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
The state that occurs when the amount or intensity of environmental stimuli exceeds the individual’s processing capacity, thus leading to an unconscious or subliminal disregard for some environmental information
Information Overload
In cognitive psychology, the flow of knowledge through the human nervous system, involving the operation of perceptual systems, memory stores, decision processes, and response mechanisms
- Information processing psychology is the approach that concentrates on understanding these operations
Information Processing
The principles relating to the communication or transmission of information, which is defined as any message that reduces uncertainty
- These principles deal with such areas as the encoding and decoding of messages, types of channels of communication and their capacity to throughput information, the application of mathematical methods to the process, the problem of noise (distortion), and the relative effectiveness of various kinds of feedback
Information Theory
Voluntary agreement to participate in a research or therapeutic procedure on the basis of the participant’s or patient’s understanding of its nature, its potential benefits and possible risks, and available alternatives
Informed Consent
Any periodic variation in physiological or psychological function recurring in a cycle of less than 24 hours
Infradian Rhythm
Sound whose frequency is too low to be detected by human hearing, generally encompassing the range of 20 Hz to .001 Hz
- the scientific study of this is known as infrasonics
- Able to cover long distances and circumvent or penetrate obstacles without dispersing, infrasonic waves are used by many animals to communicate and have a variety of applications in geological monitoring (eg; prediction of volcanic eruptions, detection of earthquakes)
Infrasound
Efforts to win the liking and approval of other people, especially by deliberate impression management
- It is usually regarded as consisting of illicit or objectionable strategies, especially for manipulative purposes, which distinguishes it from sincere efforts to be likeable
Ingratiation
Any group to which one belongs or with which one identifies, but particularly a group judged to be different from, and often superior to, other groups (outgroups)
Ingroup
The tendency to favor one’s own group, its members, its characteristics, and its products, particularly in reference to other groups
- The favoring of the ingroup tends to be more pronounced than the rejection of the outgroup, but both tendencies become more pronounced during periods of intergroup contact
- At the regional, cultural, or national level, this bias is often termed ethnocentrism
Ingroup Bias
Any of a variety of volatile substances that can be inhaled to produce intoxicating effects
- Anesthetic gases (eg; ether, chloroform, nitrous oxide), industrial solvents (eg; toluene, gasoline, trichloroethylene, various aerosol propellants), and organic nitrites (eg; amyl nitrite) are common types
Inhalant
The process of restraining or prohibiting, particularly one’s impulses or behavior
- The term is applied to a variety of contexts and occurrences, but is associated especially with psychoanalysis, referring to an unconscious mechanism in which the superego controls instinctive impulses that would threaten the ego if allowed conscious expression
Inhibition
Difficulty in returning attention to a previously attended location
- When attention has been directed to a location for a period of time, it is more difficult to redirect attention to that location than to direct it to another location
Inhibition of Return
A brief increase in the difference in electrical charge across the membrane of a neuron that is caused by the transmission of a signal from a neighboring neuron across the synapse (specialized junction) separating them
- IPSPs decrease the probability that the postsynaptic neuron will initiate an action potential and hence fire a nerve impulse
Inhibitory Postsynaptic Potential (IPSP)
A specialized type of junction at which activity from one neuron (in the form of an action potential) reduces the probability of activity in an adjacent neuron by initiating an inhibitory postsynaptic potential
Inhibitory Synapse
The third of Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development, which occurs during the child’s 3rd through 5th years
- In planning, launching, and initiating all forms of fantasy, play, and other activity, the child learns to believe in his or her ability to successfully pursue goals
- However, should these pursuits often fail or be criticized, the child may develop instead a feeling of self doubt and guilt
Initiative versus Guilt
Inborn, native, or natural: denoting a capability or characteristic existing in an organism from birth, that is, belonging to the original or essential constitution of the body or mind
- Innate processes should be distinguished from those that develop later under maturational control or through experience
Innate
In ethology, the hypothesized neurological means by which organisms exhibit a fixed action pattern given a particular releases, suggesting that there is a direct correspondence between a specific elicitor and a specific behavioral event
Innate Releasing Mechanism (IRM)
The part of the ear that comprises the bony and membranous labrinyths and contains the sense organs responsible for hearing and balance
- For hearing the major structure is the cochlea
- For the sense of balance, the major structures are the semicircular canals, saccule, and utricle
Inner Ear
The layer of retinal cell bodies interposed between the photoreceptors and the retinal ganglion cells
