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abnormal behavior  Behavior that is personally distressful, personally dysfunctional, and/or so culturally deviant that other people judge it to be inappropriate or maladaptive.
absolute refractory period  The brief time interval following an action potential when a neuron is incapable of being stimulated to fire another impulse.
absolute threshold  The lowest intensity at which a stimulus can be detected 50 percent of the time.
abstinence violation effect  A response to a lapse in which a person blames himself or herself and concludes that he or she is incapable of resisting high-risk situations.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)  A recently developed "third wave" behavior therapy that focuses on mindfulness, accepting negative feelings, and identifying core values.
accommodation  In cognitive development, the process by which new experiences cause existing schemas to change.
acetylcholine (ACh)  An excitatory neuro transmitter that operates at synapses with muscles and is also the transmitter in some neural networks involved in memory.
achievement goal theory  A theory of achievement motivation that stresses the goals (ego versus mastery) and motivational climates that influence achievement strivings.
achievement test  A measure of an individual's degree of accomplishment in a particular subject or task based on a relatively standardized set of experiences.
action potential  A nerve impulse resulting from the depolarization of an axon's cell membrane.
activation-synthesis theory  Maintains that dreams represent the brain's attempt to interpret random patterns of neural activation triggered by the brain stem during sleep.
adaptations  Biological and behavioral changes that allow organisms to meet recurring environmental challenges to their survival, thereby increasing their reproductive ability.
adaptive significance  The manner in which a particular behavior enhances an organism's chances of survival and reproduction in its natural environment.
adolescence  The period of development that involves a gradual transition between childhood and adulthood.
adolescent egocentrism  Highly self-focused thinking, particularly in the early teenage years.
adoption study  A research method in behavior genetics in which adopted people are compared on some characteristic with both their biological and adoptive parents in an attempt to determine the strength of the characteristic's genetic component.
adrenal glands  Endocrine glands that release stress hormones, including catecholamines and corticosteroids.
aerobic exercise  Sustained activity that elevates the heart rate and increases the body's need for oxygen.
agonist  A drug that increases or mimics the activity of a neurotransmitter.
agoraphobia  A fear of being in places or situations (e.g., on a bridge or a bus, in crowds or wide open spaces) from which escape might be difficult in the event of sudden incapacitation.
alcohol myopia  When intoxicated, a "shortsightedness" in thinking (a failure to consider consequences) caused by an inability to pay attention to as much information as when sober.
algorithms  Procedures, such as mathematical formulas, that automatically generate correct solutions to problems.
alleles  Alternate forms of a gene that produce different characteristics.
all-or-none law  States that an action potential is not proportional to the intensity of stimulation; either a neuron fires with maximum intensity or it does not fire (compare with graded potential).
alpha waves  A brain-wave pattern of 8 to 12 cycles per second that is characteristic of humans in a relaxed, drowsy state.
Alzheimer's disease (AD)  A brain disorder, typically but not always occurring in old age, whose prominent features are memory loss and confused thinking.
amplitude  The vertical size of the sound wave, which gives rise to the perception of loudness and is measured in terms of decibels.
amygdala  A limbic system structure that helps organize emotional response patterns.
anorexia nervosa  An eating disorder involving a severe and sometimes fatal restriction of food intake.
antagonist  A drug that inhibits or decreases the action of a neurotransmitter.
anterograde amnesia  Memory loss for events that occur after the initial onset of amnesia.
anticipatory nausea and vomiting (ANV)  Classically conditioned nausea and vomiting that occur when cancer patients are exposed to stimuli associated with their treatment.
antigens  Literally, antibody generators, or foreign substances that activate the cells of the immune system.
antisocial personality disorder (APD)  A long-term stable disorder characterized by a lack of conscience, defects in empathy, and a tendency to act out in an impulsive manner that disregards future consequences.
anxiety  An emotional state characterized by apprehension accompanied by physiological arousal and fearful behavior.
anxiety disorders  A group of behavior disorders in which anxiety and associated maladaptive behaviors are the core of the disturbance.
aphasia  The partial or total loss of ability to understand speech (receptive aphasia) or to produce it (productive aphasia).
applied behavior analysis  A process in which operant conditioning is combined with scientific data collection to solve individual and societal problems.
applied research  Research that is designed to solve or examine specific, practical problems.
approach-approach conflict  A conflict in which an individual is simultaneously attracted to two incompatible positive goals.
approach-avoidance conflict  A conflict in which an individual is simultaneously attracted to and repelled by the same goal.
aptitude test  A measure of a person's ability to profit from further training or experience in an occupation or skill; usually based on a measure of skills gained over a person's lifetime rather than during a specific course of study.
archetypes  In Jung's theory, innate concepts and memories (e.g., God, the hero, the good mother); memories that reside in the collective unconscious.
archival measures  Records or past documents that contain information about some type of behavior.
assimilation  In cognitive development, the process by which new experiences are incorporated into existing schemas.
association cortex  The areas of the cerebral cortex that do not have sensory or motor functions but are involved in the integration of neural activity that underlies perception, language, and other higher-order mental processes.
associative network  The view that long-term memory is organized as a massive network of associated ideas and concepts.
attachment  The strong emotional bond that develops between two people; developmentally, the bond between children and their primary caregivers.
attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)  A disorder, usually originating in childhood, that may take the form of attentional difficulties, hyperactivity/ impulsivity, or a combination of the two that results in impaired functioning.
attitude  A positive or negative evaluative reaction toward a stimulus (e.g., toward a person, action, object, or concept).
attribution  A judgment about the causes of our own and other people's behavior.
authoritarian parents  Caregivers who exert control over their children within a cold, unresponsive, or rejecting relationship.
authoritative parents  Caregivers who are controlling but warm; they establish and enforce clear rules within a caring, supportive atmosphere.
autistic disorder  A severe developmental disorder characterized by extreme unresponsiveness to others, poor communication skills, and highly repetitive and rigid behavior patterns.
autobiographical memories  Recollections of personally experienced events that make up the "story of our life."
automatic (unconscious) processing  Mental activities that occur with minimal or no conscious control or awareness.
autonomic nervous system  The branch of the peripheral nervous system that activates the body's involuntary muscles (e.g., heart) and internal organs.
availability heuristic  A rule of thumb used to make likelihood judgments based on how easily examples of that category of events come to mind or are "available" in memory.
aversion therapy  A form of therapy in which a conditioned stimulus that currently evokes a positive but maladaptive response is paired with a noxious, unpleasant unconditioned stimulus, in an attempt to condition a repulsion toward the conditioned stimulus.
aversive punishment (positive punishment, punishment by application)  A type of punishment in which an operant response is weakened by the subsequent presentation of a noxious stimulus.
avoidance-avoidance conflict  A conflict in which an individual must choose between two undesirable alternatives.
avoidance conditioning  A form of learning in which an organism learns a response to avoid an undesirable consequence.
axon  An extension from one side of the neuron cell body that conducts nerve impulses to other neurons, muscles, or glands.
Barnum effect  The tendency for people to see descriptive statements that apply to most people as uniquely descriptive of themselves.
basic research  Research designed to obtain knowledge for its own sake.
basilar membrane  A membrane that runs the length of the cochlea and contains the organ of Corti and its sound receptor hair cells.
behavioral activation  A treatment for depression that engages clients in life activities designed to increase positive reinforcement in their lives.
behavioral activation system (BAS)  A neural system that is activated by cues indicating potential reward and positive need gratification. Activity in this neural system causes the person to begin or to increase movement toward positive goals in anticipation of pleasure.
behavioral assessment  The measurement of behavior through direct observation and application of a coding system.
behavioral inhibition system (BIS)  A neural system that is activated by cues indicating potential pain, nonreinforcement, and punishment. Activity in this neural system produces fear, inhibition of behavior, as well as escape and avoidance behaviors.
behavioral neuroscience  A subfield of psychology that examines brain processes and other physiological functions that underlie our behavior, sensory experiences, emotions, and thoughts.
behavioral perspective  A view that emphasizes how the environment and learning experiences shape and control behavior.
behavioral signatures  Individually consistent ways of responding in particular classes of situations.
behavior genetics  The scientific study of the role of genetic inheritance in behavior.
behaviorism  A school of psychology that emphasizes the effects of learning and environmental control on behavior and maintains that the proper subject matter of psychology is observable behavior.
behavior modification  Therapeutic procedures based on operant conditioning principles, such as positive reinforcement, operant extinction, and punishment.
behavior-outcome expectancy  The subjective likelihood that a particular consequence will follow a particular behavior in a given situation.
belief bias  The tendency to abandon logical rules and to form a conclusion based on one's existing beliefs.
beta waves  A brain-wave pattern of 15 to 30 cycles per second that is characteristic of humans who are in an alert waking state.
bilingualism  The use of two languages in daily life.
binocular depth cues  Depth cues that require the use of both eyes.
binocular disparity  The binocular depth cue produced by the projection of slightly different images of an object on the retinas of the two eyes.
biologically based mechanisms  Evolved biological structures that receive input from the environment, process the information, and respond to it.
biological perspective  A view that focuses on the role of biological factors in behavior, including biochemical and brain processes, as well as genetic and evolutionary factors.
biopsychology  A subfield of psychology that focuses on the biological underpinnings of behavior, thought, and emotion.
bipolar disorder  A mood disorder in which intermittent mania appears against a background of depression.
blindsight  A disorder in which people are blind in part of their visual field yet, in special tests, respond to stimuli in that field despite reporting that they cannot see those stimuli.
blood-brain barrier  A specialized lining of cells in the brain's blood vessels that screens out foreign substances while letting nutrients pass through to neurons.
borderline personality disorder (BPD)  A serious personality disorder characterized by severe instability in behavior, emotion, identity, and interpersonal relationships.
bottom-up processing  Perceptual processes that begin with the analysis of individual elements of the stimulus and work up to the brain's integration of them into a unified perception.
brain stem  The portion of the brain formed by the swelling of the spinal cord as it enters the skull; its structures regulate basic survival functions of the body, such as heart rate and respiration.
British empiricism  A 17th-century school of philosophy championed by Locke, according to which all the contents of the mind are gained experientially through the senses.
Broca's area  A region of the left frontal lobe involved in speech production.
bulimia nervosa  An eating disorder that involves a repeated cycle of binge eating followed by purging of the food.
bystander effect  The principle that the presence of multiple bystanders inhibits each person's tendency to help, largely due to social comparison or diffusion of responsibility.
Cannon-Bard theory  A theory of emotion that proposed that the thalamus sends simultaneous messages to the cortex (producing our experience of emotion) and to the viscera and skeletal muscles, producing actions and physiological responses.
case study  An in-depth analysis of an individual, group, or event.
catatonic schizophrenia  A schizophrenic reaction characterized by alternating stuporous states and agitated excitement, during which the person can be quite dangerous.
catharsis  The idea that performing an act of aggression discharges aggressive energy and temporarily reduces our impulse to aggress.
central nervous system  The portion of the nervous system that includes the brain and the spinal cord.
central route to persuasion  Occurs when people think carefully about a message and are influenced because they find the arguments compelling.
cephalocaudal principle  The tendency for physical development to proceed in a head-to-foot direction.
cerebellum  A convoluted hindbrain structure involved in motor coordination and some aspects of learning and memory.
cerebral cortex  The gray, convoluted outer covering of the brain that is the seat of higher-order sensory, motor, perceptual, and mental processes.
cerebrum  The most advanced portion of the brain, containing the cerebral cortex and underlying structures.
chaining  An operant conditioning procedure used to develop a sequence (chain) of responses by reinforcing each response with the opportunity to perform the next response.
cholecystokinin (CCK)  A peptide (hormone) that helps produce satiety and cessation of eating.
chromosomes  Tightly coiled strands of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and protein that contain the genes.
chunking  Combining individual items into larger units of meaning.
circadian rhythms  Biological cycles within the body that occur on an approximately 24‑hour cycle.
classical conditioning  A procedure in which a formerly neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus) comes to elicit a conditioned response by virtue of being paired with an unconditioned stimulus that naturally elicits a similar response (the unconditioned response).
clinical psychology  A subfield of psychology that focuses on the study and treatment of mental disorders.
cochlea  A small coil-shaped structure of the inner ear that contains the receptors for sound.
cognitive-affective personality system (CAPS)  A model that organizes five "person variables" that account for how a person might respond to a particular situation; the dynamic interplay among these five factors, together with the characteristics of the situation, accounts for individual differences between people, as well as differences in people's behavior across different situations.
cognitive appraisal  The process of making judgments about situations, personal capabilities, likely consequences, and personal meaning of consequences.
cognitive behaviorism  A behavioral approach that incorporates cognitive concepts, suggesting that the environment influences our behavior by affecting our thoughts and giving us information.
cognitive map  A mental representation of the spatial layout of an area.
cognitive neuroscience  An area of psychology that intersects the subfields of cognitive psychology and physiological psychology and examines brain processes that underlie mental activity.
cognitive perspective  A view that emphasizes humans as information processors and problem solvers, and that focuses on the mental processes that influence behavior.
cognitive-process dream theories  Approaches that focus on how (rather than why) we dream, and propose that dreaming and waking thought are produced by the same mental systems in the brain.
cognitive process theories  Approaches to intelligence that analyze the mental processes that underlie intelligent thinking.
cognitive psychology  An area of psychology that specializes in studying mental processes such as thinking, memory, planning, reasoning, attention, and perception.
collective unconscious  Jung's notion of an unconscious that consists of innate ancestral memories.
common factors  Therapeutic elements that are possessed by virtually any type of therapy and that may contribute to the similar positive effects shown by many different treatment approaches.
communicator credibility  The degree to which an audience views a communicator as believable, largely based on the communicator's expertise and trustworthiness.
companionate love  An affectionate relationship characterized by commitment and caring about the partner's well-being; sometimes contrasted with passionate love, which is more intensely emotional.
compensatory response  A bodily response that opposes a drug's effects and occurs in an attempt to restore homeostasis.
competency  A legal decision that a defendant is mentally capable of understanding the nature of the charges, participating meaningfully in the trial, and consulting with his or her attorney.
competency-focused intervention  Prevention programs that are designed to enhance personal resources needed to cope with situations that might otherwise cause psychological disorders.
compulsion  A repetitive act that the person feels compelled to carry out, often in response to an obsessive thought or image.
computerized axial tomography (CT, or CAT) scan  A method of scanning the brain with narrow beams of X rays that are then analyzed and combined by a computer to provide pictures of brain structures from many different angles.
concept  A mental category containing similiar objects, people, and events.
concordance  The likelihood that two people share a particular characteristic.
concrete operational stage  In Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development during which children can perform basic mental operations concerning problems that involve tangible (i.e., "concrete") objects and situations.
conditioned response (CR)  In classical conditioning, a response to a conditioned stimulus; the conditioned response is established by pairing a conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus that evokes a similar response.
conditioned stimulus (CS)  A stimulus that comes to evoke a conditioned response after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
conditioned taste aversion  A learned repulsion to a food that formerly was neutral or desired, by virtue of pairing the food with an aversive unconditioned stimulus.
conditions of worth  Internalized standards for self-worth fostered by conditional positive regard from others.
conduction deafness  Hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.
cones  Photoreceptors in the retina that function best in bright light and are differentially sensitive to red, green, or blue wavelengths.
confirmation bias  The tendency to seek and favor information that reinforces our beliefs rather than to be open to disconfirming information.
confounding of variables  In an experiment, a situation in which the independent variable is intertwined or mixed up with another, uncontrolled variable; thus we cannot tell which variable is responsible for changes in the behavior of interest (i.e., in the dependent variable).
congruence  Consistency between self- perceptions and experience.
consciousness  Our moment-to-moment awareness of ourselves and our environment; consciousness involves selective attention to ongoing thoughts, perceptions, and feelings.
conservation  The principle that basic properties of objects, such as their mass or quantity, stay the same (are "conserved") even though their outward appearance may change.
construct validity  The extent to which a test measures the psychological construct (e.g., intelligence, anxiety) that it is purported to measure.
content validity  The extent to which test items adequately sample the domain that the test is supposed to measure (e.g., intelligence, mathematical reasoning).
context-dependent memory  The phenomenon that it is typically easier to remember something in the same environment in which it was originally learned or experienced.
continuous reinforcement  A reinforcement schedule in which each response of a particular type is followed by reinforcement.
control group  In an experiment, the group that either is not exposed to the treatment or receives a zero level of the independent variable.
controlled (conscious) processing  Mental processing that requires volitional control and attentiveness.
conventional moral reasoning  According to Kohlberg, the stage at which moral judgments are based on conformity to social expectations, laws, and duties.
convergence  A binocular depth cue produced by the muscles that rotate the eyes as they focus on nearby objects.
conversion disorder  A disorder in which serious neurological symptoms, such as paralysis, loss of sensation, or blindness, suddenly occur without physical cause.
coping self-efficacy  Beliefs relating to our ability to deal effectively with a stressful stimulus or situation, including pain.
corpus callosum  A broad band of white, myelinated fibers that connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres and allows the two hemispheres to communicate with one another.
correlational research  Research that measures two or more naturally occurring variables and examines whether they are statistically related.
correlation coefficient  A statistic that indicates the direction and strength of a relation between two variables; values can range from 11.00 to 21.00.
counterbalancing  In experiments, a procedure in which each participant engages in all of the conditions. The order of the conditions is altered for different participants so that, overall, no condition has an order advantage relative to the other conditions.
counterconditioning  The process of conditioning an incompatible response to a particular stimulus to eliminate a maladaptive response (e.g., anxiety), as occurs in systematic desensitization.
creativity  The ability to produce something that is both new and valuable.
criterion-related validity  The ability of psychological test scores to correlate with some present or future behavior assumed to be influenced by the construct measured by the test.
critical periods  Limited time periods during which plasticity can occur as a result of experience or in response to injury; in development, a time period in which exposure to particular kinds of stimulation is required for normal growth to occur.
cross-sectional design  A research design that simultaneously compares people of different ages at a particular point in time.
crystallized intelligence (gc)  Intellectual abilities that depend on a store of information and the acquisition of particular skills (compare with fluid intelligence).
cultural congruence  The extent to which a form of treatment is consistent with the culture of a particular ethnic group.
cultural display rules  Cultural norms that regulate when and how emotions are expressed.
culturally competent therapists  Practitioners who have a set of therapeutic skills, including scientific mindedness, the ability to consider both cultural and individual factors, and the capacity to introduce culture-specific elements into therapy with people from minority cultures.
cultural psychology (cross-cultural psychology)  A subfield of psychology that explores how culture is transmitted to its members and examines psychological similarities and differences that occur between people from diverse cultures.
culture-bound disorders  Behavior disorders whose specific forms are restricted to one particular cultural context.
dark adaptation  The progressive increase in brightness sensitivity that occurs over time as photopigments regenerate themselves during exposure to low levels of illumination.
decay theory  Maintains that with time and disuse, the physical memory trace in the nervous system fades away.
decibel  A logarithmic measure of sound intensity.
decision criterion  In signal detection theory, the potentially changing standard of how certain a person must be that a stimulus is present in order to report its presence.
declarative memory  Our memory for factual knowledge, which comprises two subcategories: knowledge pertaining to personal experiences (episodic memory) and knowledge of general facts and language (semantic memory).
deductive reasoning  Reasoning from a general principle to a specific case.
deep structure  A linguistic term that refers to the underlying meaning of a spoken or written sentence; the meanings that make up deep structure are stored as concepts and rules in long-term memory.
defense mechanisms  Unconscious processes that help us cope with anxiety and the pain of traumatic experiences. Defense mechanisms prevent the expression of anxiety-arousing impulses or allow them to appear in disguised forms.
deindividuation  A state of increased anonymity in which a person, often as part of a group or crowd, engages in disinhibited behavior.
deinstitutionalization movement  The attempt to move the primary locus of treatment from mental hospitals to the community.
delta waves  Low-frequency, high-amplitude brain waves that occur in stage 3 sleep and predominate in stage 4 sleep.
delusions  False beliefs, often involving themes of persecution or grandeur, that are sustained in the face of evidence that normally would be sufficient to destroy them.
dementia  The gradual loss of cognitive abilities that accompanies brain deterioration and interferes with normal functioning.
dendrites  Small branching fibers that extend from the soma of a neuron and receive messages from adjacent neurons.
dependent variable  In an experiment, the factor measured by the researcher that presumably is influenced by the independent variable.
depressants  Drugs—including alcohol, barbiturates, and tranquilizers—that reduce neural activity and can decrease feelings of tension and anxiety.
depressive attributional pattern  The tendency of depressed people to attribute negative outcomes to their own inadequacies and positive outcomes to factors outside of themselves.
