Units 6 and 7 CB Review Vocab Quizzes ( Unit 9, 10 Myers Textbook)

Fetal Alcohol syndrome (FAS)

Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by heavy drinking by the mother while the child is in the room.

Habituation

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.

Schema

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Assimilation

Interpreting new experiences in terms of existing schemas.

Accommodation

Adapting current schemas to incorporate new information.

Sensorimotor stage

In Piaget's theory, the stage from birth to around 2 years during which infants experience the world through senses and motor activities.

Object permanence

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

Preoperational stage

In Piaget's theory, the stage from 2 to about 7 years during which the child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.

Conservation

The principle, picked up during concrete observational reasoning, that properties like mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in form.

Egocentrism

In Piaget's theory, the pre-operational child's difficulty taking another person's point of view.

Concrete operational stage

In Piaget's theory, the stage between 7 and 11 years during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.

Formal operational stage

In Piaget's theory, the stage from age 12 onwards during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.

Autism

A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others' state of mind.

Stranger anxiety

The fear of strangers that infants commonly display at around 8 months of age.

Critical period

An optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development.

Imprinting

The process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.

Basic trust

Erik Erikson theory that there is an infant sense that the world is predictable, trustworthy, and found through appropriate experience with responsive caregivers.

Self-concept

Our understanding and evaluation of who we are.

Gender typing

The acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role.

Social identity

The identity that one finds when surrounded by their distinctive group(s).

Cross-sectional study

A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another at the same time.

Longitudinal study

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

Crystallized intelligence

Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills that increases with age.

Fluid intelligence

Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly that decreases with old age.

Developmental psychology

A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.

Adolescence

The transition period from childhood to adulthood, from puberty to independence.

Zygote

A fertilized egg that develops into an embryo in 2 weeks.

Puberty

The period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing.

Embryo

The developing human organism from week 2 to week 8.

Primary sex characteristics

The body structures that make sexual reproduction possible.

Fetus

The developing human organism between 9 weeks and birth.

Teratogens

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

Menarche

The first menstrual period.

Maturation

Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior. Relatively uninfluenced by experience and rather, genes.

Identity

Our sense of self, according to Erikson, where the adolescent must solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles.

Cognition

All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Intimacy

The ability to form close, loving relationships which, according to Erikson, was found to be the dilemma in young adulthood.

Theory of mind

People's ideas about their own and others' mental states; gives them the ability to infer what others are thinking or feeling.

Emerging adulthood

In contemporary culture, a period from late teens to mid-twenties, bridging the gap between adolescent dependence and responsible adulthood.

Attachment

Emotional tie with another person found in young children when they seek closeness in caregivers and show distress upon separation.

Menopause

The time of natural cessation of menstruation.

Temperament

A person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity.

Social clock

The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.

Gender

The biologically and socially influenced characteristics by which people define male or female.

Aggression

Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone.

X chromosome

The sex chromosome found two times in females and one time in males.

Y chromosome

The sex chromosome found only in males.

Testosterone

The most important male sex hormone that stimulates the development of the sex organs in the fetus and during puberty.

Role

The set of expectations about a social position, which defines how those in the position should behave.

Gender role

A set of expected behaviors for males or for females.

Gender identity

Our sense of being either male or female.

personality

an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

free association

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

psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality and therapeutic technique that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts. Freud believed the patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences—and the therapist's interpretations of them—released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight.

unconscious

according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.

id

a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.

ego

the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.

superego

the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.

psychosexual stages

the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.

Oedipus

complex according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.

identification

the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos.

fixation

(1) the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set. (2) according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.

defense mechanisms

in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

repression

in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

regression

psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.

reaction formation

psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings.

projection

psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

rationalization

psychoanalytic defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions.

displacement

psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet.

sublimation

psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people re-channel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities.

denial

psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people refuse to believe or even to perceive painful realities.

collective unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history.

projective test

a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, 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.

terror-management theory

a theory of death-related anxiety; explores people's emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death.

self-actualization

according to Maslow, 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.

unconditional positive regard

a caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients to develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.

self-concept

all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?"

trait

a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.

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.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes.

empirically derived test

a test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.

social-cognitive perspective

views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context.

reciprocal determinism

the interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

personal control

the extent to which people perceive control over their environment rather than feeling helpless.

external locus of control

the perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate.

internal locus of control

the perception that you control your own fate.

positive psychology

the scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

self

in contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

spotlight effect

overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us).

self-esteem

one's feelings of high or low self-worth.

self-serving bias

a readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

individualism

giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.

collectivism

giving priority to goals of one's group (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly.