P Flashcards
A type of cutaneous receptor organ that is sensitive to contact and vibration
- It consists of a nerve fiber ending surrounded by concentric layers of connective tissue
- These are found in the fingers, the hairy skin, the tendons, and the abdominal membrane [Filippo Pacini (1812 - 1883), Italian anatomist]
Pacinian Corpuscle
An unpleasant sensation due to damage to nerve tissue, stimulation of free nerve endings, or excessive stimulation (eg; extremely loud sounds)
- It is elicited by stimulation of pain receptors, which occur in groups throughout the body, but also involves various cognitive, affective, and behavioral factors
- This may also be a feeling of severe distress and suffering resulting from acute anxiety, loss of a loved one, or other psychological factors
- Psychologists have made important contributions to understanding this by demonstrating the psychosocial and behavioral factors in the etiology, severity, exacerbation, maintenance, and treatment of both physical and mental type
Pain
A somatoform disorder characterized by severe, prolonged pain that significantly interferes with a person’s ability to function
- The pain cannot be accounted for solely by a medical condition, and it is not feigned or produced intentionally
Pain Disorder
A technique used in studying learning in which participants learn syllables, words, or other items in pairs and are later presented with one half of each pair to which they must respond with the matching half
Paired Associates Learning
In behavioral studies, the juxtaposing of two events in time
- For example, if a tone is presented immediately before a puff of air to the eye, the tone and the puff here been paired
Pairing
The study of certain psychological processes in contemporary humans that are believed to have originated in earlier stages of human and, perhaps, nonhuman animal evolution
- These include unconscious processes, such as the collective unconscious
Paleopsychology
Terminal care that focuses on symptom control and comfort instead of aggressive, cure oriented intervention
- This is the basis of the hospice approach
- Emphasis is on careful assessment of the patient’s condition throughout the end phase of life in order to provide the most effective medications and other procedures to relieve pain
Palliative Care
An obsolete name for paralysis, still used in such compound names as cerebral palsy
Palsy
A sudden, uncontrollable fear reaction that may involve terror, confusion, and irrational behavior, precipitated by a perceived threat (eg; earthquake, fire, or being stuck in an elevator)
Panic
A sudden onset of intense apprehension and fearfulness, in the absence of actual danger, accompanied by the presence of such physical symptoms as palpitations, difficulty in breathing, chest pain or discomfort, choking or smothering sensations, excessive perspiration, and dizziness
- This occurs in a discrete period of time and often involves fears of going crazy, losing control, or dying
Panic Attack
An anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent, unexpected panic attacks that are associated with (a) persistent concern about having another attack, (b) worry about the possible consequences of the attacks, or (c) significant change in behavior related to the attacks (eg; avoiding situations, not going out alone)
Panic Disorder
A circular network of nerve centers and fibers in the brain that is associated with emotion and memory
- It includes such structures as the hippocampus, fornix, anterior thalamus, cingulate gyrus, and parchippocampal gyrus
Papez Circuit
Any of the four types of swelling on the tongue
- In humans, some 200 fungiform papillae are toward the front of the tongue; 10-14 foliate papillae are on the sides; 7-11 circumvallate papillae are on the back; and filiform papillae, with no taste function, cover most of the tongue’s surface
Papilla
- A model, pattern, or representative example, as of the functions and interrelationships of a process, a behavior under study, or the like
- A set of assumptions, attitudes, concepts, values, procedures, and techniques that constitutes a generally accepted theoretical framework within, or a general perspective of, a discipline
Paradigm
A ridge (gyrus) on the medial (inner) surface of the temporal lobe of cerebral cortex, lying over the hippocampus
- It is a component of the limbic system thought to be involved in spatial or topographic memory
Parahippocampal Gyrus
In parapsychology, the movement of objects in the absence of contact sufficient to explain the motion
- The phenomenon is closely related to that of psychokinesis, which involves manipulation of objects by thought alone
Parakinesis
The vocal but nonverbal elements of communication by speech, such as tone and stress, volume and speed of delivery, voice quality, hesitations, and nonlinguistic sounds, such as sighs or groans
- These paralinguistic cues help shape the total meaning of an utterance, for example, by conveying the fact that a speaker is angry when this would not be apparent from the same words written down
- In some uses, this term is extended to include gestures, facial expressions, and other aspects of body language
Paralanguage
An illusion of movement of objects in the visual field when the head is moved from side to side
- Objects beyond a point of visual fixation appear to move in the same direction as the head movement; those closer seem to move in the opposite direction
- This provides a monocular cue for depth perception
Parallax
Any model of cognition based on the idea that the representation of information is distributed as patterns of activation over a richly connected set of hypothetical neural units that function interactively and in parallel with one another
Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP)
Any of the axons of the small, grainlike neurons that form the outermost layer of the cerebellar cortex
Parallel Fiber
Play in which a child is next to others and using similar objects but still engaged in his or her own activity
Parallel Play
Information processing in which two or more sequences of operations are carried out simultaneously by independent processors
- A capacity for this in the human mind would account for people’s apparent ability to carry on different cognitive functions At the same time, as, for example, when driving a car while also listening to music and having a conversation
- The term is usually reserved for processing at a higher, symbolic level, as opposed to the level of individual neural units described in models of parallel distributed processing
Parallel Processing
- A numerical constant that characterizes a population with respect to some attribute, for example, the location of its central point
- An argument of a function
Parameter
Statistical procedures that are based on assumptions about the distribution of the attribute (or attributes) in the population being tested
Parametric Statistics
Statistical procedures that are based on assumptions about the distribution of the attribute (or attributes) in the population being tested
Parametric Statistics
A condition characterized by delusions of persecution or grandiosity that are not as systematized and elaborate as in a delusional disorder nor as disorganized and bizarre as in paranoid schizophrenia
Paranoia
A personality disorder characterized by pervasive, unwarranted suspiciousness and mistrust, specifically expectation of trickery or harm, guardedness and secretiveness, avoidance of accepting blame, overconcern with hidden motives and meanings, hypersensitivity, and restricted affectivity
