Behavioral Sciences Flashcards
A formalized ceremony that usually involves specific material objects, symbolism, and additional mandates on acceptable behavior.
Ritual
A portion of the brainstem that relays information between the cortex and medulla, regulates sleep, and carries some motor and sensory information from the head and neck.
Pons
The investment people make in their society in return for economic or collective rewards.
Social Capital
Self-centered view of the world in which one is not necessarily able to understand the experience of another person; seen in Piaget’s preoperational stage.
Egocentrism
A theory that states that the body will adapt to counteract repeated exposure to stimuli, such as seeing afterimages or ramping up the sympathetic nervous system in response to a depressant.
Opponent-Process Theory
A portion of the cerebrum that is associated with emotion and memory; includes the amygdala and hippocampus.
Limbic System
The phenomenon of a stereotype creating an expectation of a particular group, which creates conditions that lead to confirmation of this stereotype.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The minimum distance necessary between two points of stimulation on the skin such that the points will be felt as two distinct stimuli.
Two-Point Threshold
Perception of a stimulus below a threshold (usually the threshold of conscious perception).
Subliminal Perception
The nonmaterial culture that represents a group of people; expressed through ideas and concepts.
Symbolic Culture
The ability to tell where one’s body is in space.
Proprioception
In operant conditioning, the process of conditioning a complex behavior by rewarding successive approximations of the behavior.
Shaping
A society in which advancement up the social ladder is based on intellectual talent and achievement.
Meritocracy
The tendency to perform at a different level based on the fact that others are around.
Social Facilitation
A psychotic disorder characterized by gross distortions of reality and disturbances in the content and form of thought, perception, and behavior.
Schizophrenia
The art of searching for and exploiting food resources.
Foraging
Disorders that involve worry, unease, fear, and apprehension about future uncertainties based on real or imagined events that can impair physical and psychological health.
Anxiety Disorders
The changing of behavior of an individual based on a command from someone seeing as an authority figure.
Obedience
A sudden increase in response to a stimulus, usually due to a change in the stimulus or the addition of another stimulus; sometimes called resensitization.
Dishabituation
A cognitive bias in which one focuses on information that supports a given solution, belief, or hypothesis, and ignores evidence against it.
Confirmation Bias
Change in neural connections caused by learning or a response to injury.
Neuroplasticity
The ethical tenet that the physician has a responsibility to act in the patient’s best interest.
Beneficence
The phenomenon of retaining larger amounts of information when the amount of time between sessions of relearning is increased.
Spacing Effect
Emotions that are recognized by all cultures; includes happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, contempt, and surprise.
Universal Emotions
A psychological and physiological state of being awake and reactive to stimuli; nearly synonymous with alertness.
Arousal
Sleep disorder in which a person may cease to breathe while sleeping; may be due to obstruction or a central (neurological) cause.
Sleep Apnea
The practice of making judgments about other cultures based on the values and beliefs of one’s own culture.
Ethnocentrism
The minimum difference in magnitude between two stimuli before one can perceive this different; also called a difference threshold.
Just-Noticeable Difference (jnd)
An organized pattern of thought and behavior; one of the central concepts of Piaget stages of cognitive development.
Schema
The ability to simultaneously analyze and combine information regarding multiple aspects of a stimulus, such as color, shape, and motion.
Parallel Processing
A time during which environmental input has a maximal impact on the development of a particular ability.
Sensitive Period
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the part of the unconscious mind focused on idealism, perfectionism, and societal norms.
Superego
In the dramaturgical approach, the setting where players are free from their role requirements and not in front of the audience; back stage behaviors may not be deemed appropriate or acceptable and are thus kept invisible from the audience.
Back Stage
The process by which a connection is made between two stimuli or a stimulus and a response; examples include classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
Associative Learning
The observation that, when in a group, individuals are less likely to respond to a person in need.
Bystander Effect
A state of normlessness; anomic conditions erode social solidarity by means of excessive individualism, social inequality, and isolation.
Anomie
The way in which words are organized to create meaning.
Syntax
The sense of “touch,” which contains multiple modalities: pressure, vibration, pain, and temperature.
Somatosensation
Groups of people within a culture that distinguish themselves from the primary culture to which they belong.
Subcultures
Sleep disorder in which one carries out actions in his or her sleep; also called sleepwalking.
