I Flashcards
Denoting or relating to a pathological condition that is caused inadvertently by treatment, particularly the actions of a health care professional
- For example, an iatrogenic addiction is a dependence on a substance, most often a painkiller, originally prescribed by a physician to treat a physical or psychological disorder
Iatrogenic
The brief retention of an image of a visual stimulus beyond cessation of the stimulus
- This iconic image usually lasts less than a second
- In a multistore model of memory, this precedes short term memory
Iconic Memory
In psychoanalytic theory, the component of the personality that contains the instinctual, biological drives that supply the psyche with its basic energy or libido
- Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) conceived of the id as the most primitive component of the personality, located in the deepest level of the unconscious; it has no inner organization and operates in obedience to the pleasure principle
- Thus the infant’s life is dominated by the desire for immediate gratification of instincts, such as hunger and sex, until the ego begins to develop and operate in accordance with reality
Id
In cognitive psychology, a mental image or cognition that is ultimately derived from experience but that may occur without direct reference to perception or sensory processes
Idea
In philosophy, the position that reality, including the natural world, is not independent of mind
- Positions range from strong forms, holding that mind constitutes the things of reality, to weaker forms holding that reality is correlated with the workings of the mind
- There is also a range of positions as to the nature of mind, from those holding that mind must be conceived of as absolute, universal, and apart from nature itself to those holding that mind may be conceived of as individual minds
Idealism
In models of self concept, a mental representation of an exemplary set of psychological attributes that one strives or wishes to possess
Ideal Self
A firmly held, irrational idea or belief that is maintained despite evidence to the contrary
- It may take the form of a delusion and become an obsession
Idée Fixe
- The process of associating the self closely with other individuals and their characteristics or views
- This operates largely on an unconscious or semi conscious level - In psychoanalytic theory, a defense mechanism in which the individual incorporates aspects of his or her objects inside the ego in order to alleviate the anxiety associated with object loss or to reduce hostility between himself or herself and the object
Identification
- An individual’s sense of self defined by (a) a set of physical and psychological characteristics that is not wholly shared with any other person and (b) a range of social and interpersonal affiliations (eg; ethnicity) and social roles
- This involves a sense of continuity: the feeling that one is the same person today that one was yesterday or last year (despite physical or other changes) - In cognitive development, awareness that an object remains the same even though it may undergo many transformations
- For example, a piece of clay may be made to assume various forms but is still the same piece of clay
Identity
A phase of life marked by role experimentation, changing, conflicting, or newly emerging values, and a lack of understanding of oneself or one’s roles in society
Identity Crisis
In the ego psychology of German born U.S. Psychologist Erik Erikson (1902 - 1994), a possible outcome of the identity versus identity confusion stage in which the individual emerges with an uncertain sense of identity and confusion about his or her wishes, attitudes, and goals
Identity Diffusion
Premature commitment to an identity: the unquestioning acceptance by individuals ((usually adolescents) of the role, values, and goals that others (eg; parents, close friends, teachers, athletic coaches) have chosen for them
Identity Foreclosure
An adolescent’s characteristic mode of approaching problems and decisions that are relevant to his or her personal identity or sense of self
- Differences in style reflect differences in the social cognitive processes that individuals use to construct a sense of identity
- Three basic styles are recognized: informational, normative, and diffuse avoidant
- Information oriented individuals actively seek out, evaluate, and use self relevant information
- They are skeptical about their self constructions and willing to test and revise aspects of their self identity when confronted with discrepant feedback
- Normative individuals deal with identity questions and decisional situations by conforming to the prescriptions and expectations of significant others
- Diffuse avoidant oriented individuals are reluctant to face up to and confront personal problems and decisions
Identity Style
The fifth of Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development, occurring during adolescence, in which the individual experiences a psychosocial moratorium, a period of time that permits experimentation with social roles
- The individual may “try on” different roles and identity with different groups before forming a cohesive, positive identity that allows him or her to contribute to society; alternatively, the individual may remain confused about his or her sense of identity, a state Erikson calls identity confusion
Identity versus Identity Confusion
A systematic ordering of ideas with associated doctrines, attitudes, beliefs, and symbols that together form a more or less coherent philosophy for a person, group, or sociopolitical movement
Ideology
Denoting internality to the self, particularly an orientation toward or focus on personal needs and interests
Idiocentric
Relating to the description and understanding of an individual case, as opposed to the formulation of nomothetic general laws describing the average case
- This type of approach involves the thorough, intensive study of a single person or case in order to obtain an in depth understanding of that person or case, as contrasted with a study of the universal aspects of groups of people or cases
Idiographic
A dialect spoken at the level of an individual
- The term is typically reserved for the most idiosyncratic forms of personal language use, especially those involving eccentricities of construction or vocabulary
Idiolect
A peculiarity of an individual, such as a habit or abnormal susceptibility to something (eg; a drug)
Idiosyncrasy
An explanation of the leniency that groups sometimes display when high status members violate group norms
- This model assumes that such individuals, by contributing to the group in significant ways and expressing loyalty to it, build up idiosyncrasy credits, which they “spend” whenever they make errors or deviate from the group’s norms
Idiosyncrasy Credit Model
In psychoanalysis, an approach that focuses on the unorganized, instinctual impulses contained in the id that seek immediate pleasurable gratification of primitive needs
- The id is believed to dominate the lives of infants and is frequently described as blind and irrational until it is disciplined by the other two major components of the personality: the ego and the superego
Id Psychology
A false perception
- These result from the misinterpretation of sensory stimuli and are normal occurrences
- Visual (or optical) types are particularly common and include the well known Müller- Lyer Illusion
Illusion
The attribution of a characteristic of one stimulus to another stimulus when the stimuli are presented only briefly
- These are most common with visual stimuli when, for example, the color of one form can be attributed to a different form
Illusory Conjunction
The appearance of a relationship that in reality does not exist or an overestimation of the degree of relationship (ie; correlation) between two variables
Illusory Correlation
- A likeness or cognitive representation of an earlier sensory experience recalled without external stimulation
- For example, remembering the shape of a horse or the sound of a jet airplane brings to mind an image derived from earlier experiences with these stimuli - A representation of an object produced by an optical system
Image
- The generation of mental images
- Such images considered collectively
Imagery
A type of exposure therapy used for treating individuals with anxiety disorders (eg; phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder) or posttraumatic stress disorder
- Vivid imagery evoked through speech is used by the therapist to expose the client mentally to an anxiety evoking stimulus
Imaginal Exposure
The belief of an adolescent that others are constantly focusing attention on him or her, scrutinizing behaviors, appearance, and the like
- The adolescent feels as though he or she is continually the central topic of interest to a group of spectators (ie; an audience) when in fact this is not the case (ie; an imaginary audience)
- It is reflective of acute self consciousness and is considered an expression of adolescent egocentrism
Imaginary Audience
- The process of scanning the brain or other organs or tissues to obtain an optical image
- Techniques used include computed tomography, positron emission tomography (PET), anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (aMRI), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) - In therapy, the use of suggested mental images to control body function, including the easing of pain
Imaging
An unconscious mental image of another person, especially the mother or father, that influences the way in which an individual relates to others
- This is typically formed in infancy and childhood and is generally an idealized or otherwise not completely accurate representation
- The term was originally used by Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) and the early psychoanalysts, and its meaning has carried over into other schools of psychology and psychotherapy
Imago
The process of copying the behavior of another person, group, or object, intentionally or unintentionally
- Some theorists propose that true imitation requires that an observer be able to take the perspective of the model
- This contrasts with other forms of social learning, such as emulation (engaging in similar behavior that does not necessarily replicate the specific actions of the model) and mimicry
Imitation
The belief rules are fixed and immutable and that punishment automatically follows misdeeds regardless of extenuating circumstances
- Children up to the age of 8 equate the morality of an act only with its consequences; not until later do they develop the capacity to judge motive and subjective considerations
Immanent Justice
The philosophical position that denies the independent existence of matter as a substance in which qualities might inhere
- Sensible objects are held to exist as the sum of the qualities they produce in the perceiving mind, with no material substratum
- It is difficult to distinguish such a position from idealism, which holds that mind is essential to all reality and that things and qualities exist only as perceived
Immaterialism
A state of incomplete growth or development (eg; neural immaturity)
- The term, however, is often used to describe childish, maladaptive, or otherwise inappropriate behaviors, particularly when indicative of a lack of age relevant skills
Immaturity
A complex system in vertebrates that helps protect the body against pathological effects of foreign substances (antigens), such as viruses and bacteria
- The organs involved include the bone marrow and thymus, in which lymphocytes - the principal agents responsible for specific immune responses - are produced, together with the spleen, lymph nodes, and other lymphoid tissues and various chemicals (eg; cytokines) that mediate the immune response
Immune System
Any departure from the body’s typical physiological or psychological functioning
Impairment
An implicit attitude measure in which participants perform a series of categorization tasks on computer for a set of words representing an attitude object (eg; words such as ant, fly, and grasshopper representing the attitude object of insects) and for a second set of intermixed words, selected to be highly evaluative in nature
- If attitudes are positive, judging the target words should be faster when the same response key is used for category membership and positive words than when the same response key is used for category membership and negative words
- Negative attitudes produce the opposite pattern
Implicit Association Test
A relatively enduring and general evaluative response of which a person has little or no conscious awareness
Implicit Attitude
Learning of a cognitive or behavioral task that occurs without intention to learn or awareness of what has been learned
- This is evidenced by improved task performance rather than as a response to an explicit request to remember
Implicit Learning
Memory for a previous event or experience that is produced indirectly, without an explicit request to recall the event and without awareness that memory is involved
- For instance, after seeing the word store in one context, a person would complete the word fragment st_r_as store rather than stare, even without remembering that store had been recently encountered
- This term is used interchangeably with non declarative memory
Implicit Memory
Any set of tacit assumptions about the interrelations of personality traits, used in everyday life when people infer the presence of one trait on the basis of observing another
Implicit Personality Theory
A technique in behavior therapy that is similar to flooding but distinct in generally involving imagined stimuli and in attempting to enhance anxiety arousal by adding imaginary exposure cues believed by the therapist to be relevant to the client’s fear
Implosive Therapy
The inability of a man to complete the sex act due to partial or complete failure to achieve or maintain erection
- This condition is called male erectile disorder in DSM- IV-TR and erectile dysfunction in clinical contexts
Impotence
The process in which an individual develops a perceptual schema of some object, person, or group
- Early research on this demonstrated that the accuracy of impressions was frequently poor; more recent studies have focused on the roles played in the process by such factors as the perceiver’s cognitive processes (eg; how readily some types of ideas come to mind) and feelings (eg; anger can predispose the perceived to stereotype an individual)
Impression Formation
Behaviors that are designed to control how others perceive one’s self, especially by guiding them to attribute desirable traits to the self
- This has been offered as an alternative explanation for some phenomena that have traditionally been interpreted in terms of cognitive dissonance theory
- Some psychologists distinguish this from self presentation by proposing that this involves only deliberate, conscious strategies
Impression Management
A simple yet profound and highly effective learning process that occurs during a critical period in the life of some animals
- A well known example is that of newly hatched chicks following the first moving object, human or animal, they see
- Some investigators believe that such processes are instinctual; others regard them as a form of prepared learning
Imprinting
Describing or displaying behavior characterized by little or no forethought, reflection, or consideration of the consequences
Impulsive
A culture bound syndrome resembling latah, observed among the Ainu and Sakhalin women of Japan
- It is characterized by an extreme startle response involving automatic movements, imitative behavior, infantile reactions, and obedience to command
Imu
Emotional responses that are not in keeping with the situation or are incompatible with expressed thoughts or wishes, for example, smiling when told about the death of a friend
Inappropriate Affect
Failure to notice and remember otherwise perceptible stimuli in the visual background while the focus of attention is elsewhere
- Research into this has led some to conclude that there is no conscious perception of the world without attention
Inattentional Blindness
An external stimulus, such as a condition or an object, that enhances or serves as a motive for behavior
Incentive
The theory that motivation arousal depends on the interaction between environmental incentives (ie; stimulus objects) - both positive and negative - and an organism’s psychological and physiological states (eg; drive states)
Incentive Theory
Sexual activity between people of close blood relationship (eg; brother and sister) that is prohibited by law or custom
- These type of taboos are found in practically every society
Incest
The rate of occurrence of new cases of a given event or condition, such as a disorder, disease, symptom, or injury, in a particular population in a given period
- An incidence rate is normally expressed as the number of cases per some standard proportion (1,000 or 100,000 are commonly used) of the entire population at risk per year
Incidence
Learning that is not premeditated, deliberate, or intentional and that is acquired as a result of some other, possibly unrelated, mental activity
- Some theorists believe that much learning takes place without any intention to learn, occurring incidentally to other cognitive processing of information
Incidental Learning
The practice of teaching students with disabilities in the same classroom as other students to the fullest extent possible, via the provision of appropriate supportive services
Inclusion
The reproductive success not only of an individual but of all that individual’s relatives in proportion to their coefficient of relatedness (mean number of genes shared)
- In calculating estimates of reproductive success, it is assumed that parents, offspring, and siblings have an average of 50% of their genes in common, grandparents and grand offspring, and uncles and nieces, share 25% of genes, and so forth
Inclusive Fitness
- The inability to carry out a required task or activity adequately
- In law, the inability to make sound judgements regarding one’s transactions or personal affairs
- With regard to the criminal justice system, this is the inability of a defendant to participate meaningfully in criminal proceedings
Incompetence
Lack of consistency or appropriateness, as in inappropriate affect or as when one’s subjective evaluation of a situation is at odds with reality
Incongruence
- Freedom from the influence or control of other individuals or groups
- Complete lack of relationship between two or more events, sampling units, or variables such that none is influenced by any other and that changes in any one have no implication for changes in any other
Independence
- The ability of an individual to perform - without assistance from others - all or most of the daily functions typically required to be self sufficient, including those tasks essential to personal care and to maintaining a home and job
- A philosophy and civil reform movement promoting the rights of people with disabilities to determine the course of their lives and be full, productive members of society with access to the same social and political freedoms and opportunities as individuals without disabilities
Independent Living
A view of the self that emphasizes one’s unique traits and accomplishments and downplays one’s embeddedness in a network of social relationships
Independent Self Construal
The variable in an experiment that is specifically manipulated
- This may or may not be causally related to the dependent variable
- In statistical analysis, this is likely to be referred to as a predictor variable
Independent Variable (IV)
The philosophical position that events do not have necessary and sufficient causes
- This manifests itself in psychology as the doctrine that humans have free will and are able to act independently of antecedent or current situations, as in making choices
Indeterminism
Traits or other characteristics by which individuals may be distinguished from one another
- This is the focus of differential psychology, for which the term individual differences psychology increasingly is used
Individual Differences
A social or cultural tradition, ideology, or personal outlook that emphasizes the individual and his or her rights and independence
Individualism
A plan for providing specialized educational services and procedures that meet the unique needs of a child with a disability
- Each IEP must be documented in writing, tailored to a particular child, and implemented in accordance with the requirements of U.S. federal law
Individualized Education Program (IEP)