- This contains amacrine cells, retinal horizontal cells, retinal bipolar cells, and müller cells
Inner Nuclear Layer
The synaptic layer in the retina in which contacts are made between the dendrites of retinal ganglion cells, bipolar neurons, and amacrine cells
Inner Plexiform Layer
The supply of nerves to an organ (eg; muscle or gland) or a body region
Innervation
A person who has been formally admitted to a hospital for a period of at least 24 hours for observation, care, diagnosis, or treatment, as distinguished from an outpatient or an emergency room patient
Inpatient
In law, a condition of the mind that renders a person incapable of being responsible for his or her criminal acts
- Whether a person is insane, in this legal sense, is determined by judges and juries, not psychologists or psychiatrists
Insanity
In the strange situation, one of several patterns of generally negative parent child relationship in which the child fails to display confidence when the parent is present, sometimes shows distress when the parent leaves, and reacts to the returning parent by not seeking close contact (avoidant attachment) or by simultaneously seeking and avoiding close contact (ambivalent attachment)
Insecure Attachment
- The clear and often sudden discernment of a solution to a problem by means that are not obvious and may never become so, ever after one has tried hard to work out now one has arrived at the solution
- There are many different theories of how insights are formed and of the kinds of insights that exist - In psychotherapy, an awareness of underlying sources of emotional, cognitive, or behavioral difficulty in oneself or another person
Insight
A form of learning involving the mental rearrangement or restructuring of the elements in a problem to achieve a sudden understanding of the problem and arrive at a solution
- Originally described around 1917 by German experimental psychologist Wolfgang Köhler (1887 - 1967), based on observations of apes stacking boxes or using sticks to retrieve food, this was offered as an alternative to trial and error learning
Insight Learning
Any form of psychotherapy based on the theory that a client’s problems cannot be resolved without his or her gaining self understanding and thus becoming aware of their origins
- This approach (characteristic, for example, of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy) contrasts with therapies directed toward removal of symptoms or behavior modification
Insight Therapy
Difficulty in initiating or maintaining a restorative sleep that results in fatigue, the severity or persistence of which causes clinically significant distress or impairment in functioning
Insomnia
- An innate, species specific biological force that impels an organism to do something, particularly to perform a certain act or respond in a certain manner to specific stimuli
- In psychoanalytic theory, a basic biological drive (eg; hunger, thirst, sex, or aggression) that must be fulfilled in order to maintain physical and psychological equilibrium
- Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) classified instincts into two types: those derived from the life instinct and those derived from the death instinct - In popular usage, any inherent or unlearned predisposition (behavioral or otherwise) or motivational force
Instinct
- Placement of an individual in an institution for therapeutic or correctional purposes
- An individual’s gradual adaptation to institutional life over a long period, especially when this is seen as rendering him or her passive, dependent, and generally unsuited to life outside the institution
Institutionalization
Differential treatment of individuals on the basis of their racial group by social institutions, including religious organizations, governments, businesses, the media, and educational institutions
- Examples include discrimination in hiring, promotion, and advancement at work, restrictive housing regulations that promote segregation, unfair portrayal of minority members in newspapers and magazines, and legal statutes that restrict the civil liberties of the members of specific racial categories
- A parallel phenomenon exists for sexism
Institutionalized Racism
A committee named by an agency or institution to review research proposals originating within that agency for ethical acceptability
Institutional Review Board (IRB)
Activities essential to an individual’s ability to function autonomously, including cooking, doing laundry, using the telephone, managing money, shopping, getting to places beyond walking distance, and the like
Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs)
Any form of conditioning in which the correct response is essential for reinforcement
- This is similar to operant conditioning and usually involves complex activities in order to reach a goal, such as when a rat is trained to navigate a maze to obtain food
- It contrasts with Pavlovian conditioning, in which reinforcement is given regardless of the response
Instrumental Conditioning
A theory of knowledge that emphasizes the pragmatic value, rather than the truth value, of ideas
- In this view, the value of an idea, concept, or judgement lies in its ability to explain, predict, and control one’s concrete functional interactions with the experienced world
- For example, a theory should not be considered as either true or false but as an instrument that allows observations of the world to be meaningfully ordered
- This view is related to pragmatism
Instrumentalism
A region of the cerebral cortex of primate brains that is buried in A cleft near the lower end of the lateral sulcus
Insula
A hormone, secreted by the B cells of the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas, that facilitates the transfer of glucose molecules through cell membranes