descriptive research  Research in which the main goal is to carefully describe how organisms behave, particularly in natural settings.
descriptive statistics  Statistics that summarize and describe the characteristics of a set of scores.
developmental psychology  A subfield of psychology that examines human physical, psychological, and social development across the life span.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)  A recently developed cognitive-behavioral treatment for borderline personality disorder.
difference threshold  The smallest difference between two similar stimuli that people can detect; also called the just noticeable difference (jnd).
discourse  The combining of sentences into larger language units, such as paragraphs, articles, novels, and so on.
discrimination (classical conditioning)  The occurrence of a conditioned response to one stimulus but not to another stimulus.
discrimination (social behavior)  Treating people unfairly based on the group to which they belong.
discriminative stimulus  An antecedent stimulus that signals the likelihood of certain consequences if a response is made.
disorganized schizophrenia  A schizophrenic disorder marked by verbal incoherence, disordered thought processes, disorganized behavior, and inappropriate emotional responses.
displacement  The capacity of language to represent objects and conditions that are not physically present.
dissociation theories (of hypnosis)  Views that focus on hypnosis as an altered state involving a division ("dissociation") of consciousness; one theory proposes that the hypnotized person simultaneously experiences two streams of consciousness that are cut off from one another.
dissociative disorders  Disorders that involve a major dissociation of personal identity or memory.
dissociative identity disorder (DID)  A dissociative disorder in which two or more separate identities or personalities coexist within an individual.
divergent thinking  A creative form of thinking that involves generating novel ideas that diverge from the normal ways of thinking about something.
divided attention  The ability to perform more than one activity at the same time.
dodo bird verdict  The conclusion reached by some psychotherapy researchers that virtually all treatment approaches have similar success rates.
dominant gene  A gene that will produce a particular effect by overriding the influence of a recessive gene for the same characteristic.
door-in-the-face technique  A manipulation technique in which a persuader makes a large request, expecting you to reject it, and then presents a smaller request.
dopamine hypothesis  States that the symptoms of schizophrenia are produced by overactivity of the dopamine system in areas of the brain that regulate emotional expression, motivated behavior, and cognitive functioning.
double-blind procedure  A procedure in which both the participant and the experimenter are kept unaware of the research condition to which the participant has been assigned.
downward comparison  Seeing oneself or one's situation as more positive than a standard of comparison, thereby increasing one's sense of well-being.
drive  A state of internal tension that motivates an organism to behave in ways that reduce this tension.
dual coding theory  Maintains that if we encode information using both verbal and imagery codes, the chances improve that at least one of the two codes will be available later to support recall.
dual-process theory  A modern theory of color vision that combines the trichromatic and opponent-process theories. Light waves are coded by red-, blue-, and green-sensitive cones in the retina and by opponent processes thereafter in the visual system.
dynamic testing  A procedure in which static (standardized testing) is followed up with an interaction in which the examiner gives the subject guided feedback on how to improve performance and observes how the subject utilizes the information.
dysthymia  A depressive mood disorder of moderate intensity that occurs over a long period of time but does not disrupt functioning, as a major depression does.
effect size  In meta-analysis, a measure of treatment effectiveness that indicates what percentage of treated clients improve more than the average untreated client.
ego  The "executive" of the personality that is partly conscious and that mediates between the impulses of the id, the prohibitions of the superego, and the dictates of reality.
ego-approach goals  An achievement orientation that focuses on being judged successful as a result of outperforming others.
ego-avoidance goals  An achievement orientation that focuses on avoiding negative judgments by self or others due to failing to outperform others.
egocentrism  Difficulty in viewing the world from someone else's perspective.
ego orientation  An achievement goal orientation in which success is defined in terms of how well one compares with others and "wins out."
elaborative rehearsal  Focusing on the meaning of information or relating it to other things we already know.
Electra complex  The female version of the Oedipus complex in which the female child experiences erotic feelings toward her father, desires to possess him sexually, and views her mother as a rival.
electroencephalograph (EEG)  A device used to record the simultaneous activity of many thousands of neurons through electrodes attached to the scalp.
eliciting stimuli  Internal or external cues that evoke an emotional response.
embryo  A scientific term for the prenatal organism during the 2nd week through the 8th week after conception.
emotion  A pattern of cognitive, physiological, and behavioral responses to situations and events that have relevance to important goals or motives.
emotional intelligence  The ability to respond adaptively in the emotional realm by reading and responding appropriately to others' emotions and to be aware of and have the ability to control one's own emotions.
emotion-focused coping  Coping strategies directed at minimizing or reducing emotional responses to a stressor.
emotion regulation  The processes by which we evaluate and modify our emotional reactions.
empathy  The capacity for experiencing the same emotional response being exhibited by another person; in therapy, the ability of a therapist to view the world through the client's eyes and to understand the client's emotions.
empathy-altruism hypothesis  The view that pure altruism does exist and that it is produced by the capacity to empathize with the person in need of aid.
empirical approach  An approach to test construction in which items (regardless of their content) are chosen that differentiate between two groups that are known to differ on a particular personality variable.
empirically supported therapies (ESTs)  Psychotherapy and behavior-change techniques that have been shown to be efficacious in controlled clinical trials.
encoding  Getting information into the memory system by translating it into a neural code that the brain processes and stores.
encoding specificity principle  States that memory is enhanced when conditions present during retrieval match those that were present during encoding.
endocrine system  The body's system of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream and thereby affect many bodily functions.
endorphins  Natural opiate-like substances that are involved in pain reduction.
epigenetics  Changes in gene expression that are independent of the DNA itself and are caused instead by environmental factors.
episodic memory  Our store of factual knowledge concerning personal experiences—when, where, and what happened in the episodes of our lives.
equal status contact  The principle that prejudice between people is most likely to be reduced when they engage in sustained close contact, have equal status within the context of their interaction, work to achieve a common goal that requires cooperation, and are supported by broader social norms that encourage prejudice reduction.
escape conditioning  A form of learning in which the organism learns to perform a behavior to terminate an aversive stimulus.
evocative influence  The tendency of a genetically influenced characteristic (e.g., agreeableness) to evoke a particular response from others.
evoked culture  The notion that cultures may themselves be the product of biological mechanisms that evolved to meet specific adaptational challenges.
evolution  A change over time in the frequency with which particular genes, and the characteristics they produce, occur within an interbreeding population.
evolutionary/circadian sleep models  The view that in the course of evolution, each species developed an adaptive circadian sleep-wake pattern that increased its chances of survival in relation to its environmental demands.
evolutionary psychology  A field of study that focuses on the role of evolutionary processes (especially natural selection) in the development of adaptive psychological mechanisms and social behavior in humans.
expectancy 3 value theory  A cognitive theory stating that goal-directed behavior is jointly influenced by (1) the person's expectancy that a particular behavior will contribute to reaching the goal and (2) how positively or negatively the person values the goal.
experiment  A research method in which the researcher manipulates an independent variable under controlled conditions and measures whether this produces changes in a dependent variable.
experimental group  In an experiment, the group that receives a treatment or is exposed to an active level of the independent variable.
experimental psychology  A subfield of psychology that focuses on basic processes such as learning, sensory systems (e.g., vision), perception, and motivational states (e.g., hunger).
experimenter expectancy effects  Subtle and unintentional ways in which an experimenter influences participants to behave in a way that will confirm the experimenter's hypothesis.
explicit memory  Conscious or intentional memory retrieval.
explicit prejudice  Prejudice that is expressed publicly, as when talking with someone or responding to a questionnaire.
exposure  A behavior therapy treatment in which clients are presented, either in vivo or in their imagination, with fear-inducing stimuli, thus allowing extinction to occur.
exposure therapies  Therapeutic techniques designed to extinguish anxiety responses by exposing clients to anxiety-arousing stimuli or situations while preventing escape or avoidance.
expressive behavior  Observable behavior that accompanies subjectively experienced emotions.
external validity  The degree to which the results of a study can be generalized to other people, settings, and conditions.
extinction (classical conditioning)  Occurs when a conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus, causing the conditioned response to weaken and eventually stop occurring.
extinction (operant conditioning)  See operant extinction.
extrinsic motivation  Motivation to perform a behavior to obtain external rewards and reinforcers, such as money, status, attention, and praise.
facial feedback hypothesis  States that somatic feedback from facial muscles to the brain influences emotional experience.
factor analysis  A statistical technique that permits a researcher to reduce a large number of measures to a small number of clusters or factors; it identifies the clusters of behavior or test scores that are highly correlated with one another.
family study  The study of people who are related to one another to determine whether degree of genetic similarity is related to similarity on a particular trait.
feature detectors  Sensory neurons that respond to particular features of a stimulus, such as its shape, angle, or color.
feminist therapy  An orientation that focuses on women's issues and strives to help female clients achieve greater self-determination.
fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD)  A range of mild to severe developmental abnormalities produced by prenatal exposure to alcohol.
fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)  A severe group of abnormalities resulting from prenatal exposure to alcohol.
fetus  A scientific term for the prenatal organism from the 9th week after conception until birth.
figure-ground relations  Perceptual organization in which a focal stimulus is perceived as a figure against a background of other stimuli.
fixation  A state of arrested development due to unresolved conflicts at a particular earlier psychosexual stage.
fixed action pattern  An unlearned response that is automatically triggered by a simple (releaser) stimulus.
fixed-interval (FI) schedule  A reinforcement schedule in which the first response of a particular type is reinforced after a constant time interval.
fixed-ratio (FR) schedule  A reinforcement schedule in which reinforcement is given after a constant number of responses of a particular type.
flashbulb memories  Recollections that seem so vivid and clear that we can picture them as if they were snapshots of moments in time.
fluid intelligence (gf)  The ability to deal with novel problem-solving situations for which personal experience does not supply a solution (compare with crystallized intelligence).
foot-in-the-door technique  A manipulation technique in which the persuader gets you to comply with a small request first and later presents a larger request.
forebrain  Brain structures above the midbrain, including the thalamus, hypothalamus, limbic system, and the cerebral hemispheres; involved in higher-order sensory, motor, and cognitive functions.
formal operational stage  In Piaget's theory, the period in which individuals are able to think logically and systematically about both concrete and abstract problems, form hypotheses, and test them in a thoughtful way.
fovea  A small area in the center of the retina that contains only cones and where visual acuity is greatest.
framing  The idea that the same information, problem, or choice options can be structured, presented, and thought about in different ways.
free association  In psychoanalysis, the procedure of verbalizing all thoughts that enter consciousness without censorship.
