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APA - Psychology terms Category: Health and Medicine > Psychological and medical terms Date & country: 31/03/2017, USA Words: 638

Zygote
The single cell that results when a sperm fertilizes an egg.

A-B-A design
Experimental design in which participants first experience the baseline condition (A), then experience the experimental treatment (B), and then return to the baseline (A).

g
According to Spearman, the factor of general intelligence underlying all intelligent performance.

Yerkes-Dodson law
A correlation between task performance and optimal level of arousal.

Working memory
A memory resource that is used to accomplish tasks such as reasoning and language comprehension; consists of the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and central executive.

Weber's law
An assertion that the size of a difference threshold is proportional to the intensity of the standard stimulus.

Wellness
Optimal health, incorporating the ability to function fully and actively over the physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, social, and environmental domains of health.

Wisdom
Expertise in the fundamental pragmatics of life.

Within-subjects design
A research design that uses each participant as his or her own control; for example, the behavior of an experimental participant before receiving treatment might be compared to his or her behavior after receiving treatment.

Vestibular sense
The sense that tells how one's own body is oriented in the world with respect to gravity.

Visual cortex
The region of the occipital lobes in which visual information is processed.

Volley principle
An extension of frequency theory which proposes that when peaks in a sound wave come too frequently for a single neuron to fire at each peak, several neurons fire as a group at the frequency of the stimulus tone.

Variable-ratio schedule
A schedule of reinforcement in which a reinforcer is delivered for the first response made after a variable number of responses whose average is predetermined.

Variable-interval schedule
A schedule of reinforcement in which a reinforcer is delivered for the first response made after a variable period of time whose average is predetermined.

Validity
The extent to which a test measures what it was intended to measure.

Variable
In an experimental setting, a factor that varies in amount and kind.

Unconditioned response
(UCR) In classical conditioning, the response elicited by an unconditioned stimulus without prior training or learning.

Unconditioned stimulus
(UCS) In classical conditioning, the stimulus that elicits an unconditioned response.

Unconscious
The domain of the psyche that stores repressed urges and primitive impulses.

Unconscious inference
Helmholtz's term for perception that occurs outside of conscious awareness.

Type B behavior pattern
As compared to Type A behavior pattern, a less competitive, less aggressive, less hostile pattern of behavior and emotion.

Type C behavior pattern
A constellation of behaviors that may predict which individuals are more likely to develop cancer or to have their cancer progress quickly; these behaviors include passive acceptance and self-sacrifice.

Unconditional positive regard
Complete love and acceptance of an individual by another person, such as a parent for a child, with no conditions attached.

Transfer-appropriate processing
The perspective that suggests that memory is best when the type of processing carried out at encoding matches the processes carried out at retrieval.

Transference
The process by which a person in psychoanalysis attaches to a therapist feelings formerly held toward some significant person who figured in a past emotional conflict.

Trichromatic theory
The theory that there are three types of color receptors that produce the primary color sensations of red, green, and blue.

Type A behavior pattern
A complex pattern of behaviors and emotions that includes excessive emphasis on competition, aggression, impatience, and hostility; hostility increases the risk of coronary heart disease.

Transduction
Transformation of one form of energy into another; for example, light is transformed into neural impulses.

Traits
Enduring personal qualities or attributes that influence behavior across situations.

Three-term contingency
The means by which organisms learn that, in the presence of some stimuli but not others, their behavior is likely to have a particular effect on the environment.

Timbre
The dimension of auditory sensation that reflects the complexity of a sound wave.

Tolerance
A situation that occurs with continued use of a drug in which an individual requires greater dosages to achieve the same effect.

Top-down processing
Perceptual processes in which information from an individual's past experience, knowledge, expectations, motivations, and background influence the way a perceived object is interpreted and classified.

Theory
An organized set of concepts that explains a phenomenon or set of phenomena.

Theory of ecological optics
A theory of perception that emphasizes the richness of stimulus information and views the perceiver as an active explorer of the environment.

Think-aloud protocols
Reports made by experimental participants of the mental processes and strategies they use while working on a task.

Test-retest reliability
A measure of the correlation between the scores of the same people on the same test given on two different occasions.

Thalamus
The brain structure that relays sensory impulses to the cerebral cortex.

Thematic Apperception Test
(TAT) A projective test in which pictures of ambiguous scenes are presented to an individual, who is encouraged to generate stories about them.

Testosterone
The male sex hormone, secreted by the testes, that stimulates production of sperm and is also responsible for the development of male secondary sex characteristics.

Temporal lobe
Region of brain found below the lateral fissure; contains auditory cortex.

Tend-and-befriend response
A response to stressors that is hypothesized to be typical for females; stressors prompt females to protect their offspring and join social groups to reduce vulnerability.

Terminal buttons
The bulblike structures at the branched endings of axons that contain vesicles filled with neurotransmitters.

Taste-aversion learning
A biological constraint on learning in which an organism learns in one trial to avoid a food whose ingestion is followed by illness.

Sympathetic division
The subdivision of the autonomic nervous system that deals with emergency response and the mobilization of energy.

Synapse
The gap between one neuron and another.

Synaptic transmission
The relaying of information from one neuron to another across the synaptic gap.

Systematic desensitization
A behavioral therapy technique in which a client is taught to prevent the arousal of anxiety by confronting the feared stimulus while relaxed.

