AP PSYCHOLOGY SEM 2 VOCAB

Teratogen

Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

Critical period

An optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development.

Cross sectional study

A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another.

Longitudinal study

Research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period.

Authoritarian parent

A strict style of parenting that places high expectations on children, emphasizing strict rule-following over warmth and empathy. This type is more likely to raise kids with emotional/behavioral problems, poor socialand decision-making skills, and a lack in self-esteem.

Authoritative parent

A style of parenting that combines warmth, sensitivity, and the setting of limits. This type is more likely to raise confident kids who achieve academic success, have better social skills, and are more capable at problem-solving.

Permissive parent

A style of parenting that is characterized by parents who are responsive to their children, but lack rules and discipline. This type is more likely to raise kids with some self-esteem and decent social skills, but can show behavioral problems and lack self-regulation.

Conservation

The principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects.

Egocentrism

In Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.

Sensorimeter stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.

Preoperational stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.

Formal operational

In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.

Concrete operational

In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.

Object permanence

The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.

Assimilation

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.

Accommodation

Adapting our current understandings to incorporate new information.

Theory of mind

People’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states — about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict.

Zygote

The fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops an embryo.

Embryo

The developing human organism, from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month.

Fetus

The developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth.

Intrinsic motivation

A desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake.

Extrinsic motivation

A desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment.

Homeostasis

A tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry around a particular level.

Facial feedback effect

The tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness.

Id

A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives; it operates on the pleasure principle.

Ego

The largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality; it operates on the reality principle.

Superego

The part of personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement (the unconscious) and for future aspirations.

Free association

A method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.

Self-actualization

One of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one’s potential.

Defense mechanism

The ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

Latent content

According to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream.

Manifest conent

According to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream.

Big Five model

A personality model that breaks personality down into five components: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN).

Projective test

A personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.

Rorschach inkblot test

The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.

Personality inventory

A questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors used to assess selected personality traits.

Crystallized intelligence

Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Fluid intelligence

Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood.

Heritability

The proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied.

Yerkes-Dodson law

The principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases.

Drive reduction theory

The idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy a need.

James-Lange theory

The theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli.

Cannon-Bard theory

The theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers physiological responses and the subjective experience of emotion.

Two-factor theory

The Schachter-Singer theory that to experience emotion one must be physically aroused and cognitively label the arousal.

General adaptation syndrome (GAS)

Selye’s concept of the body’s adaptive response to stress in three phrases—alarm, resistance, exhaustion.

Type A personality

Friedman and Rosenman’s term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people.

Type B personality

Friedman and Rosenman’s term for easygoing, relaxed people.

Self-efficacy

One’s sense of competence and effectiveness.

Self-esteem

One’s feelings of high or low self-worth.

Anxiety disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety.

Mood disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes.

Dissociative disorders

Disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated (disassociated) from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings.

Personality disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning.

Somatoform disorders

A psychological disorder in which the symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without apparent physical cause.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

A rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities. Formerly called multiple personality disorder.

Bipolar disorder

A mood disorder in which a person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the over-excited state of mania (formerly called manic-depressive disorder).

Conversion disorder

A disorder in which a person experiences very specific genuine physical symptoms for which no physiological basis can be found. (Also called functional neurological symptom disorder.)

(Specific) Phobia

An anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

An anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal.

Agoraphobia

Fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide-open spaces, where one has felt loss of control and panic.

Mania

A mood disorder marked by a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state.

Major depression

A mood disorder in which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or another medical condition, two or more weeks with five or more symptoms, at least one of which must be either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

A disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and/or actions (compulsions).

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

A disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience.

Schizophrenia

A psychological disorder characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and/or diminished or inappropriate emotional expression.

Delusions

False beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders.

Psychodynamic therapy

Therapy deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition that views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and that seeks to enhance self-insight.

Transference

In psychoanalysis, the patient’s transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships (such as love or hatred for a parent).

Behavioral therapy

Therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors.

Active listening

Empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies. A feature of Rogers’ client-centered therapy.

Systematic desensitization

A type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias.

Aversive conditioning

A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alcohol).

Cognitive therapy

Therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.

Antipsychotic drugs

Drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorder.

Antidepressant drugs

Drugs used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder.

Antianxiety drugs

Drugs used to control anxiety and agitation.

Altruism

Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

Bystander effect

The tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present.

Conformity

Adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

Cognitive dissonance theory

The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing out attitudes.

Central route persuasion

Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.

Deindividuation

The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

Discrimination

In social psychology, unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members.

Fundamental attribution error

The tendency for observers, when analyzing others’ behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

Groupthink

The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.

Just world phenomenon

The tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

Prejudice

An unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action.

Peripheral route persuasion

Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

A belief that leads to its own fulfillment.

Social trap

A situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.

Social facilitation

Improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others.

Group polarizaton

The enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group.

Superordinate goals

Shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation.

Passionate love

An aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship.

Companionate love

The deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined.