O Flashcards
Behavior in compliance with a direct command, often one issued by a person in a position of authority
- Examples include a child who cleans his or her room when told to do so by a parent and a soldier who follows the orders of a superior officer
- This has the potential to be highly destructive and ethically questionable, however, as demonstrated in the behavioral study of this
Obedience
The condition of having excess body fat resulting in overweight, typically defined in terms of weight height ratio
- Although genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors all contribute, overeating may also have psychological or physiological components as well
- The consequences of this are a matter for concern: it predisposes to heart disease, diabetes, and other serious medical conditions, and these individuals may develop emotional and psychological problems relating to body image
Obesity
The “other,” that is, any person or symbolic representation of a person that is not the self and toward whom behavior, cognitions, or affects are directed
- The term is sometimes used to refer to nonpersonal phenomena (eg; an interest might be considered to be an “object”) but the other person connotation is far more typical and central
Object
- In object relations theory, the ability of an infant to maintain an attachment which is relatively independent of gratification or frustration, based on a cognitive capacity to conceive of a mother who exists when she is out of sight and who has positive attributes when she is unsatisfying
- Thus an infant becomes attached to the mother herself rather than to her tension reducing ministrations; she comes to exist continuously for the infant and not only during instances of need satisfaction
- This investment by an infant in a specific libidinal object indicates that he or she no longer finds people to be interchangeable
Object Constancy
- Having actual existence in reality, based on observable phenomena
- Impartial or uninfluenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudices
Objective
A reflective state of self focused attention in which a person evaluates him or herself and attempts to attain correctness and consistency in beliefs and behaviors
- This involves the viewing of oneself as a separate object, acknowledging limitations and the existing disparity between the ideal self and the actual self
- This is often a necessary part of self regulation
Objective Self Awareness
A type of assessment instrument consisting of a set of factual items that have specific correct answers, such that no interpretation or personal judgement is required in scoring
- A “true or false” test is an example of this
Objective Test
A quality of a research study such that its hypotheses, choices of variables studied, measurements, techniques of control, and observations are as free from bias as possible
- Judgements and interpretations are based on external data rather than on personal factors, such as feelings, beliefs, and experiences
Objectivity
In psychoanalytic theory, the actual loss of a person who has served as a good object, which precedes introjection and is involved in separation anxiety
- In this perspective adult grief and mourning are related to this and separation anxiety in infancy and childhood, which often intensifies and complicates the grief reaction
Object Loss
Knowledge of the continued existence of objects even when they are not directly perceived
- In cognitive development, milestones that indicate the acquisition of this include reaching for and retrieving a covered object (about 8 months), retrieving an object at location B even though it was previously hidden several times at location A (the A not B task, about 12 months), and removing a series of covers to retrieve an object, even though the infant only witnessed the object being hidden under the outermost cover (invisible displacement, about 18 months)
Object Permeance
Play that involves the manipulation of items in the environment, such as banging toys together, throwing them around, or arranging them in specific configurations
- It is one of three traditionally identified basic types of play (the others being locomotor play and social play)
Object Play
Any psychoanalytically based theory that views the need to relate to objects as more central to personality organization and motivation than the vicissitudes of the instincts
- These theories developed from and in reaction to classic Freudian theories of psychodynamics
- Some theories view the personality as organized in terms of a complex world of internal object representations and their relationships with each other, for example, the approaches of Austrian born British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein (1882 - 1960) and British psychoanalyst W. Ronald D. Fairbairn (1889 - 1964)
Object Relations Theory
The careful, close examination of an object, process, or other phenomenon for the purpose of collecting data about it or drawing conclusions
Observation
The acquisition of information, skills, or behavior through watching the performance of others
Observational Learning
The scientific method in which observers are trained to watch and record behavior, events, or processes as precisely and completely as possible without personal bias or interpretation
Observational Method