- Together with glucagon, it plays a key role in regulating blood sugar and carbohydrate metabolism
Insulin
- The initial interview with a client by a therapist or counselor to obtain both information regarding the issues or problems that have brought the client into therapy or counseling and preliminary information regarding personal and family history
- The initial interview with a patient who is being admitted into a psychiatric hospital, day treatment, or inpatient substance abuse facility to determine the best course of treatment and the appropriate therapist to provide it
Intake Interview
The coordination or unification of parts into a totality
- This general meaning has been incorporated into a wide variety of psychological contexts and topics
- For example, the integration of personality denotes the gradual bringing together of constituent traits, behavioral patterns, motives, and so forth to form an organized whole that functions effectively and with minimal effort or without conflict
Integration
Couples therapy that uses techniques of behavioral couples therapy but also focuses on each person’s emotional acceptance of his or her partner’s genuine incompatibilities, which may or may not be amenable to change
- It is based on the conviction that focusing on changing incompatibilities leads to a resistance to change when change is possible or that this focus results in unnecessary frustration for both partners when change is not possible
Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy
Psychotherapy that selects models or techniques from various therapeutic schools to suit the client’s particular problems
- For example, psychodynamic psychotherapy and gestalt therapy may be combined through the practice of interpretation of material in the here and now
- There is growing interest in and use of such combined therapeutic techniques
Integrative Psychotherapy
The eight and final stage of Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development, which occurs during old age
- In this stage the individual reflects on the life he or she has lived and may develop either integrity - a sense of satisfaction in having lived a good life and the ability to approach death with equanimity - or despair - a feeling of bitterness about opportunities missed and time wasted, and a dread of approaching death
Integrity versus Despair
The ability to derive information, learn from experience, adapt to the environment, understand, and correctly utilize thought and reason
- There are many different definitions of intelligence, and there is currently much debate, as there has been in the past, over the exact nature of intelligence
Intelligence
An individually administered test measuring a person’s ability to solve problems, form concepts, reason, acquire detail, and perform other intellectual tasks
- It comprises mental, verbal, and performance tasks of graded difficulty that have been standardized by use on a representative sample of the population
Intelligence Test
The strength or quantitative value of a stimulus (eg; intensity of a sound) or sensation (eg; intensity of an emotion)
Intensity
A relationship between two or more systems, people, or groups that results in mutual or reciprocal influence
Intention
The joint effect of two or more independent variables on a dependent variable above and beyond the sum of their individual effects: the independent variables combine to have a different (and multiplicative) effect, such that the value of one is contingent upon the value of another
- This indicates that the relationship between the independent variables changes as their values change
- These contrast with - and may obscure - main effects
Interaction Effect
- The position that mind and body are distinct, incompatible substances that nevertheless interact, so that each has a causal influence on the other
- This position is particularly associated with French philosopher René Descartes (1596 - 1650) - A set of approaches, particularly in personality psychology, in which behavior is explained not in terms of personality attributes or situational influences but by references to social interactions that typify the behavior of a certain type of person in a certain type of setting
Interactionism
A technique used to study the emotional, intellectual, and behavioral interactions among members of a group, for example, during group therapy
- It requires observers to classify every behavior displayed by a member of a group into one of 12 mutually exclusive categories, such as “asks for information” or “shows tension”
Interaction Process Analysis
The correlation between each variable and every other variable in a group of variables
Intercorrelation
A state in which factors rely on or react with one another such that one cannot change without affecting the other
Interdependence
A view of the self that emphasizes one’s embeddedness in a network of social relationships and downplays one’s unique traits or accomplishments
Interdependent Self Construal
A manner of dealing with psychological, medical, or other scientific questions in which individuals from different disciplines or professions collaborate to obtain a more thorough, detailed understanding of the nature of the questions and consequently develop more comprehensive answers
Interdisciplinary Approach
- The blocking of learning or recall by the learning or remembering of other, conflicting material
- This has many sources, including prior learning (proactive interference), subsequent learning (retroactive interference), competition during recall (output interference), and presentation of other material - The mutual effect on meeting of two or more light, sound, or any other waves, the overlap of which produces a new pattern of waves