Somnambulism
A period of at least two weeks in which there is a prominent and persistent depressed mood or lack of interest and at least four other depressive symptoms.
Depressive Episode
The tendency to better remember items presented at the beginning or end of a list; related to the primary and recency effects.
Serial Position Effect
The number of cases of a disease per population in a given period of time; usually, cases per 1000 people per year.
Prevalence
The phenomenon of first impressions of a person being more important than subsequent impressions.
Primacy Effect
A portion of the limbic system that is important for memory and learning.
Hippocampus
The phenomenon in which the most recent information we have about an individual is most important in forming our impressions.
Recency Effect
The ethical tenet that the physician has a responsibility to avoid interventions in which the potential for harm outweighs the potential for benefit.
Nonmaleficence
Sleep stage in which the eyes move rapidly back and forth and physiological arousal levels are more similar to wakefulness than sleep; dreaming occurs during this stage.
Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep
Consists of NREM sleep stages 3 and 4; also called delta-wave sleep.
Slow-Wave Sleep
Philosophies that drive large numbers of people to organized to promote or resist social change.
Social Movements
The ethical tenet that the physician has the responsibility to respect patients’ choices about their own healthcare.
Autonomy
A shortcut in decision-making that relies on the information that is most readily available, rather than the total body of information on a subject.
Availability Heuristic
In operant conditioning, the use of an aversive stimulus designed to decrease the frequency of an undesirable behavior.
Punishment
A time during development during which exposure to language is essential for eventual development of effective use of language; between 2 years of age and puberty.
Critical Period
A defense mechanism by which an individual deals with stress by reverting to an earlier developmental state.
Regression
An irrationally based positive or negative attitude toward a person, group, or thing, formed prior to actual experience.
Prejudice
Concept seen in quantitative analysis performed by a child; develops when a child is able to identify the difference between quantity by number and actual amount, especially when faced with identical quantities separated into varying pieces.
Conservation
A brain region located in the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe (usually in the left hemisphere); largely responsible for the motor function of speech. Damage causes Broca’s aphasia, a loss of the motor function of speech, resulting in intact understanding with an inability to correctly produce spoken language.
Broca’s Area
State of consciousness in which one is aware, able to think, and able to respond to the environment; nearly synonymous with arousal.
Alertness
Knowledge that an object does not cease to exist even when the object cannot be seen; a milestone in cognitive development.
Object Permanence
A socioeconomic condition of low resource availability; in the United States, the poverty line is determined by the government’s calculation of the minimum income requirements for families to acquire the minimum necessities of life.
Poverty
The minimum of stimulus energy needed to activate a sensory system.
Absolute Threshold
Cognitive capacity to understand relationships or solve problems using information acquired during schooling and other experiences.
Crystallized Intelligence
The alignment of physiological processes with the 24-hour day, including sleep-wake cycles and some elements of the endocrine system.
Circadian Rhythm
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the part of the unconscious resulting from basic, instinctual urges for sexuality and survival; operates under the pleasure principle and seeks instant gratification.
Id
The physical items one associates with a given cultural group.
Material Culture
Theory that distinguishes between two major types of groups: communities (Gemeinschaften), which share beliefs, ancestry, or geography; and society (Gesellschaften), which work together toward a common goal.
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
Misuse of grammar characterized by universal application of a rule, regardless of exceptions; seen in children during language development.
Errors of Growth
Disorders that involve a perceived separation from identity or the environment.
Dissociative Disorders
The study of functions and behaviors associated with specific regions of the brain.
Neuropsychology
Societal rules that define the boundaries of acceptable behavior.
Norms
A portion of the brainstem that regulates vital functions including breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure.
Medulla Oblongata
In Jungian psychoanalysis, the part of the unconscious mind that is shared among all humans and is a result of our common ancestry.
Collective Unconscious
The guide by which most psychological disorders are characterized, described, and diagnosed; currently in its fifth edition (DSM-5, published May 2013).
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
The ability to attend to multiple stimuli simultaneously and to perform multiple tasks at the same time.
Divided Attention
The transition from high birth and mortality rates to lower birth and mortality rates, seen as a country develops from a preindustrial to an industrialized economic system.
Demographic Transition
The cognitive bias that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.
