C Flashcards
A central nervous system stimulant found in coffee, tea, cola, cocoa, chocolate, and certain prescribed and over the counter medications
- It’s effects include rapid breathing, increased pulse rate and blood pressure, and diminished fatigue
- Precise effects vary with the amount ingested and the tolerance of the individual
- Moderate doses produce an improved flow of thought and clearness of ideas, together with increased respiratory and vasomotor activity; large doses may make concentration or continued attention difficult and cause insomnia, headaches, and confusion in some individuals
Caffeine
Any of a class of drugs used in the treatment of hypertension and abnormal heart rhythms ( arrhythmias)
- Inhibit the flow of calcium ions into the smooth muscle cells of blood vessels and the cells of heart muscle, which need calcium to contract, thus inducing prolonged relaxation of the muscles
Calcium Channel Blocker
- The containment of variation of certain characters within narrow bounds so that expression of underlying genetic variation is repressed
- It is a developmental mechanism that maintains a constant phenotype over a range of different environments in which the organism might normally occur - The hypothetical process by which repeated use of a neural pathway leads to greater ease of transmission of impulses and hence its establishment as permanent
Canalization
Any one of a group of diseases characterized by the unregulated, abnormal growth of cells to form malignant tumors (neoplasm) which invade neighboring tissues
- Causes are numerous but commonly include viruses, environmental toxins, diet, and inherited genetic variations
- Generally classified as carcinomas if they involve the epithelium (eg; lungs, stomach, skin) and sarcomas if the affected tissues are connective (eg; bone, muscle, or fat)
Cancer
Any of a class of about 60 substances in the cannabis plant that includes those responsible for the psychoactive properties of the plant
- The most important is tetrahydrocannabinal
Cannabinoid
Any of three related plant species (sativa, indica, or ruderalis) whose dried flowering or fruiting tops of leaves are widely used as a recreational drug, known as marijuana
- When smoked, the principal psychoactive agent in these plants, delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is rapidly absorbed into the blood and almost immediately distributed to the brain, causing the rapid onset of subjective effects that last two to three hours
Cannabis
The theory that emotional states result from the influence of lower brain centers (the hypothalamus and thalamus) on higher ones (the cortex), rather then from sensory feedback to the brain produced by peripheral internal organs and voluntary musculature
- According to this theory, the thalamus controls the experience of emotion, and the hypothalamus controls the expression of emotion
[Proposed in the 1920s and early 1930s by Walter B. Cannon (1871 -1945) and Philip Bard (1898 - 1977), U.S. Psychologists]
Canon Bard Theory
A class of statistical analyses that assess the degree of relationship between two or more sets of measurements
- Examples are discriminant analysis and multiple regression analysis, among others
Canonical Analysis
The maximum ability of an individual to receive or retain information and hence his or her potential for intellectual or creative development or accomplishment
Capacity
Any substance that initiates the development of cancer (carcinogenesis) when exposed to living tissue
- Tobacco smoke, which induces lung cancer, is an example
Carcinogen
Any substance that initiates the development of cancer (carcinogenesis) when exposed to living tissue
- Tobacco smoke, which induces lung cancer, is an example
Carcinogen
The specialized muscle tissue of the heart
- It consists of striated fibers that branch and interlock and are in electrical continuity with each other
- This arrangement permits action potentials to spread rapidly from cell to cell, allowing large groups of cells to contract in unison
Cardiac Muscle
Relating to the heart and blood vessels or to blood circulation
- For example, cardiovascular reactivity is the degree of change in blood pressure, heart rate, and related responses to a psychological or physical challenge or stressor
Cardiovascular
Any disease, congenital or acquired, that affects the heart and blood vessels
- These include hypertension, arteriosclerosis, and coronary heart disease
Cardiovascular Disease
A person who attends to the needs of and provides assistance to someone else who is not fully independent, such as an infant or ill adult
Caregiver
The stress and other psychological symptoms experienced by family members and other nonprofessional caregivers in response to looking after individuals with mental or physical disabilities, disorders, or diseases
Caregiver Burden
An individual who has a mutation in a gene that conveys either increased susceptibility to a disease or other condition or the certainty that the condition will develop
Carrier
The effect on the current performance of a research participant of the experimental conditions that preceded the current conditions
Carryover Effect
The position taken by French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist René Descartes (1596 - 1650) that the world comprises two distinct and incompatible classes of substance:
1) Resextensa, or extended substance, which extends through space
2. Res Cogitans, or thinking substance, which has no extension in space
- The body (including the brain) is composed of extended and divisible substance, whereas the mind is not
Cartesian Dualism
A record of information relating to a person’s psychological or medical condition used as an aid to diagnosis and treatment
- It usually contains test results, interviews, professional evaluations, and sociological, occupational, and educational data
Case History
An in depth investigation of a single individual, family, or social unit
- Multiple types of data (psychological, physiological, biographical, environmental) are assembled in order to understand the subject’s background, relationships, and behavior
Case Study
Fear of injury to or loss of the genitals
- As posited by psychoanalytic theory, the various losses and deprivations experienced by the infant boy may give rise to the fear that he will also lose his pens
Castration Anxiety
In psychoanalytic theory, the whole combination of the child’s unconscious feelings und fantasies associated with being deprived of the phallus, which in boys means the loss of the penis and in girls the belief that it has already been removed
- It derives from the discovery that girls have no penis and is closely tied to the Oedipus complex
Castration Complex
A state of sustained unresponsiveness in which a fixed body posture or physical attitude is maintained over a long period of time
- It is seen in cases of catatonic schizophrenia, epilepsy, and other disorders
Catalepsy
A sudden loss of muscle tone that may be localized, causing (for exemple) loss of grasp or head nodding, or generalized, resulting in the collapse of the entire body
- It is a temporary condition usually precipitated by an extreme emotional stimulus
Cataplexy
A progressive clouding (opacification) of the lens of the eye that eventually results in severe visual impairment if untreated
- Central vision in particular is impaired, with symptoms including dim or fuzzy vision, sensitivity to glare, and difficulty seeing at night
- Frequently associated with the degenerative processes of aging, but it may also be congenital or due to disease or injury
Cataract
A mathematical theory regarding discontinuous changes in one variable as a function of continuous change in some other variable or variables
- It proposes that a small change in one factor may cause an abrupt and large change in the physical properties of water as the temperature reaches 0 degrees Celsius or 100 degrees Celsius (32 or 212 degrees Fahrenheit)
Catastrophe Theory
A state of muscular rigidity or other disturbance of motor behavior
Catatonia
A relatively rare subtype of schizophrenia characterized by abnormal motor activity, specifically long periods of motor immobility (posturing) interspersed with excessive motor activity
- Other common features include extreme negativism (apparently motiveless resistance to all instruction) or mutism and echolalia or echopraxia
Catatonic Schizophrenia
Any of a class of biogenic amines formed by a catechol molecule and an amine group
- Derived from tyrosine, these include dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, which are the predominant neurotransmitters in the sympathetic nervous system
Catecholamine
Numerical values that indicate counts or observations in specific categories, for example, the number of people in a particular town who are male and the number who are female
- Similar to normal data and the two terms are often used interchangeably
Categorical Data
In speech perception, the phenomena in which a continuous acoustic dimension, such as voice onset time, is perceived as having distinct categories with sharp discontinuities at certain points
- Whereas discrimination is much more accurate between categories, individuals tested are often unable to discriminate between acoustically different stimuli that fall within the same categorical boundaries
- Crucial in the identification of phonemes
Categorical Perception
A variable defined by membership in a group, class, or category, rather than by rank or by scores on continuous scares of measurement
Categorical Variable
The process by which objects, events, people or experiences are grouped into classes on the basis of:
A) Characteristics shared by members of the same class
B) Features distinguishing the members of one class from those of another
- Theories of this are numerous and include the prototype model, proposing that people form an average of the members of a category and then use the average as a prototype for making judgements about category membership, and instance theory, hypothesizing that it depends on specific remembered instances of the category
Categorization
In psychoanalytic theory, the discharge of affects connected to traumatic events that had previously been repressed by bringing these events back into consciousness and reexperiencing then
Catharsis
In psychoanalytic theory, the investment of psychic energy in an object of any kind, such as a wish, fantasy, person, goal, idea, social group, or the self
- Such objects are said to be cathected when an individual attaches emotional significance (positive or negative affect) to them
Cathexis
I. Pertaining to a tail
2. Situated at or towards the tail end of an organism
Caudal
One of the basal ganglia, so named because it has a long extension, or tail
Caudate Nucleus
In philosophy, the position that all events have causes, that is, that they are consequences of antecedent events
- Traditionally, it has been seen as an essential assumption of naturalism and all scientific explanation, although some have questioned whether it is a necessary assumption of science
Causality
The empirical relation between two events, states, or variables such that one (the cause) is held or known to bring about the other (the effect)
Causation
Choice shift in which an individual making a decision as part of a group adopts a more cautious approach than the same individual would have adopted had he or she made the decision alone
- Studies suggest that such shifts are rarer than the opposite risky shift
Cautious Shift
The lowest chronological age at which all items on a given standardized test are consistently answered incorrectly
- This concept is less widely used than in the past because it assumes the use of mental ages, which are declining in popularity
Ceiling Age
A situation in which a large proportion of participants perform as well as, possible on a task or other evaluative measure, thus skewing the distribution of scores and making it impossible to discriminate differences among the many individuals at that high level
- For example, a test whose items are too easy for those taking it would show this because most people would obtain or be close to the highest possible score of 100
Ceiling Effect
- The basic unit of organized tissue, consisting of an outer plasma membrane, the nucleus, and various organelles (specialized membrane bound structure) in a watery fluid together comprising the cytoplasm
- The space formed at the intersection of a row and a column in a table
- For example, a tabular display of a study of handedness in men and women would consist of four cans; left handed females, left handed males, right handed females, and right handed males
Cell
A group of neurons that are repeatedly active at the same time and develop as a single functional unit, which may become active when any of its constituent neurons are stimulated
- This enables, for example, a person to form a complete mental image of an object when only a portion is visible or to recall a memory from a partial cue
- influential in biological theories of memory
Cell Assembly
The part of a neuron (nerve cell) that contains the nucleus and most organelles
Cell Body
In psychoanalytic theory, the mental agency, located in the preconscious, that is responsible for repression
- Positioned to determine which of one’s wishes, thoughts, and ideas may enter consciousness and which must be kept unconscious because they violate one’s conscience or society’s standards
- The idea was interested in the early writings of Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939), who later developed it into the concept of the superego
Censor
A type of receptive field, common in the visual and somatosensory systems, that exhibits center surround antagonism, a characteristic in which stimulation in the center evokes opposite responses to stimulation in the periphery
- Most of these consist of a circular center area and an annular surrounding area
Center Surround Receptive Field
The channel in the center of the spinal cord, which contains cerebrospinal fluid
Central Canal
Any form of acquired dyslexia characterized by difficulties with the pronunciation and comprehension of written words
- Unlike peripheral dyslexia, the visual analysis system is intact, and the damage is to other, higher level pathways and systems involved in reading (eg, the semantic system)
Central Dyslexia
The statistical principle that a linear combination of values ( including the mean of those values) tends to be normally distributed over repeated samples as the sample sizes increase, whether or not the population from which the observations are drawn is normal in distribution
Central Limit Theorem
The entire complex of neurons, axons, and supporting tissue that constitute the brain and spinal cord