Paranoid Personality Disorder
A subtype of schizophrenia characterized by prominent delusions or auditory hallucinations
- Delusions are typically persecutory, grandiose, or both; hallucinations are typically related to the content of the delusional theme
- Cognitive functioning and mood are affected to a much lesser degree than in other types of schizophrenia
Paranoid Schizophrenia
Denoting any purported phenomenon involving the transfer of information or energy that cannot be explained by existing scientific knowledge
- The term is particularly applied to those forms of alleged extrasensory perception that are the province of parapsychological investigation
Paranormal
A sexual disorder in which unusual or bizarre fantasies or behavior are necessary for sexual excitement, including preference for a nonhuman object, activity involving real or simulated suffering or humiliation, or activity with nonconsenting partners
- These include such specific types as fetishism, frotteurism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, sexual masochism, and sexual sadism
Paraphilia
A minor cognitive or behavioral error
- Examples of such errors include slips of the pen, slips of the tongue, forgetting significant events, mislaying objects, and unintentional puns
- In psychoanalytic theory, this is believed to express unconscious wishes, attitudes, or impulses and is referred to as a Freudian slip
Parapraxis
A trained but not professionally credentialed worker who assists in the treatment of patients in both hospital and community settings
Paraprofessional
The systematic study of alleged psychological phenomena involving the transfer of information or energy that cannot be explained in terms of presently known scientific data or laws
- Such study has focused largely on the various forms of extrasensory perception, such as telepathy and clairvoyance, but also encompasses such phenomena as alleged poltergeist activity and the claims of mediums
- This is regarded with suspicion by many scientists, including most psychologists
Parapsychology
A disorder characterized by abnormal behavior or physiological events occurring during sleep or the transitional state between sleep and waking
- Types include nightmare disorder, sleep terror disorder, and sleepwalking disorder
- These form one of two broad groups of primary sleep disorders, the other being dyssomnias
Parasomnia
A range of behaviors involving deliberate self harm that falls short of suicide and may or may not be intended to result in death
Parasuicide
One of two branches of the autonomic nervous system (ANS, which controls smooth muscle and gland functions), the other being the sympathetic nervous system
- It is the system controlling rest, repair, enjoyment, eating, sleeping, sexual activity, and social dominance, among other functions
- This stimulates salivary secretions and digestive secretions in the stomach and produces pupillary constriction, decreases in heart rate, and increased blood flow to the genitalia during sexual excitement
Parasympathetic Nervous System
A particular collection of neurons in the hypothalamus that synthesize numerous hormones, among them oxytocin and vasopressin
Paraventricular Nucleus
The proposition that many sex differences in sexually reproducing species (including humans) can be understood in terms of the amount of time, energy, and risk to their own survival that males and females put into parenting versus mating
Parental Investment Theory
All actions related to the raising of offspring
- Researchers have described different human parenting styles - Ways in which parents interact with their children - with most classifications varying on the dimensions of emotional warmth and control
- One of the most influential of these classifications is that of U.S. developmental psychologist Diana Baumrind (1927- ), which involves four types of styles: authoritarian, in which the parent or caregiver stresses obedience and employs strong forms of punishment; authoritative, in which the parent or caregiver encourages a child’s autonomy yet still places certain limitations on behavior; permissive, in which the parent or caregiver makes few demands and avoids exercising control; and rejecting neglecting, in which the parent or caregiver is more attentive to his or her needs than those of the child
Parenting
Partial or incomplete paralysis
Paresis
An abnormal skin sensation, such as tingling, tickling, burning, itching, or pricking, in the absence of external stimulation
- This may be temporary, as in the “pins and needles” feeling that many people experience (eg; after having sat with legs crossed too long), or chronic and due to such factors as neurological disorder or drug side effects
Paresthesia
One of the four main subdivisions of each cerebral hemisphere
- It occupies the upper central area of each hemisphere, behind the frontal lobe, ahead of the occipital lobe, and above the temporal lobe
- Parts of the parietal lobe participate in somatosensory activities, such as discrimination of size, shape, and texture of objects; visual activities, such as visually guided actions; and auditory activities, such as speech perception
Parietal Lobe
A progressive neurodegenerative disease caused by the death of dopamine producing neurons in the substantia nigra of the brain, which controls balance and coordinates muscle movement
- Symptoms typically begin late in life with mild tremors, increasing rigidity of the limbs, and slowness of voluntary movements
- Later symptoms include postural instability, impaired balance, and difficulty walking
- Dementia occurs in some 20 - 60% of patients, usually in older patients in whom the disease is far advanced [first described in 1817 by James Parkinson (1755 - 1824), British physician]
Parkinson’s Disease
The correlation between two variables with the influence of a third variable removed from one (but only one) of the two variables
Part Correlation
The correlation between two variables with the influence of one or more other variables on their intercorrelation statistically removed or held constant
Partial Correlation
Increased resistance to extinction after intermittent reinforcement rather than after continuous reinforcement
Partial Reinforcement Effect
A seizure that begins in a localized area of the brain, although it may subsequently progress to a generalized seizure
- Simple ones produce no alteration of consciousness despite clinical manifestations, which may include sensory, motor, or autonomic activity
- Complex types may produce similar sensory, motor, or autonomic symptoms but are also characterized by some impairment or alteration of consciousness during the event
Partial Seizure
A person who takes part in an investigation, study, or experiment, for example by performing tasks set by the experimenter or by answering questions set by a researcher
- The participant may be further identified as an experimental participant or a control participant
- Participants are also called subjects, although the former term is now often preferred when referring to humans
Participant
A procedure for changing behavior in which effective styles of behavior are modeled (ie; demonstrated, broken down step by step, and analyzed) by a therapist for an individual
- Various aids are introduced to help the individual master the tasks, such as viewing videotaped enactments of effective and ineffective behavioral responses to prototypical situations in a variety of social contexts (eg; at school or work)
Participant Modeling
A type of observational method in which a trained observer enters the group under study as a member, while avoiding a conspicuous role that would alter the group processes and bias the data