A study in which the experimenter passively observes the behavior of the participants without any attempt at intervention or manipulation of the behaviors being observed
- Such studies typically involve observation of cases under naturalistic conditions rather than the random assignment of cases to experimental conditions
Observational Study
Any expectations, beliefs, or personal preferences of a researcher that unintentionally influence his or her observations during an observational study
Observer Bias
A persistent thought, idea, image, or impulse that is experienced as intrusive and inappropriate and results in marked anxiety, distress, or discomfort
- Common types include repeated thoughts about contamination, a need to have things in a particular order or sequence, repeated doubts, aggressive or horrific impulses, and sexual imagery
- These can be distinguished from excessive worries about everyday occurrences in that they are not concerned with real life problems
- The response to this is often an effort to ignore or suppress the thought or impulse or to neutralize it by a compulsion
Obsession
An anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that prompt the performance of neutralizing rituals (compulsions)
- Typical obsessions involve themes of contamination, dirt, or illness (fearing that one Will contract or transmit a disease) and doubts about the performance of certain actions (eg; an excessive preoccupation that one has neglected to turn off a home appliance)
- Common compulsive behaviors include repetitive cleaning or washing, checking, ordering, repeating, and hoarding
- The obsessions and compulsions - which are recognized by the individual as excessive or unreasonable - are time consuming (more than one hour per day), cause significant distress, or interfere with the individual’s functioning
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
A personality disorder characterized by an extreme need for perfection, an excessive orderliness, an inability to compromise, and an exaggerated sense of responsibility
Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
Any method of obtaining measurements or observations in which the participants are aware that a measurement is being made
Obtrusive Measure
The maxim that, given a choice between two hypotheses, the one involving the fewer assumptions should be preferred [William of Occam (c. 1285 - 1347), English Franciscan monk and scholastic philosopher]
Occam’s Razor
The most posterior (rearward) subdivision of each cerebral hemisphere, roughly shaped like a pyramid and lying under the skull’s occipital bone
- It is associated with vision, containing the several visual areas that receive and process information regarding visual stimuli, being involved in the basic functions (eg; visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and perception of color, form, and motion) as well as the higher level ones (eg; figure ground segregation based on textural cues)
Occipital Lobe
Obstruction or closure, for example of an artery
Occlusion
A rehabilitative process that uses purposeful tasks and activities to improve health; prevent injury or disability; enhance quality of life; and develop, sustain, or restore the highest possible level of independence of individuals who have been injured or who have an illness, impairment, or other mental or physical disability or disorder
- This involves assessment of an individual’s ability to perform activities of daily living independently, the development and implementation of a customized treatment program, and recommendations for adaptive modifications in home and work environments as well as training in the use of appropriate assistive devices
Occupational Therapy (OT)
A vertical slab of striate cortex in which the neurons are preferentially responsive to stimulation through one of the two eyes
- It is important for binocular vision
- These columns for each eye alternate in a regular pattern, so that an electrode inserted tangentially to the cortical surface encounters neurons that are responsive to stimulation through first the ipsilateral eye, then the contralateral eye, then back to the ipsilateral eye
Ocular Dominance Column
The third cranial nerve, which innervates most of the muscles associated with movement and accommodation of the eye and constriction of the pupil
Oculomotor Nerve
In psychoanalytic theory, the erotic feelings of the son toward the mother, accompanied by rivalry and hostility toward the father, during the phallic stage of development
- The corresponding relationship between the daughter and father is referred to as the female Oedipus complex
- Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) saw this as the basis for neurosis when it is not adequately resolved by the boy’s fear of castration and gradual identification with the father
- The female Oedipus complex is posited to be resolved by the threat of losing the mother’s love and by finding fulfillment in the feminine role
- Contemporary psychoanalytic thought has decentralized the importance of this and has largely modified the classical theory by emphasizing the earlier, primal relationship between child and mother
Oedipus Complex
Denoting or relating to the clinical use of a drug for a purpose that has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Off Label
