General Psychology

Concordance rate

indicates the percentage of twin pairs or other pairs of relatives who exhibit the same disorder

Dissociative Disorders

class of disorders in which people lose contact with portions of their consciousness or memory, resulting in disruptions in their sense of identity

Dissociative amnesia

a sudden loss of memory for important personal information that is too extensive to be due to normal forgetting

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Involves a disruption of identity marked by the experience of two or more largely complete, and usually very different, personalities.

Major depressive disorder

people show persistent feelings of sadness and despair and a loss of interest in previous sources of pleasure

Anhedonia

A diminished ability to experience pleasure

Bipolar disorder

disorder marked by the experience of both depressed and manic period

Schizophrenic Disorder

Disorder marked by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking and speech, and deterioration of adaptive behavior.

Delusions

are false beliefs that are maintained even though they clearly are out of touch with reality

Hallucinations

Are sensory perceptions that occur in the absence of a real, external stimulus or are gross distortions of perceptual input

Autism or Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social interaction and communication and restricted, repetitive interests and activities

Personality disorders

Class of disorders marked by extreme, inflexible personality traits that cause subjective distress or impaired social and occupational functioning

Avoidant Personality disorder

Excessively sensitive to potential rejection, humiliation, or shame; socially withdrawn in spite of desire for acceptance from others

Dependent Personality Disorder

Excessively lacking in self-reliance and self-esteem; passively allowing others to make all decisions; constantly subordinating own needs to others’ needs

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Preoccupied with organization, rules, schedules, lists, trivial details; extremely conventional, serious, and formal; unable to express warm emotions

Schizoid personality disorder

Defective in capacity for forming social relationships; showing absence of warm, tender feelings for others

Schizotypal personality disorder

Showing social deficits and oddities of thinking, perception, and communication that resemble schizophrenia

Paranoid personality disorder

Showing pervasive and unwarranted suspiciousness and mistrust of people; overly sensitive; prone to jealousy

Histrionic personality disorder

Overly dramatic; tending to exaggerated expressions of emotion; egocentric, seeking attention

Narcissistic Personality disorder

Grandiosely self-important; preoccupied with success fantasies; expecting special treatment; lacking interpersonal empathy

Borderline Personality disorder

Unstable in self-image, mood, and interpersonal relationships; impulsive and unpredictable

Antisocial personality disorder

Marked by impulsive, callous, manipulative, aggressive and irresponsible behavior. Chronically violating the rights of others; failing to accept social norms, to form attachments to other, or to sustain consistent work behavior; exploitive and reckless

Eating disorders

Severe disturbances in eating behavior characterized by preoccupation with weight concerns and unhealthy efforts to control weight

Anorexia nervosa

involves intense fear of gaining weight, disturbed body image, refusal to maintain normal weight, and use of dangerous measure to lose weight

Bulimia nervosa

involves habitually engaging in out of control overeating, followed by unhealthy compensatory efforts, such as self-induced vomiting, fasting, abuse of laxatives and diuretics, and excessive exercise

Binge-eating disorder

involves distress inducing eating binges that are not accompanied by the purging, fasting, and excessive exercise seen in bulimia

Insanity

Legal status indicating that a person cannot be held responsible for his or her actions because of mental illness

Competency

Refers to a defendant’s capacity to stand trial

Involuntary commitment

people are hospitalized in psychiatric facilities against their will

Stress

any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one’s well-being and tax one’s coping abilities

Primary appraisal

The initial evaluation of whether an event is irrelevant to you, relevant but not threatening, or stressful

Secondary appraisal

An evaluation of your coping resources and options for dealing with the stress

Approach-approach conflict

A choice must be made between two attractive goals

avoidance-avoidance conflict

a choice must be made between two unattractive goals

Approach-avoidance conflict

a choice must be made about whether to pursue a single goal that has both attractive and unattractive aspects

General adaptation syndrome

Model of the body’s stress response, consisting of three stages: Alarm, Resistance, and Exhaustion

Neurogenesis

Formation of new neurons

Learned helplessness

A passive behavior produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive events. (Giving up)

Catharsis

Release of emotional tension

Defense mechanisms

Largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasant emotions, such as anxiety and guilt

