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

Generativity
A commitment beyond one's self and one's partner to family, work, society, and future generations; typically, a crucial step in development in one's 30s and 40s.

Genes
The biological units of heredity; discrete sections of chromosomes responsible for transmission of traits.

Genetics
The study of the inheritance of physical and psychological traits from ancestors.

Genocide
The systematic destruction of one group of people, often an ethnic or racial group, by another.

Generalized anxiety disorder
An anxiety disorder in which an individual feels anxious and worried most of the time for at least six months when not threatened by any specific danger or object.

General adaption syndrome
(GAS) The pattern of nonspecific adaptational physiological mechanisms that occurs in response to continuing threat by almost any serious stressor.

Gender roles
Sets of behaviors and attitudes associated by society with being male or female and expressed publicly by the individual.

Gender identity
One's sense of maleness or femaleness; usually includes awareness and acceptance of one's biological sex.

Ganglion cells
Cells in the visual system that integrate impulses from many bipolar cells in a single firing rate.

Gate-control theory
A theory about pain modulation that proposes that certain cells in the spinal cord act as gates to interrupt and block some pain signals while sending others on to the brain.

Gender
A psychological phenomenon that refers to learned sex-related behaviors and attitudes of males and females.

Fundamental attribution error
(FAE) The dual tendency of observers to underestimate the impact of situational factors and to overestimate the influence of dispositional factors on a person's behavior.

Functional MRI
(fMRI) A brain imaging technique that combines benefits of both MRI and PET scans by detecting magnetic changes in the flow of blood to cells in the brain.

Functionalism
The perspective on mind and behavior that focuses on the examination of their functions in an organism's interactions with the environment.

Frustration-aggression hypothesis
According to this hypothesis, frustration occurs in situations in which people are prevented or blocked from attaining their goals; a rise in frustration then leads to a greater probability of aggression.

Functional fixedness
An inability to perceive a new use for an object previously associated with some other purpose; adversely affects problem solving and creativity.

Frontal lobe
Region of the brain located above the lateral fissure and in front of the central sulcus; involved in motor control and cognitive activities.

Free association
The therapeutic method in which a patient gives a running account of thoughts, wishes, physical sensations, and mental images as they occur.

Frequency distribution
A summary of how frequently each score appears in a set of observations.

Frequency theory
The theory that a tone produces a rate of vibration in the basilar membrane equal to its frequency, with the result that pitch can be coded by the frequency of the neural response.

Frame
A particular description of a choice; the perspective from which a choice is described or framed affects how a decision is made and which option is ultimately exercised.

Fovea
Area of the retina that contains densely packed cones and forms the point of sharpest vision.

Flooding
A therapy for phobias in which clients are exposed, with their permission, to the stimuli most frightening to them.

Fluid intelligence
The aspect of intelligence that involves the ability to see complex relationships and solve problems.

Formal assessment
The systematic procedures and measurement instruments used by trained professionals to assess an individual's functioning, aptitudes, abilities, or mental states.

Foundational theories
Frameworks for initial understanding formulated by children to explain their experiences of the world.

Fixation
A state in which a person remains attached to objects or activities more appropriate for an earlier stage of psychosexual development.

Fixed-interval schedule
A schedule of reinforcement in which a reinforcer is delivered for the first response made after a fixed period of time.

Fixed-ratio schedule
A schedule of reinforcement in which a reinforcer is delivered for the first response made after a fixed number of responses.

Fight-or-flight response
A sequence of internal activities triggered when an organism is faced with a threat; prepares the body for combat and struggle or for running away to safety; recent evidence suggests that the response is characteristic only of males.

Figure
Object-like regions of the visual field that are distinguished from background.

Five-factor model
A comprehensive descriptive personality system that maps out the relationships among common traits, theoretical concepts, and personality scales; informally called the Big Five.

Fear
A rational reaction to an objectively identified external danger that may induce a person to flee or attack in self-defense.

Experimental methods
Research methodologies that involve the manipulation of independent variables in order to determine their effects on the dependent variables.

Explicit uses of memory
Conscious efforts to recover information through memory processes.

Extinction
In conditioning, the weakening of a conditioned association in the absence of a reinforcer or unconditioned stimulus.

Face validity
The degree to which test items appear to be directly related to the attribute the researcher wishes to measure.

Expectancy effects
Results that occur when a researcher or observer subtly communicates to participants the kind of behavior he or she expects to find, thereby creating that expected reaction.

Expectancy theory
A cognitive theory of work motivation that proposes that workers are motivated when they expect their efforts and job performance to result in desired outcomes.

Experience-sampling method
An experimental method that assists researchers in describing the typical contents of consciousness; participants are asked to record what they are feeling and thinking whenever signaled to do so.

Excitatory inputs
Information entering a neuron that signals it to fire.

Etiology
The causes of, or factors related to, the development of a disorder.

Evolutionary perspective
The approach to psychology that stresses the importance of behavioral and mental adaptiveness, based on the assumption that mental capabilities evolved over millions of years to serve particular adaptive purposes.

Erogenous zones
Areas of the skin surface that are especially sensitive to stimulation and that give rise to erotic or sexual sensations.

Estrogen
The female sex hormone, produced by the ovaries, that is responsible for the release of eggs from the ovaries as well as for the development and maintenance of female reproductive structures and secondary sex characteristics.

Episodic memories
Long-term memories for autobiographical events and the contexts in which they occurred.

EQ
The emotional intelligence counterpart of IQ.

Equity theory
A cognitive theory of work motivation that proposes that workers are motivated to maintain fair and equitable relationships with other relevant persons; also, a model that postulates that equitable relationships are those in which the participants' outcomes are proportional to their inputs.