frequency  In audition, the number of cycles per second in a sound wave that is responsible for the pitch of the sound; the measure of frequency is the hertz (Hz), which equals one cycle per second.
frequency distribution  For a set of data, a table that shows how frequently each score value has occurred for a particular variable.
frequency theory of pitch perception  Maintains that the number of nerve impulses sent to the brain by the hair cells of the cochlea corresponds to the frequency of the sound wave; this theory is accurate at low frequencies.
fully functioning persons  Rogers's term for self-actualized people who are free from unrealistic conditions of worth and who exhibit congruence, spontaneity, creativity, and a desire to develop still further.
functional fixedness  A phenomenon often found in problem-solving tasks in which the customary use of an object interferes with its use in a novel situation.
functionalism  An early school of American psychology that focused on the functions of consciousness and behavior in helping organisms adapt to their environment and satisfy their needs.
functional MRI (fMRI)  A brain-scanning procedure that produces pictures of blood flow in the brain taken less than a second apart.
fundamental attribution error  The tendency to underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the role of personal factors when explaining other people's behavior.
fundamental emotional patterns  Basic emotional response patterns that are believed to be innate.
gate control theory  A theory of pain that postulates the existence of gating mechanisms in the spinal cord and brain that can increase or decrease the experience of pain by regulating the flow of pain impulses to the brain.
gender constancy  The understanding that being male or female is a permanent part of a person.
gender identity  The sense of "femaleness" or "maleness" that is an integral part of our identity.
gender schemas  Organized mental structures that contain our understanding of the attributes and behaviors that are appropriate and expected for males and females.
general adaptation syndrome (GAS)  Selye's description of the body's responses to a stressor, which includes successive phases of alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
generalized anxiety disorder  A chronic state of diffuse, or "free-floating," anxiety that is not attached to specific situations or objects.
generativity  The principle that, in any given language, symbols can be combined to generate an infinite number of messages that have novel meaning.
genes  The biological units of heredity, located on the chromosomes.
genetic determinism  The notion that genes produce invariant and unavoidable effects that cannot be altered.
genotype  The specific genetic makeup of the individual, which may or may not be expressed in the observable phenotype.
genuineness  The ability of a therapist to honestly express her or his feelings to a client.
Gestalt laws of perceptual organization  The notion that people group and interpret stimuli in accordance with similarity, proximity, closure, and continuity.
g factor  A general intellectual capacity that underlies more specific intellectual abilities.
glucose  A simple sugar that is the body's (and especially the brain's) major source of immediately usable fuel.
graded potential  A change in the electrical potential of a neuron that is proportional to the intensity of the incoming stimulation but not sufficient to produce an action potential.
grammar  In any given language, the set of rules that dictates how symbols can be combined to create meaningful units of communication.
group polarization  When a group of like-minded people discusses an issue, the " average" opinion of group members tends to become more extreme.
groupthink  The tendency of group members to suspend critical thinking because they are motivated to seek agreement.
gustation  The sense of taste.
habituation  A decrease in the strength of a response to a repeated stimulus.
hallucinations  False perceptions that have a compelling sense of reality.
hallucinogens  Drugs, such as LSD and PCP, that distort or intensify sensory experiences and evoke hallucinations and disordered thought processes.
harm reduction  A prevention strategy that is designed not to eliminate a problem behavior but to reduce its harmful consequences.
health psychology  The study of psychological and behavioral factors in the prevention and treatment of illness and the enhancement of health.
hedonic treadmill  The tendency of people to return to a less extreme level of pleasure or pain with the passage of time following a very positive or very negative life change.
Hering's opponent-process theory  The color vision theory stating that the retina contains three sets of color receptors that respond differentially to red-green, blue-yellow, and black-white; the opponent processes that result can produce a perception of any hue.
heritability coefficient  A numerical estimate of the percentage of group variability in a particular characteristic that can be attributed to genetic factors.
hertz (Hz)  The measure of sound-wave frequency as cycles per second.
heuristics  A method of problem solving characterized by quick and easy search procedures similar to rules of thumb.
higher-order conditioning  In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus after it is paired with another conditioned stimulus (rather than with the original unconditioned stimulus).
hindbrain  The part of the brain situated immediately above the spinal cord that contains the brain stem and cerebellum.
hippocampus  A structure of the limbic system that plays a key role in the formation and storage of memories.
histogram  A graph of a frequency distribution.
homeostasis  The maintenance of biological equilibrium, or balance, within the body.
hormones  Chemical substances secreted by the glands of the endocrine system that travel in the bloodstream and affect bodily organs, psychological functions, and development.
humanistic perspective (humanism)  A psychological view that emphasizes personal freedom, choice, and self-actualization.
hypnosis  A condition of enhanced suggestibility in which some people are able to experience imagined situations as if they were real.
hypnotic susceptibility scale  A set of induction procedures and test questions that enable researchers to measure a person's responsiveness to hypnotic suggestions.
hypochondriasis  A somatoform disorder characterized by an overreaction to physical symptoms and a conviction that one has or is on the verge of a serious illness.
hypothalamus  A forebrain structure located below the thalamus and above the pituitary gland that controls autonomic and hormonal processes and plays a major role in many aspects of motivation and emotional behavior.
hypothesis  A tentative explanation or a prediction about some phenomenon.
id  The primitive and unconscious part of the personality that contains the instincts.
illusions  Incorrect perceptions based on false perceptual hypotheses that often result from constancies that do not apply to the stimuli in question.
imaginal thought  A form of thinking that uses images that can be from any sense modality.
implicit memory  Occurs when memory influences our behavior without conscious awareness.
implicit prejudice  Prejudice that is hidden from public view, either intentionally or because the person is not aware that he or she is prejudiced.
imprinting  In some species, a sudden, biologically primed form of attachment.
inattentional blindness  The failure of unattended stimuli to register in consciousness.
incentive  An environmental stimulus or condition that motivates behavior.
incremental theorist  An individual who believes that people's characteristics are changeable, not fixed.
incubation  A phenomenon in which the solution to a problem suddenly appears in consciousness after a problem solver has stopped thinking about it for a while.
independent variable  In an experiment, the factor that is manipulated by the researcher.
inductive reasoning  Reasoning that proceeds from a set of specific facts to a general conclusion or principle.
indulgent parents  Caregivers who have warm and caring relationships with their children but do not provide much guidance or discipline.
industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology  A subfield of psychology that focuses on people's behavior in the workplace.
infantile amnesia  An inability to remember personal experiences from the first few years of our lives.
inferential statistics  Statistics that tell us how confident we can be in drawing conclusions or inferences about a population based on findings obtained from a sample.
informational social influence  Following the opinions or behavior of other people because we believe that they have accurate knowledge and that what they are doing is "right."
informed consent  The principle that prior to agreeing to participate in research, a person should be fully informed about the procedures, the benefits, the risks involved, the right to withdraw at any time without penalty, and matters of confidentiality and privacy.
insanity  A legal decision that a defendant was so severely impaired at the time a crime was committed that he or she was incapable of appreciating the wrongfulness of the act or controlling his or her behavior.
insight  In Gestalt psychology, the sudden perception of a useful relation or solution to a problem; in psychoanalysis, the conscious awareness of unconscious dynamics that underlie psychological problems.
insomnia  A sleep disorder involving chronic difficulty in falling asleep, staying asleep, or experiencing restful sleep.
instinct  An inherited characteristic, common to all members of a species, that automatically produces a particular response when the organism is exposed to a particular stimulus.
instinctive drift  The tendency for instinctive behaviors to override a conditioning procedure, thus making it difficult to create or maintain a conditioned response.
instrumental behaviors  In emotion, coping behaviors that are directed at achieving the goal or performing the task that is relevant to the emotion.
intelligence  The ability to acquire knowledge, to think and reason effectively, and to deal adaptively with the environment.
intelligence quotient (IQ)  Originally defined as mental age (MA) divided by chronological age (CA) multiplied by 100 (IQ 5 [MA/CA] 3 100); an IQ of 100 indicates that an individual is average for his or her age group. IQ scores today are based on norms derived from people of various ages.
interaction  An interaction occurs (i.e., two factors "interact") when the way in which one factor influences behavior depends on the presence of the other factor.
interjudge reliability  The extent to which different observers or scorers agree in their scoring of a particular test or observed behavior.
internal consistency  The extent to which items within a psychological test correlate with one another, indicating that they are measuring a common characteristic.
internal-external locus of control  In Rotter's theory, a generalized expectancy that one's outcomes are under personal versus external control.
internal validity  The degree to which an experiment produces clear causal conclusions; internal validity is high when there is no confounding of variables.
interneurons  Neurons that are neither sensory nor motor neurons but that perform associative or integrative functions within the nervous system.
interpersonal therapy  A form of brief therapy that focuses on the client's interpersonal problems and seeks to develop new interpersonal skills.
interpretation  In psychoanalysis, a statement made by the analyst that is intended to promote insight in the client.
intrinsic motivation  The motivation to perform a task simply because one finds it interesting or enjoyable for its own sake.
James-Lange theory  A theory of emotion that proposed that emotional experience is based on a person's perception of her or his bodily responses.
kin selection  The view that organisms are most likely to help others with whom they share the most genes—namely, their offspring and genetic relatives.
kinesthesis  The body sense that provides feedback on the position and movements of our body parts.
knock-in procedure  A genetic manipulation procedure in which the function of a gene is disabled so that the effects on behavior or physical functions can be studied.
knockout procedure  A genetic manipulation procedure in which a new gene is inserted into an organism so that its effect on behavior or physical functions can be studied.
knowledge-acquisition components  In Sternberg's triarchic model of intelligence, the mental capabilities that allow us to learn from our experiences, store information in memory, and combine new insights with previously acquired information.
language  A system of symbols and rules for combining them that can produce an infinite number of possible messages and meanings.
latent learning  Learning that occurs in the absence of reinforcement but is not displayed until reinforcement is later introduced into the situation.
lateralization  The degree of localization of a function in either the right or the left cerebral hemisphere.
law of effect  Thorndike's concept that a response followed by satisfying consequences will become more likely to occur, whereas a response followed by unsatisfying consequences will become less likely to occur.
learned helplessness theory  A theory of depression maintaining that if people are unable to control life events, they develop a state of helplessness that leads to depressive symptoms.
learning  A relatively enduring change in an organism's behavior or performance capabilities that occurs as a result of experience.
lens  The transparent structure behind the pupil that changes its shape to focus images on the retina.
leptin  A hormone secreted by fat cells that decreases general appetite.
levels of processing  The concept that the more deeply we process information, the better it will be remembered.
life event scale  A measure in which respondents select from a list those life changes they have experienced over a specific period of time. Such measures are used to assess life stressors as well as positive events.
limbic system  A group of subcortical structures, including the hippocampus and amygdala, that are involved in organizing many goal-directed and emotional behaviors.
linguistic relativity hypothesis  The idea, suggested by Whorf, that people's language determines the ways in which they perceive and think about their world.
longitudinal design  A research approach in which the same people are repeatedly tested as they grow older.
long-term memory  Our vast library of more durable stored memories.
long-term potentiation  An enduring increase in synaptic strength that occurs after a neural circuit is rapidly stimulated.
lowballing  A manipulation technique in which a persuader gets you to commit to some action and then—before you actually perform the behavior—she or he increases the "cost" of that same behavior.
