Overview of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences Flashcards

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering subfields of psychology, sensory and perceptual processes, visual illusions, stress, health concepts, and professional/legal terminology.

Psychology

The study of the mind and behavior, seeking to understand and explain how people think, act, and feel.

Abnormal Psychology

The specialty area focused on the study of abnormal behavior, psychopathology, and the research and treatment of a variety of mental disorders.

Biological Psychology

Also known as biopsychology, the study of how biological processes, neurons, the brain, and the nervous system influence the mind and behavior.

Clinical Psychology

The branch of psychology focused on the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of mental disorders and psychiatric illness.

Cognitive Psychology

The branch of psychology that focuses on internal mental states and thought processes, including memory, perception, attention, decision-making, and problem-solving.

Comparative Psychology

The branch of psychology concerned with the study of animal behavior to gain a broader and deeper understanding of human psychology.

Developmental Psychology

The study of human growth, maturation, and physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development over the entire lifespan.

Forensic Psychology

A specialty area focused on applying psychological research, principles, and practice within the legal and criminal justice system.

Industrial-Organizational Psychology

A field that applies psychological principles to workplace issues to enhance work performance, productivity, employee selection, and overall well-being.

Personality Psychology

The branch of psychology focused on understanding how personality develops and the patterns of thoughts, behaviors, and characteristics that make each individual unique.

Social Psychology

The branch of psychology that seeks to understand group behavior, social interactions, and how social influences shape individual thoughts and behaviors.

Classical Conditioning

A kind of learning in which a person or animal comes to associate two stimuli, linking them together to produce a new learned response.

Operant Conditioning

A method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior to encourage or discourage specific actions.

Psyche

The Greek word from which 'psychology' is derived, literally meaning 'life' or 'breath', with derived meanings including 'soul' or 'self'.

Introspection

An extremely subjective process relying on the self-analysis of sensations and feelings to identify mental processes, as utilized by Wilhelm Wundt.

Structuralism

The earliest school of thought in psychology, associated with Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener, focused on describing the structures that compose the mind.

Functionalism

An early school of thought associated with William James that focused attention on the purpose and function of human consciousness and behavior.

Psychoanalysis

An influential psychological approach founded by Sigmund Freud centered on how the unconscious mind impacts human behavior.

Behavioural Sciences

The branch of science that studies human behavior of individuals and groups, drawing upon psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and statistics.

Determinants of Behaviour

The interconnected biological, psychological, social, and cultural factors that collectively shape individual behavior.

Culture

Shared learned behavior transmitted from one generation to another for purposes of human adjustment, adaptation, and growth.

Stimulus

Any form of environmental energy to which a sensory organism can respond.

Sense

A particular physiological pathway for responding to a specific kind of environmental energy.

Sensation

The feeling experienced in direct response to information coming in through the body's sensory organs.

Perception

The process by which the brain organizes, interprets, and provides meaning to sensory inputs using cues and prior memories.

Contour

An area within the visual array where there is an abrupt change in luminance, serving as a basic visual element for shape perception.

Autokinetic Effect

An optical illusion of motion where staring at a single spot of stationary light in a completely dark room makes the light appear to move erratically.

Phi-Phenomenon

A basic form of stroboscopic motion where stationary lights flashing on and off in rapid sequence create the illusion of a single light moving.

Induced Movement

An illusion of motion experienced when looking at a stationary object framed by moving surrounding context, such as the moon appearing to race through moving clouds.

Perceptual Learning

An increase in the ability to extract information from the environment as a result of practice and past experience with stimulation.

Muller-Lyer Illusion

A geometrical optical illusion where two vertical lines of equal physical length appear to be of different lengths due to inward or outward pointing arrowheads.

Ponzo Illusion

A visual illusion where converging lines suggestive of linear perspective create a false perception of depth and relative size.

Poggendorf Illusion

A geometrical visual illusion occurring when a diagonal line intersected by two parallel vertical lines appears offset rather than continuous.

Telepathy

A type of extrasensory perception involving thought transference directly from one person to another.

Clairvoyance

A form of extrasensory perception defined as the perception of objects or events without physical sensory stimulation.

Psychokinesis

A parapsychological phenomenon involving the direct mental manipulation of physical objects without physical touch.

Dispositional Attribution

Inferring that an internal trait or characteristic of a person is primarily responsible for their observed behavior.

Situational Attribution

Inferring that an external force or environmental context is primarily responsible for a person's behavior.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The cognitive bias toward making dispositional rather than situational attributions when interpreting the behavior of others.

Hallucinations

Percepts that occur in the absence of an external physical stimulus, possessing the characters of normal perception.

Attention

The perceptual focusing on specific stimuli with the aim of bringing them into conscious awareness.

Selective Attention

The cognitive ability to focus thoughts on a particular stimulus despite the presence of competing environmental distractors.

Sustained Attention

The ability to maintain focused attention over a considerable period of time, also referred to as vigilance.

Divided Attention

The capacity to focus attention on two or more tasks simultaneously.

Learning

Any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of practice or past experience.

Thinking

A mental activity in which an individual responds to a problem through cognitive manipulation and rearrangement of environmental information and stored memory.

Stressor

A stimulus event of sufficient severity to produce disequilibrium in homeostatic physiological or psychological systems.

Eustress

Positive stress associated with beneficial or constructve life changes, such as getting a job promotion or moving to a new home.

Distress

Negative stress that exerts harmful effects on an individual, lowering resistance to psychological and physical health problems.

General Adaptation Syndrome

A three-stage physiological reaction pattern to stress described by Hans Selye, consisting of alarm reaction, stage of resistance, and stage of exhaustion.

Components of Stress

The interaction between a stressor stimulus, the cognitive and physiological stress response, and individual coping resources.

Self-Efficacy

Confidence in one's capability to exert control over personal motivation, behavior, and social environment.

Illness

The subjective personal experience of feeling unwell, characterized by discomfort, tiredness, or general malaise.

Sickness

Socially and culturally held conceptions and perceptions of health conditions.

Disease

Pathological biological processes or objective structural abnormalities affecting cells, organs, and body systems.

Syndrome

A recognized complex set of symptoms and signs that consistently occur together more often than expected by chance alone.

Clinical Course of Disease

The progression of a disease process over time from initial exposure to outcome, as modified by medical diagnosis and therapy.

Sick Role

A sociological concept defined by Talcott Parsons outlining social expectations for a sick individual, including exemption from normal roles and obligation to seek competent medical care.

Statutory Law

Written law formally created and passed by a body of legislature.

Common Law

A body of legal principles derived from custom and judicial precedent set by court decisions rather than written legislative statutes.

Tort

A civil wrong punishable by damages, arising from intentional or negligent acts that cause harm or injury to another person.