learning
Any type of learning that happens when motivated by intention.
Intentionality
The quality of an agent’s performing a behavior intentionally—that is, with skill and awareness and executing an intention (which is in turn based on a desire and relevant beliefs).
Interdependent self
A model or view of the self as connected to others and as changing in response to different situations. The goal of the interdependent self is to suppress personal preferences and desires, and to adjust to others. This model of self is prevalent in many collectivistic, East Asian contexts (e.g., China, Japan, Korea).
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.
Interoception
The sense of the physiological state of the body. Hunger, thirst, temperature, pain, and other sensations relevant to homeostasis. Visceral input such as heart rate, blood pressure, and digestive activity give rise to an experience of the body’s internal states and physiological reactions to external stimulation. This experience has been described as a representation of “the material me,” and it is hypothesized to be the foundation of subjective feelings, emotion, and self-awareness.
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.
Introspection
A method of focusing on internal processes.
Ion channels
Proteins that span the cell membrane, forming channels that specific ions can flow through between the intracellular and extracellular space.
Ionotropic receptor
Ion channel that opens to allow ions to permeate the cell membrane under specific conditions, such as the presence of a neurotransmitter or a specific membrane potential.
Joint attention
Two people attending to the same object and being aware that they both are attending to it.
Kin selection
According to evolutionary psychology, the favoritism shown for helping our blood relatives, with the goals of increasing the likelihood that some portion of our DNA will be passed on to future generations.
Latent inhibition
The ability to filter out extraneous stimuli, concentrating only on the information that is deemed relevant. Reduced latent inhibition is associated with higher creativity.
Lateral geniculate nucleus
(or LGN) A nucleus in the thalamus that is innervated by the optic nerves and sends signals to the visual cortex in the occipital lobe.
Lateral inhibition
A signal produced by a neuron aimed at suppressing the response of nearby neurons.
Lateral sulcus
The major fissure that delineates the temporal lobe below the frontal and the parietal lobes.
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.
Lesion studies
A surgical method in which a part of the animal brain is removed to study its effects on behavior or function.
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.
Limbic system
A loosely defined network of nuclei in the brain involved with learning and emotion.
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 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.
Little-c creativity
Creative ideas that appear at the personal level, whether the home or the workplace. Such creativity needs not have a larger impact to be considered creative.
Longitudinal study
A study that follows the same group of individuals over time.
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.
Magnetic resonance imaging
Or MRI is a brain imaging noninvasive technique that uses magnetic energy to generate brain images (also see fMRI).
Magnification factor
Cortical space projected by an area of sensory input (e.g., mm of cortex per degree of visual field).
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).
Malingering
Fabrication or exaggeration of medical symptoms to achieve secondary gain (e.g., receive medication, avoid school).
Margin of error
The expected amount of random variation in a statistic; often defined for 95% confidence level.
Medial temporal lobes
Inner region of the temporal lobes that includes the hippocampus.
Medulla oblongata
An area just above the spinal cord that processes breathing, digestion, heart and blood vessel function, swallowing, and sneezing.
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.
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.
Metabolism
Breakdown of substances.
Metabolite
A substance necessary for a living organism to maintain life.
Metacognition
Describes the knowledge and skills people have in monitoring and controlling their own learning and memory.
Mimicry
Copying others’ behavior, usually without awareness.
Mind–body connection
The idea that our emotions and thoughts can affect how our body functions.
Mindfulness
A process that reflects a nonjudgmental, yet attentive, mental state.
Mindfulness-based therapy
A form of psychotherapy grounded in mindfulness theory and practice, often involving meditation, yoga, body scan, and other features of mindfulness exercises.
Mirror neurons
Neurons identified in monkey brains that fire both when the monkey performs a certain action and when it perceives another agent performing that action.
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.
Mood-congruent memory
The tendency to be better able to recall memories that have a mood similar to our current mood.
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.
Motivated skepticism
A form of bias that can result from having a directional goal in which one is skeptical of evidence despite its strength because it goes against what one wants to believe.
Motor cortex
Region of the frontal lobe responsible for voluntary movement; the motor cortex has a contralateral representation of the human body.
