Psych 470: Motivation

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and concepts from the lecture notes across pages 1–35.

ABC Charts

Charts used to record antecedents, behaviors, and consequences.

Abnormal behavior

Behavior thought to be a combination of personal distress, psychological dysfunction, deviance from social norms, dangerousness to self and others, and costliness to society.

Abolishing operation

When an event makes a reinforcer or punisher less potent and so less likely to occur.

Absent-mindedness

When we forget to do things or have a lapse of attention such as not remembering where we put our keys.

Acceptance techniques

A cognitive behavior modification strategy in which the person comes to accept that which he/she cannot change.

Accommodation

When novel information is obtained we update an existing schema or create a brand new one.

Achievement need

The desire to do things well, outperform others, and overcome obstacles.

Action stage

The stage of change when the person engages in behavior change.

Actor-observer bias

When the actor overestimates the influence of the situation on their own behavior while the observer overestimates the importance of the actor’s personality traits on the actor’s behavior (dispositional).

Acute pain

Pain that is brief, begins suddenly, has a clear source, and is adaptive.

Adaptation

When schemas change due to direct experience with our environment.

Adaptation energy

Your body’s ability to deal with change or demands.

Adherence

Our willingness or motivation to follow orders, as well as our ability to do so.

Affect heuristic

Thinking with our heart and not our head.

Affective forecasting

A cognitive process in which we anticipate how we will feel in the future when a similar situation arises or we complete our goal.

Affective traits

Stable predispositions for how we respond to our world and lead us to react to events we experience in specific ways.

Affiliation need

Our motive to establish, maintain, or restore social relationships with others, whether individually or through groups.

Agreeableness

A personality trait characterized by being trusting and helpful.

Alarm Reaction

Part of the General Adaptation Syndrome, this stage begins when the body recognizes that it must fight off some physical or psychological danger.

Algorithms

A logical sequence of steps that always produces a correct solution to the problem.

Altruism

When a person desires to maximize other’s outcomes regardless of their own outcome.

Altruistic behavior

When we help others for the sake of helping them.

Amnesia

A condition in which an individual is unable to remember what happened either shortly before (retrograde) or after (anterograde) a head injury.

Amygdala

The part of the brain responsible for evaluating sensory information and quickly determining its emotional importance.

Analgesics

Painkillers.

Anal Stage

Lasting from 2-3 years, the libido is focused on the anus as toilet training occurs.

Animistic thinking

Assigning lifelike qualities to inanimate objects.

Antecedents

Environmental events or stimuli that trigger a behavior.

Apostasy

When a person completely abandons their faith and becomes nonreligious.

Applied Science

The type of science which desires to find solutions to real-world problems.

Appraisal

The process of interpreting the importance of a demand and how we might react to it.

Archetypes

According to Jung, unlearned tendencies that allow us to experience life in a specific way.

Assimilation

When new information is made to fit into existing schemas.

Associative learning

When we link together two pieces of information sensed from our environment.

Associative play

When two or more children interact with one another by sharing or borrowing toys or materials.

Attachment

An emotional bond established between two individuals and involving one’s sense of security.

Attention

Our ability to focus on certain aspects of our environment at the exclusion of others.

Attention Focused Exercises

Relaxation occurs when attention is directed to a neutral or pleasant stimulus.

Attitude

A belief, feeling or tendency that we hold in regard to a person, a group of people, an idea, or an activity.

Attitude object

What the attitude concerns.

Attribution theory

States that people are motivated to explain their own and other people’s behavior by attributing causes of that behavior to either something in themselves or a trait they have or to something outside the person.

Authoritarian parenting style

A parenting style characterized by a controlling, rigid, and cold parent.

Authoritative parenting style

Parents who set firm, clear limits on their child’s behavior.

Authority

We are more likely to comply with a request if it comes from someone who knows what they are talking about.

Autonomic nervous system

Regulates functioning of blood vessels, glands, and internal organs such as the bladder, stomach, and heart; it consists of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

Autonomy

Defined as independence and a sense of control over one’s life.

Autonomy need

The desire to feel in control of our own actions rather than at the whim of outside forces, being independent, and self-reliant.

Autonomy vs. shame and doubt

Erikson’s second stage of personality development occurring from 18 to 36 months, when the child develops independence and autonomy if parents encourage exploration and freedom.

Availability heuristic

A heuristic used when we make estimates about how often an event occurs based on how easily we can remember examples.

Avoidance behavior

In operant conditioning, this is when we engage in behaviors to avoid a negative consequence due to prior learning.

Awareness training

The stage of habit reversal in which the client must be aware of exactly what the habit is, when it occurs, in what situations, and with whom around.