- It is primarily involved in mental activities and in coordinating and integrating incoming sensory messages and outgoing motor messages
Central Nervous System
Any of the sets of neurons in the spinal cord capable of producing oscillatory behavior and thought to be involved in the control of locomotion and other tasks
Central Pattern Generator
The process by which attitudes are formed or changed as a result of carefully scrutinizing and thinking about the central merits of attitude relevant information
Central Rate to Persuasion
A major cleft that passes roughly vertically along the lateral surface of each cerebral hemisphere from a point beginning near the top of the cerebrum
- It marks the border between the frontal lobe and the parietal lobe
Central Sulcus
The middle or center point of a distribution, estimated by a number of different statistics (eg, mean and median)
Central Tendency
In piagetian theory, the tendency of children in the preoperational stage to attend to one aspect of a problem, object, or situation at a time, to the exclusion of others
Centration
From head to tail, as in the long axis of the body
- The term typically refers to the maturation of an embryo or infant where the greatest development takes place at the top of the body (ie, the head) before the lower parts (ie, the arms, trunk, legs, ect)
Cephalocaudal
The gray matter, or unmyelinated nerve cells, covering the surface of the cerebellum
Cerebellar Cortex
A portion of the hindbrain dorsal to the rest of the brainstem, to which it is connected by the Cerebellar peduncles
- The cerebellum modulates muscular contractions to produce smooth, accurately timed ballistic movements and it helps maintain equilibrium by predicting body positions ahead of actual body movements
Cerebellum
A passage containing cerebrospinal fluid that extends through the midbrain to link the third and fourth cerebral ventricles of the brain
Cerebral Aqueduct
The layer of gray matter that covers the outside of the cerebral hemispheres in the brain and is associated with higher cognitive functions; such as language, learning, perception, and planning
-It consists mostly of neocortex, which has six main layers of cells; regions of cerebral cortex that do not have six layers are known as allocortex
- Differences in the cytoarchitecture of the layers led to the recognition of distinct areas, called Brodmann’s areas, many of which are known to serve different functions
Cerebral Cortex
The controlling of disproportionate influence on certain aspects of behavior by one cerebral hemisphere (eg; language is typically left laterialized in right handed people)
Cerebral Dominance
Either half (left or right) of the cerebrum
- They are separated by a deep longitudinal fissure but they are connected by commisural, projection, and association fibers so that each side of the brain normally is linked to functions of tissues on either side of the body
Cerebral Hemisphere
A set of non progressive movement disorders that results from trauma to the brain occurring prenatally or during the birth process
- Symptoms include spasticity, paralysis, unsteady gait, and speech abnormalities
Cerebral Palsy
The fluid within the central canal of the spinal cord, the four ventricles of the brain, and the subarachnoid space beneath the middle of the three meninges of the brain
- It serves as a watery tissue to protect vital tissues of the central nervous system from damage by shock pressure, and it mediates between blood vessels and brain tissue in exchange of materials, including nutrients
Cerebrospinal Fluid
A disorder of the brain arising from cerebrovascular disease, such as cerebral hemorrhage, embolism, or thrombosis, resulting in temporary or permanent alterations in cognition, motor and sensory skills, or levels of consciousness
- This term is often used interchangeably with stroke
Cerebrovascular Accident
A pathological condition of the blood vessels of the brain
- It may manifest itself as symptoms of stroke or a transient ischemic attack
Cerebrovascular Disease
The largest part of the brain, forming most of the forebrain and lying in front of and above the cerebellum
- It consists of two cerebral hemispheres bridged by the corpus callosum
- Each hemisphere is divided into four main lobes:
1) The frontal lobe
2) The occipital lobe
3) The parietal lobe
4) The temporal lobe
- The outer layer, called the cerebral cortex, is intricately folded and composed of gray matter
Cerebrum
A surgical procedure in which incisions are made through a woman’s abdominal and uterine walls to deliver a baby under circumstances in which vaginal delivery is inadvisable
Cesarean Section
A specific causative factor or element or an entire process that results in change, particularly in the sense of improvement
- In psychotherapy research, it may be a component or process in therapy that results on improvement in the behavior or psychological adaptation of a patient or client
Change Agent
An inability to notice changes in the visual array between one scene and another
- For example, when a picture of an airplane is shown, followed by a blank screen, participants have surprising difficulty detecting a missing engine in a second picture of the airplane
Change Blindness
The special quality of personality that enables an individual to gain the confidence of large numbers of people
- It is exemplified in outstanding political, social, and religious leaders
Charisma
A type of specialized junction through which a signal is transmitted from one neuron to another across the narrow gap (synaptic cleft) separating them through the release and diffusion of neurotransmitter
- Though slower than electrical synapses, they are more flexible and comprise the majority of neuronal junctions within the body
- Because of this prevalence, the qualifier generally is omitted and synapse used alone to denote a chemical junction
Chemical Synapse
The notion that each neuron has a chemical identity that directs it to synapse on the proper larger cell during development
Chemoaffinity Hypothesis
A sensory nerve ending, such as any of those in the taste buds or olfactory epithelium, that is capable of reacting to certain chemical stimuli
- In humans, there are hundreds of different taste receptor proteins and a total of about 300,000 taste cells
- Humans also have about 1,000 olfactory receptors and about 1,000 receptors of each type, giving a total of one million olfactory receptors; other mammals (eg; dogs) may have ten times that number
Chemoreceptor
The use of chemical agents to treat diseases, particularly cancer
Chemotherapy
The distribution of the sum of a set of independent squared normal random deviates
- If P independent variables are involved, the distribution is said to have P degrees of freedom
Chi Square Distribution (X2 distribution)
A measure of how well a theoretical probability distribution fits a set of data
- If values X1,X2,… Xp are observed O1,O2,… Op times and are expected by theory to occur e1,e2,.. ep times, then chi square is calculated as: ( o1 - e1)2/e1 + (o2 - e2)2/e2 + …
- Tables of chi square for different degrees of freedom can be used to indicate the probability that the theory is correct
Chi Square Test
Harm to a child caused by a parent or other caregiver
- The harm may be physical (violence), sexual (violation or exploitation), psychological ( causing emotional distress) or neglect (failure to provide needed care)
Child Abuse
Any organized and structured interventions on behalf of children by professionals or institutions, often in relation to such issues as special parenting needs, child abuse, and adoption or foster care
Child Advocacy
The sequential changes S in the behavior, cognition, and physiology of children as they grow and mature from birth to adolescence
Child Development
The specialized register of speech that adults and older children use when talking to young children
- It is simplified and often more grammatically correct than adult directed speech
Child Directed Speech
The period between the end of infancy (about 2 years of age) and the onset of puberty, marking the beginning of adolescence (10.12 years of age)
- This period is sometimes divided into:
A) Early childhood, from 2 years through the preschool ages of 5 or 6 years
B) Middle childhood, from 6 to 8-10 years of age
C) Late childhood or preadolescence, which is identified as the 2 year period before the onset of puberty
Childhood
The inability to recall events from the first years of life (from infancy through about 2 years of age)
- Has been attributed to the facts that:
A) Cognitive abilities necessary for encoding events for the long term have not yet been fully developed
B) Parts of the brain responsible for remembering personal events have not yet matured
Childhood Amnesia
A pervasive developmental disorder characterized by a significant loss of previously acquired language skills, social skills or adaptive behavior, bowel or bladder control, play or motor skills
- This regression in functioning follows a period of normal development and occurs between the ages of 2 and 10
Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
The first synthesized antipsychotic agent, effective in managing the acute symptoms of schizophrenia, acute mania, and other psychoses
- Associated with a number of unwanted adverse effects, including tardive dyskinesia, it has been largely supplanted by newer antipsychotic agents but is still used as a referent for dose equivalency of other antipsychotics
Chlorpromazine
The total time that elapses between the presentation of a stimulus and the occurrence of a response in a task that requires a participant to make one of several different responses depending on which stimuli is presented
- In other words, the participant must make a conscious decision before responding
Choice Reaction Time
Any shift in an individual’s choices or decisions that occurs as a result of group discussion, as measured by comparing his or her pre discussion and post discussion responses
- In many cases, the result of such shifts is a choice shift effect within the group as a whole
Choice Shift
A peptide hormone that is released from the duodenum and may be involved in the satiation of hunger
- It also serves as a neurotransmitter at some locations in the nervous system
Cholecystokinin
Responding to, releasing, or otherwise involving, acetylcholine
- For example, a cholinergic neuron is one that employs acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter
Cholinergic
An enzyme that splits acetylcholine into choline and acetic acid, thus inactivating the neurotransmitter after its release at a synaptic junction
- Occurs in two forms:
1) Acetylcholiresterase (AchE), found in nerve tissue and red blood cells
2) Butyrylcholinesterase (BuchE), found in blood plasma and other tissues
- Drugs that block the ability of this enzyme to degrade acetylcholine are called cholinesterase inhibitors (CHEIs) or acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) or anticholinesterases
Cholinesterose
Irregular and involuntary jerky movements of the limbs and facial muscles
- Associated with various disorders, including Huntington’s disease
Chorea
In vision, relating to the attribute of color
Chromatic
A strand or filament in the cell nucleus composed of nucleic acid (mainly DNA in humans) and proteins that carries the genetic, or hereditary, traits of an individual
- The normal human complement totals 46, or 23 pairs (44 autosomes and 2 sex chromosomes) which contain an estimated 20,000 - 25,000 genes
- Each parent contributes one to each pair, so a child receives half from its mother and half from its father
Chromosome
Denoting conditions or symptoms that persist or progress over a long period of time and are resistant to cure
Chronic
An illness characterized by often disabling fatigue, decrease in physical activity, and flulike symptoms, such as muscle weakness, swelling of the lymph nodes, headache, sore throat, and sometimes depression
- The condition is typically not diagnosed until symptoms have been ongoing for several months and it can last for years
- The cause is unknown although certain viral infections can set off the illness
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
The branch of biology concerned with biological rhythms, such as the sleep-wake cycle
Chronobiology
The amount of time elapsed since an individual’s birth, typically expressed in terms of months and years
Chronological Age
The process by which the mind sorts information into small, easily digestible units that can be retained in short term memory
- As a result of this recoding, an item in memory (eg; a keyword or key idea) can stand for multiple other items (eg; a short list of associated points)
Chunking
Smooth muse behind the iris of the eye that changes the shape of the lens to bring objects into focus on the retina
- It regulates the tension of the zonules, delicate elastic fibers that are connected to the lens and cause it to flatten ( which lessens the power of the lens and allows focus of different objects) or become more curved (which increases the power of the lens and allows hows of near objects)
- The action is a large component of accommodation
Ciliary Muscle
A long strip of cerebral cortex on the medial surface of each cerebral hemisphere
- It arches over and generally outlines the location of the corpus callosum, from which it is separated by a groove called the carllosal sulcus
- It is a component of the limbic system
Cingulate Gyrus
In piagetian theory, repetitive behavior observed in children during the sensorimotor stage, characterized as primary, secondary, or tertiary
- The primary phase involves ineffective repetitive behaviors; the secondary phase involves repetition of actions that are followed by reinforcement, typically without understanding causation; and the tertiary phase inverses repetitive object manipulation, typically with slight variations among subsequent behaviors
Circular Reaction
A legal procedure that permits a person who is not charged with criminal conduct to be certified as mentally ill and to be institutionalized involuntarily
Civil Commitment
In parapsychology, the alleged ability to “see” things beyond the normal range of sight, such as distant or hidden objects or events in the past or future
Clairvoyance
The concept that a subordinate class ( eg; dogs) must always be smaller than the subordinate class in which it is contained (eg; animals)
- According to piagetian theory, understanding this concept represents an important developmental step
Class Inclusion
The range of scores or numerical values that constitute one segment or class in a frequency distribution; for example, weights might be grouped 5 kg each
Class Interval