The psychological theory of Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler (1870 - 1937), which is based on the idea that throughout life individuals strive for a sense of mastery, completeness, and belonging and are governed by a conscious drive to overcome their sense of inferiority by developing to their fullest potential, obtaining their life goals, and creating their own styles of life
Individual Psychology
A test designed to be administered to a single examinee at a time
Individual Test
Treatment of psychological problems that is conducted on a one to one basis
- One therapist sees one client at a time, tailoring the process to his or her unique needs in the exploration of contributory factors and alleviation of symptoms
Individual Therapy
- The physiological, psychological, and sociocultural processes by which a person attains status as an individual human being and exerts himself or herself as such in the world
- In the psychoanalytic theory of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875 - 1961), the gradual development of a unified, integrated personality that incorporates greater and greater amounts of the unconscious, both personal and collective, and resolves any conflicts that exist, such as those between introverted and extroverted tendencies
Individuation
Any of a class of biogenic amines formed by an indole molecule, which is produced as a breakdown metabolite of tryptophan, and an amine group
- These include the neurotransmitter serotonin and the hormone melatonin
Indoleamine
- A general conclusion, principle, or explanation derived by reasoning from particular instances or observations
- The process of inductive reasoning itself
- In conditioning, the phenomenon in which reinforcement of some forms of behavior results in an increased probability not only of these forms but also of similar but nonreinforced forms
- For example, if lever presses with forces between 0.2 and 0.3 N are reinforced, presses with forces less than 0.2 N or greater than 0.3 N will increase in frequency although they are never explicitly reinforced
Induction
The form of reasoning in which inferences and general principles are drawn from specific observations and cases
- This is a cornerstone of the scientific method in that it underlies the process of developing hypotheses from particular facts and observations
Inductive Reasoning
The branch of psychology that studies human behavior in the work environment and applies general psychological principles to work related issues and problems, notably in such areas as personnel selection and training, employee evaluation, working conditions, accident prevention, job analysis, job satisfaction, leadership, team effectiveness, organizational effectiveness, work motivation, and the welfare of employees
Industrial and Organizational Psychology (I/O Psychology)
The fourth of Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development, occurring from ages 6 to 11 years, during which the child learns to be productive and to accept evaluation of his or her efforts or becomes discouraged and feels inferior or incompetent
Industry versus Inferiority
The earliest period of postnatal life, in humans generally denoting the time from birth through the first year
Infancy
The specialized style of speech that adults and older children use when talking specifically to infants, which usually includes much inflection and repetition
Infant Directed Speech
In psychoanalytic theory, the concept that psychic energy or libido concentrated in various organs of the body throughout infancy gives rise to erotic pleasure
- This is manifested in sucking the mother’s breast during the oral stage of development, in defecating during the anal stage, and in self stimulating activities during the early genital stage
- The term and concept, first enunciated by Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939), proved highly controversial from the start, and it is more in line with subsequent thought to emphasize the sensual nature of breast feeding, defecation, and discovery of the body in childhood and the role of the pleasurable feelings so obtained in the origin and development of sexual feelings
Infantile Sexuality
Behavior, physical characteristics, or mental functioning in older children or adults that is characteristic of that of infants or young children
Infantilism
A broad class of statistical techniques that allows inferences about characteristics of a population to be drawn from a sample of data from that population while controlling (at least partially) the extent to which errors of inference may be made
- These techniques include approaches for testing hypotheses and estimating the value of parameters
Inferential Statistics
In anatomy, lower, below, or toward the feet
Inferior
A basic feeling of inadequacy and insecurity, deriving from actual or imagined physical or psychological deficiency, that may result in behavioral expression ranging from the “withdrawal” of immobilizing timidity to the overcompensation of excessive competition and aggression
Inferiority Complex
A region of the brain on the inferior (lower) portion of the outer layer (cortex) of the temporal lobe that is particularly involved in the perception of form
Inferotemporal Cortex
Inability to produce offspring
Infertility