Interference
The hypothesis that forgetting is due to competition from other learning or other memories
Interference Theory
An impulse control disorder consisting of multiple episodes in which the individual commits assaultive acts or destroys property
- These aggressive acts are significantly out of proportion to any precipitating factors, are not caused by any other mental disorder or a general medical condition, and are not substance induced
Intermittent Explosive Disorder
In operant or instrumental conditioning, any pattern of reinforcement in which only some responses are reinforced
Intermittent Reinforcement
The ability to recognize an object initially inspected with one modality (eg; touch) via another modality (eg; vision)
Intermodal Matching
The coordination or integration of information from two or more senses, such as touch and vision
Intermodal Perception
A large band of nerve fibers in the corpus striatum that extends between the caudate nucleus on its medial side and the globus pallidus and putamen on its lateral side
- It contains afferent and efferent fibers from all parts of the cerebral cortex as they converge near the brainstem
Internal Capsule
The degree to which all the items on a test measure the same thing
Internal Consistency
- The unconscious mental process by which the characteristics, beliefs, feelings, or altitudes of other individuals or groups are assimilated into the self and adopted as one’s own
- In psychoanalytic theory, the process of incorporating an object relationship inside the psyche, which reproduces the external relationship as an intrapsychic phenomenon
- For example, through this the relationship between father and child is reproduced in the relationship between superego and ego
- This is often mistakenly used as a synonym for introjection
Internalization
The degree to which a study or experiment is free from flaws in its internal structure and its results can therefore be taken to represent the true nature of the phenomenon
Internal Validity
A cognitive construction or set of assumptions about the workings of relationships, such as expectations of support or affection
- The earliest relationships may form the template for this internal model, which may be positive or negative
Internal Working Model of Attachment
A system of categories of disease conditions compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO) in conjunction with 10 WHO collaborating centers worldwide
- The ICD-10 (10th revision), published in 1992 as the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, uses a four character alphanumeric coding system to classify diseases and disorders and their subtypes
International Classification of Diseases (ICD)
A behavioral pattern characterized by excessive or obsessive online and offline computer use that leads to distress and impairment
- The condition, though controversial, has attracted increasing attention in the popular media and among healthcare professionals; it has been proposed for inclusion in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
- Expanding research has identified various subtypes, including those involving excessive gaming, sexual preoccupations, and email and text messaging
Internet Addiction
Any neuron that is neither sensory nor motor but connects other neurons within the central nervous system
Interneuron
Sensitivity to stimuli that are inside the body, resulting from the response of specialized sensory cells called interoceptors to occurrences within the body (eg; from the viscera)
Interoception
Pertaining to actions, events, and feelings between two or more individuals
- For example, interpersonal skill is an aptitude enabling a person to carry on effective relationships with others, such as an ability to communicate thought and feeling or to assume appropriate social responsibilities
Interpersonal
The interest in and liking of one individual by another, or the mutual interest and liking between two or more individuals
- This may be based on shared experiences, physical appearances, internal motivation (eg; loneliness), or some combination of these
Interpersonal Attraction
A time limited form of psychotherapy in which the central feature is the clarification of the client’s interpersonal interactions with significant others
- The therapist helps the client explore current and past experiences in detail, relating not only to interpersonal reaction but also to environmental influences generally on personal adaptive and maladaptive thinking and behavior
Interpersonal Psychotherapy
The theory of personality developed by U.S. psychoanalyst Harry Stack Sullivan (1892 - 1949), which is based on the belief that people’s interactions with other people, especially significant others, determine their sense of security, sense of self, and the dynamisms that motivate their behavior
Interpersonal Theory
The confidence a person has in the honesty and reliability of others
Interpersonal Trust
A monocular depth cue occurring when two objects are in the same line of vision and the closer object, which is fully in view, partly conceals the farther object
Interposition
In psychotherapy, explanation by the therapist in terms that are meaningful to the client of the client’s issues, behaviors, or feelings
- This typically is made along the lines of the particular conceptual framework or dynamic model of the form of therapy
- In psychoanalysis, for example, the analyst uses the constructs of psychoanalytic theory to interpret the patient’s early experiences, dreams, character defenses, and resistance
- Although this exists to some extent in almost any form of therapy, it is a critical procedural step in psychoanalysis and in other forms of psychodynamic psychotherapy