Multicultural experiences
Individual exposure to two or more cultures, such as obtained by living abroad, emigrating to another country, or working or going to school in a culturally diverse setting.
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
Substance around the axon of a neuron that serves as insulation to allow the action potential to conduct rapidly toward the terminal buttons.
Nature
The genes that children bring with them to life and that influence all aspects of their development.
Need for closure
The desire to come to a decision that will resolve ambiguity and conclude an issue.
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.
Negative state relief model
An egoistic theory proposed by Cialdini et al. (1982) that claims that people have learned through socialization that helping can serve as a secondary reinforcement that will relieve negative moods such as sadness.
Neural crest
A set of primordial neurons that migrate outside the neural tube and give rise to sensory and autonomic neurons in the peripheral nervous system.
Neural impulse
An electro-chemical signal that enables neurons to communicate.
Neural induction
A process that causes the formation of the neural tube.
Neuroblasts
Brain progenitor cells that asymmetrically divide into other neuroblasts or nerve cells.
Neurodevelopmental
Processes that influence how the brain develops either in utero or as the child is growing up.
Neuroepithelium
The lining of the neural tube.
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 substance produced by a neuron that is used for communication between neurons.
Neurotransmitters
Chemical substance released by the presynaptic terminal button that acts on the postsynaptic cell.
Nociception
The neural process of encoding noxious stimuli, the sensory input from nociceptors. Not necessarily painful, and crucially not necessary for the experience of pain.
Nociceptors
High-threshold sensory receptors of the peripheral somatosensory nervous system that are capable of transducing and encoding noxious stimuli. Nociceptors send information about actual or impending tissue damage to the brain. These signals can often lead to pain, but nociception and pain are not the same.
Nomenclature
Naming conventions.
Nonassociative learning
Occurs when a single repeated exposure leads to a change in behavior.
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.
Normative influence
Conformity that results from a concern for what other people think of us.
Noxious stimulus
A stimulus that is damaging or threatens damage to normal tissues.
Nucleus
Collection of nerve cells found in the brain which typically serve a specific function.
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.
Observational learning
Learning by observing the behavior of others.
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 part of the cerebrum, which houses the visual areas.
Occipital lobe
The back most (posterior) part of the cerebrum; involved in vision.
Ocial touch hypothesis
Proposes that social touch is a distinct domain of touch. C-tactile afferents form a special pathway that distinguishes social touch from other types of touch by selectively firing in response to touch of social-affective relevance; thus sending affective information parallel to the discriminatory information from the Aβ-fibers. In this way, the socially relevant touch stands out from the rest as having special positive emotional value and is processed further in affect-related brain areas such as the insula.
OECD countries
Members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, comprised of the world’s wealthiest countries.
Olfaction
The sense of smell; the action of smelling; the ability to smell.
Omnivore
A person or animal that is able to survive by eating a wide range of foods from plant or animal origin.
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.
Openness to experience
One of the factors of the Big Five Model of personality, the factor assesses the degree that a person is open to different or new values, interests, and activities.
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.
Operant conditioning
Describes stimulus-response associative learning.
Operational definitions
How researchers specifically measure a concept.
Opponent Process Theory
Theory of color vision that assumes there are four different basic colors, organized into two pairs (red/green and blue/yellow) and proposes that colors in the world are encoded in terms of the opponency (or difference) between the colors in each pair. There is an additional black/white pair responsible for coding light contrast.
Oppositional defiant disorder
A childhood behavior disorder that is characterized by stubbornness, hostility, and behavioral defiance. This disorder is highly comorbid with ADHD.
Originality
When an idea or solution has a low probability of occurrence.
Orthonasal olfaction
Perceiving scents/smells introduced via the nostrils.
Other-oriented empathy
A component of the prosocial personality orientation; describes individuals who have a strong sense of social responsibility, empathize with and feel emotionally tied to those in need, understand the problems the victim is experiencing, and have a heightened sense of moral obligations to be helpful.
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.
Pain
Defined as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage,” according to the International Association for the Study of Pain.
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).
Parasympathetic nervous system
A division of the autonomic nervous system that is slower than its counterpart—that is, the sympathetic nervous system—and works in opposition to it. Generally engaged in “rest and digest” functions.