- For example, cultural anthropologists become these when they enter the life of a given culture to study its structure and processes
Participant Observation
A type of observational method in which a trained observer enters the group under study as a member, while avoiding a conspicuous role that would alter the group processes and bias the data
- For example, cultural anthropologists become these when they enter the life of a given culture to study its structure and processes
Participant Observer
A learning technique in which the material is divided into sections, each to be mastered separately in a successive order
Part Method of Learning
The part of the visual system that projects to or originates from small neurons in the four dorsal layers (the parvocellular layers) of the lateral geniculate nucleus
- It allows the perception of fine details, colors, and large changes in brightness but conducts information relatively slowly because of its small cells and slender axons
Parvocellular System
An intense, driving, or overwhelming feeling or conviction, particularly a strong sexual desire
- This is often contrasted with emotion, in that this affects a person unwillingly
Passion
A type of love in which sexual passion and a high level of emotional arousal are prominent features; along with companionate love, it is one of the two main types of love identified by social psychologists
- These lovers typically are greatly preoccupied with the loved person, want their feelings to be reciprocated, and are usually greatly distressed when the relationship seems awry
Passionate Love
Characteristic of behavior that is seemingly innocuous; accidental, or neutral but that indirectly displays an unconscious aggressive motive
- For example, a child who appears to be compliant but is routinely late for school, misses the bus, or forgets his or her homework may be expressing unconscious resentment at having to attend school
Passive Aggressive
A personality disorder of long standing in which underlying ambivalence and negativism toward the self and others is expressed by such means as procrastination, dawdling, stubbornness, intentional inefficiency, “forgetting” appointments, or misplacing important materials
- The pattern persists even where more adaptive behavior is clearly possible; it frequently interferes with occupational, domestic, and academic success
Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder
The intentional withholding of treatment that might prolong the life of a person who is approaching death
- It is distinguished from active euthanasia, in which direct action (eg; a lethal injection) is taken to end the life
Passive Euthanasia
The use of very fine bore pipette microelectrodes, clamped by suction onto tiny parches of the plasma membrane of a neuron, to record the electrical activity of a single square micrometer of the membrane, including single ion channels
Parch Clamp Technique
A policy or attitude in which those having authority over others extend this authority into areas usually left to individual choice or conscience (eg; smoking or sexual behavior), usually on the grounds that this is necessary for the welfare or protection of the individuals concerned
Paternalism
A set of quantitative procedures used to verify the existence of causal relationships among several variables, displayed in graph form showing the various hypothesized routes of causal influence
- The causal relationships are theoretically determined, and this determines both the accuracy and the strength of the hypothesized relationships
Path Analysis
Any agent (eg; a bacterium or virus) that contributes to disease or otherwise induces unhealthy structural or functional changes
Pathogen
An impulse control disorder characterized by chronic, maladaptive wagering, leading to significant interpersonal, professional, or financial difficulties
Pathological Gambling
- The scientific study of functional and structural changes involved in physical and mental disorders and diseases
- More broadly, any departure from what is considered healthy or adaptive
Pathology
A person receiving health care from a licensed health professional (including the services of most psychologists and psychiatrists)
Patient
The dilemma of how to identify the recipient of psychological services or intervention (ie; the nomenclature used for the recipient)
- Psychiatrists, many clinical psychologists, and some other mental health providers tend to follow the traditional language of the medical model and refer to the people seeking their services as patients
- Counseling psychologists, some clinical psychologists, social workers, and counselors tend to avoid the word “patient,” which is associated with illness and dysfunction, using instead the word client to refer to the person seeking their services
Patient Client Issue
Any statement, listing, summary, or the like that articulates the rights that health care providers (eg; physicians, medical facilities) ethically ought to provide to those receiving their services in such basic categories as (a) the provision of adequate information regarding benefits, risks, costs, and alternatives; (b) fair treatment (eg; respect, responsiveness, timely attention to health issues); (c) autonomy over medical decisions (eg; obtaining full consent for medical interventions); and (d) confidentiality
Patient’s Rights
- A society in which descent and inheritance is patrilineal, that is, traced through the male only
- More loosely, a family, group, or society in which men are dominant
Patriarchy
The ability to identify a complex whole composed of, or embedded in, many separate elements
- This is not only a visual ability; in audition, it refers to (a) the recognition of temporal patterns of sounds or (b) the recognition of patterns of excitation of the basilar membrane, such as that which occurs during the perception of vowels in speech
Pattern Recognition
A theory postulating that each taste stimulus evokes a unique pattern of neural activity from the taste cell population and that this pattern serves as the neural representation of the evoking stimulus
- Taste quality is coded in the shape of the evoked pattern, while intensity is represented by the total discharge rate
Pattern Theory of Taste Coding
A type of learning in which an initially neural stimulus - the conditioned stimulus (CS) - when paired with a stimulus that elicits a reflex response - the unconditioned stimulus (US) - results in a learned, or conditioned, response (CR) when the CS Is presented
- For example, the sound of a tone may be used as a CS, and food in a dog’s mouth as a US
- After repeated pairings, namely, the tone followed immediately by food, the tone, which initially had no effect on salivation (ie; was neutral with respect to it), will elicit salivation even if the food is not presented [discovered in the early 20th century by Ivan Pavlov (1849 - 1936), Russian physiologist]
Pavlovian Conditioning
Any of various small neurons in the four dorsal layers of the six layered lateral geniculate nucleus
- These are the origin of the parvocellular system
- The retinal ganglion cells that provide input to these of the lateral geniculate nucleus are called P ganglion cells
P Cell
1-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)piperidine (phencyclidine):
A hallucinogenic drug originally developed for use in surgical anesthesia and later found to produce psychedelic or dissociative effects