Just-World Hypothesis
A brain region located in the superior temporal gyrus of the temporal lobe (usually in the left hemisphere); largely responsible for language comprehension. Damage causes Wernicke’s aphasia, a loss of language comprehension, resulting in fluid production of language without meaning.
Wernicke’s Area
A form of associative learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus such that the neutral stimulus alone produces the same response as the unconditioned stimulus; the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus.
Classical Conditioning
A form of learning in which behavior is modified as a result of watching others.
Observational Learning
A status with which a person is most identified.
Master Status
The tendency for groups to make decisions based on ideas and solutions that arise within the group without considering outside ideas and ethics; based on pressure to conform and remain loyal to the group.
Groupthink
Ways for the brain to infer missing parts of an image when the image is incomplete.
Gestalt Principles
The number of new cases of a disease per population at risk in a given period of time; usually, new cases per 1000 at-risk people per year.
Incidence
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the part of the unconscious mind that mediates the urges of the id and superego; operates under the reality principle.
Ego
A model that explains social interaction and decision-making as a game, including strategies, incentives, and punishments.
Game Theory
An altered state of consciousness in which a person appears to be awake but is, in fact, in a highly suggestible state in which another person or event may trigger actions by the person.
Hypnosis
The inability to identify uses for an object beyond its usual purpose.
Functional Fixedness
In medical ethics, the tenet that the physician has a responsibility to treat similar patients with similar care, and to distribute healthcare resources fairly.
Justice
A rule of thumb or shortcut that is used to make decisions.
Heuristic
A portion of the brain that controls balance, motor coordination, breathing, digestion, and general arousal processes.
Hindbrain
A defense mechanism by which individuals suppress urges by unconsciously converting them into their exact opposites.
Reaction Formation
Numerical measurement of intelligence, usually accomplished by some form of standardized testing.
Intelligence Quotient
In the dramaturgical approach, the setting where players are in front of an audience and perform roles that are in keeping with the image they hope to project about themselves.
Front Stage
A decrease in response caused by repeated exposure to a stimulus.
Habituation
Any energy pattern that is sensed in some way by the body; includes visual, auditory, and physical sensations, among others.
Stimulus
A form of associative learning in which the frequency of a behavior is modified using reinforcement or punishment.
Operant Conditioning
A serotonin derivative secreted by the pineal gland that is associated with sleepiness.
Melatonin
A retrieval error caused by the learning of information; can be proactive (old information causes difficulty learning new information) or retroactive (new information interferes with older learning).
Interference
Perceptions that are not due to external stimuli but have a compelling sense of reality; drugs that cause hallucinations, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or psilocybin-containing mushrooms, are termed hallucinogens.
Hallucinations
The movement of individuals in the social hierarchy through changes in income, education, or occupation.
Social Mobility
A defense mechanism by which the ego forces undesired thoughts and urges into the unconscious mind.
Repression
A shortcut in decision-making that relies on categorizing items on the basis of whether they fit the prototypical, stereotypical, or representative image of the category.
Representativeness Heuristic
A term used to describe the observable pattern of social relationships among individual units of analysis.
Network
In classical conditioning, the decrease in response resulting from repeated presentation of the conditioned stimulus without the presence of the unconditioned stimulus.
Extinction
A form of cognition that utilizes generalizations to develop a theory.
Inductive reasoning
The general bias toward making dispositional attributions rather than situational attributions when analyzing another person’s behavior.
Fundamental Attribution Error
Decreased response to a drug after physiological adaptation.
Tolerance
The most primitive portion of the brain, which includes the midbrain and hindbrain; controls the autonomic nervous system and communication between the spinal cord, cranial nerves, and brain.
Brainstem
A retrieval cue by which memory is aided when a person is in the location where encoding took place.
Context Effect
A memory error by which a person remembers the details of an event but confuses the context by which the details were gained; often causes a person to remember events that happened to someone else as having happened to him- or herself.
Source Amnesia
A period of at least one week with prominent and persistent elevated or expansive mood and at least two other manic symptoms.
Manic Episode
A form of negative reinforcement in which one eschews the unpleasantness of something that has yet to happen.
Avoidance
Fixed, false beliefs that are discordant with reality and not shared by one’s culture, but are maintained in spite of strong evidence to the contrary.
Delusions
A form of cognition that starts with general information and narrows down that information to create a conclusion.