Parent management training
A treatment for childhood behavior problems that teaches parents how to use contingencies to more effectively manage their children’s behavior.
Parietal lobe
An area of the cerebrum just behind the central sulcus that is engaged with somatosensory and gustatory sensation.
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.
Pathologizes
To define a trait or collection of traits as medically or psychologically unhealthy or abnormal.
Pavlovian conditioning
See classical conditioning.
Perceptual learning
Occurs when aspects of our perception changes as a function of experience.
Peripheral route to persuasion
Persuasion that relies on superficial cues that have little to do with logic.
Personal distress
According to Batson’s empathy–altruism hypothesis, observers who take a detached view of a person in need will experience feelings of being “worried” and “upset” and will have an egoistic motivation for helping to relieve that distress.
Personality
Enduring predispositions that characterize a person, such as styles of thought, feelings and behavior.
Personality traits
Enduring dispositions in behavior that show differences across individuals, and which tend to characterize the person across varying types of situations.
Person-centered therapy
A therapeutic approach focused on creating a supportive environment for self-discovery.
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 pain
Pain that appears to originate in an amputated limb.
Pharmacokinetics
The action of a drug through the body, including absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion.
Pharmacotherapy
A treatment approach that involves using medications to alter a person’s neural functioning to reduce psychological symptoms.
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.
Photoactivation
A photochemical reaction that occurs when light hits photoreceptors, producing a neural signal.
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.
Placebo effect
When receiving special treatment or something new affects human behavior.
Placebo effect
Effects from a treatment that are not caused by the physical properties of a treatment but by the meaning ascribed to it. These effects reflect the brain’s own activation of modulatory systems, which is triggered by positive expectation or desire for a successful treatment. Placebo analgesia is the most well-studied placebo effect and has been shown to depend, to a large degree, on opioid mechanisms. Placebo analgesia can be reversed by the pharmacological blocking of  opioid receptors. The word “placebo” is probably derived from the Latin word “placebit” (“it will please”).
Planning fallacy
A cognitive bias in which one underestimates how long it will take to complete a task.
Pluralistic ignorance
Relying on the actions of others to define an ambiguous need situation and to then erroneously conclude that no help or intervention is necessary.
Polypharmacy
The use of many medications.
Pons
A bridge that connects the cerebral cortex with the medulla, and reciprocally transfers information back and forth between the brain and the spinal cord.
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.
Positron Emission Tomography
(or PET) An invasive procedure that captures brain images with positron emissions from the brain after the individual has been injected with radio-labeled isotopes.
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.
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.
Primary Motor Cortex
A strip of cortex just in front of the central sulcus that is involved with motor control.
Primary Somatosensory Cortex
A strip of cerebral tissue just behind the central sulcus engaged in sensory reception of bodily sensations.
Primary visual cortex (V1)
Brain region located in the occipital cortex (toward the back of the head) responsible for processing basic visual information like the detection, thickness, and orientation of simple lines, color, and small-scale motion.
Primed
A process by which a concept or behavior is made more cognitively accessible or likely to occur through the presentation of an associated concept.
Priming
A stimulus presented to a person reminds him or her about other ideas associated with the stimulus.
Problem-focused coping
A set of coping strategies aimed at improving or changing stressful situations.
Processing speed
The speed with which an individual can perceive auditory or visual information and respond to it.
Projection
A social perceiver’s assumption that the other person wants, knows, or feels the same as the perceiver wants, know, or feels.
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.
Prosocial behavior
Social behavior that benefits another person.
Prosocial personality orientation
A measure of individual differences that identifies two sets of personality characteristics (other-oriented empathy, helpfulness) that are highly correlated with prosocial behavior.
Prototype
A typical, or average, member of a category. Averageness increases attractiveness.
Psychoactive drugs
A drug that changes mood or the way someone feels.
Psychoanalytic therapy
Sigmund Freud’s therapeutic approach focusing on resolving unconscious conflicts.
Psychodynamic therapy
Treatment applying psychoanalytic principles in a briefer, more individualized format.
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 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.