- This has a complex mechanism of action - blocking the reuptake of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, among other activities - and in high doses may induce stupor or coma
- Additionally, this can produce symptoms resembling both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, leading some to consider it a useful drug model of schizophrenia
- This became common as an elicit drug in the 1970s and remains so, despite speculation about its potential neurotoxicity (ability to damage nerve tissue)
PCP
In the humanistic psychology of U.S. psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908 - 1970), a moment of awe, ecstasy, or sudden insight into life as a powerful unity transcending space, time, and the self that may at times be experienced by individuals in their pursuit of self actualization
Peak Experience
Regular patterns of dominance (pecking, threatening, chasing, fighting, avoiding, crouching, and vocalizing) in chickens and other animals
- This term has been extended to denote any (usually linear) sequence of authority, status, and privilege that prevails in some organizations and social groups, although this meaning is more properly referred to as a dominance hierarchy
Pecking Order
Pertaining to the health and medical care of children or to child development
Pediatric
A paraphilia in which sexual acts or fantasies with prepubertal children are the persistently preferred or exclusive method of achieving sexual excitement
- This is seen almost exclusively in men
Pedophilia
An individual who shares a feature or function (eg; age, sex, occupation, social group membership) with one or more other individuals
- In developmental psychology, this is typically an age mate with whom a child or adolescent interacts
Peer
A group of individuals who share one or more characteristics, such as age, social status, economic status, occupation, or education
- Members of this typically interact with each other on a level of equality and exert influence on each other’s attitudes, emotions, and behavior
Peer Group
The influence exerted by a peer group on its individual members to fit in with or adapt to group expectations by thinking, feeling, and (most importantly) behaving in a similar or acceptable manner
- This may have positive socialization value but may also have negative consequences for mental or physical health
Peer Pressure
The male organ for urination and intromission, which enters the female’s vagina to deliver semen
- The urethra runs through this, which is composed largely of erectile tissue and has a mushroom shaped cap (glans penis)
Penis
In the classic psychoanalytic theory of Austrian psychiatrist sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939), the hypothesized desire of girls and women to possess a male genital organ
- German born U.S. psychoanalyst Karen D. Horney (1885 - 1952), among others, later argued that this is not an envy of the biological organ itself but represents women’s envy of men’s superior social status
- In any sense, the concept has been actively disputed from the beginning and is rarely considered seriously in current psychology
Penis Envy
The scientific study of the management of correctional facilities and the rehabilitation of criminals
Penology
A short chain of amino acids linked by peptide bonds
- These are usually identified by the number of amino acids in the chain, for example, dipeptides have two, tripeptides three, tetrapeptides four, and so on
Peptide
Any hormone that is classed chemically as a peptide
- These include corticotropin, oxytocin, and vasopressin
Peptide Hormone
The location of a score in a distribution coded to reflect the percentage of cases in the batch that have scores equal to or below the score in question
- Thus, if a score is said to be at the 90th percentile, the implication is that 90% of the scores in the batch are equal to or lower than that score
Percentile
The production of perception: the stimulus object or event as experienced by the individual
Percept
The process or result of becoming aware of objects, relationships, and events by means of the senses, which includes such activities as recognizing, observing, and discriminating
- These activities enable organisms to organize and interpret the stimuli received into meaningful knowledge
Perception
The phenomenon in which a perceived object or its properties (eg; size, shape, color) appears to remain unchanged despite variations in the stimulus itself or in the external conditions of observation, such as object orientation or level of illumination
- Examples of this include brightness constancy, color constancy, shape constancy, and size constancy
Perceptual Constancy
In psychoanalytic theory, a misperception that occurs when anxiety arousing stimuli are unconsciously distorted
- If taboo words are rapidly presented, they may be misinterpreted; for example, if the stimulus word anal is presented, participants may report seeing the innocuous canal
Perceptual Defense
The process of focusing attention on a selected subset of the large number of sensory stimuli that are present at any one time
- This is necessary because the cognitive and physical capacity of an individual to process and respond to multiple sources of information is limited
Perceptual Filtering
The process enabling such properties as structure, pattern, and form to be imposed on the senses to provide conceptual organization
- Each of the senses establishes (or learns) such organizational schemata
- Recent research has more precisely defined the properties that enable such organized tasks
Perceptual Organization
- A temporary readiness to perceive certain objects or events rather than others
- For example, a person driving a car has one of these to identify anything that might impact his or her safety - A schema or frame of reference that influences the way in which a person perceives objects, events, or people
- For example, an on duty police officer and a painter might regard a crowded street scene with very different ones
Perceptual Set
A relationship between two variables in which the change in value of one variable is proportional to the change in value of the other variable; knowing the value of one variable will exactly predict the value of the other variable
- When plotted graphically, this forms a perfectly straight line
- If the variables change in the same direction (ie; they both increase or both decrease), the correlation is perfect positive, whereas if the variables change in opposite directions (ie; one increases as the other decreases or vice versa), the correlation is perfect negative
Perfect Correlation
The tendency to demand of others or of oneself an extremely high or even flawless level of performance, particularly when this is not required by the situation
- It is thought by some to be a risk factor for depression and other disorders
Perfectionism
- Any activity or collection of responses that leads to a result or has an effect upon the environment
- In linguistics, see competence
Performance
Anxiety associated with the apprehension and fear of the consequences of being unable to perform a task or of performing the task at a level that Will lead to expectations of higher levels of performance achievement
- Fear of taking a test, public speaking, participating in classes or meetings, playing a musical instrument in public, or even eating in public are common examples
- If the fear associated with this focused on negative evaluation by others, embarrassment, or humiliation, the anxiety may be classified as a social phobia
Performance Anxiety
Any test of ability requiring primarily motor, rather than verbal, responses, such as a test requiring manipulation of a variety of different kinds of objects