Deductive Reasoning
The statistical arm of sociology, which attempts to characterize and explain populations by quantitative analysis.
Demographics
A technique used by the ego that denies, falsifies, or distorts reality in order to resolve anxiety caused by undesirable urges of the id and superego.
Defense Mechanism
A tendency to repeat solutions that have yielded positive results at some time in the past.
Mental Set
A sleep disorder characterized by a lack of voluntary control over the onset of sleep; also involves cataplexy and hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations.
Narcolepsy
An impression management strategy where one creates obstacles to avoid self-blame when he or she does not meet expectations.
Self-Handicapping
A hypothesis suggesting that one’s perception of reality is largely determined by the content, form, and structure of language; also known as the Whorfian hypothesis.
Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis
A very deep emotional bond to another person, particularly a parent or caregiver.
Attachment
Awareness of oneself; can be used to describe varying levels of awareness that occur with wakefulness, sleep, dreaming, and drug-induced states.
Consciousness
A portion of the hindbrain that maintains posture and balance and coordinates body movements.
Cerebellum
A part of an individual’s self-concept based on the groups to which that person belongs and his or her relationships to others.
Identity
In classical conditioning, the process by which two distinct but similar stimuli come to produce the same response.
Generalization
The ability to focus on a single stimulus even while other stimuli are occurring simultaneously.
Selective Attention
A form of helping behavior in which the intent is to benefit someone else at a cost to oneself.
Altruism
A phenomenon observed when individuals must make judgments that are complex but instead substitute a simpler solution or perception.
Attribute Substitution
A theory of emotion that states that a stimulus results in physiological arousal, which then leads to a secondary response in which emotion is consciously experienced.
James-Lange Theory
A defense mechanism by which individuals explain undesirable behaviors in a way that is self-justifying and socially acceptable.
Rationalization
A decision-making model in which experience and recognition of similar situations one has already experienced play a large role in decision-making and actions; also one of the explanations for the experience of intuition.
Recognition-Primed Decision Model
A behavior with the intention to cause harm or increase relative social dominance; can be physical or verbal.
Aggression
A change of behavior of an individual at the request of another.
Compliance
Disorganized motor behavior characterized by various unusual physical movements or stillness.
Catatonia
Transduction of physical stimuli into neurological signals.
Sensation
Attitudes and impressions that are made based on limited and superficial information about a person or group of individuals.
Stereotypes
A theory of emotion that states that a stimulus is first received and is then simultaneously processed physiologically and cognitively, allowing for the conscious emotion to be experienced.
Cannon-Bard Theory
Ability to quickly identify relationships and connections, and then use those relationships and connections to make correct deductions.
Fluid Intelligence
The ability to sense how another’s mind works.
Theory of Mind
Impression management theory that represents the world as a stage and individuals as actors performing to an audience.
Dramaturgical Approach
An ethnic identity that is only relevant on special occasions or in specific circumstances and that does not impact everyday life
Symbolic Ethnicity
A measure of reproductive success; depends on the number of offspring an individual has, how well they support their offspring, and how well their offspring can support others.
Inclusive Fitness
Those skills which a child has not yet mastered but can accomplish with the help of a more knowledgeable other.
Zone of Proximal Development
An aspect of interpersonal attraction or impression management in which one shares his or her fears, thoughts, and goals with another person in the hopes of being met with empathy and nonjudgement.
Self-Disclosure
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the result of overindulgence or frustration during a psychosexual stage; causes a neurotic pattern of personality based on that stage.
Fixation
The tendency of animals to resist learning when a conditioned behavior conflicts with the animal’s instinctive behaviors.
Instinctive Drift
The outermost layer of the cerebrum, responsible for complex perceptual, behavioral, and cognitive processes.
Cerebral Cortex
The tendency toward decisions that are more extreme than the individual thoughts of the group members.
Group Polarization
A theory that attitudes are developed through forms of learning (direct contact, direct interaction, direct instruction, and conditioning).
Learning (Behaviorist) Theory
Stages 1 through 4 of sleep; contains everslowing brain waves as one gets deeper into sleep.
Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) Sleep
The process of receiving information and preparing it for storage; can be automatic or effortful.