The depolarization of a neuron in the visual system that occurs in response to light decrement
- Neurons with these in the center of their receptive fields are often called off cells
Off Response
The somewhat flattered S - shaped curve typically obtained by graphing a cumulative frequency distribution
Ogive
The sense of smell
- Molecules of airborne volatile substances called odorants are absorbed into nasal mucus and carried to the olfactory epithelium (located in the nasal passages), where they stimulate olfactory receptors
- The olfactory receptors carry impulses in axonal bundles through tiny holes in the cribriform plate, the bony layer separating the base of the skull from the nasal cavity
- On the top surface of the cribiform plate rests the olfactory bulb, which receives the impulses and sends them on to a region of the brain called the periamygdaloid cortex
Olfaction
A bulblike ending on the olfactory nerve in the anterior region of each cerebral hemisphere
- This first synapse in the olfactory system picks up excitation from the nose, specifically from the cilia in the olfactory epithelium
Olfactory Bulb
A three layered area of cerebral cortex at the base of the temporal lobe that is attached to the olfactory bulb and devoted to the sense of smell
- This receives and interprets information from olfactory receptors in the nasal cavity and is involved in the identification of odors
Olfactory Cortex
An area of olfactory receptors in the lining of the upper part of the nose
- The epithelium is separated from the olfactory bulb by a sievelike layer in the skull called the cribiform plate, through which the receptor cells synapse with cells in the olfactory bulb
Olfactory Epithelium
A false perception of odors, which are usually unpleasant or repulsive, such as poison gas or decaying flesh
Olfactory Hallucination
The first cranial nerve, which carries sensory fibers concerned with the sense of smell
- It originates in the olfactory lobe and is distributed to olfactory receptors in the nasal mucous membrane
Olfactory Nerve
A spindle shaped receptor cell in the olfactory epithelium of the nasal cavity that is sensitive to airborne volatile substances (odorants)
- The receptors themselves collectively form the olfactory nerve, which synapses with cells in the olfactory bulb
Olfactory Receptor
The primary structures and processes involved in an organism’s detection of and responses to airborne volatile substances
- The olfactory system includes several million olfactory receptors in the olfactory epithelium of the nasal cavity, the process of olfactory transduction, the olfactory bulb and olfactory nerve, and the olfactory cortex and associated brain areas and their functions
Olfactory System
A type of nonneural central nervous system cell (glia) that forms myelin sheaths around axons
Oligodendrocyte
A measure of the strength of association based on the proportion of variance of one measure predictable from variance in other measures
Omega Squared
A statistical test of an experimental hypothesis in which the expected direction of an effect or relationship is specified
One Tailed Test
The mastery of a skill or an increment of learning on the first practice session or performance
One Trial Learning
A statistical test of the probability that the means of three or more samples have been drawn from the same population; that is, an analysis of variance with a single independent variable
One Way Analysis of Variance
The developmental period, between approximately 10 and 18 months, when children use one word at a time when speaking
- For example, depending on the context and how the word is spoken, milk may mean that is milk, I want more milk, or I spired the milk
One Word Stage
The depolarization of a neuron in the visual system that occurs in response to light increment
- Neurons with on responses in the center of their receptive fields are often called on cells
On Response
The biological origin and development of an individual organism from fertilization of the egg cell until death
Ontogeny
The process by which germ cells divide and differentiate to produce female gametes (ova)
- In females, primary oocytes are formed in the ovary during embryonic development and enter into the first division of meiosis but then remain suspended at this stage of cell division until puberty
- Thereafter, roughly once a month until menopause, one primary oocyte resumes meiosis to produce two unequally sized daughter cells: the larger one is the secondary oocyte, while the smaller is a polar body
- Following ovulation, the secondary oocyte undergoes the second meiotic division to produce an ovum and another polar body
- These two polar bodies are normally nonfunctional and degenerate
Oogenesis
A technique for measuring (quantifying) behaviors and physiological reactions (eg; those indicative of anxiety) in rats and other small animals
- The animal is placed in a space divided into squares so that the researcher may observe the number of squares the animal traverses in a specified time period
Open Field Test
A class of responses that produces a common effect on the environment
- This is defined by its effect rather than by the particular type of behavior producing that effect
- For example, all forms of behavior that result in a lever being moved 4 mm downward constitute an operant
Operant