Type “A” personality

Characterized by strong competitive orientation, impatience and time urgency, and anger and hostility

Type “B” personality

Characterized by patience, relatively relaxed, easygoing, amicable behavior

Immune Response

The body’s defensive reaction to invasion by bacteria, viral agents, or other foreign substances

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome

A disorder in which the immune system is gradually weakened and eventually disabled by the human immunodeficiency virus

Catastrophic thinking

Involves unrealistically pessimistic appraisals of stress that exaggerate the magnitude of one’s problems

Person perception

the process of forming impressions of others

Stereotypes

Widely held beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of their membership in a particular group

Illusory Correlation

Occurs when people estimate that they have encountered more confirmations of an association between social traits than they have actually seen

Ingroup

A group that one belongs to and identifies with

Outgroup

A group that one does not belong to or identify with

Internal Attributions

Ascribe the causes of behavior to personal dispositions, traits, abilities, and feelings

External attributions

Ascribe the causes of behavior to situational demands and environmental constraints

The fundamental attribution error

Refers to observers’ bias in favor of internal attributions in explaining others’ behavior

The self-serving bias

The tendency to attribute one’s successes to personal factors and one’s failures to situational factors

Interpersonal attraction

Refers to positive feeling towards another person

The matching hypothesis

Idea that proposes that males and females of approximately equal physical attractiveness are likely to select each other as partners

Passionate love

Complete absorption in another that includes tender sexual feelings and the agony and ecstasy of intense emotion

Companionate love

Warm, trusting, tolerant affection for another whose life is deeply intertwined with one’s own

Explicit Attitudes

Attitudes that one holds consciously and can readily describe

Implicit Attitudes

Attitudes that are covertly expressed in subtle automatic responses over which one has little conscious control

Mere exposure effect

Finding that repeated exposures to a stimulus promotes greater liking of the stimulus

Dissonance theory

Assumes that inconsistency among attitudes propels people in the direction of attitude change

Cognitive dissonance

Exists when related attitudes or beliefs are inconsistent; that is, when they contradict each other

Normative influence

When people conform to social norms for fear of negative social consequences

Informational influence

When people look to others for guidance about how to behave in ambiguous situations

Bystander effect

People are less likely to provide needed help when they are in groups than when they are alone

Social loafing

Reduction in effort by individuals when they work in groups, as compared with when they work by themselves

Group polarization

When group discussion strengthens a group’s dominant point of view and produces a shift toward a more extreme decision in that direction

Groupthink

When members of a cohesive group emphasize concurrence at the expense of critcal thinking in arriving at a decision

Foot-in-the-door technique

Getting people to agree to a small request to increase the chances they will agree to a larger request later

Lowball technique

Getting someone to commit to a seemingly attractive proposition before its hidden costs are revealed

Extraversion

Characterized as outgoing, sociable, upbeat, friendly, assertive, and gregarious, more positive outlook on life

Neuroticism

Characterized as anxious, hostile, self-conscious, insecure, and vulnerable, tend to be more impulsive and emotionally unstable

Openness to experience

Characterized as curious, flexible, imaginative, intellectual, interested in new ideas, and unconventional attitudes

Agreeableness

Characterized as warm, sympathetic, trusting, compassionate, cooperative, modest and straightforward.

Conscientiousness

Characterized as diligent, well-organized, punctual, and dependable, with self-discipline

Id

Primitive, instinctive component of personality that operates according to the pleasure principle

Ego

Decision-making component of personality that operates according to the reality principle

Superego

Moral component of personality that incorporates social standards about what represents right and wrong

Jung’s Analytical psychology

Proposes the unconscious is in two layers, and that the entire human race shares a collective unconscious

Collective unconscious

Storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from people’s ancestral past

Archetypes

Emotionally charged images and thought forms that have universal meaning

Adler’s individual psychology

Argues that the source of human motivation is striving for superiority, improving one’s self and master life challenges

Bandura’s Social Cognitive theory

Theory that states people actively seek out and process information about their environment to maximize favorable outcomes

Mischel’s Person-Situation Controversy

Theory that argued that people’s personality and character largely play a role in their behaviors in certain situations

Need for self-actualization

Need to fulfill one’s potential