Encoding
A bundle of axons that connects Wernicke’s area (language comprehension) with Broca’s area (motor function of speech). Damage causes conduction aphasia characterized by the inability to repeat words with intact spontaneous speech production and comprehension.
Arcuate Fasciculus
Idea that states that if evidence obtained during testing does not confirm a hypothesis, then the hypothesis is discarded or revised.
Disconfirmation Principle
Visual (iconic) and auditory (echoic) stimuli briefly stored in memory; fades very quickly unless attention is paid to the information.
Sensory Memory
A portion of the limbic system that is important for memory and emotion, especially fear.
Amygdala
The idea that individuals will view their own success as being based on internal factors, while viewing failures as being based on external factors.
Self-Serving Bias
A theoretical framework that studies the ways individuals interact through a shared understanding of words, gestures, and other symbols.
Symbolic Interactionism
A cognitive bias in which judgments of an individual’s character can be affected by the overall impression of the individual.
Halo Effect
An impression management strategy in which one uses props, appearance, emotional expression, or associations with others to create a positive image.
Managing Appearances
An impression management strategy that uses flattery to increase social acceptance.
Ingratiation
A portion of the cerebral cortex that controls visual processing.
Occipital Lobe
Process by which existing schemata are modified to encompass new information.
Accommodation
A theory of perception that states that there is a constant ratio between the change in stimulus intensity needed to produce a just-noticeable difference and the intensity of the original stimulus.
Weber’s Law
The retention of encoded information; divided into sensory, short-term, and long-term memory.
Storage
Conversion of physical, electromagnetic, auditory, and other stimuli to electrical signals in the nervous system.
Transduction
A brain structure located near the thalamus that secretes melatonin.
Pineal Gland
A theory that states that people pay closer attention to intentional behavior than accidental behavior when making attributions, especially if the behavior is unexpected.
Correspondent Inference Theory
A portion of the brain that is associated with complex perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral processes such as emotion and memory.
Forebrain
The recognition that social groups and cultures must be studied on their own terms to be understood.
Cultural Relativism
A portion of the brain that contains the cerebral cortex, limbic system, and basal ganglia.
Cerebrum
A theory that focuses on the tendency for individuals to infer the causes of other people’s behavior.
Attribution Theory
In Jungian psychoanalysis, a thought or image that has an emotional element and is a part of the collective unconscious.
Archetype
The strengthening of neural connections due to rehearsal or relearning; thought to be the neurophysiological basis of long-term memory.
Long-Term Potentiation
The extreme disapproval or dislike of a person or group based on perceived differences in social characteristics from the rest of society.
Stigma
A theory that states that people tend to associate traits and behavior in others, and that people have the tendency to attribute their own beliefs, opinions, and ideas onto others.
Implicit Personality Theory
In psychology, the process by which new information is interpreted in terms of existing schemata; in sociology, the process by which the behavior and culture of a group or an individual begins to merge with that of another group.
Assimilation
The changing of beliefs or behaviors in order to fit into a group or society.
Conformity
Disorders that involve patterns of behavior that are inflexible and maladaptive, causing distress or impaired function in at least two of the following: cognition, emotion, impersonal functioning, or impulse control.
Personality Disorders
A portion of the embryonic forebrain that becomes the thalamus, hypothalamus, posterior pituitary gland, and pineal gland.
Diencephalon
A portion of the cerebral cortex that controls somatosensory and spatial processing.
Parietal Lobe
In classical conditioning, the process by which two similar but distinct conditioned stimuli produce different responses; in sociology, when individuals of a particular group are treated differently from others based on their group.
Discrimination
The characterization of the source of influences on the events in one’s life; can be internal or external.
Locus of Control
A portion of the cerebral cortex that analyzes sensory input.
Projection Area
A portion of the forebrain that coordinates muscle movement and routes information from the cortex to the brain and spinal cord.
Basal Ganglia
A defense mechanism by which individuals attribute their undesired feelings to others.
Projection
A portion of the forebrain that serves as a relay and sorting station for sensory information, and then transmits information to the cerebral cortex.
Thalamus
A portion of the cerebral cortex that controls motor processing, executive function, and the integration of cognitive and behavioral processes.
Frontal Lobe
A theory of emotional expression that assume there are no biologically wired emotions; rather, they are based on experiences and situational context alone.