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)  A brain-scanning procedure that produces a highly detailed image of living tissue based on the tissue's response to a magnetic field; can be used to study both structure and, in the case of functional MRI (fMRI), brain functions as they occur.
maintenance rehearsal  The simple rote repetition of information.
major depression  A mood disorder characterized by intense depression that interferes markedly with functioning.
mania  A state of intense emotional and behavioral excitement in which a person feels very optimistic and energized.
mastery-approach goals  Goals related to the desire to master a task and learn new knowledge and skills.
mastery-avoidance goals  Goals that reflect a fear of not performing up to one's own standards.
mastery orientation  An achievement goal orientation in which success is defined in terms of personal improvement and enjoyment rather than in terms of comparisons with the performance of others.
matching effect  In romantic relationships, the tendency for partners to have a similar level of physical attractiveness.
maturation  A genetically programmed biological process that governs our growth.
mean  A statistic that represents the arithmetic average of a set of scores.
means-ends analysis  A heuristic problem-solving device in which people first define a subgoal that they hope to achieve (an "end"), compare that subgoal with their present state of knowledge, and, if there is a discrepancy between them, try to find the means to reduce the difference.
measures of central tendency  Statistics that describe a distribution (a set of data) in terms of a single number that is in some way "typical" of the distribution as a whole.
measures of variability  Statistics that provide information about the spread of scores in a distribution.
median  In a set of data, the point that divides the distribution in half when the individual scores are arranged in order from lowest to highest.
medulla  A brain stem structure that controls vital functions, including heartbeat and respiration.
melatonin  A hormone, secreted by the pineal gland, that has a relaxing effect on the body and promotes a readiness for sleep.
memory  The processes that allow us to record, store, and later retrieve experiences and information.
memory codes  Mental representations of some type of information or stimulus.
memory consolidation  The creation and binding together of neural codes that allow information to be transferred from working memory into long-term memory.
menstrual synchrony  The tendency for some women who live together or are close friends to become more similar to one another in the timing of their menstrual cycles over time.
mental image  A representation of a stimulus that originates inside your brain, rather than from external sensory input.
mental representations  Cognitive representations of the world, including images, ideas, concepts, and principles, that are the foundations of thinking and problem solving.
mental set  The tendency to stick to problem-solving strategies or solutions that have worked in the past.
mere exposure effect  The tendency to evaluate a stimulus more favorably after repeated exposure to it.
meta-analysis  A statistical procedure for combining the results of different studies that examine the same topic.
metabolism  The rate of energy expenditure by the body.
metacognition  Your awareness and understanding of your own cognitive abilities.
metacomponents  In Sternberg's triarchic model of intelligence, the higher-level intellectual abilities used to plan and regulate task performance.
method of loci  A memory aid in which pieces of information (e.g., items in a list) are each associated with a mental image of a different physical location.
midbrain  Brain structures above the hindbrain that are involved in sensory and motor functions and in attention and states of consciousness.
mindfulness  A mental state of awareness, focus, openness, and acceptance of immediate experience.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2)  A widely used personality test whose items were developed using the empirical approach of comparing various kinds of psychiatric patients with a nonpsychiatric sample.
misinformation effect  The distortion of a memory by misleading postevent information.
mnemonic device  A strategy or technique that aids memory.
mnemonist (memorist)  A person who displays extraordinary memory skills.
mode  A statistic that represents the most frequently occurring score in a distribution of data.
monocular depth cues  Depth cues that require only one eye; include linear perspective, decreasing size, height in the horizontal plane, texture, clarity, light and shadow, motion parallax, and interposition.
mood-congruent recall  The tendency to recall information or events that are congruent with our current mood.
mood disorders  Psychological disorders whose core conditions involve maladaptive mood states, such as depression or mania.
morpheme  The smallest unit of meaning in a given language; English morphemes include whole words, prefixes, and suffixes. There are over 100,000 English morphemes.
motivation  A process that influences the direction, persistence, and vigor of goal-directed behavior.
motivational climate  The achievement context created by adults. In an ego-involving climate, performers are compared with one another and urged to compete to be the best; those who perform best get special attention. In a mastery-involving climate, effort, enjoyment of the activity, and personal improvement are emphasized and rewarded.
motivational interviewing  A treatment approach that avoids confrontation and leads clients to their own realization of a problem and increases their motivation to change.
motor cortex  The cortical area in the rear portion of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements on the opposite sides of the body.
motoric thought  Mental representations of motor movements, such as throwing an object.
motor neurons  Specialized neurons that carry neural messages from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands.
multimodal treatments  Substance-abuse interventions that combine a number of treatments, such as aversion therapy and coping skills training.
mutation  Random errors occurring during gene replication that can result in a new phenotypic effect.
myelin sheath  A fatty insulating substance on the axon of some neurons that increases the speed of neural transmission.
narcolepsy  A sleep disorder that involves extreme daytime sleepiness and sudden, uncontrollable sleep attacks during waking hours.
naturalistic observation  A method in which the researcher observes behavior in a natural setting and tries to avoid influencing the participants being observed.
natural selection  The evolutionary process through which characteristics that increase the likelihood of survival and reproduction are preserved in the gene pool and thereby become more common in a species over time.
need for achievement  The desire to accomplish tasks and attain standards of excellence.
need for positive regard  In Rogers's personality theory, an innate need to be positively evaluated by significant others, which enhances survival potential and need satisfaction.
need for positive self-regard  In Rogers's personality theory, the psychological need to feel positively about oneself that underlies self-enhancement behaviors.
negative correlation  A relation between two variables in which higher scores on one variable are associated with lower scores on the other variable.
negative reinforcement  A response is strengthened by the subsequent removal of an aversive stimulus.
negative symptoms  Schizophrenic symptoms that reflect a lack of normal reactions, such as emotions, speech, or social behaviors.
neglectful parents  Caregivers who provide neither warmth nor rules or guidance.
neoanalytic theorists  Former followers of Freud, such as Adler and Jung, who developed their own psychodynamic theories that generally de-emphasized psychosexual factors in favor of social ones and gave increased emphasis to ego functioning.
NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI)  An objective personality test that measures the Big Five personality factors of extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.
nerve deafness  Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlear receptor cells or to the auditory nerve.
neural network (connectionist) model  States that each concept stored in memory is represented by a unique pattern of distributed and simultaneously activated nodes that process information in parallel; also known as a parallel distributed processing model.
neural plasticity  The ability of neurons to modify their structure and function in response to experiential factors or injury.
neural stem cells  Immature "uncommitted" cells that can mature into any type of neuron or glial cell needed by the brain.
neurogenesis  The production of new neurons in the nervous system, sometimes to replace neurons that have died or been damaged.
neuromodulators  Neurotransmitter substances that are released by neurons and circulate within the nervous system to affect the sensitivity of many neurons to their natural transmitter substances.
neurons  Nerve cells that constitute the basic building blocks of the nervous system.
neurotic anxiety  In psychoanalytic theory, a state of anxiety that arises when impulses from the id threaten to break through into awareness or behavior.
neurotransmitters  Chemical substances that are released from the axons of one neuron, travel across the synaptic space, and bind to specially keyed receptors in another neuron, where they produce a chemical reaction that is either excitatory or inhibitory.
night terrors  A disorder in which a sleeper—often feeling a strong sense of dread or danger—becomes aroused to a near panic state.
normal curve  A symmetrical bell-shaped curve that represents a theoretical distribution of scores in the population.
normal distribution  A frequency distribution in the shape of a symmetrical or bell-shaped curve that satisfies certain mathematical conditions deduced from the theory of probability.
normative social influence  Conformity motivated by gaining social acceptance and avoiding social rejection.
norm of reciprocity  The tendency to respond in kind when other people treat us well or poorly.
norms (cultural or group)  Rules (often unwritten) that specify what behavior is acceptable and expected for members of a particular culture or group.
null hypothesis  The hypothesis that any observed differences between samples on the variable(s) of interest are due to chance (i.e., in an experiment, the hypothesis that the independent variable had no effect on the dependent variable).
object permanence  The recognition that an object continues to exist even when it no longer can be seen.
object relations theories  The view that people form images or mental representations of themselves and other people as a result of early experiences with caregivers.
observational learning  Learning through observing the behavior of a model.
obsession  An unwanted and disturbing thought or image that invades consciousness and is very difficult to control.
Oedipus complex  The male child experiences erotic feelings toward his mother, desires to possess her sexually, and views his father as a rival.
olfaction  The sense of smell.
olfactory bulb  A forebrain structure that receives input from the receptors for the sense of smell.
openness  The client's willingness to become personally invested in the process of therapy that predicts favorable therapeutic outcomes.
operant conditioning  A type of learning in which behavior is modified by its consequences, such as by reinforcement and punishment.
operant discrimination  An operant response occurs when a particular antecedent stimulus is present but not when another antecedent stimulus is present.
operant extinction  Occurs when the absence of reinforcement for a previously reinforced response causes that response to weaken and eventually stop.
operant generalization  An operant response occurs to a new antecedent stimulus that is similar to the original antecedent stimulus.
operational definition  Defining a concept or variable in terms of the specific procedures used to produce or measure it.
opiates  A category of drugs consisting of opium and drugs derived from it, such as morphine, codeine, and heroin.
optic nerve  The bundle of ganglion cell axons that carries information from the visual receptors to the visual area of the thalamus.
organ of Corti  Structures embedded in the basilar membrane that contain the hair cell receptors for sound.
outcome bias  Occurs when an intelligence test score underestimates a person's true intellectual ability.
overconfidence  The pervasive tendency to overestimate one's degree of knowledge and predictive ability.
overlearning  Continued rehearsal past the point of initial learning that significantly improves performance on memory tasks.
pain disorder  A somatoform disorder in which the person's complaints of pain cannot be accounted for in terms of degree of physical damage.
panic disorder  An anxiety disorder characterized by unpredictable panic attacks and a pervasive fear that another will occur; may also result in agoraphobia.
parallel distributed processing (PDP) model  A computer model in which each item in memory is represented by a particular pattern of distributed yet interconnected nodes that are activated simultaneously (i.e., that operate in parallel); also known as a neural network model.
paranoid schizophrenia  A schizophrenic disorder marked by delusional thinking and suspiciousness.
parasympathetic nervous system  The branch of the autonomic nervous system that slows down bodily processes to conserve energy and reduce arousal.
paraventricular nucleus (PVN)  A cluster of neurons in the hypothalamus packed with receptor sites for transmitters that stimulate or reduce appetite.
partial (intermittent) reinforcement  A reinforcement schedule in which only a portion of the responses of a particular type are followed by a reinforcer.
passionate love  A form of love that involves intense emotional arousal and yearning for one's partner.
Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient  A statistic that reflects the direction and strength of the relation between two variables; can range in magnitude from 21.00 to 11.00.
perception  The process of organizing stimulus input and giving it meaning.
perceptual constancies  The ability to recognize stimulus characteristics—size, color, and so on—under varying conditions.
perceptual schemas  Internal representations that contain the essential features of an object of perception.
perceptual set  A readiness to perceive a stimulus in a particular way based on expectations, motives, emotions, or beliefs.
performance components  In Sternberg's triarchic model of intelligence, the specific mental processes used to perform a task.
peripheral nervous system  All of the neurons that connect the central nervous system with the sensory receptors, the muscles, and the glands.
peripheral route to persuasion  Occurs when people do not scrutinize a message but are influenced mostly by other factors such as a speaker's attractiveness or a message's emotional appeal.
personal constructs  In George Kelly's personality theory, the cognitive categories used to sort events and make comparisons among people and events.
personal intelligence  A proposed form of intelligence involving the degree of insight into oneself and one's behaviors and their consequences.
personality  Those biologically and environmentally determined characteristics within the person that account for distinctive and relatively enduring patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting.
personality disorders  Stable, inflexible, and maladaptive ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
personality psychology  A subfield of psychology that focuses on the nature of human personality.
personality traits  Relatively stable cognitive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics that help establish people's individual identities.
personal unconscious  According to Jung, those aspects of the unconscious that arise from the individual's life experiences.
phenomenology  A philosophical approach that focuses on immediate subjective experience.
phenotype  The observable characteristics produced by one's genetic endowment.
pheromones  Chemical signals found in natural body scents.
phobias  Strong and irrational fears of particular objects or circumstances.
phoneme  The smallest unit of speech sound in a language that can signal a difference in meaning. English has 40 phonemes.
phonological awareness  A person's overall awareness of the sound structure of one's language.
photopigments  Protein molecules within the rods and cones whose chemical reactions when absorbing light result in the generation of nerve impulses.
placebo  An inactive or inert substance.
placebo control group  A control group that receives an intervention that is assumed to have no therapeutic value.
placebo effect  A change in behavior that occurs because of the expectation or belief that one is receiving a treatment.
place theory of pitch perception  States that sound frequencies are coded in terms of the portion of the basilar membrane where the fluid wave in the cochlea peaks; this theory accounts for perception of frequencies above 4,000 hertz.
pleasure principle  The drive for instant need gratification that is characteristic of the id.
polygenic transmission  A number of genes working together to create a particular phenotypic characteristic.
polygraph  A research and clinical instrument that measures a wide array of physiological responses.
pons  A brain stem structure having sensory and motor tracts whose functions are involved in sleep and dreaming.
population  In a survey, the entire set of individuals about whom we wish to draw a conclusion.
positive correlation  A relation between two variables in which higher scores on one variable are associated with higher scores on the other variable.
positive psychology movement  A view that emphasizes the study of human strengths, fulfillment, and optimal living.
positive reinforcement  A response is strengthened by the subsequent presentation of a stimulus.
positive symptoms  Schizophrenic symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and disordered speech and thinking.
positron-emission tomography (PET) scan  A procedure that provides a visual display of the absorption of a radioactive substance by neurons, indicating how actively they are involved as the brain performs a task.
postconventional moral reasoning  According to Kohlberg, the stage at which moral judgments are based on a system of internalized, well-thought-out moral principles.
posttraumatic growth (PTG)  The experience of positive psychological changes reported by some individuals following a major life crisis or traumatic event.
posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)  A pattern of distressing symptoms, such as flashbacks, nightmares, avoidance, and anxiety responses that recur after a traumatic experience.
pragmatics  A knowledge of the practical aspects of using language, such as how our choice of words depends on the social context.
preconventional moral reasoning  According to Kohlberg, the stage at which moral judgments are based on anticipated punishments or rewards.
predictive bias  Occurs when an intelligence test successfully predicts criterion measures, such as school or job performance, for some groups but not for others.
prefrontal cortex  The area of the frontal lobe just behind the eyes and forehead that is involved in the executive functions of planning, self-awareness, and responsibility.
prejudice  A negative attitude toward people based on their membership in a group.
preoperational stage  In Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development in which children represent the world symbolically through words and mental images but do not yet understand basic mental operations or rules.
preparedness  The notion that, through evolution, animals have become biologically predisposed to learn some associations more readily than other associations.
primacy effect  In impression formation, our tendency to attach more importance to the initial information that we learn about a person.
primary reinforcer  A positive reinforcer that satisfies a biological need, such as food or water.
priming  Occurs when exposure to a stimulus influences how you subsequently respond to that same or another stimulus; in long-term memory, refers to the activation of one concept by another.
proactive interference  Occurs when material learned in the past interferes with the recall of newer material.
problem-focused coping  Coping strategies that involve direct attempts to confront and master a stressful situation.
problem-solving dream models  The view that dreams can help us find creative solutions to our problems and conflicts because they are not constrained by reality.
procedural (nondeclarative) memory  Memory that is reflected in learned skills and actions.
projective tests  Tests, such as the Rorschach and the Thematic Apperception Test, that present ambiguous stimuli to the subject; the responses are assumed to be based on a projection of internal characteristics of the person onto the stimuli.
proposition  A statement that expresses an idea.
propositional thought  A thought that expresses an idea in linguistic form, as when we seem to hear or say a sentence in our mind.
prospective memory  Remembering to perform an activity in the future.
protective factors  Environmental or personal resources that help people fare better in the face of stress.
prototype  The most typical and familiar member of a class that defines a concept.
proximodistal principle  The tendency for physical development to begin along the innermost parts of the body and continue toward the outermost parts.
psychoactive drugs  Chemicals that produce alterations in consciousness, emotion, and behavior.
psychoanalysis  A psychological theory, developed by Freud, that emphasizes internal and primarily unconscious causes of behavior.
psychodynamic perspective  A psychological perspective that focuses on how personality processes—including unconscious impulses, defenses, and conflicts—influence behavior.
psychogenic amnesia  An extensive but selective memory loss that occurs after a traumatic event.
psychogenic fugue  A dissociative phenomenon in which a person loses all sense of personal identity and wanders to another place and establishes a new identity.
psycholinguistics  The scientific field that studies psychological aspects of language.
psychological test  A method for measuring individual differences related to some psychological construct, based on a sample of relevant behavior obtained under standardized conditions.
psychology  The scientific study of behavior and the mind.
psychometrics  The statistical study of psychological tests; the psychometric approach to intelligence focuses on the number and nature of abilities that define intelligence.
psychophysics  The study of relations between the physical characteristics of stimuli and the sensory experiences they evoke.
psychosexual stages  Stages of development in which psychic energy is focused on certain body parts. The major childhood stages are the oral, anal, and phallic stages; experiences during these stages are assumed to shape personality development.
psychosocial stages  A sequence of eight developmental stages proposed by Erikson, each of which involves a different "crisis" (i.e., conflict) over how we view ourselves in relation to other people and the world.
psychosurgery  Surgical procedures, such as lobotomy or cingulotomy, in which brain tissue involved in a behavior disorder is removed or destroyed.
puberty  A period of rapid biological maturation in which the person becomes capable of sexual reproduction.
punishment  A response is weakened by an outcome that follows it.
random assignment  A procedure in which each participant has an equal likelihood of being assigned to any one group within an experiment.
randomized clinical trial (RCT)  A treatment research design that involves the random assignment of clients having specific problems to an experimental (therapy) group or to a control condition so as to draw sound causal conclusions about the therapy's efficacy.
random sampling  In survey research, a method of choosing a sample in which each member of the population has an equal probability of being included in the sample.
range  A statistic that represents the difference between the highest and the lowest scores in a distribution.
rational-theoretical approach  An approach to test construction in which test items are made up on the basis of a theorist's conception of a construct.
reaction range  The genetically influenced limits within which environmental factors can exert their effects on an organism.
realistic conflict theory  Maintains that competition for limited resources fosters prejudice.
reality principle  The ego's tendency to take reality factors into account and to act in a rational fashion in need satisfaction.
receptor sites  Protein molecules on neurons' dendrites or soma that are specially shaped to accommodate a specific neurotransmitter molecule.
recessive gene  A gene whose influence on the phenotypic expression of a characteristic is masked by a dominant gene.
reciprocal determinism  Bandura's model of two-way causal relations between the person, behavior, and the environment.
reflexes  Automatic, inborn behaviors triggered by specific stimuli.
regression  A psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which a person retreats to an earlier stage of development in response to stress.
reinforcement  A response is strengthened by an outcome that follows it.
relapse prevention  A treatment approach designed to teach coping skills, increase self-efficacy, and counter the abstinence violation effect, thus reducing the likelihood of relapse.
reliability  In psychological testing, the consistency with which a measure assesses a given characteristic or different observers agree on a given score. Diagnostic reliability refers to agreement among clinicians making diagnostic judgments.
remote behavior sampling  A method of collecting samples of behavior from respondents as they live their daily lives.
REM sleep  A recurring sleep stage characterized by rapid eye movements, increased physiological arousal, paralysis of the voluntary muscles, and a high rate of dreaming.