Psychoneuroimmunology
A field of study examining the relationship among psychology, brain function, and immune function.
Psychopathology
Illnesses or disorders that involve psychological or psychiatric symptoms.
Psychophysics
Study of the relationships between physical stimuli and the perception of those stimuli.
Psychosomatic medicine
An interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on how biological, psychological, and social processes contribute to physiological changes in the body and health over time.
Psychotropic drug
A drug that changes mood or emotion, usually used when talking about drugs prescribed for various mental conditions (depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, etc.).
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 genetics
Scientific and mathematical methods for inferring genetic and environmental processes based on the degree of genetic and environmental similarity among organisms.
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.
Realism
A point of view that emphasizes the importance of the senses in providing knowledge of the external world.
Reappraisal, or ​Cognitive restructuring
The process of identifying, evaluating, and changing maladaptive thoughts in psychotherapy.
Reciprocal altruism
According to evolutionary psychology, a genetic predisposition for people to help those who have previously helped them.
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.
Remote associations
Associations between words or concepts that are semantically distant and thus relatively unusual or original.
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.
Representativeness heuristic
A heuristic in which the likelihood of an object belonging to a category is evaluated based on the extent to which the object appears similar to one’s mental representation of the category.
Resilience
The ability to “bounce back” from negative situations (e.g., illness, stress) to normal functioning or to simply not show poor outcomes in the face of adversity. In some cases, resilience may lead to better functioning following the negative experience (e.g., post-traumatic growth).
Resting membrane potential
The voltage inside the cell relative to the voltage outside the cell while the cell is a rest (approximately -70 mV).
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.
Retronasal olfaction
Perceiving scents/smells introduced via the mouth/palate.
Reward value
A neuropsychological measure of an outcome’s affective importance to an organism.
Right-wing authoritarianism
Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) focuses on value conflicts but endorses respect for obedience and authority in the service of group conformity.
Rods
Photoreceptors that are very sensitive to light and are mostly responsible for night vision.
Rostrocaudal
A front-back plane used to identify anatomical structures in the body and the brain.
SAD performance only
Social anxiety disorder which is limited to certain situations that the sufferer perceives as requiring some type of performance.
Safety behaviors
Actions people take to reduce likelihood of embarrassment or minimizing anxiety in a situation (e.g., not making eye contact, planning what to say).
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
A mental representation or set of beliefs about something.
Schema
A mental model or representation that organizes the important information about a thing, person, or event (also known as a script).
Schema (plural: schemata)
A memory template, created through repeated exposure to a particular class of objects or events.
Schemas
The gender categories into which, according to gender schema theory, children actively organize others’ behavior, activities, and attributes.
Scientist-practitioner model
A model of training of professional psychologists that emphasizes the development of both research and clinical skills.
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.
Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
A class of antidepressant medications often used to treat SAD that increase the concentration of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain.
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-efficacy
The belief that one can perform adequately in a specific situation.
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.
Semantic memory
The more or less permanent store of knowledge that people have.
Sensitization
Increased responsiveness of nociceptive neurons to their normal input and/or recruitment of a response to normally subthreshold inputs. Clinically, sensitization may only be inferred indirectly from phenomena such as hyperalgesia or allodynia. Sensitization can occur in the central nervous system (central sensitization) or in the periphery (peripheral sensitization).
Sensitization
Occurs when the response to a stimulus increases with exposure
Sensorimotor stage
Period within Piagetian theory from birth to age 2 years, during which children come to represent the enduring reality of objects.
Serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs)
A class of antidepressant medications often used to treat SAD that increase the concentration of serotonin and norepinephrine in the brain.
Sex
Biological category of male or female as defined by physical differences in genetic composition and in reproductive anatomy and function.
Sexual harassment
A form of gender discrimination based on unwanted treatment related to sexual behaviors or appearance.
Sexual orientation
Refers to the direction of emotional and erotic attraction toward members of the opposite sex, the same sex, or both sexes.
Shadowing
A task in which the individual is asked to repeat an auditory message as it is presented.
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.
Simulation
The process of representing the other person’s mental state.
Situation model
A mental representation of an event, object, or situation constructed at the time of comprehending a linguistic description.