Social Construction Model of Emotion
A set of beliefs, values, attitudes, and norms that define expectations of behaviors associated with a given status.
Role
A theory in which attitudes are formed and changed through different routes of informational processing based on the degree of deep thought given to persuasive information.
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Actions and behaviors that individuals are conscious of and performing because others are around.
Social Action
A theory that explains motivation as being based on the goal of eliminating uncomfortable internal states.
Drive Reduction Theory
The violation of norms, rules, or expectations within a society.
Deviance
Organization of information in the brain by linking concepts with similar characteristics and meaning.
Semantic Network
A theory of emotion that states that both physiological arousal and cognitive appraisal must occur before an emotion is consciously experienced.
Schachter-Singer Theory
The association of information in short-term memory to information already stored in long-term memory; aids in long-term storage.
Elaborative Rehearsal
Understanding the thoughts and motives of other people present in the social world; also referred to as social cognition.
Social Perception
Memory that requires conscious recall, divided into facts (semantic memory) and experiences (episodic memory); also known as declarative memory.
Explicit Memory
A portion of the brainstem that manages sensorimotor reflexes to visual and auditory stimuli and gives rise to some cranial nerves.
Midbrain
A theory of perception in which internal (psychological) an external (environmental) context both play a role in our perception of stimuli.
Signal Detection Theory
A portion of the cerebral cortex that controls auditory processing, memory processing, emotional control, and language.
Temporal Lobe
A theoretical framework that explains how parts of society for together to create a cohesive whole.
Functionalism
In classical conditioning, the process of taking advantage of reflexive responses to turn a neutral stimulus into a conditioned stimulus.
Acquisition
A theoretical approach that uncovers the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the formation of their perceived social reality.
Social Constructionism
Memory that does not require conscious recall; consists of skills and conditioned behaviors.
Implicit Memory
The simultaneous presence of two opposing thoughts or opinions.
Cognitive Dissonance
Behaviors that are intended to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object, or event.
Impression Management
Repetition of a piece of information to either keep it within working memory or store it.
Maintenance Rehearsal
A portion of the forebrain that controls homeostatic and endocrine functions by controlling the release of pituitary hormones.
Hypothalamus
The tendency of subjects to systematically respond to a stimulus in a particular way due to nonsensory factors.
Response Bias
Perceptions about a situations that may or may not be supported by available evidence but are nonetheless perceived as information that may be used to make a decision.
Intuition
A defense mechanism by which unacceptable urges are transformed into socially acceptable behaviors.
Sublimation
A phenomenon by which memories are altered by misleading information provided at the point of encoding or recall.
Misinformation Effect
A theory of motivation that states that there is a particular level of arousal required in order to perform actions optimally; summarized by the Yerkes-Dodson law.
Arousal Theory
A defense mechanism by which undesired urges are transferred from one target to another, more acceptable one.
Displacement
In the social cognitive perspective, the notion that thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and environment interact to determine behavior in a given situation.
Reciprocal Determinism
An impression management strategy in which one makes questionable behavior acceptable to excuses.
Aligning Actions
A tendency toward expression of positive or negative feelings or evaluations of a person, place, thing, or situation.
Attitude
The idea that people will lose a sense of self-awareness and can act dramatically differently based on the influence of a group.
Deindividuation
A retrieval cue by which recall is aided by a word or phrase that is semantically related to the desired memory.
Priming
An impression management strategy in which one imposes an identity onto another person.
Alter-Casting
A theoretical framework that emphasizes the role of power differentials in producing social order.
Conflict Theory
In perception, a decrease in stimulus perception after a long duration of exposure; in learning, the process by which new information is processed; consists of assimilation and accommodation.
Adaptation
The extent to which a trait benefits a species by influencing the evolutionary fitness of the species.
Adaptive Value
A form of negative reinforcement in which one reduces the unpleasantness of something that already exists.
Escape
A similar theory to the basic model, accepting that there are biologically predetermined expressions once an emotion is experienced; except that there is a cognitive antecedent to emotional expression.
Appraisal Model
A repetitive action that achieves a desired response; seen during Piaget’s sensorimotor stage.
Circular Reaction
In operant conditioning, the use of a stimulus designed to increase the frequency of a desired behavior.
Reinforcement
The process of demonstrating that information has been retained in memory; includes recall, recognition, and relearning.
Retrieval