REM-sleep behavior disorder (RBD)  A sleep disorder in which the loss of muscle tone that causes normal REM-sleep paralysis is absent, thereby enabling sleepers to move about—sometimes violently—and seemingly act out their dreams.
replication  The process of repeating a study to determine whether the original findings can be duplicated.
representativeness heuristic  A rule of thumb in estimating the probability that an object or event belongs to a certain category based on the extent to which it represents a prototype of that category.
representative sample  A sample that accurately reflects the important characteristics of the population.
repression  The basic defense mechanism that actively keeps anxiety-arousing material in the unconscious.
resilience  The ability to withstand psychological stress.
resistance  Largely unconscious maneuvers that protect clients from dealing with anxiety-arousing material in therapy.
response cost (negative punishment, punishment by removal)  A type of punishment in which an operant response is weakened by the subsequent removal of a stimulus that was not the cause of the original response (e.g., TV privileges are taken away from a child who is misbehaving in order to gain attention).
response prevention  The prevention of escape or avoidance responses during exposure to an anxiety-arousing conditioned stimulus so that extinction can occur.
resting potential  The voltage differential between the inside and outside of a neuron (about −70 mv) caused by the unequal distribution of ions inside the neuron's membrane and outside in the fluid surrounding the neuron when the neuron is at rest.
restoration model  The theory that sleep recharges our run-down bodies and allows us to recover from physical and mental fatigue.
reticular formation  A structure extending from the hindbrain into the lower forebrain that plays a central role in consciousness, sleep, and attention, in part by alerting and activating higher brain centers (ascending portion) and by selectively blocking some inputs to higher regions in the brain (descending portion).
retina  The light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye that contains the visual receptors.
retrieval  The process of accessing information in long-term memory.
retrieval cue  Any stimulus, whether internal or external, that triggers the activation of information stored in long-term memory.
retroactive interference  Occurs when newly acquired information interferes with the ability to recall information learned at an earlier time.
retrograde amnesia  Memory loss for events that occurred prior to the onset of amnesia.
reuptake  The process whereby transmitter substances are taken back into the presynaptic neuron so that they do not continue to stimulate postsynaptic neurons.
rods  Photoreceptors in the retina that function under low levels of illumination and do not give rise to color sensations.
Role Construct Repertory (Rep) Test  The technique developed by personality psychologist Kelly to assess people's personal constructs by asking them to describe the ways in which people resemble and differ from one another.
Rorschach test  A projective technique involving the interpretation of inkblots that is used by psychodynamic psychologists to assess perceptual and psychodynamic aspects of personality.
sample  In a survey, a subset of individuals drawn from the population.
scatterplot  A graph commonly used to examine correlational data; each pair of scores on variable X and variable Y is plotted as a single point.
schema  A mental framework; an organized pattern of thought about some aspect of the world, such as a class of people, events, situations, or objects.
schizophrenia  A psychotic disorder involving serious impairments of attention, thought, language, emotion, and behavior.
script  A specialized schema that represents a sequence of events (e.g., "going to the movies") that unfolds in a regular, almost standardized order.
seasonal affective disorder (SAD)  A disorder in which depressive symptoms appear or worsen during certain seasons of the year (most typically, fall and winter) and then improve during the other seasons.
secondary (conditioned) reinforcer  A stimulus that acquires reinforcing qualities by being associated with a primary reinforcer.
seeking social support  Turning to others for assistance or emotional support in times of stress.
selective attention  A cognitive process that focuses awareness on some stimuli to the exclusion of others.
self  In Rogers's theory, an organized, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about oneself.
self-actualization  In humanistic theories, an inborn tendency to strive toward the realization of one's full potential.
self-consistency  An absence of conflict among self-perceptions.
self-determination theory  A humanistic theory formulated by Deci and Ryan that focuses on three fundamental psychological needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness.
self-efficacy  The conviction that we can perform the behaviors necessary to produce a desired outcome.
self-enhancement  Processes whereby one enhances positive self-regard.
self-esteem  How positively or negatively we feel about ourselves.
self-fulfilling prophecy  Occurs when people's erroneous expectations lead them to act toward others in a way that brings about the expected behaviors, thereby confirming the original impression.
self-monitoring  A personality trait that reflects people's tendencies to regulate their social behavior in accord with situational cues, as opposed to internal values, attitudes, and needs.
self-perception theory  Maintains that we make inferences about our own attitudes by observing how we behave.
self-regulation processes  In social-cognitive theory, skills that allow for personal control over one's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.
self-relatedness  A client's ability to be flexible to change, to listen carefully to the therapist, and to constructively use what is learned in therapy.
self-serving bias  The tendency to make relatively more personal attributions for success and situational attributions for failures.
self-verification  The tendency to try to verify or validate one's existing self-concept (i.e., to satisfy congruence needs).
semantic memory  General factual knowledge about the world and language, including memory for words and concepts.
semantics  The linguistic rules for connecting symbols in language to what they represent.
senile dementia  Dementia (a gradual loss of cognitive abilities due to normal brain deterioration) that begins after age 65.
sensation  The process by which stimuli are detected, transduced into nerve impulses, and sent to the brain.
sensitive period  An optimal age range for certain experiences, but if those experiences occur at another time, normal development will still be possible.
sensorimotor stage  In Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development in which children understand their world primarily through sensory experiences and physical (motor) interactions with objects.
sensory adaptation  Diminishing sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus with the passage of time as sensory neurons habituate to the stimulation.
sensory memory  Memory processes that retain incoming sensory information just long enough for it to be recognized.
sensory neurons  Specialized neurons that carry messages from the sense organs to the spinal cord and brain.
sensory prosthetic device  A device for providing sensory input that can, to some extent, substitute for what cannot be supplied by the person's own sensory receptors.
separation anxiety  Distress experienced by infants when they are separated from a primary caregiver, peaking between ages 12 and 16 months and disappearing between ages 2 and 3 years.
sequential design  A research approach that involves repeatedly testing several age cohorts as they grow older.
serial position effect  The finding that recall is influenced by an item's position in a series.
set point  A biologically determined standard around which body weight (or, more specifically, our fat mass) is regulated.
sex-typing  Treating other people differently based on whether they are female or male.
sexual dysfunction  Chronic, impaired sexual functioning that distresses a person.
sexual orientation  A person's emotional and erotic preference for partners of a particular sex.
sexual response cycle  A physiological response to sexual stimulation that involves stages of excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.
sexual strategies (parental investment) theory  Maintains that sex differences in mating strategies and mating preferences reflect inherited biological predispositions that have been shaped in women and men over the course of evolution.
shaping  An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcement begins with a behavior that the organism can already perform and then is made contingent on behaviors that increasingly approximate the final desired behavior.
shared environment  The environmental conditions shared by a family or other social group over a period of time.
short-term memory  A memory store that temporarily holds a limited amount of information.
signal detection theory  A theory that assumes that stimulus detection is not based on a fixed absolute threshold but rather is affected by rewards, punishments, expectations, and motivational factors.
situation-focused prevention  Prevention efforts that focus on altering environmental conditions that are known to promote the development of psychological disorders.
Skinner box  An experimental chamber in which animals learn to perform operant responses, such as pressing a bar or pecking, so that the learning process can be studied.
sleep apnea  A disorder characterized by a repeated cycle in which the sleeper stops breathing, momentarily awakens gasping for air, and then returns to sleep.
slow-wave sleep  Stages 3 and 4 of sleep, in which the EEG pattern shows large, slow brain waves called delta waves.
social causation hypothesis  The proposition that attributes the higher prevalence of schizophrenia in low-income people to the greater stress they experience.
social-cognitive theories (of hypnosis)  The view that hypnotic experiences occur because people are highly motivated to assume the role of being hypnotized; the person develops a readiness to perceive hypnotic experiences as real and involuntary.
social-cognitive theory (social-learning theory)  A cognitive behavioral approach to personality developed by Bandura and Mischel that emphasizes the role of social learning, cognitive processes, and self-regulation.
social comparison  The act of comparing one's personal attributes, abilities, and opinions with those of other people.
social compensation  Working harder when in a group than when alone to compensate for other members' lower output.
social desirability bias  A tendency to self- report or behave in a way that presents oneself in a favorable light, rather than respond as one truly feels.
social drift hypothesis  The notion that as people develop schizophrenia, their personal and occupational functioning deteriorates, so that they drift down the socioeconomic ladder.
social exchange theory  A theory proposing that a social relationship can best be described in terms of exchanges of rewards and costs between the two partners.
social identity theory  Maintains that prejudice stems from a need to enhance our self-esteem.
social learning theory  Bandura's former name for social-cognitive theory.
social loafing  The tendency for people to expend less individual effort when working collectively in a group than when working alone.
social norms  Shared expectations about how people should think, feel, and behave.
social phobia  An excessive and inappropriate fear of social situations in which a person might be evaluated and possibly embarrassed.
social psychology  A subfield of psychology that examines people's thoughts, feelings, and behavior in relation to the social world.
social role  A set of norms that characterizes how people in a given social position (e.g., "the college student," "the police officer") ought to behave.
social skills training  A technique in which a client learns more effective social behaviors by observing and imitating a skillful model.
social structure theory  Maintains that men and women behave differently, such as expressing different mate preferences, because society directs them into different social and economic roles.
sociocultural perspective  A view that emphasizes the role of culture and the social environment in influencing our behavior, thoughts, and emotions.
somatic nervous system  The branch of the peripheral nervous system that provides input from the sensory receptors and output to the voluntary muscles of the body.
somatic sensory cortex  Cortical strips in the front portions of the parietal lobes that receive sensory input from the opposite side of the body.
somatoform disorder  A disorder in which a person complains of bodily symptoms that cannot be accounted for in terms of actual physical damage or dysfunction.
source confusion  The tendency to recall something or recognize it as familiar but to forget where it was encountered. Also called source monitoring error.
specificity question  The ultimate question of psychotherapy research: "Which types of therapy administered by which kinds of therapists to which kinds of clients having which kinds of problems produce which kinds of effects?"
specific phobia  An irrational and excessive fear of specific objects or situations that pose little or no actual threat.
speech segmentation  The task of perceiving where each word within a spoken sentence begins and ends.
splitting  A tendency, often found in people with borderline personality disorder, to not integrate the positive and negative aspects of another's behavior into a coherent cognitive representation of the person.
spontaneous recovery  In classical conditioning, the reappearance of a previously extinguished conditioned response after a period of time has passed following extinction.
standard deviation (SD)  A measure of variability that takes into account how much each score in a distribution deviates from the average score. Statistically, the square root of the variance of a set of scores.