Social and cultural
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.
Social anxiety
Excessive anticipation and distress about social situations in which one may be evaluated negatively, rejected, or scrutinized.
Social anxiety disorder (SAD)
A condition marked by acute fear of social situations which lead to worry and diminished day to day functioning.
Social anxiety disorder (SAD)
An anxiety disorder marked by severe and persistent social anxiety and avoidance that interferes with a person’s ability to fulfill their roles in important life domains.
Social brain
The set of neuroanatomical structures that allows us to understand the actions and intentions of other people.
Social brain hypothesis
The hypothesis that the human brain has evolved, so that humans can maintain larger ingroups.
Social cognition
The study of how people think about the social world.
Social constructivism
Social constructivism proposes that knowledge is first created and learned within a social context and is then adopted by individuals.
Social dominance orientation
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
Social identity theory notes that people categorize each other into groups, favoring their own group.
Social integration
The size of your social network, or number of social roles (e.g., son, sister, student, employee, team member).
Social Learning Theory
The theory that people can learn new responses and behaviors by observing the behavior of others.
Social learning theory
This theory of how children form their own gender roles argues that gender roles are learned through reinforcement, punishment, and modeling.
Social models
Authorities that are the targets for observation and who model behaviors.
Social networks
Networks of social relationships among individuals through which information can travel.
Social proof
The mental shortcut based on the assumption that, if everyone is doing it, it must be right.
Social referencing
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.
Social support
The perception or actuality that we have a social network that can help us in times of need and provide us with a variety of useful resources (e.g., advice, love, money).
S​ocial touch hypothesis
Proposes that social touch is a distinct domain of touch. C-tactile afferents form a special pathway that distinguishes social touch from other types of touch by selectively firing in response to touch of social-affective relevance; thus sending affective information parallel to the discriminatory information from the Aβ-fibers. In this way, the socially relevant touch stands out from the rest as having special positive emotional value and is processed further in affect-related brain areas such as the insula.
Social zeitgeber
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.
Sodium-potassium pump
An ion channel that uses the neuron’s energy (adenosine triphosphate, ATP) to pump three Na+ ions outside the cell in exchange for bringing two K+ ions inside the cell.
Soma
Cell body of a neuron that contains the nucleus and genetic information, and directs protein synthesis.
Somatic nervous system
A part of the peripheral nervous system that uses cranial and spinal nerves in volitional actions.
Somatogenesis
Developing from physical/bodily origins.
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.
Somatosensory cortex
Consists of primary sensory cortex (S1) in the postcentral gyrus in the parietal lobes and secondary somatosensory cortex (S2), which is defined functionally and found in the upper bank of the lateral sulcus, called the parietal operculum. Somatosensory cortex also includes parts of the insular cortex.
Somatotopically organized
When the parts of the body that are represented in a particular brain region are organized topographically according to their physical location in the body (see Figure 2 illustration).
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.
Spina bifida
A developmental disease of the spinal cord, where the neural tube does not close caudally.
Spines
Protrusions on the dendrite of a neuron that form synapses with terminal buttons of the presynaptic axon.
Spinothalamic tract
Runs through the spinal cord’s lateral column up to the thalamus. C-fibers enter the dorsal horn of the spinal cord and form a synapse with a neuron that then crosses over to the lateral column and becomes part of the spinothalamic tract.
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.
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.
Stereotypes
Our general beliefs about the traits or behaviors shared by group of people.
Stereotypes
Stereotype is a belief that characterizes people based merely on their group membership.
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.
Stress
A pattern of physical and psychological responses in an organism after it perceives a threatening event that disturbs its homeostasis and taxes its abilities to cope with the event.
Stressor
An event or stimulus that induces feelings of stress.
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.
Sulcus
(plural form, sulci) The crevices or fissures formed by convolutions in the brain.
Supernatural
Developing from origins beyond the visible observable universe.
Sympathetic nervous system
A division of the autonomic nervous system, that is faster than its counterpart that is the parasympathetic nervous system and works in opposition to it. Generally engaged in “fight or flight” functions.
Synapse
Junction between the presynaptic terminal button of one neuron and the dendrite, axon, or soma of another postsynaptic neuron.