Environmental variables
External influences on behavior.

Endocrine system
The network of glands that manufacture and secrete hormones into the bloodstream.

Engram
The physical memory trace for information in the brain.

Encoding specificity
The principle that subsequent retrieval of information is enhanced if cues received at the time of recall are consistent with those present at the time of encoding.

Emotion
A complex pattern of changes, including physiological arousal, feelings, cognitive processes, and behavioral reactions, made in response to a situation perceived to be personally significant.

Emotional intelligence
Type of intelligence defined as the abilities to perceive, appraise, and express emotions accurately and appropriately, to use emotions to facilitate thinking, to understand and analyze emotions, to use emotional knowledge effectively, and to regulate one's emotions to promote both emotional and intellectual growth.

Encoding
The process by which a mental representation is formed in memory.

Elaborative rehearsal
A technique for improving memory by enriching the encoding of information.

Electroconvulsive therapy
(ECT) The use of electroconvulsive shock as an effective treatment for severe depression.

Electroencephalogram
(EEG) A recording of the electrical activity of the brain.

Ego
The aspect of personality involved in self-preservation activities and in directing instinctual drives and urges into appropriate channels.

Ego defense mechanisms
Mental strategies (conscious or unconscious) used by the ego to defend itself against conflicts experienced in the normal course of life.

Egocentrism
In cognitive development, the inability of a young child at the preoperational stage to take the perspective of another person.

Elaboration likelihood model
A theory of persuasion that defines how likely it is that people will focus their cognitive processes to elaborate upon a message and therefore follow the central and peripheral routes to persuasion.

Drives
Internal states that arise in response to a disequilibrium in an animal's physiological needs.

DSM-IV-TR
The current diagnostic and statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association that classifies, defines, and describes mental disorders.

Echoic memory
Sensory memory that allows auditory information to be stored for brief durations.

Double-blind control
An experimental technique in which biased expectations of experimenters are eliminated by keeping both participants and experimental assistants unaware of which participants have received which treatment.

Dream analysis
The psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams used to gain insight into a person's unconscious motives or conflicts.

Dream work
In Freudian dream analysis, the process by which the internal censor transforms the latent content of a dream into manifest content.

Dissociative identity disorder
(DID) A dissociative mental disorder in which two or more distinct personalities exist within the same individual; formerly known as multiple personality disorder.

Distal stimulus
In the processes of perception, the physical object in the world, as contrasted with the proximal stimulus, the optical image on the retina.

Divergent thinking
An aspect of creativity characterized by an ability to produce unusual but appropriate responses to problems.

DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid) The physical basis for the transmission of genetic information.

Dispositional variables
The organismic variables, or inner determinants of behavior, that occur within human and nonhuman animals.

Dissociative amnesia
The inability to remember important personal experiences, caused by psychological factors in the absence of any organic dysfunction.

Dissociative disorder
A personality disorder marked by a disturbance in the integration of identity, memory, or consciousness.

Difference threshold
The smallest physical difference between two stimuli that can still be recognized as a difference; operationally defined as the point at which the stimuli are recognized as different half of the time.

Diffusion of responsibility
In emergency situations, the larger the number of bystanders, the less responsibility any one bystander feels to help.

Discriminative stimuli
Stimuli that act as predictors of reinforcement, signaling when particular behaviors will result in positive reinforcement.

Dichotic listening
An experimental technique in which a different auditory stimulus is simultaneously presented to each ear.

Developmental age
The chronological age at which most children show a particular level of physical or mental development.

Developmental psychology
The branch of psychology concerned with interaction between physical and psychological processes and with stages of growth from conception throughout the entire life span.

Diathesis-stress hypothesis
A hypothesis about the cause of certain disorders, such as schizophrenia, that suggests that genetic factors predispose an individual to a certain disorder, but that environmental stress factors must impinge in order for the potential risk to manifest itself.

Dependent variable
In an experimental setting, any variable whose values are the results of changes in one or more independent variables.

Descriptive statistics
Statistical procedures that are used to summarize sets of scores with respect to central tendencies, variability, and correlations.

Determinism
The doctrine that all events-physical, behavioral, and mental-are determined by specific causal factors that are potentially knowable.

Delusions
False or irrational beliefs maintained despite clear evidence to the contrary.

Demand characteristics
Cues in an experimental setting that influence the participants' perception of what is expected of them and that systematically influence their behavior within that setting.

Dendrites
The branched fibers of neurons that receive incoming signals.

Decision aversion
The tendency to avoid decision making; the tougher the decision, the greater the likelihood of decision aversion.

Decision making
The process of choosing between alternatives; selecting or rejecting available options.

Declarative memory
Memory for information such as facts and events.

Deductive reasoning
A form of thinking in which one draws a conclusion that is intended to follow logically from two or more statements or premises.

Debriefing
A procedure conducted at the end of an experiment in which the researcher provides the participant with as much information about the study as possible and makes sure that no participant leaves feeling confused, upset, or embarrassed.

Dark adaptation
The gradual improvement of the eyes' sensitivity after a shift in illumination from light to near darkness.

Date rape
Unwanted sexual violation by a social acquaintance in the context of a consensual dating situation.

Daytime sleepiness
The experience of excessive sleepiness during daytime activities; the major complaint of patients evaluated at sleep disorder centers.

Cutaneous senses
The skin senses that register sensations of pressure, warmth, and cold.

Cultural perspective
The psychological perspective that focuses on cross-cultural differences in the causes and consequences of behavior.

Criterion validity
The degree to which test scores indicate a result on a specific measure that is consistent with some other criterion of the characteristic being assessed; also known as predictive validity.

Cross-sectional design
A research method in which groups of participants of different chronological ages are observed and compared at a given time.