Interpretation
In epistemology, the assertion that knowledge is deeply tied to the act of interpretation; there are multiple apprehendable and equally valid realities as opposed to a single objective reality
- This thus represents a form of relativism
Interpretivism
An index of the dispersion within a batch of scores: the difference between the 75th and 25th percentile scores within a distribution
Interquartile Range
The consistency with which different examiners produce similar ratings in judging the same abilities or characteristics in the same target person or object
- It usually refers to continuous measurement assignments
Interrater Reliability
An experimental design in which the effects of an intervention are evaluated by comparing outcome measures obtained at several time intervals before, and several time intervals after, the intervention was introduced
Interrupted Time Series Design
The coordination of information presented through separate modalities into an integrated experience
- Information from one sensory source is transmitted to the association cortex, where it can be integrated with information from another sensory source
Intersensory Perception
A modern term for hermaphroditism and pseudohermaphroditism: the condition of possessing the sexual characteristics of both sexes
Intersexuality
The property of being accessible in some way to more than one mind, implying a communication and understanding among different minds and the possibility of converting subjective, private experiences into objective, public ones
Intersubjectivity
Numerical values that indicate magnitude but lack a “natural,” meaningful zero point
- This represents exact quantities of the variables under consideration, and when arranged consecutively have equal differences among adjacent values regardless of the specific values selected) that correspond to genuine differences between the physical quantities being measured
- Temperature is an example of this: the difference between 50°F and 49°F is the same as the difference between 40°F and 39°F, but a temperature of 0°F does not indicate that there is no temperature
Interval Data
An estimated range of likely values for a given population parameter
Interval Estimate
The reinforcement of the first response to a stimulus after a predetermined interval has lapsed
- Reinforcement may be given at uniform or variable intervals; the number of responses during the interval is irrelevant
Interval Reinforcement
A scale marked in equal intervals so that the difference between any two consecutive values on the scare is equivalent regardless of the two values selected
- These lack a true, meaningful zero point, which is what distinguishes them from ratio scales
Interval Scale
- A hypothetical entity that is influenced by an independent variable and that in turn influences a dependent variable
- More specifically, an unseen process or event, inferred to occur within the organism between a stimulus event and the time of response, that affects the relationship between the stimulus and response
Intervening Variable
- Action on the part of a therapist to deal with the issues and problems of a client
- The selection of this is guided by the nature of the problem, the orientation of the therapist, the setting, and the willingness and ability of the client to proceed with the treatment - A technique in addictions counseling in which significant individuals in a client’s life meet with him or her, in the presence of a trained counselor, to express their observations and feelings about the client’s addiction and related problems
- The session, typically a surprise to the client, may last several hours, after which the client has a choice of seeking a recommended treatment immediately (eg; as an inpatient) or ignoring it
- If the client chooses not to seek treatment, participants state the interpersonal consequences
Intervention
A directed conversation intended to elicit specific information from an individual for purposes of research, diagnosis, treatment, or employment
- These may be either highly structured, including set questions, or unstructured, varying with material introduced by the interviewee
Interview
The influence of an interviewer’s attributes and behaviors on a respondent’s answers
- The interviewer’s appearance, demeanor, training, age, sex, and ethnicity may all produce effects of this kind
- The term interviewer bias refers more specifically to an interviewer’s expectations, beliefs, and prejudices as they influence the interview process and the interpretation of the data it provides
Interviewer Effects
An interpersonal state of extreme emotional closeness that usually characterizes affectionate or loving personal relationships and requires the parties to have a detailed knowledge or deep understanding of each other
Intimacy
The sixth of Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development, which extends from late adolescence through courtship and early family life to early middle age
- During this period, individuals must learn to share and care without losing themselves; if they fail, they will feel alone and isolated
- The development of a cohesive identity in the previous stage provides the opportunity to achieve true intimacy
Intimacy versus Isolation
- An index of the homogeneity of members (people, items, ect) within a group
- The average intercorrelation among randomly formed pairs of cases within a group
Intraclass Correlation
Describing factors operating or constructs occurring within the person, such as attitudes, decisions, self concept, self esteem, or self regulation
Intrapersonal
Pertaining to phenomena that arise or occur within the psyche or mind
