Topic B - Dreaming (Key Words)

Question 1

Manifest content

Answer 1

What the dream is said to be about by the dreamer - the story the dreamer tells.

Question 2

Latent content

Answer 2

The meaning underlying the dream. If the symbols from the manifest content are translated by an analyst, they can reveal unconscious thoughts.

Question 3

Condensation

Answer 3

When many thoughts and elements from the unconscious are represented in the dream in one symbol.

Question 4

Displacement

Answer 4

When something that seems to be unimportant in the dream is made central, to shift attention from what is really important.

Question 5

Secondary elaboration

Answer 5

How the dreamer builds a story when telling what the dream is about, adding to and changing things, which makes the analysis hard.

Question 6

Psychoanalysis

Answer 6

Freud’s therapy, designed to help release unconscious thoughts.

Question 7

Free association

Answer 7

A method used by Freud in psychoanalysis where the patient is encouraged to express a flow of consciousness. The process helps to uncover links which can then be interpreted.

Question 8

Slip of the tongue

Answer 8

When someone uses the wrong word for something. Freud analysed these slips to help uncover unconscious thoughts.

Question 9

Dream analysis

Answer 9

A method used by Freud to help uncover unconscious thoughts, by analyzing dreams and uncovering symbols.

Question 10

Qualitative data

Answer 10

Data involving stories or attitudes

Question 11

Valid

Answer 11

Refers to findings of studies and means that they are about real-life situations, real-life behavior or feelings that are real.

Question 12

Generalisable

Answer 12

Refers to findings of studies and whether they can be said to be true of people other than those that were studied.

Question 13

Subjective

Answer 13

Where the researcher is somehow affecting the information that is gathered, perhaps by their interpretation.

Question 14

Objective

Answer 14

Where the researcher’s views do not affect the information that is gathered.

Question 15

Neuron

Answer 15

A cell in the body, including in the brain, that sends information using both electrical and chemical processes.

Question 16

Axon

Answer 16

The ‘cable’ that leads from a cell body of a neuron down to the terminal buttons that hold the neurotransmitter.

Question 17

Impulse

Answer 17

The electrical signal that travels from the cell body of a neuron to the terminal buttons, where it releases a neurotransmitter.

Question 18

Neurotransmitter

Answer 18

A chemical at the terminal button of a neuron, which is released by the impulse and then goes into the synaptic gap.

Question 19

Synaptic gap

Answer 19

The gap between the dendrites of one neuron and the next.

Question 20

Synaptic transmission

Answer 20

What happens when a neurotransmitter released by an impulse of one neuron goes across the synaptic gap and is taken up at the dendrites of another neuron.

Question 21

Activation-synthesis model

Answer 21

A model of dreaming proposed by Hobson and McCarley where the brain is active but no sensory information is coming into it. The brain puts the information it has together to make sense of it and this is the dream.

Question 22

Random activation

Answer 22

During REM sleep, when neurons are active randomly not deliberately.

Question 23

Sensory blockade

Answer 23

During REM sleep, when no information enters through the senses.

Question 24

Movement inhibition

Answer 24

The state, during REM sleep, when the body is paralyzed and there is no movement.

Question 25

Methodology

Answer 25

Refers to how psychology works, including how data are gathered. It involves considering ‘how do we know?’

Question 26

Objective

Answer 26

Where the researcher’s views do not affect the information that is gathered.

Question 27

Aim

Answer 27

A statement of what the study is being carried out to find.

Question 28

Case study

Answer 28

A research method studying an individual or a small group and gathering in-depth and detailed information using different means.

Question 29

Quantitative data

Answer 29

Data that involves numbers and statistics, such as percentages.

Question 30

Reliability

Answer 30

Refers to whether findings from a study would be found again if the study was repeated. A study is reliable if the findings are replicated.

Question 31

Privacy

Answer 31

An ethical guideline for studies that involve people as participants, which ensures that their names must be recorded and they must not be identifiable. Privacy is linked to confidentiality.

Question 32

Confidentiality

Answer 32

An ethical guideline for studies that involve people as participants, which ensures that information gained must not be shared with others without permission. There are some occasions when confidentiality must be broken, however, if there are issues of safety for someone else. Confidentiality is linked to privacy.

Question 33

Phallic

Answer 33

Term used to refer to anything that is related to or said to represent the male penis, or the term can refer to the penis.

Question 34

Oedipus complex

Answer 34

The idea that a boy from about the age of four years old will have unconscious feelings for his mother and want his father out of the way, though then fears his father and feels guilty too.