- Psychoanalytic theory in which major emphasis is placed on the libido, the stages of psychosexual development and the ID instincts or drives
- The prototypical theory of this kind is that of Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) - Psychoanalytic treatment that adheres to Sigmund Freud’s basic procedures, using dream interpretation, free association, and analysis of resistance, and to his basic aim of developing insight into the patient’s unconscious life as a way to restructure personality
Classical Psychoanalysis
A body of psychometric theory of measurement that positions observed scores into two components - true scores and error scores - and estimates error variance by calculating internal consistency reliability, retest reliability, and alternate forms reliability
- The principal framework for test development prior to the 1970s, CTT is applicable to a broad range of measurement situations but has several major limitations, notably that examined characteristics cannot be separated from test characteristics and that the measurement characteristics derived from it are fundamentally concerned with how people perform on a given test as opposed to any single item on that test
Classical Test Theory
A persistent and irrational fear of enclosed places (eg; elevators, closets, tunnels) or being confined (eg; in the airplane or the backseat of a car)
- The focus of fear is typically on panic symptoms triggered in these situations, such as feelings of being unable to breathe, choking, sweating, and fears of losing control or going crazy
Claustrophobia
A thin layer of gray matter in the brain that separates the white matter of the lenticular nucleus from the insula ( from Latin: “Barrier”)
- Forms part of the basal ganglia and it’s function is unknown
Claustrum
The “thinking horse”, reputed to be able to solve mathematical problems, spell words, distinguish colors, and identify coins, that became famous in Berlin around 1900
- It signaled its answers by tapping its foot
- However, German psychologist Oskar Pfungst (1874 - 1932), using experimental methods, demonstrated that the horse was responding to minimal cues in the form of involuntary movements on the part of its owner
Clever Hans
A person receiving treatment or services, especially in the context of counseling or social work
Client
A form of psychotherapy developed by U.S. Psychologist Carl Rogers (1902 - 1987) in which client self discovery and actualization occurs in response to the therapist’s consistent empathic understanding of, acceptance of, and respect for the client’s frame of reference
- The therapist reflects and clarifies the ideas of the client, who is able to see himself or herself more clearly, learn how to interpret his or her thoughts and feelings, reorganize values and approaches to life, and resolve problems or change behavior
- It was originally known as nondirective therapy, although this term is now used more broadly to denote any approach to psychotherapy in which the therapist establishes an encouraging atmosphere but avoids giving advice, offering interpretations, or engaging in other actions to actively direct the therapeutic process
Client Centered Therapy
The biological state of life in which reproductive capacity declines and finally ceases
- In women, this period, which results from changes in the levels of estrogens and progesterone and is known as menopause, occurs between 45 and 55 years of age
- During this time, menstrual flow gradually decreases and finally ceases altogether, and various physical and potentially psychological changes occur typically manifest as hot flashes, night sweats, and emotional lability
- Men undergo a similar period of hormonal change, manifest as reduced energy, sexual drive, and fertility
Climacteric
Of or relating to the diagnosis and treatment of psychological, medical, or other disorders
- Originally involving only direct observation of patients, these methods have now broadened to take into account biological and statistical factors in treating patients and diagnosing disorders
Clinical
A type of directed conversation initially used with children but now applied in a variety of contexts, including human factors research and diagnostic evaluation and treatment planning of patients by mental health professionals
- The investigator may utilize certain standard material but essentially determines which questions to ask based on the responses given by the participant to previous ones
Clinical Interview
The process by which a clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, or other mental health or medical professional arrives at a conclusion, judgement, or diagnosis about a client or patient
Clinical Method
An applied in neuropsychology that comprises neuropsychological assessment and rehabilitation, which are critical in cases of neuropsychological injury that results in a range of impairments that disrupt an individual’s ability to function
Clinical Neuropsychology
They serve as consultants to other professionals in the medical, legal, social work, and community relations field
Clinical Psychologist
The branch of psychology that specializes in the research, assessment, diagnosis, evaluation, prevention and treatment of emotional and behavioral disorders
- This type of psychologist is a doctorate level professional who has received training in research methods and techniques for the diagnosis and treatment of various psychological disorders
- These psychologists work primarily in health and mental health clinics, in research, or in group and independent practices
- they also serve as consultants to other professionals in the medical, legal, social work, and community relations field
Clinical Psychology
A status of friendship based subgroup within a larger group or organization
- Particularly common during adolescence, when they are often used to raise social standing, strengthen friendship ties, and reduce feelings of isolation and exclusion
Clique
An organism that is genetically identical to another
- This may be because both organisms originate naturally from a single common parent as a result of asexual reproduction or because one is derived from genetic material taken from another
Clone
Of, or relating to, or characterized by clonus, a type of involuntary movement caused by a rapid succession of alternate muscular contractions and relaxations
- Although some forms of clonus, such as hiccups, are considered normal, most such movements are abnormal; for example, clonus occurs as part of a tonic clonic seizure
Clonic
- The act, achievement, or sense of completing or resolving something
- In psychotherapy, for example, a client achieves this with the recognition that he or she has reached a resolution to a particular psychological issue or relationship problem - One of the gestalt principles of organization
- It states that people tend to perceive incomplete forms (eg; images, sounds) as complete, synthesizing the missing units so as to perceive the image or sound as a whole
Closure
A method of data analysis in which individuals (cases) are grouped together into clusters based on their strong similarity with regard to specific attributes
Cluster Analysis
A statistically high occurrence of suicides within a circumscribed geographic area, social group, or time period
- Such clusters typically occur among adolescents who imitate the suicide of a high status peer or among dispersed individuals who imitate the suicide of a widely admired role model
Cluster Suicides
The tendency for items to be consistently grouped together in the course of recall
- This grouping typically occurs for related items
- It is readily apparent in memory tasks in which items from the same category, such as animals, are recalled together
Clustering
A group consisting of two or more individuals working in one another’s presence on tasks and activities that require little or no interaction or communication (coaction tasks) such as clerical staff working at individual desks in an open design office
- Researchers often create these in laboratory studies to determine the impact of the mere presence of others on performance
Coacting Group
A phenomenon in which the performance of one or more actions in a sequence of actions varies according to the other actions in a sequence
- This is particularly important in speech where the formation of certain phonemes varies according to the speech sounds that immediately precede or follow: so, for example, the aspirated [p] sound in pin differs slightly from the unaspirated [p] in spin
Coarticulation
A drug obtained from leaves of the coca shrub ( Erythroxylum coca) that stimulates the central nervous system, with the effects of reducing fatigue and increasing well being
- These are followed by a period of depression as the initial effects diminish
- The drugs act by blocking the reuptake of the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine
Cocaine
The bony fluid filled part of the inner ear that is concerned with hearing
- Shaped like a snail shell, it forms part of the bony labyrinth
- Along it’s length run these canals:
1) the scala vestibule
2) the scala tympani
3) the scale media is formed by the basilar membrane; the organ of corti which rests on the basilar membrane contain the hair cells that act as auditory receptor organs
Cochlea
An electronic device designed to enable individuals with complete deafness to hear and interpret some sounds, particularly those associated with speech
- It consists of a microphone to detect sound, a headpiece to transmit sound, A processor to digitize sound, and a receiver to signal electrodes that are surgically implanted in the cochlea to stimulate the auditory nerve
Cochlear Implant
A mass of cell bodies of second order auditory neurons in the brainstem
- The principal subdivisions are the ventral, dorsal, and anterior cochlear nuclei
Cochlear Nucleus
The ability to attend to one of several speech streams while ignoring others, as when one is at a cocktail party
- Research in this area in the early 1950s suggested that the unattended messages are not processed, but later findings indicated that meaning is identified in at least some cases
- For example, the mention of one’s name is processed even if it occurs in an unattended speech stream
Cocktail Party Effect
A set of standards and principles of professional conduct, such as the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and code of conduct of the American Psychological Association
Code of Ethics
An opiate derived from morphine, with which it shares many properties - it is a potent analgesic (used alone or in combination with other analgesics; eg, aspirin) and it induces euphoria
Codeine
- A number that functions as a measure of some property
- For example, the correlation coefficient is a measure of the degree of linear relatedness - in algebra, a scalar that multiplies a variable in an equation
- For example, in the equation y = bx, the scalar quantity b is said to be a coefficient
Coefficient
( Symbol: r2)
A numerical index that reflects the degree to which variation in the dependent variable is accounted for by one independent variable
Coefficient of Determination
( Symbol: R2)
A numerical index that reflects the degree to which variation in the dependent variable is accounted for by two or more independent variables
Coefficient of Multiple Determination
The concurrent evolution of two or more species that mutually affect each other’s evolution
Coevolution
All forms of knowing and awareness, such as perceiving, conceiving, remembering, reasoning, judging, imagining, and problem solving
- Along with affect and conotation, it is one of the three traditionally identified components of the mind
Cognition
The theory that cognitive evaluation is involved in the generation of each and every emotion
- This concept is more appropriately expressed in the cognitive - motivational - relational theory, as the latter recognizes that cognition is only one of three simultaneously operating processes that contribute to the generation of any emotion
Cognitive Appraisal Theory
A form of psychotherapy that integrates theories of cognition and learning with treatment techniques derived from behavior therapy
- Assumes that cognitive, emotional, and behavioral variables are functionally interrelated
- Treatment is aimed at identifying and modifying the client’s maladaptive thought processes and problematic behaviors through cognitive restructuring and behavioral technique to achieve change
Cognitive Behavior Therapy
Any coping strategy in which mental activity is used to counter the problem or situation
- Examples include thinking out the cause of the problem, working out how others might handle it, diverting one’s attention to something less stressful or anxiety provoking (eg; remembering happy times, solving mathematical problems), and meditation or prayer
Cognitive Coping Strategy
The growth and maturation of thinking processes of all kinds, including perceiving, remembering, concept formation, problem solving, imaging, and reasoning
Cognitive Development
Any theory that attempts to explain the mechanisms underlying the growth and maturation of thinking processes
- Explanations may be in terms of stages of development in which the changes in thinking are relatively abrupt and discontinuous or the changes may be viewed as occurring gradually and continuously over time
Cognitive Developmental Theory
Any disorder that involves impairment of the executive functions, affecting performance in many areas, including reasoning, planning, judgement, decision making, emotional engagement, perseveration, awareness, attention, language, learning, memory and timing
Cognitive Disorder
An unpleasant psychological state resulting from inconsistency between two or more elements in a cognitive system
- it is presumed to involve a heightened state of arousal and to have characteristics similar to physiological drives (eg; hunger)
Cognitive Dissonance
A theory proposing that people have a fundamental motivation to maintain consistency among elements in their cognitive systems
- When inconsistency occurs, people experience an unpleasant psychological state that motivates them to reduce the dissonance in a variety of ways
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
A specialty area of ergonomics that seeks to understand the cognitive processes and the representations involved in human performance
- Studied the combined effects of information processing characteristics, task constraints, and task environment on human performance and applies the results of such studies to the design and evaluation of work systems
Cognitive Ergonomics
Any theory postulating that learning requires central constructs and new ways of perceiving events
- usually contrasted with behavioral learning theories, which suggest that behaviors or responses are acquired through experience