standardization  In psychological testing, refers to (1) creating a standard set of procedures for administering a test or making observations and (2) deriving norms with which an individual's performance can be compared.
state-dependent memory  The enhanced ability to retrieve information when our internal state at the time of retrieval matches our original state during learning.
static testing  The traditional approach to testing, in which the test is administered under highly standardized conditions.
statistical significance  In research, a term that means it is unlikely that a particular finding occurred by chance alone. Psychologists typically consider a result to be statistically significant only if it could have occurred by chance less than 5 times in 100.
stereotype  A generalized belief about a group or category of people.
stereotype threat  The anxiety created by the perceived possibility that one's behavior or performance will confirm a negative stereotype about one's group.
stimulants  Drugs that stimulate neural activity, resulting in a state of excitement or aroused euphoria.
stimulus control  The occurrence of an operant behavior in response to a discriminative stimulus.
stimulus generalization  A conditioned response occurs to stimuli other than the original conditioned stimulus, based on the similarity of these stimuli to the conditioned stimulus.
stimulus hierarchy  In systematic desensitization, the creation of a series of anxiety-arousing stimuli that are ranked in terms of the amount of anxiety they evoke.
storage  The retention of information in memory over time.
stranger anxiety  Distress over contact with strangers that typically develops in the first year of infancy and dissipates in the second year.
strange situation  A standardized procedure used to determine the type of emotional attachment between an infant and a caregiver.
strategic pluralism  The notion that multiple—even contradictory—behavioral strategies (e.g., introversion and extraversion) might be adaptive in certain environments and would therefore be maintained through natural selection.
stress  A term variously used to refer to (1) situations that place strong demands on an organism, (2) the cognitive, physiological, and behavioral responses to such situations, and (3) the ongoing transaction between individuals and demanding situations.
stressors  Situations that place demands on organisms that tax or exceed their resources.
stress response  The pattern of cognitive, physiological, and behavioral reactions to demands that exceed a person's resources.
stroboscopic movement  The illusory movement produced when adjacent lights are illuminated and extinguished at specific time intervals.
structuralism  An early German school of psychology established by Wundt that attempted to study the structure of the mind by breaking it down into its basic components, which were believed to be sensations.
structured interview  A standardized interview protocol in which specific questions are asked.
subgoal analysis  A problem-solving heuristic in which people attack a large problem by formulating subgoals, or intermediate steps toward a solution.
subjective well-being (SWB)  Happiness; the overall degree of satisfaction with one's life.
sublimation  The channeling of unacceptable impulses into socially accepted behaviors, as when aggressive drives are expressed in violent sports.
subliminal stimuli  Weak stimuli below the perceptual threshold that are not consciously perceived.
substance dependence  A maladaptive pattern of substance use that causes a person significant distress or substantially impairs that person's life; substance dependence is diagnosed as occurring "with physiological dependence" if drug tolerance or withdrawal symptoms have developed.
suicide  The willful taking of one's own life.
superego  In psychonalysis, the moral arm of the personality that internalizes the standards and values of society and serves as the person's conscience.
suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN)  The brain's master "biological clock," located in the hypothalamus, that regulates most circadian rhythms.
surface structure  A linguistic term for the words and organization of a spoken or written sentence. Two sentences may have quite different surface structure but still mean the same thing.
survey research  A method using questionnaires or interviews to obtain information about many people.
sympathetic nervous system  The branch of the autonomic nervous system that has an arousal function on the body's internal organs, speeding up bodily processes and mobilizing the body.
synaptic space  The microscopic space between the axons of one neuron and the dendrites or cell body of another over which the nerve impulse is transmitted.
synaptic vesicles  Chambers within the axon that contain the neurotransmitter substance.
synesthesia  A condition in which stimuli are experienced not only in the normal sensory modality but in others as well.
syntax  The rules for the combination of symbols within a given language.
systematic desensitization  A procedure used to eliminate anxiety using counter conditioning, in which a new response that is incompatible with anxiety is conditioned to the anxiety-arousing conditioned stimulus.
tardive dyskinesia  An irreversible motor disorder that can occur as a side effect of certain antipsychotic drugs.
taste buds  Chemical receptors for taste in the tongue and in the roof and back of the mouth that are sensitive to the qualities of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.
temperament  A biologically based general style of reacting emotionally and behaviorally to the environment.
teratogens  Environmental (nongenetic) agents that cause abnormal prenatal development.
test-retest reliability  The extent to which scores on a presumably stable characteristic are consistent over time.
thalamus  A major sensory integration and relay center in the forebrain, sometimes referred to as the brain's sensory switchboard.
THC (tetrahydrocannabinol)  The major active ingredient in marijuana.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)  A projective personality test in which people make up stories in response to pictures.
theory  A set of formal statements that explains how and why certain events or phenomena are related to one another.
theory of cognitive dissonance  States that people strive to maintain consistency in their beliefs and actions and that inconsistency creates dissonance (i.e., unpleasant arousal) that motivates people to restore balance by changing their cognitions or behavior.
theory of mind  A person's beliefs about the "mind" and the ability to understand other people's mental states.
theory of planned behavior  Maintains that our intention to engage in a behavior is strongest when we have a positive attitude toward that behavior, when subjective norms (our perceptions of what other people think we should do) support our attitudes, and when we believe that the behavior is under our control.
threat  In Rogers's theory, any experience we have that is inconsistent with our self- concept, including our perceptions of our own behavior. Threat evokes anxiety.
three-stratum theory of cognitive abilities  A model of intelligence based on factor analysis that contains three hierarchical levels of ability, from specific skills to a general intellectual ( g) factor.
tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state  The experience of being unable to recall something but feeling that you are on the verge of remembering it.
token economy  A procedure in which desirable behaviors are reinforced with tokens or points that can later be redeemed for other reinforcers.
tolerance  A condition in which increasingly larger doses of a drug are required to produce the same level of bodily responses; caused by the body's compensatory responses, which counter the effects of the drug.
top-down processing  Perceptual processing in which existing knowledge, concepts, ideas, or expectations are applied in order to make sense of incoming stimulation.
transduction  The conversion of one form of energy into another; in sensation, the process whereby physical stimuli are translated into nerve impulses.
transference  The psychoanalytic phenomenon in which a client responds irrationally to the analyst as if the latter were an important person from the client's past who plays a significant role in the client's dynamics.
transtheoretical model  A model of behavior change that includes the phases of precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination.
trauma-dissociation theory  Accounts for the development of dissociative identity disorder as a defense against severe childhood abuse or trauma.
triangular theory of love  Maintains that various types of love result from different combinations of three core factors: intimacy, commitment, and passion.
triarchic theory of intelligence  Sternberg's theory of intelligence that distinguishes between analytical, practical, and creative forms of mental ability.
triple vulnerability model of emotional disorders  A theoretical model of psychopathology that there are common biological, psychological, and environmental vulnerability factors that foster the development of anxiety and depressive disorders.
twin study  A research method in behavior genetics in which identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins are compared on some characteristic; this method is particularly informative if the twins have been raised in different environments.
2 3 2 achievement goal theory  A model of motivation in which each person can be described in terms of an achievement motivation profile involving four types of goals: mastery-approach, ego-approach, mastery-avoidance, and ego-avoidance goals.
two-factor theory of avoidance learning  Maintains that avoidance learning first involves the classical conditioning of fear, followed by learning operant responses that avoid an anticipated aversive stimulus and thus are reinforced by anxiety reduction.
two-factor theory of emotion  Schachter's theory stating that intensity of physiological arousal determines perceived intensity of emotion, whereas appraisal of environmental cues tells us which emotion we are experiencing.
Type A behavior pattern  A sense of time urgency, pressured behavior, and hostility that appears to be a risk factor in coronary heart disease.
unconditional positive regard  A communicated attitude of total and unconditional acceptance of another person that conveys the person's intrinsic worth.
unconditioned response (UCR)  A response (usually reflexive or innate) that is elicited by a specific stimulus (the unconditioned stimulus) without prior learning.
unconditioned stimulus (UCS)  A stimulus that elicits a particular reflexive or innate response (the unconditioned response) without prior learning.
undifferentiated schizophrenia  A residual category of schizophrenia for people who show some of the symptoms of paranoid, disorganized, and catatonic types but not enough to be placed in one of those diagnostic categories.
unobtrusive measures  Techniques for measuring behavior in which participants are kept unaware that their behavior is being recorded or observed.
unshared environment  The unique experiences of each individual within a family—as opposed to the common experiences of the whole family.
upward comparison  Seeing oneself or one's situation as worse off than the standard for comparison.
validity  The extent to which a test actually measures what it is supposed to measure; the degree to which a diagnostic system's categories contain the core features of the behavior disorders and permit differentiation among the disorders.
variable  Any characteristic of an organism or situation that can vary.
variable-interval (VI) schedule  A reinforcement schedule in which reinforcement follows the first response of a particular type that occurs after an average but variable time interval following the last reinforced response.
variable-ratio (VR) schedule  A reinforcement schedule in which reinforcement is based on an average but variable number of responses of a particular type.
variance  A statistic that measures the average of the squared deviation scores about the mean of a distribution.
vestibular sense  The sense of body orientation, or equilibrium.
virtual reality (VR)  Computer-produced virtual environments that immerse an individual and produce experiences similar to those of a corresponding real environment.
visual acuity  The ability to see fine detail.
visual agnosia  A disorder in which an individual is unable to visually recognize objects.
vulnerability-stress model  Explains behavior disorders as resulting from predisposing biological or psychological vulnerability factors that are triggered by a stressor.
Weber's law  States that to perceive a difference between two stimuli, the stimuli must differ by a constant percentage or ratio.
Wernicke's area  An area of the left tem poral lobe that is involved in speech comprehension.
wisdom  A system of knowledge about the meaning and conduct of life.
wish fulfillment  In Freudian theory, the partial or complete satisfaction of a psychological need through dreaming or waking fantasy.
withdrawal  The occurrence of compensatory responses after drug use is discontinued, causing the person to experience physiological reactions opposite to those that had been produced by the drug.
working memory  A mental workspace that temporarily stores information, actively processes it, and supports other cognitive functions.
Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory  The color vision theory stating that there are three types of color receptors in the retina—one for red, one for blue, and one for green—and that combinations of activation of these receptors can produce perception of any hue in the visible spectrum.
zone of proximal development  The difference between what a child can do independently and what the child can do with assistance from adults or more advanced peers.
zygote  The fertilized egg.





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