Babbling

Speechlike but meaningless sounds.

Backup reinforcers

The regular reinforcers the person has in their life that come to be associated with tokens in a token economy.

Base rate fallacy

When we overestimate the chances that something has a rare property, or we underestimate that something has a common property.

Baseline Phase

The phase of behavior modification before any strategy or strategies are put into effect; serves as a comparison with the treatment phase.

Basic evils

According to Horney, all the negative factors in a child’s environment that can cause basic anxiety.

Basic Science

The type of science concerned with the acquisition of knowledge for the sake of the knowledge and nothing else.

Behavior

What people do, say, or think/feel.

Behavioral deficit

A behavior we want to increase as it is currently either not being performed or being performed not at the desired level.

Behavioral definition

A precise, objective, unambiguous description of the target behavior or a competing behavior.

Behavioral excess

A behavior that we want to decrease because it is causing us some type of trouble in our life.

Bias

When current knowledge, beliefs, and feelings skew our memory of past events.

Biologically prepared

The term coined by Martin Seligman which indicates that human beings are prepared to learn some associations over others.

Blocking

When we experience the tip-of-the-tongue phenomena and just cannot remember something.

Boomerang children

Children who leave home and come back due to an inability to make ends meet or find a job.

Broaden-and-build model

Says positive emotions widen our cognitive perspective, aid us in thinking more broadly and creatively, build resources, and help us acquire new skills to face the challenge while negative emotion promotes a narrow way of thinking.

Buffering hypothesis

The idea that social support lessens or even eliminates the harmful effects of stress.

Bystander effect

States the chances that we will aid someone needing help decreases as the number of bystanders increases.

Calorie

A measure of energy.

Cannon-Bard Theory of emotion

Says that an emotion and physiological response occur simultaneously.

Cardinal traits

Traits that dominate the person’s whole life.

Case studies

A detailed description of one person or a small group based on careful observation.

Central executive

Tells us where to focus our attention and can even home in on specific aspects of a stimulus.

Central nervous system (CNS)

The control center for the nervous system which receives, processes, interprets, and stores incoming sensory information.

Central traits

Central characteristics that form the basis of personality.

Centration

The tendency to focus only on one aspect of a situation at the exclusion of others.

Cephalocaudal principle

States that development proceeds from head (cephalo) to toe or tail (caudal).

Change

Anything, whether good or bad, that requires us to adapt.

Change blindness

When we fail to notice a difference in two pictures presented in rapid succession, compared to side-by-side.

Choice overload phenomenon

When having too many choices leaves us feeling frustrated, less satisfied, and regretful.

Chronic pain

Pain which lasts for a long period of time and up to months or years, is persistent and can disrupt sleep and appetite.

Chunking

Taking larger lists of unrelated and meaningless material and grouping them into smaller, meaningful units.

Circadian rhythms

Affects fluctuations in wakefulness, metabolism, body temperature, and the release of hormones.

Cognition need

A desire to understand and make reasonable the world of experience.

Cognitive behavioral therapy

A type of therapy which focuses on exploring relationships among a person’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors and seeks to reduce maladaptive cognitions.

Cognitive closure need

Our desire to have answers, predictability, order and structure, be decisive, and avoid uncertainty.

Cognitive coping skills training

A cognitive behavior modification strategy which teaches social skills, communication, and assertiveness through direct instruction, role playing, and modeling.

Cognitive development

The type of development which focuses on changes in intellectual development and how they affect behavior.

Cognitive dissonance theory

When you hold two contradictory cognitions, or thoughts, at the same time which cause a state of anxiety or discomfort.

Cognitive restructuring

Also called rational restructuring; a cognitive behavior modification strategy in which maladaptive cognitions are replaced with more adaptive ones.

Collective unconscious

According to Jung, the part of the psyche which is the innate knowledge that we come into this world with.

Commitment

According to Sternberg, the cognitive component of love and occurs when you decide you truly love the person.

Commitment and consistency

States that once we have committed to a position we are more likely to display behavior consistent with our initial action when asked to comply with new requests.

Common traits

Constructs that allow individuals within a given culture to be compared.

Compensation hypothesis

A theory of religious attachment which states that insecurely attached individuals are motivated to compensate for the absence of a secure relationship with their parents by believing in a loving God.

Competence need

The desire to feel that we are able to handle tasks and when we do so, to feel satisfaction.

Competing behavior

A behavior which interferes with the successful completion of a target behavior.

Competing response

In habit reversal, a behavior that is incompatible with the habit and makes its occurrence nearly impossible or difficult.

Competition

An attempt to maximize one’s own outcome relative to others.

Compliance

Efforts to get a person to say yes, or to agree to a request.