Cognitive Learning Theory
A mental understanding of an environment, formed through trial and error as well as observation
- Human beings and other animals have these well developed and they contain spatial information enabling them to orient themselves and find their way in the real world
Cognitive Map
A theoretical view of thought and mental operations, which provides observations for observed phenomena and makes predictions about an unknown future
- People are continually creating and accessing internal representations (models) of what they are experiencing in the world for the purposes of perception, comprehension, and behavior selection
Cognitive Model
The study of the structure and the function of the brain as it relates to perception, reasoning, remembering, and all other forms of knowing and awareness
- Focuses on examining the effects of the brain damage on thought processes - typically through the use of in depth single case designs - so as to construct models of normal cognitive functioning
Cognitive Neuropsychology
A branch of neuroscience and biological psychology that focuses on the neural mechanisms of cognition
- Although overlapping with the study of the mind in cognitive psychology, this branch, with its grounding in such areas as experimental psychology, neurobiology, physics, and mathematics, specifically examines how mental processes occur in the brain
Cognitive Neuroscience
The situation in which the demands placed on a person by mental work are greater than the person’s mental abilities can cope with
Cognitive Overload
Any of the mental functions assumed to be involved in the acquisition, storage, interpretation, manipulation, transformation, and use of knowledge
- These processes encompass such areas as attention, perception, learning, and problem solving and are commonly understood through several basic theories, including the serial processing approach, the parallel processing approach, and a combination theory, which assumes that these are both serial and parallel, depending on the demands of the task
Cognitive Processes
The branch of psychology that explores the operation of mental processes related to perceiving, attending, thinking, language and memory, mainly through inferences from behavior
- The cognitive approach, which developed in the 1940s and 1950s, diverged sharply from contemporary behaviorism in:
A) Emphasizing unseen knowledge processes instead of directly observable behaviors
B) Arguing that the relationship between stimulus and response was complex and mediated rather than simple and direct
- It’s concentration on the higher mental processes also contrasted with the focus on the instincts and other unconscious forces typical of psychoanalysis
- More recently, this has been influenced by approaches to information processing and information theory developed in computer science and artificial intelligence
Cognitive Psychology
A technique used in cognitive therapy and cognitive behavior therapy to help the client identify his or her self defeating beliefs or cognitive distortions, refute them and then modify them so that they are adaptive and reasonable
Cognitive Restructuring
An interdisciplinary approach to understanding the mind and mental processes that combines aspects of cognitive psychology, the philosophy of mind, epistemology, neuroscience, anthropology, psycholinguistic and computer science
Cognitive Science
A person’s characteristic mode of perceiving, thinking, remembering, and problem solving
- Might differ in preferred elements or activities, such as visual versus verbal encoding and along various dimensions, such as field dependence/field independence
- Many use the term learning style interchangeably with this, whereas others use the former more specifically to mean a person’s characteristic cognitive affective and psychological behaviors that influence his or her preferred instructional methods and interactions with learning environment
Cognitive Style
Any theory of mind that focuses on mental activities, such as perceiving, attending, thinking, remembering, evaluating, planning, language, and creativity, especially one that suggests a model for the various processes involved
Cognitive Theory
A form of psychotherapy based on the concept that emotional and behavioral problems in an individual are, at least in part, the result of maladaptive or faulty ways of thinking and distorted attitudes towards oneself and others
- The objective of the therapy is to identify these faulty cognitions and replace them with more adaptive ones, a process known as cognitive restructuring
- The therapist takes the roll of an active guide who attempts to make the client aware of these distorted thinking patterns and who helps the client correct and revise his or her perceptions and attitudes by citing evidence to the contrary or by eliciting it from the client
Cognitive Therapy
A set of three beliefs thought to characterize major depressive episodes
- These are negative beliefs about the self, the world, and the future
Cognitive Triad
Unreportable mental processes, collectively
- There are many sources of evidence for this, including regularities of behavior due to habit or automaticity, inferred grammatical rules, the details of sensorimotor control, and implicit knowledge after brain damage
- It is often contrasted with the psychoanalytically derived notion of the dynamic unconscious, which involves material that is kept out of consciousness to avoid anxiety, shame, or guilt
Cognitive Unconscious
The state or condition of living together as sexual and domestic partners without being married
Cohabitation
(Symbol: K)
A numerical index that reflects the degree of agreement between two rates or rating systems classifying data into mutually exclusive categories, corrected for the level of agreement expected by chance alone
[Jacob Cohen (1923 - 1998), U.S. Psychologist and statistician]
Cohen’s Kappa
The unity or solidarity of a group, as indicated by the strength of the bonds that link group members to the group as a whole, the sense of belongingness and community within the group, the feelings of attraction for specific group members and the group itself experienced by individuals, and the degree to which members coordinate their efforts to achieve goals
- Frequently considered essential to effective group therapy
Cohesion
A tendency of acts, either successive or simultaneous, to become connected or affiliated so as to form a unified whole
Cohesiveness
A group of people who have experienced a significant life event (eg; marriage) during the same period of time
- The term usually refers to a birth cohort, or generation
Cohort
Any outcome associated with being a member of a group born at a particular time and therefore influenced by the events and practices at that time
- May be difficult to separate from age effects and period effects in research
Cohort Effect
A form of speech in which 2 or 3 year old children talk among themselves without apparently communicating with each other in a meaningful way, such that the statements of one child seem unrelated to the statements of the others
Collective Monologue
The part of the unconscious that, according to Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875 - 1961), is common to all humankind and contains the inherited accumulation of primitive human experiences in the form of ideas and images called archetypes
- It is the deepest and least accessible part of the unconscious mind
Collective Unconscious
A social or cultural tradition, ideology, or personal outlook that emphasizes the unity of the group or community rather than each person’s individuality
- These societies tend to stress cooperation, communalism, constructive interdependence, and conformity to cultural roles and more
Collectivism
A small elevation
- Two pairs of these are found on the dorsal surface of the midbrain
- The rostral pair, the superior colliculi, receive and process visual information and help control eye movements
- The caudal pair, the inferior colliculi, receive and process auditory information
Colliculus
The subjective quality of light that corresponds to wavelength as perceived by retinal receptors
- Can be characterized by its hue, saturation, and brightness
Color
The inability to discriminate between color and to perceive color hues
- May be caused by disease, drugs, or brain injury (acquired) but most often is an inherited trait (congenital) that effects about 10% of men (it is rare in women)
- The most common form of the disorder involves the green or red receptors of the cone cell in the retina, causing red-green confusion
- The total form is called achromatism and is rare
Color Blindness
The tendency to perceive a familiar object as having the same color under different conditions of illumination
- An example of perceptual constancy
Color Constancy
The effect of one color upon another when they are viewed in close proximity
- In simultaneous contrast, complementary colors, such as yellow and blue, are enhanced by each other: the yellow appears yellower, and the blue appears bluer
- In successive contrast, the complement of a color is seen after shifting focus to a neutral surface
Color Contrast
The ability to distinguish visual stimuli on the basis of the wavelengths of light they emit or reflect
Color Vision
In anatomy, a structure that resembles an architectural pillar
- An example is the spinal column
Column
A profound state of unconsciousness resulting from disease, injury or poisoning and characterized by little or no response to stimuli, absences of reflexes, and suspension of voluntary activity
Coma
In statistics, the selection of r objects from among n objects without regard to the order in which the objects are selected
- The number of combinations of n objects taken r at a time is often denoted as nCr
- It is similar to a permutation but distinguished by its irrelevance of order
Combination
Surgical transaction or severing or a commissure, especially surgical separation of the cerebral hemispheres of the brain by severing the corpus callosum and often the anterior commissure
- This procedure is used clinically to treat severe epilepsy and has been used experimentally in animals to study the functions of each hemisphere
Commissuratormy
A structure that forms a bridge or junction between two anatomical areas, particularly the two cerebral hemispheres or the halves of the spinal cord
- Examples include the two key landmarks in brain mapping:
1) The anterior, a bundle of myelinated fibers that joins the temporal lobe
2) The posterior, a bundle of myelinated fibers that connects regions in the midbrain and diencephalon
Commissure
Confinement to a mental institution by court order following certification by appropriate psychiatric or other mental health authorities
- The process may be voluntary but is generally involuntary
Commitment
One of the gestalt principles of organization, stating that objects functioning or moving in the some direction appear to belong together, that is, they are perceived as a single unit (eg; a flock of birds)
Common Fate
A relationship in which interaction is governed primarily by consideration of the others needs and wishes
- This contrasts with an exchange relationship in which the people involved are concerned mainly with receiving as much as they give
Communal Relationship
The transmission of information which may be by verbal (oral or written) or nonverbal means
- Humans do this to relate and exchange ideas, knowledge, feelings and experiences and for many other interpersonal and social purposes
- Nonhuman animals likewise do this vocally or non vocally for a variety of purposes
- These disorders are treated by mental and behavioral therapists and by speech and language therapists
Communication
Activities undertaken in the community, rather than in institutional settings, to promote mental health
- The community approach focuses primarily on the total population of a single catchment area and involves overall planning and demographic analyses
- It emphasizes preventative services as distinguished from therapeutic services (eg; by identifying sources of stress in the community) and seeks to provide a continuous, comprehensive system of services designed to meet all mental health related needs in the community
Community Mental Health
A community based facility providing a full range of prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation services, including full diagnostic evaluation, outpatient individual and group therapy, emergency inpatient treatment, substance abuse treatment, and vocational, educational, and social rehabilitation programs
Community Mental Health Center
The branch of psychology that focuses on social issues, social institutions, and other settings that influence individuals, groups, and organizations
- Community researchers examine the ways that individuals interact with each other, social groups (eg; clubs, churches, schools, families) and the larger culture and environment
Community Psychology
The simultaneous presence in an individual of two or more mental or physical illnnesses, diseases, or disorders
Comorbidity
A type of love characterized by strong feelings of intimacy and affection for another person but not accompanied by strong passion or emotional arousal in the other’s presence
- In these responses, this love is distinguished from compassionate love
Companionate Love
A type of alternate forms reliability test that items of similar content and difficulty
Comparable Forms
The study of animal behavior with the dual objective of understanding the behavior of nonhuman animals for its own sake as well as furthering the understanding of human behavior
- Usually involves laboratory studies and typically refers to any study involving non human species, whether or not the comparative method is used
Comparative Psychology
In social exchange level, the standard by which an individual evaluates the quality of any social relationship in which he or she is currently engaged
- This derives from the level of all outcomes experienced by the individual in previous similar relationships or observed by the individual in similar relationships of others
Comparison Level
- Substitution or development of strength or capabilities in one area to off set real or imagined lack or deficiency in another
- this may be referred to as overcompensation when the substitute behavior exceeds what might actually be necessary in terms of level of this for the lack or deficiency
- In his classical psychoanalytic theory, Austrian psychiatrist sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) described it as a defense mechanism that protects the individual against the conscious realization of such lacks or deficiencies