Performance Test
A region of the brainstem, rich in nerve cell bodies (ie; gray matter), that surrounds the cerebral aqueduct
- A component of the limbic system, it plays an important role in organizing defensive behaviors (eg; freezing)
Periaqueductual Gray (PAG)
The fluid that fills the space between the membranous labyrinth and the walls of the bony labyrinth in the inner ear
Perilymph
Any outcome associated with living during a particular time period or era, regardless of how old one was at the time
- This may be difficult to distinguish from age effects and cohort effects in research
Period Effect
A form of acquired dyslexia that is characterized by difficulties in processing the visual aspects of words (eg; difficulties identifying letter forms) and results from damage to the visual analysis system
Peripheral Dyslexia
The portion of the nervous system that lies outside the brain and spinal cord, that is, all parts outside the central nervous system
- Afferent fibers of this bring messages from the sense organs to the central nervous system; efferent fibers transmit messages from the central nervous system to the muscles and glands
- It includes the cranial nerves, spinal nerves, and parts of the autonomic nervous system
Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)
The process by which altitudes are formed or changed as a result of using peripheral cues (factors external to the merits of the argument) rather than carefully scrutinizing and thinking about the central merits of attitude relevant information
Peripheral Route to Persuasion
A structure in the medial temporal lobe adjacent to the hippocampus that plays an important role as an interface between visual perception and memory
Perirhinal Cortex
Very long term or permanent memory that develops after extensive learning, training, or experience
- Details of foreign languages or algebra learned years ago in school, and even the names of classmates, are said to be stored in this
Permastore
An interpersonal style or approach that involves giving a wide range of freedom and autonomy to those with whom one has dealings or over whom one has authority
- For example, regarding child rearing it refers to a particular parenting style in which the child is given wide latitude in expressing his or her feelings and opinions and in which artificial restrictions and punishment are avoided as much as possible
Permissiveness
An ordered sequence of elements from a set
- This is similar to a combination but distinguished by its emphasis on order
Permutation
The phenomenon in which people’s beliefs about themselves and others persist despite a lack of supporting evidence or even a contradiction of supporting evidence
Perseverance Effect
- An inability to interrupt a task or to shift from one strategy or procedure to another
- This may be observed, for example, in workers under extreme task demands or environmental conditions (mainly heat stress); in the abnormal or inappropriate repetition of a sound, word, or phrase, as occurs in stuttering; or in the inappropriate repetition of behavior in individuals with damage to the frontal lobe - According to the perseveration consolidation hypothesis, the repetition, after a learning experience, of neural processes that are responsible for memory formation, which is necessary for the consolidation of ions term memory
Perseveration
The hypothesis that information passes through two stages in memory formation
- During the first stage the memory is held by perseveration (repetition) of neural activity and is easily disrupted
- During the second stage the memory becomes fixed, or consolidated, and is no longer easily disrupted
- This guides much contemporary research on the biological basis of long term learning and memory
Perseveration Consolidation Hypothesis
- Continuance or repetition of a particular behavior, process, or activity despite cessation of the initiating stimulus
- The quality or state of maintaining a course of action or keeping at a task and finishing it despite the obstacles (such as opposition or discouragement) or the effort involved
Persistence
A prolonged biomedical condition in which rudimentary brain function and, usually, spontaneous respiration continue but there is no awareness of self or environment, no communication, and no voluntary response to stimuli
Persistent Vegetative State (PVS)
In the approach of Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung (1875 - 1961), the public face an individual presents to the outside world, in contrast to more deeply rooted and authentic personality characteristics
- This sense has now passed into popular usage
Persona
One of the concepts by which an individual perceives, understands, predicts, and attempts to control the world
- Understanding a client’s personal constructs is a central way of beginning to help that person change rigid or negative beliefs
Personal Construct
In the personality theory of U.S. psychologist Gordon W. Allport (1897 - 1967), any of a number of enduring characteristics that describe or determine an individual’s behavior across a variety of situations and that are peculiar to and uniquely expressed by that individual
- These are divided into three categories: cardinal dispositions are the most pervasive and influence virtually every behavior of that person; central dispositions are less pervasive but nonetheless generally influential; and secondary dispositions are much more narrowly expressed and situation specific
Personal Disposition
A belief in one’s uniqueness and invulnerability, which is an expression of adolescent egocentrism and may extend further into the lifespan
Personal Fable
- The philosophical position that human personality is the sole means through which reality can be understood or interpreted
- At the core of this approach is the concept of the person as a unique living whole irreducible in value or worth, who is striving toward goals and is simultaneously self contained yet open to the world around him or her
- This thus reorients the material of psychology around an experiencing individual as a systematic focal point
- In other words, the findings of psychology can be organized only by reference to such a unique, living individual as the originator, carrier, and regulator of all psychological states and processes
- This school of psychology stressing individual personality is more properly termed personalistic psychology - A tendency to believe that another person’s actions are directed at oneself rather than being an expression of that individual’s characteristics
Personalism
The configuration of characteristics and behavior that comprises an individuals unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self concept, abilities, and emotional patterns
- This is generally viewed as a complex, dynamic integration or totality, shaped by many forces, including: hereditary and constitutional tendencies; physical maturation; early training; identification with significant individuals and groups; culturally conditioned values and roles; and critical experiences and relationships
- Various theories explain the structure and development of this in different ways but an agree that this helps determine behavior
Personality
The evaluation of such factors as intelligence, skills, interests, aptitudes, creative abilities, attitudes, and facets of psychological development by a variety of techniques
- These include (a) observational methods that use behavior sampling, interviews, and rating scales; (b) personality inventories; such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory; and (c) projective techniques, such as the Rorschach Inkblot Test and Thematic Apperception Test