Synapse
The tiny space separating neurons.
Synaptic gap
Also known as the synaptic cleft; the small space between the presynaptic terminal button and the postsynaptic dendritic spine, axon, or soma.
Synaptic vesicles
Groups of neurotransmitters packaged together and located within the terminal button.
Synchrony
Two people displaying the same behaviors or having the same internal states (typically because of mutual mimicry).
Syndrome
Involving a particular group of signs and symptoms.
Synesthesia
The blending of two or more sensory experiences, or the automatic activation of a secondary (indirect) sensory experience due to certain aspects of the primary (direct) sensory stimulation.
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.
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.
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
An area of the cerebrum that lies below the lateral sulcus; it contains auditory and olfactory (smell) projection regions.
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.
Terminal button
The part of the end of the axon that form synapses with postsynaptic dendrite, axon, or soma.
Tertiary education
Education or training beyond secondary school, usually taking place in a college, university, or vocational training program.
Thalamus
A part of the diencephalon that works as a gateway for incoming and outgoing information.
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.
Theory of mind
The human capacity to understand minds, a capacity that is made up of a collection of concepts (e.g., agent, intentionality) and processes (e.g., goal detection, imitation, empathy, perspective taking).
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.
Threshold of excitation
Specific membrane potential that the neuron must reach to initiate an action potential.
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.
“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.
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
A process in which physical energy converts into neural energy.
Transduction
The mechanisms that convert stimuli into electrical signals that can be transmitted and processed by the nervous system. Physical or chemical stimulation creates action potentials in a receptor cell in the peripheral nervous system, which is then conducted along the axon to the central nervous system.
Transfer-appropriate processing
A principle that states that memory performance is superior when a test taps the same cognitive processes as the original encoding activity.
Transgender
A term used to describe individuals whose gender does not match their biological sex.
Transverse plane
See “horizontal plane.”
Trephination
The drilling of a hole in the skull, presumably as a way of treating psychological disorders.
Trichromacy theory
Theory that proposes that all of your color perception is fundamentally based on the combination of three (not two, not four) different color signals.
Trigger features
Specific, sometimes minute, aspects of a situation that activate fixed action patterns.
Twin studies
A behavior genetic research method that involves comparison of the similarity of identical (monozygotic; MZ) and fraternal (dizygotic; DZ) twins.
Type A Behavior
Type A behavior is characterized by impatience, competitiveness, neuroticism, hostility, and anger.
Type B Behavior
Type B behavior reflects the absence of Type A characteristics and is represented by less competitive, aggressive, and hostile behavior patterns.
Unconditional positive regard
In person-centered therapy, an attitude of warmth, empathy and acceptance adopted by the therapist in order to foster feelings of inherent worth in the patient.
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.
Universalism
Universalism proposes that there are single objective standards, independent of culture, in basic domains such as learning, reasoning, and emotion that are a part of all human experience.
Unusual uses
A test of divergent thinking that asks participants to find many uses for commonplace objects, such as a brick or paperclip.
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).
Vestibulo-ocular reflex
Coordination of motion information with visual information that allows you to maintain your gaze on an object while you move.
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.
Visual perspective taking
Can refer to visual perspective taking (perceiving something from another person’s spatial vantage point) or more generally to effortful mental state inference (trying to infer the other person’s thoughts, desires, emotions).
Wernicke’s area
A language area in the temporal lobe where linguistic information is comprehended (Also see Broca’s area).
What pathway
Pathway of neural processing in the brain that is responsible for your ability to recognize what is around you.
Where-and-How pathway
Pathway of neural processing in the brain that is responsible for you knowing where things are in the world and how to interact with them.
White matter
Regions of the nervous system that represent the axons of the nerve cells; whitish in color because of myelination of the nerve cells.
White matter
The inner whitish regions of the cerebrum comprised of the myelinated axons of neurons in the cerebral cortex.
Working memory
Short transitory memory processed in the hippocampus.
Working memory
The form of memory we use to hold onto information temporarily, usually for the purposes of manipulation.
Working memory
The ability to maintain information over a short period of time, such as 30 seconds or less.