Words/Term

Meaning
Absolute threshold
 Intensity level at which one can detect a stimulus 50% of the time
Action potential
 The electrical process by which information is transmitted the length of an axon
Aggression
 Overt or suppressed hostility, either innate or resulting from continued frustration and directed outward or against oneself
Anxiety disorders
 Mental problems characterized mainly by anxiety. They include panic disorder, specific phobias, and obsessive compulsive disorders.
Associationism
 Any of several theories that explain complex psychological phenomena as being built up from the association of simple sensations, stimuli and responses, or other behavioral or mental elements considered as primary
Attachment
 Theory developed by Harlow; types include secure and insecure
Attitude
 A relatively enduring evaluation of a person or thing; Asch demonstrated that this doesn’t always match one’s behavior
Attribution theory
 Way of explaining others’ behavior by either one’s disposition or one’s situation
Avoidance learning
 Avoidance learning is the process by which an individual learns a behavior or response to avoid a stressful or unpleasant situation.
Behavior
 A perspective on psychology that sees psychology as an objective science without reference to mental states
Binocular depth cues
 Retinal disparity and convergence which enable people to determine depth using both eyes
Central nervous system
 Consists of the brain and the spinal cord
Cerebellum:
 Brain structure that controls well-learned motor activities like riding a bike
Cerebral cortex
 The fabric of interconnecting cells that blankets the brain hemispheres; the brain’s center for information processing and control
Cerebral hemispheres
 Either of the two symmetrical halves of the cerebrum, designated right and left; in mammals, the cerebral hemispheres are connected by the corpus callosum, a transverse band of nerve fibers
Classical conditioning
 Method of learning in which a neutral stimulus can be used to elicit a response that is usually a natural response to a stimulus
Cognitive development
 Is defined as thinking, problem solving, concept understanding, information processing and overall intelligence
Cognitive dissonance theory
 A highly motivating state in which people have conflicting cognitions, especially when their voluntary actions conflict with their attitudes
Conditioned stimulus
 In classical conditioning, a previously neutral stimulus that comes to elicit he conditioned response
Conditioned reflex
 A new or modified response elicited by a stimulus after conditioning, also known as a conditioned response
Conformity
Adjusting behavior to meet a group’s standard
Consciousness
One’s awareness of one’s environment and oneself
Contrast
 The phenomenon that when two different but related stimuli are presented close together in space and/or time they are perceived as being more different than they really are
Control group
 Subjects in an experiment who do not receive application of the independent variable but are measured nonetheless for the dependent variable
Correlation coefficient
 A positive one near 1.0 indicates two variable are positively related; a negative number indicates a negative relationship; zero indicates no relationship
Correlational method
 A type of research that is mainly statistical in nature; also, correlational studies determine relationship between two variables
Dendrite
 A branch off the cell body of a neuron that receives new information from other neurons
Deoxyribonucleic acid
 The complex substance that is the main carrier of genetic information for all organisms and a major component of chromosomes
Dependent variable
 The variable that the experimenter measures at the end of the experiment
Depression
 A psychiatric disorder characterized by an inability to concentrate, insomnia, loss of appetite, feelings of extreme sadness, helplessness, etc.
Depth perception
 An ability that we exercise by using both monocular and binocular cues
Determinism:
 The scientific doctrine that all occurrences in nature take place in accordance with natural laws
Developmental stages:
 Periods of life initiated by significant transitions or changes in psychical or psychological functioning
Distance cues
 In order to receive information from the environment we are equipped with sense organs e. g. eye, ear, nose; each sense organ is part of a sensory system which receives sensory inputs and transmits sensory information to the brain
Ego
 The Latin for “I”; in Freud’s theories, the mediator between the demands of the id and the superego
Electroencephalograph
A method of representation of brain waves
Empiricism
 A system of acquiring knowledge that rejects all o priori knowledge and relies solely upon observation, experimentation, and induction
Etiology
 The study of the causes for and origin of any phenomena, also spelled aetiology.