- The idea of this also is central to the personality theory of Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler (1870 - 1937), which sees an human striving as a response to feelings of inferiority
Compensation
A task or project that a group can complete by averaging together individual members’ solutions or recommendations
- Groups outperform individuals on such tasks when the members are equally proficient at the tasks and do not share common biases that produce systematic tendencies toward overestimation or underestimation
Compensation Task
- The ability to exert control over one’s life to cope with specific problems effectively, and to make changes to one’s behavior and one’s environment
- Affirming, strengthening, or achieving a client’s competence is often a basic goal in psychotherapy - One’s developed repertoire of skills, especially as applied to a particular task
Competence
Any performance situation structured in such a way that success depends on performing better than others
- The interpersonal type involves individuals striving to outperform each other; the inter group type involves groups competing against other groups; the intragroup type involves individuals within a group trying to best each other
Competition
A group of therapies and healthcare systems that fall outside the realm of conventional western medical practice
- Examples include acupuncture, meditation, and the use of certain dietary supplements
- Complementary medicine is used as an adjunct to conventional treatment
- Alternative medicine stands alone and replaces conventional treatment
Complementary and Alternative Medicine
A type of test in which the participant is required to supply a missing item, such as a word, number, or system
Completion Test
A group or system of related ideas or impulses that have a common emotional tone and exert a strong but usually unconscious influence on the individuals attitudes and behavior
- The term, introduced by Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung (1875 - 1961) to denote the contents of the personal unconscious, has taken on an almost purely pathological connotation in popular usage, which does not necessarily reflect usage in psychology
Complex
A neuron in the cerebral cortex that responds to visual stimulation of appropriate contrast, orientation and direction anywhere in the receptive field
Complex Cell
Submission to the desires of others, often involving a change in a person’s behavior in response to a direct request
- A variety of techniques have been developed to enhance this by producing attitude change, behavioral change is the primary goal of these techniques
Compliance
The act or capability of understanding something, especially the meaning of a communication
Comprehension
A type of behavior (eg; hand washing, checking) or a mental act (eg; counting, praying) engaged in to reduce anxiety or distress
- Typically the individual feels driven or compelled to perform it to reduce the distress associated with an obsession or to prevent a dreaded event or situation
- It may also take the form of rigid or stereotyped acts based on idiosyncratic rules that do not have a rational basis (eg; having to perform a task in a certain way)
Compulsion
Any account of cognitive or psychobiological processes that assumes that the humor mind functions like a digital computer, specifically in its ability to form representations of events and objects and to carry out complex sequences of operations on these representations
Computational Model
A radio graphic technique for quickly producing detailed, three dimensional images of the brain or other soft tissues
- An X-ray beam is passed through the tissue from many different locations, and the different patterns of radiation absorption are analyzed and synthesized by a computer
Computed Tomography
A sophisticated off shoot of programmed learning, in which a computer is used to provide drill and practice, problem solving, simulation, and gaming forms of instruction
- It is also useful for relatively individualized tutorial instruction
Computer Assisted Instruction
The process of using a computer to obtain and evaluate psychological information about a person
- The computer presents questions or tasks and then makes diagnoses and prognoses based on a comparison of the participants responses or performance to databases of previously acquired information on many other individuals
Computerized Assessment
The proactive (as opposed to habitual) part of motivation that connects knowledge, affect, drive, desires, and instincts to behavior
- Along with cognition and effect, this is one of the three traditionally identified components of mind
Conation
The act of bringing together or focusing, as for example, bringing one’s thought processes to bear on a central problem or subject
Concentration
An idea that represents a class of objects or events or their properties, such as “cats”, “walking”, “honesty”, “blue”, or “fast”
Concept
The process by which a person abstracts a common idea or concept from particular examples, such as learning what dogs are by experience of various different dogs
Concept Formation
The process by which a person abstracts a common idea or concept from particular examples, such as learning what dogs are by experience of different dogs
Concept Formation
A collection of objects, events, or other items with common properties arranged in a multilevel structure
- These on the higher levels have broad meanings, while those at lower levels are more specific
- For example, one of these for anxiety disorders would place that term on top, with phobias lower, and specific types of phobia (eg; claustrophobia) on the bottom
Concept Heiarchy
In twin studies, the probability that a given trait or disorder in one twin will appear in the other
- Evidence for genetic factors in the production of the trait or disorder comes from the comparison of these rates between identical and fraternal twins
Concordance
In Piagetian theory, the third major stage of cognitive development, occurring approximately from 7 to 12 years of age, in which children can decenter their perception, are less egocentric, and can think logically about physical objects and about specific situations or experiences involving those objects
Concrete Operational Stage
The extent of correspondence between two measurements at about the same point in time: specifically, the assessment of one’s test’s validity by comparison of its results with a separate but related measurement, such as a standardized test, at the same point in time
Concurrent Validity
Mild injury to the brain due to trauma or tarring that temporarily disrupts function and usually involves at least brief unconsciousness
Concussion
An attitude of acceptance and esteem expressed by other’s that depends on the acceptability of the individual’s behavior and the other’s personal standards
- Works against sound psychological development and adjustment in the recipient
Conditional Positive Regard
The probability that an event will occur given that another event is known to have occurred
Conditional Probability
In Pavlovian conditioning, the learned or acquired response to a conditioned stimulus
Conditioned Response
In Pavlovian conditioning, the learned or acquired response to a conditioned stimulus
Conditioned Response
A neutral stimulus that is repeatedly presented with an unconditioned stimulus until it acquires the ability to elicit a response that it previously did not
- In many (but not all) cases, the response elicited is similar to that elicited by the unconditioned stimulus
- A light, for example, by being repeatedly paired with food (the unconditioned stimulus) eventually comes to elicit the same response as food (ie; salivation) when presented alone
Conditioned Stimulus
The association of a taste of a food or fluid with an aversive stimulus (usually gastrointestinal discomfort or illness) and subsequent avoidance of that particular taste
- Challenges traditional theories of associative learning, since very few pairings between the food and illness are needed to produce the effect (often one pairing will suffice) the delay between experiencing the taste and then feeling ill can be relatively long and the aversion is highly resistant to extinction
Conditioned Taste Aversion
The process by which certain kinds of experience make particular actions more or less likely
Conditioning
The state in which an individual considers love and respect to be conditional on meeting the approval of others
- This belief derives from the child’s sense of being worthy of love on the basis of parental approval: as the individual matures, he or she, may continue to feel worthy of affection and respect only when expressing desirable behaviors
Conditions of Worth
A persistent pattern of behavior that involves violating the basic rights of others and ignoring age appropriate social standards
- Specific behaviors include lying, theft, arson, running away from home, aggression, truancy, burglary, cruelty to animals, and fighting
- This disorder is distinguished from oppositional defiant disorder by the increased severity of the behaviors and their occurrence independently of an event occasioning opposition
Conduct Disorder
A form of aphasia characterized by difficulty in differentiating speech sounds and repeating them accurately, even though spontaneous articulation may be intact
- It is associated with lesions in the arcuate fasciculus, the track linking the area of the brain involved in the interpretation and control of speech
Conduction Aphasia
The falsification of memory in which gaps in recall are filled by fabrications that the individual accepts as fact
- It is not typically considered to be a conscious attempt to deceive others
- Occurs most frequently in Korsakoff’s syndrome and to a lesser extent in other conditions associated with organically derived amnesia
Confabulation
A range of values used for estimating the value of a population parameter from data obtained in a sample, with a preset, fixed probability that the interval will include the true value of the population parameter being estimated
- Most research is done on samples, but it is done in order to draw inferences about the entire relevant population
Confidence Interval
The probability that a confidence interval contains the true value of an experimental variable under investigation
- It is expressed as a percentage that indicates the statistical likelihood that the value of the variable obtained using a sample is an accurate reflection of the actual value in the entire population
- For example, a survey of 100 individuals in a small town of 1,000 people might indicate that 20% of respondents intend to enroll in a distance learning class within the next month
- If this type of level for this research is 95%, this indicates that if the entire town were surveyed then the results obtained would be within 5% of the value obtained with the sample (ie, anywhere between 16 and 24% of respondents would enroll in a class)
- In other words, the researcher is 95% certain that his or her results for the sample are accurate for the entire population and thus would be obtained were the research to be repeated with additional samples
Confidence Level
In an experimental situation, an aide of the experimenter who poses as a participant but whose behavior is rehearsed prior to the experiment
- The real participants are sometimes referred to as naive participants
Confederate
A principle of professional ethics requiring providers of mental health care or medical care to limit the disclosure of a patient’s identity, his or her condition or treatment, and any data entrusted to professionals during assessment, diagnosis, and treatment
- Similar protection is given to research participants and survey respondents against unauthorized access to information they reveal in confidence
Confidentiality
Learning to respond to a combination of two or more stimuli paired with an outcome when none of the stimuli presented alone is paired with that outcome
- For example, if neither a tone nor a light presented separately is followed by food, but a tone light combination is followed by food, this has occurred when a conditioned response is elicited by the tone light combination
Configural Learning
The tendency to gather evidence that confirm preexisting expectations, typically by emphasizing or pursuing supporting evidence while dismissing or failing to seek contradictory evidence
Confirmation Bias
One of a set of procedures used in factor analysis to demonstrate that a group of variables possess a theoretically expected factor structure
- In other words, this provides formal statistical tests of a priori hypotheses about the specific underlying (latent) variables thought to explain the data obtained on a set of observed (manifest) variables
- Unlike explatory factor analysis, in which all measured variables relate to all latent factors, this imposes explicit restrictions so that the measured variables relate with some or one latent factors but do not relate with others
Confirmatory Factor Analysis
The occurrence of mutually antagonistic or opposing forces, including events, behaviors, desires, attitudes, and emotions
- This general term has more specific meanings within different areas of psychology
- For example, in psychoanalytic theory it refers to the opposition between incompatible instinctual impulses or between incompatible aspects of the mental structure (ie; the id, ego, and superego) that may be a source of neurosis if it results in the use of defense mechanisms other than sublimation
- In interpersonal relations this denotes the disagreement, discord, and friction that occur when the actions or beliefs of one or more individuals are unacceptable to and resisted by others
Conflict
The adjustment of one’s opinions, judgements, or actions so that they match either:
A) The opinions, judgements, or actions of other people
B) The normative standards of a social group or situation
- Includes the temporary compliance of individuals, who agree publicly with the group but do not accept its position as their own, as well as the conversion of individuals, who fully adopt the group position
Conformity
In an experiment using a factorial design, a variable that is conceptually distinct but empirically inseparable from one or more other variables
- Makes it impossible to differentiate that variables effects in isolation from its effects in conjunction with other variables
- These indistinguishable effects are themselves called aliases
Confound
The tendency for bystanders to refrain from helping in both emergencies and non emergencies in order to avoid being blamed by others for causing the problem
- This is a contributing factor in the bystander effect
Confusion of Responsibility