- An inner conflict, for example, is the class of opposing forces within the psyche, such as conflicting drives, wishes, or agencies
Intrapsychic
An incentive to engage in a specific activity that derives from the activity itself (eg; a genuine interest in a subject studied), rather than because of any external benefits that might be obtained (eg; course credits)
Intrinsic Motivation
- A process in which an individual unconsciously incorporates aspects of the external environment into the self, particularly the attitudes, values, and qualities of another person
- This may occur, for example, in the mourning process for a loved one - In psychoanalytic theory, the process of internalizing the qualities of an external object into the psyche in the form of an internal object or mental representation, which then has an influence on behavior
- This process is posited to be a normal part of development, as when introjection of parental values and attitudes forms the superego, but may also be used as a defense mechanism in situations that arouse anxiety
Introjection
Self critical depression: intense sadness and dysphoria stemming from punitive, relentless feelings of self doubt, self criticism, and self loathing that often are related to the internalization of the attitudes and values of harsh and critical parental figures
- The individual with this becomes involved in numerous activities in an attempt to compensate for his or her excessively high standards, constant drive to perform and achieve, and feelings of guilt and shame over not having lived up to expectations
Introjective Depression
The act of sending or putting in something, especially the insertion of the penis into the vagina
Intromission
Referring to the punishment of oneself: tending to turn anger, blame, or hostility internally, against the self, in response to frustration
Intropunitive
The process of attempting to access directly one’s own internal psychological processes, judgements, perceptions, or states
Introspection
The doctrine that the basic method of psychological investigation is or should be introspection
- Historically, such an approach is associated with the school of psychological structuralism
Introspectionism
Orientation toward the internal private world of one’s self and one’s inner thoughts and feelings, rather than toward the outer world of people and things
- This is a broad personality trait and, like extraversion, exists on a continuum of attitudes and behaviors
- Introverts are relatively more withdrawn, retiring, reserved, quiet, and deliberate; they may tend to mute or guard expression of positive affect, adopt more skeptical views or positions, and prefer to work independently
Introversion
In a memory test, the recall of an item that was not among the material presented for remembering
- These can be informative about the nature of forgetting, for instance, if the intrusion is a synonym, rhyme, or associate of a correct item
Intrusion Error
- In the theory of ecological perception, any property of an object that remains constant although the point of observation or surrounding conditions may change
- In statistics, the property of being unchanged by a transformation
Invariance
- Denoting procedures or tests that require puncture or incision of the skin or insertion of an instrument or foreign material into the body
- Able to spread from one tissue to another, or having the capacity to spread, as in the case of an infection or a malignant tumor
Invasive
A proposed correlation between motivation (or arousal) and performance such that performance is poorest when motivation or arousal is at very low or very high states
- This function is typically referred to as the Yerkes Dodson Law
- Emotional intensity (motivation) increases from a zero point to an optimal point, increasing the quality of performance; increase in intensity after this optimal point leads to performance deterioration and disorganization, forming an inverted U shaped curve
- The optimal point is reached sooner (ie; at lower intensities) the less well learned or more complex the performance
Inverted U Hypothesis
A theory explaining commitment to a relationship in terms of one’s satisfaction with, alternatives to, and investments in the relationship
- According to the model, commitment is a function not only of a comparison of the relationship to the individual’s expectations, but also the quality of the best available alternative and the magnitude of the individual’s investment in the relationship; the investment of resources serves to increase commitment by increasing the costs of leaving the relationship
- Although originally developed in the context of romantic associations and friendships, this has since been extended to a variety of other areas, including employment and education
Investment Model
A procedure in which an ovum (egg) is removed from a woman’s body, fertilized externally with sperm, and then returned to the uterus
- It is used to treat the most difficult cases of infertility, but success rates for the procedure are not high
In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
A technique used in behavior therapy, usually to reduce or eliminate phobias, in which the client is exposed to the stimuli that induce anxiety
- The therapist, in discussion with the client, produces a hierarchy of anxiety invoking events or items relating to the anxiety producing stimulus or phobia
- The client is then exposed to the actual stimuli in the hierarchy, rather than being asked to imagine them
- Success depends on the client overcoming anxiety as the events or items are encountered
In Vivo Desensitization