- The uses of these are manifold, for example, in clinical evaluation of children and adults; in educational and vocational counseling; in industry and other organizational settings; and in rehabilitation
Personality Assessment
Any of a group of disorders involving pervasive patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and the self that interfere with long term functioning of the individual and are not limited to isolated episodes
- Among the specific types are paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, histrionic, narcissistic, antisocial, borderline, avoidant, dependent, and obsessive compulsive - each of which has its own entry in the dictionary
Personality Disorder
A personality assessment device that usually consists of a series of statements covering various characteristics and behavioral patterns to which the participant responds by fixed answers, such as True, False, Always, Often, Seldom, or Never, as applied to himself or herself
Personality Inventory
A presentation of the results of psychological testing in graphic form so as to provide a summary of a person’s traits or other unique attributes and tendencies
- These are used to summarize the characteristics of groups of individuals as well (eg; people with a particular disorder, people employed in a particular profession)
Personality Profile
The systematic study of the human personality, with the aim of synthesizing cognitive, emotional, motivational, developmental, and social aspects of human individuality into integrative frameworks for making sense of the individual human life
- These psychologists tend to study more or less enduring and stable individual differences in adults and have traditionally assigned a central role to human motivation and the internal dynamics of human behavior
- The major families of personality theories include psychodynamic, behavioral, and humanistic families
Personality Psychology
Any instrument used to help evaluate personality or measure personality traits
- These may collect self report data, in which participants answer questions about their personality or select items that describe themselves, or they may take the form of projective tests, which claim to measure unconscious aspects of a participant’s personality
Personality Test
A relatively stable, consistent, and enduring internal characteristic that is inferred from a pattern of behaviors, attitudes, feelings, and habits in the individual
- These can be useful in summarizing, predicting, and explaining an individual’s conduct, and a variety of these theories exist
Personality Trait
An area of defended space around an individual
- This differs from other types of defended space (eg; territory) by being a surrounding “bubble” that moves with the individual
- Because human use of this varies among cultures, at least part of it must represent a learned behavior
Personal Space
In the analytic psychology of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875 - 1961), the portion of each individual’s unconscious that contains the elements of his or her own experience as opposed to the collective unconscious, which contains the archetypes universal to humankind
- This consists of everything subliminal, forgotten, and repressed in an individual’s life
Personal Unconscious
The branch of industrial and organization psychology that deals with the selection, placement, training, promotion, evaluation, and counseling of employees
Personnel Psychology
The processes by which people think about, appraise, and evaluate other people
- An important aspect of this is the attribution of motives for action
Person Perception
An active attempt by one person to change another person’s attitudes, beliefs, or emotions associated with some issue, person, concept, or object
Persuasion
Any one of a class of disorders characterized by severe and widespread impairment in social interaction and verbal or nonverbal communication or the presence of stereotyped behavior, interests, and activities
- These disorders are frequently apparent from an early age; they include Asperger’s Disorder, Autistic Disorder, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, and Rett Syndrome
- This term is synonymous with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Pervasive Developmental Disorder
The attitude that things will go wrong and that people’s wishes or aims are unlikely to be fulfilled
- These are people who expect unpleasant or bad things to happen to them and to others or who are otherwise doubtful or hesitant about positive outcomes of behavior
- This can be defined in terms of expectancy: lack of confidence of attaining desired goals
- Most individuals lie somewhere on the spectrum between the two polar opposites of pure optimism and pure pessimism but tend to demonstrate sometimes strong, relatively stable or situational tendencies in one direction or the other
Pessimism
In the classic psychoanalytic theory of Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939), the third stage of psychosexual development beginning around age 3, when the libido is focused on the genital area (penis or clitoris) and discovery and manipulation of the body become a major source of pleasure
- During this period boys are posited to experience castration anxiety, girls to experience penis envy, and both to experience the Oedipus Complex
Phallic Stage
The penis or an object that resembles the form of the penis (the latter often referred to as a phallic symbol)
- As a symbolic object, it often represents fertility and potency
Phallus
In the object relations theory of Austrian born British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein (1882 - 1960), one of the unconscious constructions, wishes, or impulses that are presumed to underlie all thought and feeling
- The ph spelling is used to distinguish this from the everyday form of fantasy, which can include conscious daydreaming
Phantasy
The feeling that an amputated limb is still present, often manifested as a tingling or, occasionally, painful sensation in the area of the missing limb
- It is thought that the brain’s representation of the limb remains intact and, in the absence of normal somesthetic stimulation, becomes active spontaneously or as a result of stimulation from other brain tissue
Phantom Limb
The branch of science that involves the study of substances that interact with living organisms to alter some biological process affecting the homeostasis of the organism
Pharmacology
The treatment of a disorder by the administration of drugs, as opposed to such means as surgery, psychotherapy, or complementary and alternative methods
Pharmacotherapy
The tendency for a neural action potential to occur at the same point or phase of a puretone (single frequency) auditory stimulus
- This underlies the ability to localize sounds based on interaural phase differences or interaural time differences and has been proposed as a mechanism for the coding of pitch
Phase Locking
The tendency for a neural action potential to occur at the same point or phase of a puretone (single frequency) auditory stimulus
- This underlies the ability to localize sounds based on interaural phase differences or interaural time differences and has been proposed as a mechanism for the coding of pitch
Phase Locking
The self as experienced by the individual at a given time
- Only a small portion of self knowledge is active in working memory or consciousness at any time, with the remainder lying dormant or inactive