Denoting a condition or disorder that is present at birth
Congenital
An inherited disorder caused by mutations that encode for enzymes involved in one of the various steps of steroid hormone synthesis in the adrenal gland
- These defects result in the absence or decreased synthesis of cortisol from its cholesterol precursor and a concomitant abnormal increase in the production of androgens
Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia
Any abnormality present at birth, ‘regardless of the cause
- It may be caused by faulty fetal development (eg; spina bfida, cleft palate), hereditary factors (eg; Huntington’s disease), chromosomal aberration (eg; Down’s syndrome), maternal condition affecting the developing fetus (eg; fetal alcohol syndrome), metabolic defects (eg; phenylketonuria), or injury to the brain before or during birth (eg; some cases of cerebral palsy)
Congenital Defect
In phenomenological personality theory:
A) The need for a therapist to act in accordance with his or her true feelings rather than with a stylized image of a therapist
B) The conscious integration of an experience into the self
Congruence
A group task or project that cannot be completed successfully until all members of the group have completed their portion of the job (eg; factory assembly line)
- This means that the speed and quality of the work are determined by the least skilled member
Conjunctive Task
- An approach that views human cognitive processes in terms of massively parallel cooperate and competitive interactions among large numbers of simple neuronlike computational units
- Although each unit exhibits nominal spatial and temporal summations, units and connections are not generally to be taken as corresponding directly to individual neurons and synapses - Are used by U.S. Psychologist, Edward L. Thorndike (1874 - 1949), the concept that learning involves the acquisition of neural links, or connections, between stimulus and response
Connectionism
Any of a class of theories hypothesizing that knowledge is encoded by the connections among representations stored in the brain rather than in the representations themselves
- These models suggest that knowledge is distributed rather than being localized and that it is retrieved through spreading activation among connections
- This model concept has been extended to artificial intelligence, particularly to its neural network models of problem solving
Connectionist Model
An individual’s sense of right and wrong or of transgression against moral values
- In psychoanalysis, this is the superego, or ethical component of personality, which acts as judge and critic of one’s actions and attitudes
- More recent biopsychological approaches suggest that the capacity of this may be genetically determined, and research on brain damage connects behavioral inhibitions to specific brain regions (eg; the prefrontal cortex)
- Psychological approaches emphasize the role of this in the formation of groups and societies
Conscience
- In classical psychoanalytic theory of Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) the region of the psyche that contains thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and other aspects of mental life currently present in awareness
- The content of it is thus inherently transitory of continuously changing - Relating to or marked by awareness or consciousness
Conscious
Any of various subjective states of awareness in which mental contents and activities can be reported
- The phenomena that humans report experiencing ranges from sensory and somatic perception to images, ideas, inner speech, intentions to act, recalled memories, semantics, dreams, hallucinations, emotional feelings, “fringe” feelings (eg; a sense of knowing), and aspects of cognitive and motor control, most often refers to the waking state, but it may also refer to the state of sleeping or an altered state of consciousness
Consciousness
The process by which a therapist helps a client check the accuracy of his or her perception or the results of his or her experiment by comparing it with those of others, often in the context of group therapy
Consensual Validation
General agreement among the members of a group, especially when making an appraisal or decision
Consensus
Voluntary assent or approval given by an individual: Specifically, permission granted by an individual for medical or psychological treatment, participation in research, or both
- Individuals should be fully informed about the treatment of study and it’s risks and potential benefits
Consent
The awareness that physical quantities do not change in amount when they are altered in appearance, such as when water is poured from a wide, short beaker into a thin, tall one
- According to Piagetian theory, children become capable of this mental operation in the concrete operational stage
Conservation
A relatively new subfield of psychology that seeks to understand the attitudes and behavior of individuals and groups toward the natural environment so as to promote their use of environmentally sustainable practices
- Because of the highly diverse categories of behavior being studied, they generally focus on specific actions, such as paper recycling, rather than general tendencies
- It is distinct in its orientation toward protecting ecosystems and preserving resources while ensuring quality of life for humans and other species
Conservation Psychology
The desire to get feedback that confirms what one already believes about one’s self
- This contributes to maintaining a stable, unchanging self concept, whether positive or negative
Consistency Motive
The biological processes by which a permanent memory is formed following a learning experience
Consolidation
- Belonging to the same species
- A member of the same species
Conspecific
- A mathematically fixed value: a quantity that is inchangeable under specified conditions
- Unvarying or continual
Constant
The basic psychological and physical makeup of an individual, due partly to heredity and partly to life experience and environmental factors
Constitution
A person’s perception and interpretation of attributes and behavior of the self and others
Construal
An explanatory model based on empirically verifiable and measurable events or processes an empirical construct, or on processes inferred from data of this kind but not themselves directly observable, a hypothetical construct
- Many of the models used in psychology are hypothetical
Construct
The degree to which a test or instrument is capable of measuring a theoretical construct, trait, or ability (eg; intelligence)
Construct Validity
A form of remembering marked by the use of general knowledge stored in one’s memory to construct a more complete and detailed account of an event or experience
Constructive Memory
A form of play in which children manipulate materials in order to create or build objects, for example, making a sand castle or using blocks to build a house
Constructive Play
The theoretical perspective that people actively build their perception of the world and interpret objects and events that surround them in terms of what they already know
- Thus, their current state of knowledge guides processing, substantially influencing how (and what) new information is acquired
Constructivism
A mental healthcare or medical specialist called upon to provide professional advice or services in terms of diagnosis, treatment, or rehabilitation
Consultant
The branch of psychology that specializes in the behavior of individuals as consumers and in the techniques of communicating information to influence consumer decisions to purchase a manufacturer’s product
- They investigate the reasons and psychological processes underlying behavior in for profit as well as not for profit marketing
Consumer Psychology
The positive effects experienced by infants or young animals when in close contact with soft materials
- The term originates from experiments in which young rhesus monkeys exposed both to an artificial wire mother with a bottle for feeding spent more time on the cloth mother and when frightened, were more readily soothed by the presence of the cloth mother than the wire mother
Contact Comfort
The theory that people belonging to one group can become less prejudiced against (and perhaps more favorably disposed toward) members of other groups merely through increased contact with them
- It is now thought that greater contact is unlikely to reduce inter group prejudice unless the people from the different groups are of equal status, are not in competition with each other, and do not readily categorize the others as very different from themselves
Contact Hypothesis
In social theory, the spread of behaviors, attitudes, and affect through crowds and other types of social aggregation from one member to another
- Early analyses of this suggested that it resulted from the heightened suggestibility of members, but subsequent studies have argued that this is sustained by relatively mundane interpersonal processes, such as comparison, imitation, social facilitation, conformity, and universality
Contagion
In testing and experimentation, the process of permitting knowledge, expectations, or other factors about the variable under study to influence the collection and interpretation of data about that variable
Contamination
A systematic, quantitative procedure for coding the themes in qualitative material, such as projective test responses, propaganda or fiction
- For example, verbally communicated material (eg; articles, speeches, films) is done by determining the frequency of specific ideas, concepts, or terms
Content Analysis
Particular areas of life in which people invest their self esteem, such that feedback regarding their standing or abilities in these domains has a crucial impact on their self concept
- Research indicates that people choose to state their self esteem in different domains, so that for some people material or professional success is vital to their sense of self worth whereas for others this is much less important than being well liked or sexually attractive
Contingencies of Self Worth
A conditional, probabilistic relation between two events
- When the probability of event B given event A is 1 0 1, a perfect positive is said to exist
- When event A predicts with certainty the absence of event B, a perfect negative is said to exist
- May be arranged via dependencies or they may emerge by accident
Contingency
In behavior therapy, a technique in which a reinforcement, or reward, is given each time the desired behavior is performed
- This technique is particularly common in substance abuse treatment
Contingency Management
A two dimensional table in which the number of cases that are simultaneously in a given spot in a given row and column of the table are specified
- For example, the ages and geographical locations of a sample of individuals applying for a particular job may be displayed in a contingency table, such that there are x number of individuals under 25 from New York City, y number of individuals under 25 from Los Angeles, z number of individuals between the ages of 25 and 35 from New York City and so on
Contingency Table
The quality or state of being unending connected into a continuous whole
- For example, the traditional concept of this type of care implies the provision of a full range of uninterrupted medical and mental healthcare services to a person throughout his or her life span, from birth to death, as needed
Continuity
The assumption that successful discrimination learning or problem solving results from a progressive, incremental, continuous process of trial and error
- Responses that prove unproductive are extinguished, whereas every reinforced response results in an increase in associative strength, thus producing the gradual rise of the learning curve
- Problem solving is conceived as a step by step learning process in which the correct response is discovered, practiced, and reinforced
Continuity Hypothesis
In operant and instrumental conitioning, the reinforcement of every correct (desired) response
Continuous Reinforcement
A random variable that can take on an infinite number of values; that is, a variable measured on a continuous scale, as opposed to a categorical variable
Continuous Variable
A shortening or tensing of a group of muscle fibers
Contraction
Situated on or affecting the opposite side of the body
- For example, motor paralysis occurs on the side of the body contralateral to the side on which a brain lesion is found
Contralateral
- That state in which the differences between one thing, event, or idea and another are emphasized by a comparison of their qualities
- This may occur when the stimuli are jutaxaposed (simultaneous contrast) or when one immediately follows the other (successive contrast) - In the analysis of variance, a comparison among group means using one degree of freedom
Contrast
A measure of spatial resolution based on an individual’s ability to detect subtle differences in light and dark coloring or shading in an object of a fixed size
- Detection is affected by the size of contrasting elements and is usually tested using a grating of alternating light and dark bars, being defined by the minimum contrast required to distinguish that there is a bar pattern rather than a uniform screen
Contrast Sensitivity
A cause that is not sufficient to bring about an end or event but that helps in some way to bring about that end or event
- This may be a necessary condition or it may influence events more indirectly by affecting other conditions that make the event more likely
Contributing Cause
- Authority, power, or influence over events, behaviors, situations, or people
- The regulation of all extraneous conditions and variables in an experiment so that any change in the dependent variable can be attributed solely to manipulation of the independent variable
- In other words, the results obtained will be due solely to the experimental condition or conditions and not to any other factors
Control
A group of participants in an experiment that are exposed to the control conditions, that is, the conditions of the experiment not involving a treatment or exposure to the independent variable
Control Group
Those processes that organize the flow of information in an information processing system
Control Processes
The idea that behavior is caused by what a person wants and that each person takes actions to achieve those wants, independent of the influence of outside stimuli
- This implies responsibility toward and direct determination of one’s behavior
Control Theory
A variable that is purposely not changed during an experiment in order to minimize its effects on the outcome
- Because these are outside factors related in some way to the other variables under investigation, their influence may potentially distort research results