Evolution
 A perspective that stresses the value of behavior in Darwinian terms
Experimental group
 In an experiment, the group that is exposed to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable
Extinction
 In classical conditioning, the process of eliminating the previously acquired association of the conditioned stimulus and conditioned response
Extroversion
 One of the Big Five, a personality trait orients one’s interests toward the outside world and other people, rather than inward
Forgetting curve
 A graph plotting the amount of retention and forgetting over time for a certain batch of material, such as list of syllables; a typical curve is steep first, becoming flatter as time goes on
Free association
 A clinical technique of psychoanalysis devised by Sigmund Freud
Free recall
 An individual attends to previously processed stimuli (i.e. words, sounds, numbers, etc) and uses subjective organization to retrieve the memories in categories
Frequency
 A theory of hearing which states that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the tone’s frequency
Functionalism
 William James’s school of thought that stressed the adaptive and survival value of behaviors
Gestalt
 A German word for “whole”, it refers to our tendency to perceive incomplete figures as complete
Gestalt Psychology
 Sought to understand how the brain works by studying perception, arguing that percepts consist of meaningful wholes (in German, Gestalts)
Hypothesis
 A prediction of how the an experiment will turn out
Id
 In Freud’s conception, the repository of the basic urges toward sex and aggression
Independent variable
 A type of variable manipulated by the experimenter
Information processing
 Humans accomplish this either in parallel (unconsciously) or in serial fashion (consciously)
Instrumental behavior
 Is a concept stemming from the Behaviorist movement, which asserts that disorders are learned responses to traumatic experiences
Intelligence
 The ability to learn from experience, to use information, to understand things
Intelligence quotient
 The average is 100; there are many definitions of this attribute, including multiple and crystallized
Introversion
 A personality trait that signifies that one finds energy from internal sources rather than external ones
Just noticeable difference
 The threshold at which one can distinguish two stimuli that are of different intensities, but otherwise identical
Law of effect
 Thorndike’s rule that behaviors which have positive outcomes tend to be repeated
Long term memory
 Refers to memory that is stored effectively in the brain and may be accessed over an extended period of time
Longitudinal research
 A type of study in which one group of subjects is followed and observed (or examined, surveyed, etc.) for an extended period of time (years)
Meaning
 Meaning is communicated through the use of language, (and has to do with the distribution of signs in sign relations (symbols), while in a relationship between ontology and truth, and as a reference or equivalence)
Mental illness
 A psychological or physiological pattern that occurs in an individual and is usually associated with distress or disability that is not expected as part of normal development or culture.
Mental imagery
 A mental representation that mirrors or resembles the thing it represents; mental images can occur in many and perhaps all sensory modalities
Nature vs. nurture
 The long-standing discussion over the relative importance of nature (heredity) and nurture (environment) in their influence on behavior and mental processes
Neocortex
 The newer portion of the cerebral cortex that serves as the center of higher mental functions for humans.
Neurotransmitter
 A chemical that is released by a neuron for the purpose of carrying information across the gaps (synapses) between neurons
Normal distribution
 Describes a symmetrical, bell shaped curve that shows the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes
Obedience
 Is a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual, who is usually an authority figure
Operant conditioning
 A method of influencing behavior by rewarding desired behaviors and punishing undesired ones
Origins of Species
 Book by Charles Darwin where he discusses the theory of “natural selection of spices,” where he coined the term “survival of the fittest”
Personality
 A consistent pattern of thinking, acting, feeling
Phobias
 A group of anxiety disorders involving a pathological fear of a specific object or situation
Placebo effect
 Phenomenon that some people get better even though they receive not medication but an inert substance which should have no medical effect
Positive reinforcement
 A stimulus presented after a response and increasing the probability of that response happening again
Prejudice
 A negative attitude formed toward an individual or group without sufficient experience with the person or group
Pro-social behavior
 Positive, constructive, helpful behavior; the opposite of antisocial behavior
Psychoanalytic theory
 Freud’s personality theory, basis for his therapeutic technique called Psychoanalysis
Psychosis
 A disorder involving profound disturbances in perception, rational thinking, or affect
Psychosomatic disorder
 Condition in which psychological stresses adversely affect physiological (somatic) functioning to the point of distress.
Psychotherapy
 Psychotherapy is a general term for a process of treating mental and emotional disorders by talking about your condition and related issues with an educated, trained and licensed professional
Rehearsal
 The conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage
Reinforcement
 Is an increase in the strength of a response following the change in environment immediately following that response
Right hemisphere
 The cerebral hemisphere to the right of the corpus callosum that controls the left half of the body
Sample
 Sampling is the process of selecting units (e.g., people, organizations) from a population of interest so that by studying the sample we may fairly generalize our results back to the population from which they were chosen.
Semantic memory
 A subdivision of declarative memory that stores general knowledge, including the meaning of words and concepts
Serial position function
 Refers to the concept of “magic seven,” which stipulates that people normally remember the first seven items on a list, for example, after which recall they start forgetting the following items
Short-term memory
 A system for temporarily storing and managing information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension.
Significance level
 The probability of a false rejection of the null hypothesis in a statistical test; also known as level of significance
Social influence
 Is the change in behavior that one person causes in another, intentionally or unintentionally, as a result of the way the changed person perceives themselves in relationship to the influencer, other people and society in general
Socialization
 The process by which children learn the behaviors, attitudes, and expectations required of them by their society or culture
Traits
 A stable personality characteristics that are presumed to exist within the individual and guide his or her thoughts and actions under various conditions
Unconscious
 In classical Freudian theory, the psychic domain of which the individual is not aware but that houses memories, desires, and feelings that would be threatening if brought to consciousness
Unconscious motivation
 Having a desire to engage in an activity but being consciously unaware of the desire
Visual depth perception
 The ability to perceive spatial relationships, especially distances between objects, in three dimensions
Courtesy: Web World