Superego
The aspect of personality that represents the internalization of society's values, standards, and morals.

Stress moderator variables
Variables that change the impact of a stressor on a given type of stress reaction.

Stressor
An internal or external event or stimulus that induces stress.

Structuralism
The study of the structure of mind and behavior; the view that all human mental experience can be understood as a combination of simple elements or events.

Stimulus generalization
The automatic extension of conditioned responding to similar stimuli that have never been paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

Stimulus-driven capture
A determinant of why people select some parts of sensory input for further processing; occurs when features of stimuli-objects in the environment-automatically capture attention, independent of the local goals of a perceiver.

Storage
The retention of encoded material over time.

Stress
The pattern of specific and nonspecific responses an organism makes to stimulus events that disturb its equilibrium and tax or exceed its ability to cope.

Stimulus discrimination
A conditioning process in which an organism learns to respond differently to stimuli that differ from the conditioned stimulus on some dimension.

Standardization
A set of uniform procedures for treating each participant in a test, interview, or experiment or for recording data.

Stereotype threat
The threat associated with being at risk for confirming a negative stereotype of one's group.

Stereotypes
Generalizations about a group of people in which the same characteristics are assigned to all members of a group.

Stigma
The negative reaction of people to an individual or group because of some assumed inferiority or source of difference that is degraded.

Split-half reliability
A measure of the correlation between test takers' performance on different halves (e.g., odd- and even-numbered items) of a test.

Spontaneous recovery
The reappearance of an extinguished conditioned response after a rest period.

Spontaneous-remission effect
The improvement of some mental patients and clients in psychotherapy without any professional intervention; a baseline criterion against which the effectiveness of therapies must be assessed.

Standard deviation
(SD) The average difference of a set of scores from their mean; a measure of variability.

Somatic nervous system
The subdivision of the peripheral nervous system that connects the central nervous system to the skeletal muscles and skin.

Somatosensory cortex
The region of the parietal lobes that processes sensory input from various body areas.

Specific phobias
Phobias that occur in response to specific types of objects or situations.

Soma
The cell body of a neuron, containing the nucleus and cytoplasm.

Social-learning theory
The learning theory that stresses the role of observation and the imitation of behaviors observed in others.

Social-learning therapy
A form of treatment in which clients observe models' desirable behaviors being reinforced.

Sociobiology
A research field that focuses on evolutionary explanations for the social behavior and social systems of humans and other animal species.

Socialization
The lifelong process whereby an individual's behavioral patterns, values, standards, skills, attitudes, and motives are shaped to conform to those regarded as desirable in a particular society.

Social psychology
The branch of psychology that studies the effect of social variables on individual behavior, attitudes, perceptions, and motives; also studies group and intergroup phenomena.

Social role
A socially defined pattern of behavior that is expected of a person who is functioning in a given setting or group.

Social support
Resources, including material aid, socioemotional support, and informational aid, provided by others to help a person cope with stress.

Social perception
The process by which a person comes to know or perceive the personal attributes of himself or herself and other people.

Social phobia
A persistent, irrational fear that arises in anticipation of a public situation in which an individual can be observed by others.

Social intelligence
A theory of personality that refers to the expertise people bring to their experience of life tasks.

Social norms
The expectation a group has for its members regarding acceptable and appropriate attitudes and behaviors.

Social development
The ways in which individuals' social interactions and expectations change across the life span.

Sleep apnea
A sleep disorder of the upper respiratory system that causes the person to stop breathing while asleep.

Social categorization
The process by which people organize the social environment by categorizing themselves and others into groups.

Size constancy
The ability to perceive the true size of an object despite variations in the size of its retinal image.

Situational variables
External influences on behavior.

Significant difference
A difference between experimental groups or conditions that would have occurred by chance less than an accepted criterion; in psychology, the criterion most often used is a probability of less than 5 times out of 100, or p < .05.

Shyness
An individual's discomfort and/or inhibition in interpersonal situations that interferes with pursuing interpersonal or professional goals.

Signal detection theory
(SDT) A systematic approach to the problem of response bias that allows an experimenter to identify and separate the roles of sensory stimuli and the individual's criterion level in producing the final response.

Short-term memory
(STM) Memory processes associated with preservation of recent experiences and with retrieval of information from long-term memory; short-term memory is of limited capacity and stores information for only a short length of time without rehearsal.

Shaping by successive approximations
A behavioral method that reinforces responses that successively approximate and ultimately match the desired response.

Shape constancy
The ability to perceive the true shape of an object despite variations in the size of the retinal image.

Shamanism
A spiritual tradition that involves both healing and gaining contact with the spirit world.

Sexual scripts
Socially learned programs of sexual responsiveness.

Sexual arousal
The motivational state of excitement and tension brought about by physiological and cognitive reactions to erotic stimuli.

Sexism
Discrimination against people because of their sex.

Sex differences
Biologically based characteristics that distinguish males from females.

Set
A temporary readiness to perceive or react to a stimulus in a particular way.

Sex chromosomes
Chromosomes that contain the genes that code for the development of male or female characteristics.

Serial processes
Two or more mental processes that are carried out in order, one after the other.

Serial position effect
A characteristic of memory retrieval in which the recall of beginning and end items on a list is often better than recall of items appearing in the middle.