A type of exposure therapy, generally used for treating individuals with phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder, and other anxiety disorders, in which the client directly experiences anxiety provoking situations or stimuli in real word conditions
- For example, a client who fears flying could be accompanied by a therapist to the airport to simulate boarding a plane while practicing anxiety decreasing techniques, such as deep breathing
In Vivo Exposure
Describing activity, movement, behavior, or other processes that occur without choice or intention (ie; they are not under the control of the will)
Involuntary
The confinement of a person with a serious mental disorder or illness to a mental hospital by medical authorization and legal direction
- Individuals so hospitalized may be considered dangerous to themselves or others, may fail to recognize the severity of their illness and the need for treatment, or may be unable to have their daily living and treatment needs otherwise met in the community or survive without medical attention
Involuntary Hospitalization
Describing the decline of the body or any of its parts from an optimal level of functioning as a result of increasing age
Involutional
An atom or molecule that has acquired an electrical charge by gaining or losing one or more electrons
Ion
A group of proteins forming a channel that spans a cell membrane, allowing the passage of ions between the extracellular environment and the cytoplasm of the cell
- These are selective; allow passage of ions of a particular chemical nature, size, or electrostatic charge; and may be ungated (ie; always open) or gated, opening and closing in response to chemical, electrical, or mechanical signals
- These are important in the transmission of neural signals between neurons at a synapse
Ion Channel
A receptor protein that includes an ion channel that is opened when the receptor is activated
Ionotropic Receptor
Referring back to the self
- For example, these analyses of personal characteristics involve assessing multiple psychological attributes and conducting within person analyses of the degree to which an individual possesses one attribute versus another
Ipsative
Situated on or affecting the same side of the body
Ipsilateral
Intelligence quotient: a standard measure of an individuals intelligence level based on psychological tests
- In the early years of intelligence testing, this was calculated by dividing the mental age by the chronological age and multiplying by 100 to produce a ratio IQ
- This concept has now mostly been replaced by the deviation IQ, computed as a function of the discrepancy of an individual score from the mean (or average) score
- The mean IQ is customarily 100, with slightly more than two thirds of all scores falling within plus or minus 15 points of the mean (usually one standard deviation)
- Some tests yield more specific IQ scores, such as a verbal IQ and performance IQ
- Discrepancies between the two can be used diagnostically to detect learning disabilities or specific cognitive deficiencies
- There are critics who consider the concept of IQ (and other intelligence scales) to be flawed
- They point out that the IQ test is more a measure of previously learned skills and knowledge and also refer to cases of misrepresentation of facts in the history of IQ research
IQ
A muscular disk that surrounds the pupil of the eye and controls the amount of light entering the eye by contraction or relaxation
- The stroma of the iris, which faces the cornea, contains a pigment that gives the eye its coloration; the back of the iris is lined with a dark pigment that restricts light entry to the pupil, regardless of the apparent color of the iris
Iris
Lacking in reason or sound judgement: illogical or unreasonable
Irrational
Deficiency of blood in an organ or tissue, due to functional constriction or actual obstruction of a blood vessel
Ischemia
Small clusters of cells that function as an endocrine gland within the pancreas, an abdominal organ near the stomach
- The A (or alpha) cells secrete glucagon, the B (or beta) cells secrete insulin, and the D (or delta) cells secrete somatostatin
- Together these hormones play a key role in regulating blood sugar and carbohydrate metabolism [Paul Langerhans (1847 - 1888), German anatomist]
Islets of Langerhans
An impulse control disorder characterized by a single, discrete episode in which the individual commits a violent, catastrophic act, such as shooting a group of strangers
- The episode is out of all proportion to any precipitating stress, is not due to any other mental disorder or to a general medical condition, and is not substance induced
Isolated Explosive Disorder
- The condition of being separated from other individuals
- In psychoanalytic theory, a defense mechanism that relies on keeping unwelcome thoughts and feelings from forming associative links with other thoughts and feelings, with the result that the unwelcome thought is rarely activated
Isolation
A set of procedures used to evaluate the statistical merits of individual items comprising a psychological measure or test
- These procedures may be used to select items for a test from a larger pool of initial items or to evaluate items on an established test
Item Analysis
A psychometric theory of measurement based on the concept that the probability that an item will be correctly answered is a function of an underlying (latent) trait or ability that is not directly observable
- These models differ in terms of the number of parameters contained in the model (as in the rasch model)
Item Response Theory (IRT)
The repetition of a certain computational step until further repetition no longer changes the outcome or until the repetition meets some other predefined criterion
Iteration