- The same person might have a very different one of these at different times, without any change in actual self knowledge, simply because different views are brought into awareness by events
Phenomenal Self
The environment as experienced by a given individual at a given time
- The term refers not to objective reality but to personal and subjective reality, including everything within one’s field of awareness
- In the phenomenological personality theory of U.S. psychologist Carl Rogers (1902 - 1987), it is also known as the phenomenological field
Phenomenal Space
A movement in modern European’s philosophy initiated by German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859 - 1938)
- Husserl argued for a new approach to human knowledge in which mental events should be studied and described in their own terms, rather than in terms of their relationship to events in the body or in the external world
- However, this should be distinguished from introspection as it is concerned with the relationship between acts of consciousness and the objects of such acts
- Husserl’s approach proved widely influential in psychology - especially gestalt psychology and existential psychology
Phenomenology
An observable event or physical occurrence
- In Greek philosophy, most notably that of Plato (c. 427 - c. 347 BCE), these are the sensible things that constitute the world of experience, as contrasted with the transcendent realities that are known only through reason
- German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) used the term to refer to things as they appear to the senses and are interpreted by the categories of the human understanding
- For Kant, knowledge of this is the kind of knowledge available to human beings, as knowledge of “noumena,” or things in themselves, remains beyond human experience or reason
Phenomenon
Any of a group of chemically related compounds most of which are used as antipsychotic drugs, originally developed as such in the 1950s
- It is commonly assumed that their therapeutic effects are produced by blockade of a particular type of dopamine receptor
- They also block acetylcholine, histamine, and norepinephrine receptors, actions that are associated with many of their adverse effects, which include extrapyramidal symptoms, tardive dyskinesia, and sedation
Phenothiazine
The observable characteristics of an individual, such as morphological or biochemical features and the presence or absence of a particular disease or condition
- This is determined by the expression of the individual’s genotype coupled with the effects of environmental factors (eg; nutritional status or climate)
Phenotype
An inherited metabolic disease marked by a deficiency of an enzyme (phenylalanine hydroxylase) needed to utilize the amino acid phenylalanine
- Unless it is diagnosed in early infancy and treated by a restricted dietary intake of phenylalanine, this leads to severe mental retardation and other nervous system disorders
Phenylketonuria
A chemical signal that is released outside the body by members of a species and that influences the behavior of other members of the same species
- For example, it may serve to attract the opposite sex or to act as an alarm
- The existence of these in humans is controversial
Pheromone
(Symbol: ø)
A measure of association for two dichotomous random variables
- This is the product moment correlation when both variables are coded (0,1)
Phi Coefficient
The intellectual discipline that uses careful reasoned argument to elucidate fundamental questions, notably those concerning the nature of knowledge (epistemology), and the nature of moral adjustments (ethics)
- As such, it provides an intellectual foundation for many other disciplines, including psychology
- Psychology as a scientific discipline has its roots in the epistemological preoccupations of 18th and 19th century philosophy and continues to be influenced by philosophical ideas
Philosophy
An illusion seen when two lights flash on and off about 150 m apart
- The light appears to move from one location to the other
- This is a form of beta movement
Phi Phenomenon
A persistent and irrational fear of a specific situation, object, or activity (eg; heights, dogs, water, blood, driving, flying), which is consequently either strenuously avoided or endured with marked distress
- The many individual types are classified as specific
Phobia
A speech sound that plays a meaningful role in a language and cannot be analyzed into smaller meaningful sounds, conventionally indicated by slash symbols: /b/
- A speech sound is held to be meaningful in a given language if its contrast with other sounds is used to mark distinctions of meaning: In English, for example, /p/ and /b/ are these because they distinguish between [pan] and [ban] and other such pairs
Phoneme
The branch of linguistics concerned with the classification and analysis of the phonemes in a language
- While phonetics tries to characterize all possible sounds represented in human language, this identifies which of the phonetic distinctions are considered meaningful by a given language
Phonemics
The branch of linguistics that studies the physical properties of speech sounds and the physiological means by which these are produced and perceived (placing the tongue or lip in contact with the teeth, directing the airstream against the hard palate, ect)
Phonetics
A communication disorder characterized by failure to develop and consistently use speech sounds that are appropriate for the Child’S age
- It most commonly involves misarticulation of the later acquired speech sounds, such as [l], [r], [s], [z], [ch], [sh], or [th], but may also include substitution of sounds (eg; [t] for [k]) or omission of sounds (eg; final consonants)
Phonological Disorder
A form of acquired dyslexia characterized primarily by difficulties in reading pronounceable nonwords
- Semantic errors are not seen in this type of dyslexia, a feature that distinguishes it from deep dyslexia
Phonological Dyslexia
The branch of linguistics that studies the system of speech sounds in a language or in language generally
- The term is less specific than either phonetics or phonemics
Phonology
A sensation of a light flash in the absence of actual light stimulation to the eye
- It can be caused by mechanical stimulation of the retina, by rubbing the eyes when closed, or by direct electrical stimulation of the visual cortex
Phosphene
Exceptionally detailed and highly accurate recollection of information or visual experiences
- This is widely but mistakenly considered synonymous with an eidetic image
Photographic Memory
A substance in a retinal rod or retinal cone that interacts with light to initiate a chemical cascade resulting in the conversion of light energy into an electrical signal
- All rods contain rhodopsin, while cones have one of three different iodopsins, each with a different wavelength sensitivity
- This is located in disks of membrane in the outer segment of a rod or cone
Photopigment
A visual receptor, especially a retinal rod or a retinal cone
Photoreceptor
Therapy involving exposure to ultraviolet or infrared light, which is used for treating not only certain skin conditions or disorders (eg; jaundice, psoriasis) but also depression, particularly for patients with Seasonal Affective Disorder
Phototherapy
A type of generative grammar in which a system of phrase structure rules is used to describe a sentence in terms of the grammatical structures that generate its form and define it as grammatical
- The phrase structure rules are usually set out in the form X —> Y + Z, in which the arrow is an instruction to reformulate (“rewrite”) X in terms of its immediate constituents (Y + Z)
- Formal phrase structure analysis of this kind was developed by U.S. linguist Noam Chomsky (1928 - )
- His transformational generative grammar added an important new dimension by proposing that sentences have a deep structure as well as the linear surface structure described in this, and that the relationship between the two levels can be described through a system of transformational rules
Phrase Structure Grammar
A theory of personality formulated in the 18th and 19th centuries by German physician Franz Josef Gall (1757 - 1828) and Austrian philosopher and anatomist Johann Kaspar Spurzheim (1776 - 1832)
- It stated that specific abilities or personality traits are represented by specific areas of the brain: the size of these brain areas, and hence the degree of the corresponding skill or trait, could be indicated by bumps and hollows on the skull surface
Phrenology
- The evolutionary origin and development of a particular group (species) of organisms
- A diagram that shows genetic linkages between ancestors and descendants
Phylogeny
Deliberately aggressive or violent behavior by one person toward another that results in bodily injury
- This may involve such actions as punching, kicking, biting, choking, burning, shaking, and beating, which may at times be severe enough to result in permanent damage (eg; traumatic brain injury) or death
- It is most frequently observed in relationships of trust, particularly between parents and children or between intimate partners (eg; in a marriage); indeed, violence against women and children is recognized as a major public health problem
- Individuals who experience this often feel helpless and isolated, and are prone to the subsequent development of numerous pathological conditions, including depression, eating disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, and substance use problems
Physical Abuse
The state of an individual who has repeatedly taken a drug and will experience unpleasant physiological symptoms if he or she stops taking the drug
Physical Dependence
- The form of a person’s physical features, especially the face
- The attempt to read personality from the facial features and expression, assuming, for example, that a person with a receding chin is weak or one with a high forehead is bright
- The idea dates back to Greek philosopher Aristotle (383 - 322 BCE) and was later developed into a pseudoscientific system by Swiss pastor Johann Lavater (1741 - 1801) and Italian psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso (1835 - 1909)
Physiognomy
Aspects of arousal shown by physiological responses, such as increases in blood pressure and rate of respiration and decreased activity of the gastrointestinal system
- Such primary arousal responses are largely governed by the sympathetic nervous system, but responses of the parasympathetic nervous system may compensate or even overcompensate for the sympathetic activity
Physiological Arousal
An association between a physiological measure and a behavioral measure
- The existence of this may suggest a causal relation, but it does not establish a cause
Physiological Correlate
Any of the requirements for survival, such as food, water, oxygen, and sleep
- These make up the lowest level of Maslow’s Motivational Hierarchy
Physiological Need
A term used interchangeably with psychophysiology, or, less commonly, biological psychology
Physiological Psychology
The science of the functions of living organisms, including the chemical and physical processes involved and the activities of the cells, tissues, and organs, as opposed to static anatomical or structural factors
Physiology
The theory of cognitive development proposed by Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980), according to which intelligence develops through four major stages: (a) the sensorimotor stage (roughly 0-2 years), (b) the preoperational stage (roughly 2-7 years), (c) the concrete operational stage (roughly 7-12 years), and (d) the formal operation stage (roughly 12 years and beyond)
- According to this theory, each stage builds upon the preceding one
- Passage through the stages is facilitated by a balance of two processes: assimilation, in which new information is incorporated into already existing cognitive structures; and accommodation, in which new information that does not fit into already existing cognitive structures is used to create new cognitive structures
Piagetian Theory
A culture bound syndrome observed primarily in female Inuit and other artic populations
- Individuals experience a sudden dissociative period of extreme excitement in which they often tear off clothes, run naked through the snow, scream, throw things, and perform other wild behaviors
- This typically ends with convulsive seizures, followed by an acute coma and amnesia for the event
Piblokto
A form of dementia characterized by progressive degeneration of the frontal and temporal areas of the brain with the presence of particles called pick bodies in the cytoplasm of the neurons
- The disease is characterized by personality changes and deterioration of social skills and complex thinking; symptoms include problems with new situations and abstractions, difficulty in thinking or concentrating, loss of memory, lack of spontaneity, gradual emotional dullness, loss of moral judgement, and disturbances of speech [described in 1892 by Arnold Pick (1851 - 1924), Czech psychiatrist and neuroanatomist]
Pick’s Disease
An improvised contact language incorporating elements of two or more languages, often devised for purposes of trading
- These are characterized by simple rules and limited vocabulary
Pidgin
A graphic display in which a circle is cut into pielike wedges, the area of the wedge being proportional to the percentage of cases in the category represented by the wedge
Pie Chart
A temporary raising of the hairs covering the surface of the skin caused by contraction of the piloerector muscles, which are attached to the individual follicles from which each hair arises
- This is involuntary, being directed by the sympathetic nervous system, and elicited by cold, fear, or a startling stimulus
- In mammals with a thick, visible covering of hair (eg; cats), this serves a protective function: the resulting “fluffed up” appearance makes the animal seem larger and may deter attack by others
- In humans, whose skin has only a sparse covering of hair, this creates a temporary roughness as the muscles pucker the surrounding skin, giving rise to such colloquial names for the effect as goose bumps, goose flesh, and goose pimples
Piloerection
A small, preliminary research project designed to evaluate procedures in preparation for a subsequent and more detailed research project
- Although these are conducted to reveal information about the viability of a proposed experiment and implement necessary modifications, they may also provide useful initial data on the topic of study and suggest avenues or offer implications for future research
Pilot Study
A small, cone shaped gland attached by a stalk to the posterior wall of the third ventricle of the brain; it is part of the epithalamus
- In amphibians and reptiles, the gland appears to function as a part of the visual system
- In mammals it secretes the hormone melatonin and is an important component of the circadian system regulating biological rhythms
Pineal Gland
The funnel shaped part of the external ear that projects beyond the head
- Consisting of cartilage, it collects and focuses sounds toward the external auditory meatus
Pinna