Control Variable
In Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development, the intermediate level of moral reasoning, characterized by an individual’s identification with and conformity to the expectations and rules of family and society: The individual evaluates actions and determines right and wrong in terms of other people’s opinions
- This level is divided into two stages: the earlier interpersonal concordance orientation, in which moral behavior is that which obtains approval and pleases others; and the later law and order orientation, in which moral behavior is that which respects authority, allows the person to do his or her duty, and maintains the existing social order
Conventional Level
Another name for Conventional Level
Conventional Morality
The rotation of the two eyes inward toward a light source so that the image falls on corresponding points on the foveas
- It enables the slightly different images of an object seen by each eye to come together and form a single image
Convergence
Critical thinking in which an individual uses linear, logical steps to analyze a number of already formulated solutions to a problem to determine the correct one or the one that is most likely to be successful
Convergent Thinking
- An unconscious process in which anxiety generated by psychological conflicts is transformed into physical symptoms
- Actual change in an individual’s beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors that occurs as a result of social influence
- Unlike compliance, which is outward and temporary, this occurs when the targeted individual is personally convinced by a persuasive message or internalizes and accepts as his or her own the beliefs expressed by other group members
Conversion
A somatoform disorder characterized by one or more symptoms or deficits affecting voluntary motor and sensory functioning that suggest a physical disorder but for which there is instead evidence of psychological involvement
- These symptoms are not intentionally produced or feigned and are not under voluntary control
- They include paralysis, loss of voice, blindness, seizures, disturbance in coordination and balance, and loss of pain and touch sensations
Conversion Disorder
A folding or twisting, especially of the surface of the brain
Convolution
An involuntary, generalized, violent muscular contraction, in some cases tonic (contractions without relaxation), in others clonic (alternating contractions and relaxations of skeletal muscles)
Convulsion
An index used in regression analysis to show the influence of a particular case on the complete set of fitted values
- [R. Denis Cook (1944- ), US statistician]
Cook’s D
Increased sexual vigor when an animal or human being mates with multiple partners
- The phenomenon is named for US president Calvin Coolidge, alluding to a visit that he and his wife made to a farm where Mrs. Coolidge observed a rooster mating frequently
Coolidge Effect
The process of working together toward the attainment of a goal
- This contrasts with competition, in which an individual’s actions in working toward a goal lessen the likelihood of others achieving the same goal
- Students of animals often suggest this, but whether nonhuman animals understand that individuals must act together to reach a common solution or whether they act randomly and ocassionally appear to do this by chance is still unclear
Cooperation
The use of cognitive and behavioral strategies to manage the demands of a situation when these are appraised as taxing or exceeding one’s resources or to reduce the negative emotions and conflict caused by stress
Coping
An action, a series of actions, or a thought process used in meeting a stressful or unpleasant situation or in modifying one’s reaction to such a situation
- These typically involve a conscious and direct approach to problems, in contrast to defense mechanisms
Coping Strategy
The characteristic manner in which an individual confronts and deals with stress, anxiety provoking situations, or emergencies
Coping Style
Spontaneous, unprovoked, and uncontrollable use of obscene or profane words and expressions
- It is a symptom that may be observed in individuals with a variety of neurological disorders, particularly Tourette’s Disorder
Coprolalia
The transparent part of the outer covering of the eye, through which light first passes
- It is continuous laterally with the sclera
- This provides the primary refractive power of the eye
Cornea
The plane that divides the front (anterior) half of the body or brain from the back (posterior) half
Coronal Plane
A cardiovascular disorder characterized by restricted flow of blood through the coronary arteries supplying the heart muscle
- The cause is usually atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries and often leads to fatal myocardial infarcation (ie; death of a section of heart muscle)
Coronary Heart Disease
A large tract of nerve fibers running across the longitudinal fissure of the brain and connecting the cerebral hemispheres: It is the principal connection between the two sides of the brain and the largest of the interhemispheric commissures
Corpus Callosum
The degree of a relationship (usually linear) between two attributes
Correlation
A research method that attempts to identify and describe the relationship between two variables without directly manipulating them
- These are often used in clinical and other applied areas of psychology and do not allow for inferences regarding cause and effect; that is, a change in one particular variable employed in the research cannot be said with any certainty to result in a change in the other
Correlational Design
(Symbol: r) a numerical index reflecting the degree of relationship (usually linear) between two attributes scaled so that the value of +1 indicates a perfect positive relationship, -1 a perfect negative relationship, and 0 no relationship
- The most commonly used type is the product moment correlation
Correlation Coefficient
A square symmetric array in which the correlation coefficient between the ith and jth variables in a set of variables in a set of variables is displayed in the intersection of the ith row and the jth column of the matrix
Correlation Matrix
A model describing how people form inferences about other people’s stable personality characteristics from observing their behaviors
- Correspondence between behaviors traits is more likely to be inferred if the actor is judged to have acted (A) freely, (B) intentionally, (C) in a way that is unusual for someone in the situation, and (D) in a way that does not usually bring rewards or social approval
Correspondent Inference Theory
The outer or superficial layer or layers of a structure, as distinguished from the central core
- In mammals, the cortex of a structure is identified with the name of the gland or organ, for exampe, the cerebellar cortex or cerebral cortex
Cortex (Plural: Cortices)
Blindness with normal pupillary responses due to complete destruction of the optic radiations of the striate cortex
- Typically caused by a stroke affecting the occipital lobe of the brain, this can also result from traumatic injury or hypoxia
Cortical Blindness
Deafness that is caused by damage to auditory centers in the cerebral cortex of the brain
- The peripheral auditory system (which includes the retrocochlear neural pathways terminating in the brainstem) can be intact in this condition
Cortical Deafness
Any of the steroid hormones produced by the adrenal cortex, the outer layer of the adrenal gland
- They include the glucocorticoids (eg; cortisol), which are involved in carbohydrate metabolism; and the mineralocorticoids (eg; aldosterone), which have a role in electrolyte balance and sodium retention
Corticosteroid
A hormone secreted by the anterior pituitary gland, particularly when a person experiences stress
- It stimulates the release of various other hormones (primarily corticosteroids) from the adrenal cortex, the outer layer of the adrenal gland
Corticotropin
A major glucocorticoid hormone whose activity increases blood sugar levels
- Blood levels of cortisol in humans vary according to sleep wake cycles (being highest around 9 am and lowest at midnight) and other factors; for example, they increase with stress and during pregnancy but decrease during diseases of the liver and kidneys
Cortisol
Professional assistance in coping with personal problems, including emotional, behavioral, vocational, marital, educational, rehabilitation, and lifestage (eg; retirement) problems
- The counselor makes use of such techniques as active listening, guidance, advice, discussion, clarification, and the administration of tests
Counseling
The branch of psychology that specializes in facilitating personal and interpersonal functioning across the lifespan to improve well being
- The counseling psychologist has received professional education and training in one or more areas, such as educational, vocational, employee, aging, personal, marriage, or rehabilitation counseling
- In contrast to a clinical psychologist, who usually emphasizes origins of maladaptions, a counseling psychologist emphasizes adaptation, adjustment, and more efficient use of the individual’s available resources
Counseling Psychology
The process of arranging a series of experimental conditions or treatments in such a way as to minimize the influence of other factors, such as practice or fatigue, on experimental effects
- A simple form of this would be to administer experimental conditions in the order AB to half the participants and in the order BA to the other half
Counterbalancing
An experimental procedure in which an animal, already conditioned to respond to a stimulus in a particular way, is trained to produce a different response to the same stimulus that is incompatible with the original response
- This same principle underlies many of the techniques used in behavior therapy to eliminate unwanted behavior
Counterconditioning
A social movement that maintains its own alternative mores and values in opposition to prevailing cultural norms
- The term is historically associated with the hippie movement and attendant drug culture of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which rejected such societal norms as the work ethic and the traditional family unit
Counterculture
Imagining ways in which events in one’s life might have turned out differently
- This often involves feelings of regret or disappointment (eg; if only I hadn’t been so hasty) but may also involve a sense of relief, as at a narrow escape (eg; if I had been standing three feet to the left…)
Counterfactual Thinking
The therapist’s unconscious reactions to the patient and to the patient’s transference
- These thoughts and feelings are based on the therapist’s own psychological needs and conflicts and may be either unexpressed or revealed through conscious responses to patient behavior
- The term was originally used to describe this process in psychoanalysis but has since become part of the common lexicon in other forms of psychodynamic psychotherapy and in other therapies
- In classic psychoanalysis, this is viewed as a hindrance to the analyst’s understanding of the patient, but to some modern analysts and therapists it may serve as a source of insight into the patient’s impact on other people
Countertransference
Therapy in which both partners in a committed relationship are treated at the same time by the same therapist or therapists
- It is concerned with problems within and between the individuals that affect the relationship
- For example, one partner may have an undiagnosed, physiologically based depression that is affecting the relationship, and both partners may have trouble communicating effectively with one another
Couples Therapy
A scale dependent measure of the relationship between two variables
Covariance
A correlated variable that is often controlled or held constant through the analysis of covariance
Covariate
A relationship between two phenomena (objects or events) such that there is a systematic correlation between variation of the one and variation of the other
- Unlike mere co-occurrence, this carries a strong presumption that there is a causal link between the covarying phenomena
Covariation
- Denoting anything that is not directly observable, open to view, or publicly known, either by happenstance or by deliberate design
- Hidden
Covert
A behavior therapy technique for reducing an undesired behavior in which the client imagines performing the undesired behavior (eg; overeating) and then imagines an unpleasant consequence (eg; vomiting)
Covert Sensitization
(Symbol: V) A correlation like index that reflects the association between two categorical variables [Carl Harald Cramér (1893 - 1985), Swedish statistician]
Cramér’s V Coefficient
Any of the 12 pairs of nerves that arise directly from the brain and are distributed mainly to structures in the head and neck
- Some of these are sensory, some are motor, and some are mixed (ie; both sensory and motor)
- They are designated by Roman numerals, as follows: I, Olfactory Nerve; II, Optic Nerve; III, Oculomotor Nerve; IV, Trochlear Nerve; V, Trigeminal Nerve; VI, Abducens Nerve; VII, Facial Nerve; VIII, Vestibulocochlear Nerve; IX, Glossopharyngeal Nerve; X, Vagus Nerve; XI. Accessory Nerve; XII, Hypoglossal Nerve
Cranial Nerve
In the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, the set of skills used to create, invent, discover, explore, imagine, and suppose
- This set of skills is alleged to be relatively (although not wholly) distinctive with respect to analytical and practical skills
Creative Intelligence
The ability to produce or develop original work, theories, techniques, or thoughts
- This type of individual typically displays originality, imagination, and expressiveness, but analyses have failed to ascertain why one individual has more than another
Creativity
A language that has developed from profound and prolonged contact between two or more languages and both shares features of the parent languages and evolves altogether novel features
- Although typically developing from a pidgin, this becomes stable over time and will usually have a fully developed grammatical system
Creole
A rapidly progressive neurological disease caused by abnormal prion proteins and characterized by dementia, involuntary muscle movements, muscular incoordination (ataxia), visual disturbances, and seizures
- Vacuoles form in the grey matter of the brain and spinal cord, giving it a spongy appearance; the prion is thought to cause misfolding of other proteins, leading to the cellular pathology
- Classical versions occurs sporadically worldwide and typically affects individuals who are middle aged or older
- Variant versions typically affects younger people, who are believed to have acquired the disease by eating meat or meat products from cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy [Hans Gerard Creutzfeldt (1885 - 1964) and Alfons Jakob (1884 - 1931), German neuropathologists]
Creutzfeldt - Jakob Disease (CJD)
A defendant’s ability to formulate a criminal intent at the time of the crime with which he or she is charged, which must be proved in court before the person can be convicted
- It may be excluded for reason of insanity or mitigated for a number of other reasons
Criminal Responsibility
- A situation (eg; a traumatic change) that produces significant cognitive or emotional stress in those involved in it
- A turning point for better or worse in the course of an illness
Crisis
- The brief ameliorative, rather than specifically curative, use of psychotherapy or counseling to aid individuals, families, and groups who have undergone a highly disruptive experience, such as an unexpected bereavement or a disaster
- Psychological intervention provided on a short term, emergency basis for individuals experiencing mental health crises, such as attempted suicide
Crisis Intervention
The structure within the ampulla at the end of each semicircular canal that contains hair cells sensitive to the direction and rate of movements of the head
Crista (Crysta)
A standard against which a judgment, evaluation, or comparisons can be made
- An example is a test score or item against which other tests or items can be validated
Criterion
A group tested for traits its members are already known to possess, usually for the purpose of validating a test
- For example, a group of children with diagnosed visual disabilities may be given a visual test to assess its validity as a means of evaluating the presence of visual disabilities
Criterion Group
An approach to testing based on the comparison of a person’s performance with an established standard or criterion
- The criterion is fixed, that is, each person’s score is measured against the same criterion and is not influenced by the performance of others
Criterion Referenced Testing
An index of how well a test correlates with a criterion, that is, an established standard of comparison
- It is divided into two types: concurrent validity and predictive validity
Criterion Validity
In statistical analysis, a variable to be predicted; that is, a dependent variable
Criterion Variable
The rate at which a periodic change, or flicker, in an intense visual stimulus fuses into a smooth, continuous stimulus
- A similar phenomenon can occur with rapidly changing auditory stimuli
Critical Flicker Frequency
- An early stage in life when an organism is especially open to specific learning, emotional, or socializing experiences that occur as part of normal development and will not recur at a later stage
- For example, the first three days of life are thought to constitute a critical period for imprinting in ducks, and there may be a critical period for language acquisition in human infants - In vision, the period of time after birth, varying from weeks (in cats) to months (in humans), in which full, binocular visual stimulation is necessary for the structural and functional maturation of the visual system
Critical Period
In significance testing, the range of values for a test statistic that leads to rejection of the null hypothesis in favor of the alternative hypothesis
Critical Region
A form of directed, problem focused thinking in which the individual tests ideas or possible solutions for errors or drawbacks
- It is essential to such activities as examining the validity of a hypothesis or interpreting the meaning of research results
Critical Thinking
The value of either end point of the critical region; that is, either of the values of the test statistic above and below which the null hypothesis will be rejected
Critical Value
An index of internal consistency reliability, that is, the degree to which a set of items that comprise a measurement instrument tap a single, unidimensional construct [Lee J. Cronbach (1916 - 2001), U.S. Psychologist]
Cronbach’s Alpha
The change in sensitivity to one stimulus caused by adaptation to another
Cross Adaptation
A statistical measure of the association between corresponding values from a series of values for two or more variables
- This type of analysis generally is applied to time series information and indicates how similar the data sets are to one another
Cross Correlation
A branch of psychology that studies similar ties and varieties in human behavior across different cultures and identifies the different psychological constructs and explanatory models used by these cultures
- It may be contrasted with cultural psychology, which tends to adopt a systemic, within culture approach
Cross Cultural Psychology
A longitudinal experimental design used to increase the plausibility of causal inference in which two variables, A and B, are measured at time 1 (A1, B1) and at time 2 (A2, B2)
- Comparison of cross lagged correlations between A1B2 and B1A2 may suggest a preponderance of causal influence of A over B or of B over A
Cross Lagged Panel Design
Recognition of an object through a sense that differs from the sense through which it was originally encountered
Cross Modal Transfer
An experimental design in which individuals of different ages or developmental levels are directly compared, for example, in a cross sectional study comparing 5 year olds with 10 year olds
Cross Sectional Design
An experimental design in which two or more groups of individuals of different ages are directly compared over a period of time
- It is thus a combination of a cross sectional design and a longitudinal design
- For example, a cross sequential study of children’s mathematical skills initially might compare a group of 5 year olds to a group of 10 year olds, and then subsequently reassess the same children every 6 months for the next 5 years
Cross Sequential Design
The potential for a drug to produce the diminished effects of another drug of the same type when tissue tolerance for the effects of the latter substance has developed
- Thus, a person with alcohol dependence can substitute a barbiturate or another sedative to prevent withdrawal symptoms, and vice versa
- Similarly, this exists among most of the hallucinogens, except marijuana
Cross Tolerance
A model evaluation approach in which the validity of a model is assessed by applying it to new data (ie; data that were not used in developing the model)
- For example, a test’s validity may be confirmed by administering the same test to a new sample in order to check the correctness of the initial validation
- It is necessary because chance and other factors may have inflated or biased the original validation
Cross Validation
Psychological tension produced in environments of high population density, especially when individuals feel that the amount of space available to them is insufficient for their needs
- It may have a damaging effect on mental health and may result in poor performance of complex tasks, stressor after effects, and increased physiological stress
- Two key mechanisms underlying this are lack of control over social interaction (ie; privacy) and the deterioration of socially supportive relationships
Crowding
- The mental and emotional states and processes unique to individuals when they are members of street crowds, mobs, and other such collectives
- The scientific study of these phenomena
Crowd Psychology
The form of intelligence that comprises those abilities, such as vocabulary and cultural knowledge, that are a function of learning and experience in a specific culture
- This is believed to depend on physiological condition somewhat less than does fluid intelligence and thus may be better sustained in old age
Crystallized Intelligence
A stimulus that serves to guide behavior, such as a retrieval cue
Cue
Forgetting caused by the absence at testing of a stimulus (or cue) that was present when the learning occurred
Cue Dependent Forgetting
The tendency to interpret and judge phenomena in terms of the distinctive values, beliefs, and other characteristics of the society or community to which one belongs
- This sometimes leads people to form opinions and make decisions about others in advance of any actual experience with those others
- It has become a significant concern in many areas, including psychometric, ergonomics, and clinical psychology
Cultural Bias
The theory or premise that individual and group character patterns are produced largely by a given society’s economic, social, political, and religious organization
Cultural Determinism
An interdisciplinary extension of general psychology concerned with those psychological processes that are inherently organized by culture
- It is a heterogeneous class of perspectives that focus on explaining how human psychological functions are culturally constituted through various forms of relations between people and their social contexts
- It may be contrasted with cross cultural psychology, which tends to examine multiple cultures in order to identify the similarities and variances among them
Cultural Psychology
The view that attitudes, behaviors, values, concepts, and achievements must be understood in the light of their own cultural milieu and not judged according to the standards of a different culture
- In psychology, the relativist position questions the universal application of psychological theory, research, therapeutic techniques, and clinical approaches, since those used or developed in one culture may not be appropriate or applicable to another
Cultural Relativism
The view that the values, concepts, and behaviors characteristic of diverse cultures can be viewed, understood, and judged according to universal standards
- Such a view involves the rejection, at least in part, of cultural relativism
Cultural Universalism
The distinctive customs, values, beliefs, language, and other characteristics of a society or a community
Culture
A pattern of mental Inness and abnormal behavior that is unique to a small ethnic or cultural population and does not conform to western classifications of psychiatric disorders
- Some of these include, among others, Amok, Imu, Koro, Latah, Mal de Pelea, Myriachit, Piblokto, Susto, Voodoo Death, and Windigo
Culture Bound Syndrome
An intelligence test based on common human experience designed to apply across social lines and to permit fair comparisons among people from different cultures
- Nonverbal, nonacademic items are used, such as matching identical forms, selecting a design that completes a given series, or drawing human figures
- Studies have shown, however, that any test reflects certain cultural norms in some degree, and hence may tend to favor members of certain cultures over members of others
Culture Fair Test
An intelligence test designed to eliminate cultural bias completely by constructing questions that contain either no environmental influences or no environmental influences that reflect any specific culture
- However, the creation of such a test is probably impossible, and psychometricians instead generally seek to develop culture fair tests
Culture Free Test
A cultural norm in a region, nation, or ethnic group prescribing violence as the preferred reaction to an insult or other threat to a person’s honor
- It has been held to account for regional and national differences in violent crime rates
- A related concept is subculture of violence, used to explain the relatively high rates of violent crime in certain minority populations in poverty stricken urban areas
Culture of Honor
A continuous record to which new data are added
- In conditioning, for example, this is a graph showing the number of responses over a continuous period of time
- It is often used in such contexts to display freely occurring behavior under schedules of reinforcement and provides a direct and continuous indicator of the rate of response
Cumulative Record
A functional relationship between variables that is not of a straight line form when depicted graphically
Curvilinear Correlation
Relating to or affecting the skin
- For example, this type of receptor, such as pacinian corpuscle, is a specialized cell in the skin that detects and responds to specific external stimuli
Cutaneous
The scientific study of communication and control as applied to machines and living organisms
- It includes the study of self regulation mechanisms, as in thermostats or feedback circuits in the nervous system, as well as transmission and self correction of information in both computers and human communications
- It was formerly used to describe research in artificial intelligence
Cybernetics
A second messenger that is involved in the activities of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin in transmitting signals at nerve synapses
Cyclic AMP (cAMP; cyclic Adenosine Monophosphate)
A second messenger that is common in neurons receiving signals at synapses
Cyclic GMP (cGMP; cyclic Guanosine Monophosphate)
A mood disorder characterized by periods of hypomanic symptoms and periods of depressive symptoms that occur over the course of at least two years
- The number, duration, and severity of these symptoms do not meet the full criteria for a major depressive episode or a hypomanic episode
- It often is considered to be a mild bipolar disorder
Cyclothymic Disorder
The arrangement of cells in organs and tissues, particularly those in the neocortex
- The different types of cortical cellss are organized in layers and zones; the number of layers varies in different brain areas, but a typical section of neocortex shows six distinct layers
- Differences in this have been used to divide the neocortex into 50 or more regions, many of which differ in function
- The scientific study of cytoarchitecture of an organ is called cytoarchitectonics
Cytoarchitecture
A small patch of neurons in the striate cortex with greater than background levels of activity of cytochrome oxidase, an enzyme in the inner membrane of mitochondria that is important in aerobic respiration
- Neurons in these are sensitive to the wavelength of a visual stimulus
Cytochrome Oxidase Blob
Any of a variety of small proteins or peptides that are released by cells as signals to those or other cells
- Each type stimulates a target cell that has a specific receptor for that cytokine
- They mediate many responses of the immune system, including proliferation and differentiation of lymphocytes, inflammation, allergies, and fever
Cytokine
An internal framework or “scaffolding” present in all cells
- Composed of a network of filaments and microtubules, it maintains the cell shape and plays an important role in cell movement, growth, division, and differentiation, as well as in intracellular transport (eg; the movement of vesicles)
Cytoskeleton
