AP Psych MESH & Personality Unit

Instinct

a complex behavior that is rigidly patterned through a species and is unlearned
ex: animals imprinting or a baby's reflexes for rooting

Drive-Reduction Theory

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

Homeostasis

the maintenance of a balanced/constant internal state; regulation of any aspect of body chemistry

Incentives

a positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior

Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow's pyramid of human needs, beginning at the base with physiological needs that must be satisfied first before higher-level safety needs and then psychological needs become active

Glucose

the form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides the major source of energy for body tissues; when it is low, we feel hunger

Set Point

the point at which an individual's "weight thermostat" is supposedly set; when the body falls below this weight, an increase in hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may act to restore the lost weight

Basal Metabolic Rate

the body's resting rate of energy expenditure

Anorexia Nervosa

when a person diets and becomes significantly underweight (15% or more), yet, still feeling fat, continues to starve

Bulimia Nervosa

episodes of overeating, followed by vomiting, laxative use, fasting or excessive exercise

Binge-Eating Disorder

significant episodes followed by distress, disgust, or guilt but without the compensatory purging, fasting, or excessive exercise that marks bulimia

Sexual Response Cycle (and the 4 stages)

the four stages of sexual responding described by Johnson and Masters
1. Excitement
2. Plateau
3. Orgasm
4. Resolution

Refractory Period

a resting period after orgasm, during which a man cannot achieve another orgasm

Sexual Disorders

a problem that consistently impairs sexual arousal or functioning (ex: premature ejaculation)

Estrogen

Sex hormones secreted in greater amount by females and contribute to female sex characteristics. In nonhuman female mammals, levels peak during ovulation, promoting sexual receptivity

Testosterone

Most important male sex hormone. Both males and females have it but extra in males stimulates the growth of male sex organs in the fetus and development of sex characteristics during puberty.

Sexual Orientation

an enduring sexual attraction towards either ones own sex (homosexual orientation) or the other sex (heterosexual orientation)

Flow

a completely involved, focused state of consciousness, with diminished self awareness of self and time, resulting from optimal engagement of one's skills

Industrial-Organization (I/O) Psychology

application of concepts/methods to optimize human behavior in the work place

Personnel Psychology

a subfield of I/O Psychology
-focuses on employee recruitment, selection, placement, training, appraisal, and development

Structured Interview

(personnel psychology)
process that asks the same job-relevant questions of all applicant, each is then rated on established scales

Organizational Psychology

a subfield of I/O Psychology
-examines organizational influences on worker satisfaction and productivity and facilitates organization changes

Achievement Motivation

(organizational psych)
a desire for a significant accomplishment; for mastery of things, people, or ideas; for rapidly attaining a high standard

Task Leadership

(organizational psych)
goal orientated leadership that sets standards, organizes work, and focuses attention on goals

Social Leadership

(organizational psych)
group-oriented leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support

Emotions

a response of the whole organism involving
1. physiological arousal
2. expressive behavior
3. conscious experience

James-Lange Theory

theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousal stimuli
1. physiological response
2. experienced emotion

Cannon-Bard Theory

theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion

Two-Factor Theory

the Schachter-Singer theory that to experience emotion one must be (1) physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the emotion

Polygraphs

a lie detector machine that measure physiological responses accompanying emotions

Feel-Good, D0-Good Phenomenon

people's tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood

Subjective Well-Being

self perceived happiness or satisfaction w/ life
used along with measures of objective well-being to evaluate people's quality of life

The Adaption-Level Phenomenon

our tendency to form judgments (of sounds, lights, incomes) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience

Relative Deprivation

perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares one's self

Stress

the process by which we perceive/respond to certain events called stressors that we appraise as threatening or challenging

General Adaption Syndrome (GAS)

Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three states: (1) Alarm Reaction, (2) Resistance, and (3) Exhaustion

Coronary Heart Disease

the clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; the leading cause of death in many developed countries

Type A

competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive and anger-prone people

Type B

easygoing and relaxed people

Lymphocytes

white blood cells that are part of the body's immune system
(B and T)

B Lymphocytes

form in the bone marrow and release antibodies that fight infections

T Lymphocytes

form in the Thymus and other Lymphatic Tissues and attack cancer cells, viruses, and foreign substances (even good ones)

Cope

alleviating stress using emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods

Problem-Focused Coping

attempting to alleviate stress directly - by changing the stressor or the way we interact with the stressor

Emotion-Focused Coping

attempting to alleviate stews by avoiding/ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to one's stress reaction

Aerobic Exercise

sustained exercise that increases heart and lung fitness; may also alleviate depression/anxiety

Biofeedback

a system of recording, amplifying, and feeding back information about subtle physiological responses

Personality

the organization of enduring behavior patterns that often serve to distinguish us form one another

Unconscious

a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories

Dream Analysis

interpret the manifest and latent contents of dreams

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

Psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

Id

contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives.

Ego

the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that mediates among the demands of the id, superego,, and reality.

Superego

the part of personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations

Psychosexual Stages

the childhood stages of development during which the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones

Oral Stage

Pleasure centers on the mouth- sucking, biting, chewing; 0-18 months

Anal Stage

Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control; 18-36 months

Phallic Stage

Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings; 3-6 years

Latency Stage

Dormant sexual feelings; 6 to puberty

Genital

Maturation of sexual interests; puberty on

Identification

the process by which children incorporate their parents' value into their developing superegos

Oedipus complex

a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

Electra

a girl's desire for her father

Fixation

a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved

Defense Mechanism

the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality

Repression

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

Regression

an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated

Reaction Formation

the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites

Projection

people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others

Rationalization

self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions

Displacement

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

Denial

people refuse to believe or even to perceive painful realities

Inferiority Complex

we are each born with a sense of inferiority which we strive to overcome; Alfred Adler

Womb Envy

male equivalent of penis envy, males are jealous of females ability to create and sustain life; Karen Horney

Collective Unconscious

our species universal experiences; Jung

Archetypes

Animus and Anima, shadow; Jung

Projective Tests

a personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics

TAT

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

Rorshach Inkblots

the most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorshach; seeks to indentify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots

Lack Reliability

When evaluation the same patient, even trained raters come up wit different interpretations

Lack Validity

projective tests may misdiagnose a normal individual as pathological

False Consensus Effect

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs (speeding, cheating on our taxes, sexual activity among adolescents)

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

Unconditional Positive Regard

an attitude of total acceptance toward another person

Self concept

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

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

the identification and description of the 16 distinctive personality types that result from the interactions among the preferences

Factor Analysis

Has and Sybil Eysenck; two polar dimensions: extraversion-introversion, emotional stability-instability

MMPI

most widely researched and clinically used test; covers a wide range of feelings and behaviors

The Big Five Factors

an expanded range of traits does a better job of assessment than Eysencks' dimensions

The Person-Situation Controversy

Argue that behaviors form a situation may be different, but average behavior remains the same. Therefore, traits do not matter

Reciprocal Determinism

a person's behavior both influences and is influenced by personality and the social environment

External Locus of Control

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

Internal Locus of Control

the perception that we can control our own fate

Learned Helplessness

when animals or people feel that they have no control over their situation, they may behave in a helpless manner, even when the situation changes

Possible Selves

Positive and Negative

Spotlight Effect

the tendency to believe that other people are paying closer attention to one's appearance and behavior than they really are (teenagers)

Self-Serving Bias

we accept responsibility for good deeds and successes more than for bad deeds and failures

James-Lange Theory

external stimuli activate our autonomic nervous systems, producing specific patterns of physiological changes for different emotions that evoke specific emotional experiences; ex. when we see a vicious looking dog growl, our sympathetic nervous system kicks in, we being to run immediately and THEN we become aware that we are afraid; we can change our feelings by changing our behavior

Facial-Feedback Hypothesis

our facial expressions affect our emotional experiences (in-class pencil activity); smiling seems to induce positive moods, frowning seems to induce negative moods