TEXTBOOK KEYWORDS

Chapters 9, 10, 13, and 14

Motives

An internal force that leads an individual to behave in a particular way.

Instinct

A genetically endowed tendency to behave in a particular way.

Homeostasis

The body’s tendency to maintain internal equilibrium through various forms of self-regulation.

Drive

A state of internal bodily tension, such as hunger or thirst or the need for sleep.

Pain Matrix

A distributed network of brain regions, including the amygdala, that respond to many types of pain.

Intrinsically Rewarding

Being pursued for its own sake. See also extrinsically rewarding.

Extrinsically Rewarding

Being pursued because of rewards that are not an inherent part of the activity or object. See also intrinsically rewarding.

Glucostatic Hypothesis

The hypothesis that hunger and eating are regulated by the body’s monitoring and adjustment of blood glucose levels.

Lipostatic Hypothesis

The hypothesis that adipose tissue plays an important role in governing hunger and regulating longer-term energy balance.

Body Weight Set Point

The weight an organism will seek to maintain despite alterations in dietary intake.

Metabolic Rate

The rate at which the body uses energy.

Unit Bias

The amount of food that is regarded as a single serving.

Anorexia Nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by an extreme concern with being overweight and by compulsive dieting, sometimes to the point of self-starvation. See also bulimia nervosa.

Bulimia Nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by repeated binge-and-purge bouts. See also anorexia nervosa.

Binge-Eating Disorder

An eating disorder characterized by repeated episodes of binge eating without inappropriate compensatory behavior.

Body Mass Index (BMI)

A measure of whether someone is at a healthy weight or not; BMI is calculated as one’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of one’s height in meters.

Thrifty Gene Hypothesis

The evolutionary hypothesis that natural selection has favored individuals with efficient metabolisms that maximize fat storage.

Estrus

A female mammal’s period of sexual receptivity.

Neurodevelopmental Perspective

This perspective holds that sexual orientation is built into the circuitry of the brain early in fetal development.

Performance Orientation

A motivational stance that focuses on performing well and looking smart. See also mastery orientation.

Mastery Orientation

A motivational stance that focuses on learning and improving. See also performance orientation.

Hierarchy of Motives

The order in which needs are thought to become dominant. According to Abraham Maslow, people will strive to meet their higher-order needs, such as self-actualization and self-transcendence, only when their lower, more basic needs like food and safety have been met.

Self-Actualization

The desire to realize one’s full potential. See also hierarchy of motives.

Self-Transcendence

The desire to further a cause that goas beyond the self. See also hierarchy of motives.

Emotion

The coordinated behaviors, feelings, and physiological changes that occur when a situation becomes relevant to our personal goals.

Display Rules

Cultural rules that govern the expression of emotion.

Discrete Emotions Approach

An approach to analyzing emotions that focuses on specific emotions such as anger, fear, and pride. See also dimensional approach.

Dimensional Approach

An approach to analyzing emotions that focuses on dimensions such as pleasantness and activation. See also discrete emotions approach.

Alexithymia

An extreme difficulty in identifying and labeling one’s emotions.

Happiness Set Point

The level of happiness that is characteristic of a given individual.

Adaptation

A phenomenon whereby an individual stops noticing a stimulus that remains constant over time, resulting in enhanced detection of stimulus changes.

James-Lange Theory

The theory that the subjective experience of emotion is the awareness of one’s own bodily reactions in the presence of certain arousing stimuli.

Cannon-Bard Theory

The theory that a stimulus elicits an emotion by triggering a particular response in the brain (in the thalamus), which then causes both the physiological changes associated with the emotion and the emotional experience itself.

Schachter-Singer Theory

The theory that emotion arises from the interpretation of bodily responses in the context of situational cues.

Empathy

The capacity to accurately track what others are feeling.

Affect-As-Information Perspective

The idea that affective states play an important role in shaping problem-solving and decision making.

Self-Control

The attempt to modify automatic or “default” responses in a particular situation.

Willpower

The ability to engage in self-control.

Strength Model of Ego Control

According to this model, self-regulatory efforts draw on a finite pool of cognitive resources. Repeated self-regulatory demands may deplete these resources, leading to failures of self-control. See also ego depletion.

Ego Depletion

A state of diminished self-regulatory ability due to repeated demands on cognitive resources required for self-regulation. See also strength model of ego control.

Emotion Regulation

An attempt to modify one or more aspects of the emotion-response trajectory.

Reappraisal

A type of emotion regulation that involves altering the meaning of a potentially emotion-eliciting situation in order to alter one’s emotional response to that situation. See also suppression.

Suppression

A type of emotional regulation that involves inhibiting one’s ongoing emotion-expressive behavior. See also reappraisal.

Health Psychology

An interdisciplinary field that investigates the links among behavior, cognition, and physical health.

Biopsychosocial Model

A way of understanding what makes people healthy by recognizing that biology, psychology, and social context all combine to shape health outcomes.

Stress

A physiological response to an environmental event that is perceived as taxing or even exceeding one’s ability to adapt.

Primary Appraisal

A person’s perception of the demands or challenges of a given situation.

Secondary Appraisal

A person’s perception of his or her ability to deal with the demands of a given situation.

General Adaptation Syndrome

A broad-based physiological response to a physical threat that unfolds in three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.

sympathetic-adreno-medullary (SAM) axis

A physiological system that governs the body’s immediate response to a stressful event, enabling the ability to fight or flee.

hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis

A physiological system that governs the body’s prolonged response to a stressful event, enabling the conservation of energy.

Challenge Reactivity

A cardiovascular pattern of responding to a situation whereby the heart pumps out more blood and the vasculature dilates, allowing efficient circulation through the body.

Threat Reactivity

A cardiovascular pattern of responding to a situation whereby the heart pumps out more blood but the vasculature constricts, preventing efficient circulation through the body.

Cortisol

A hormone produced by the adrenal cortex that is often elevated in response to stressful events.

Allostatic Load

The sustained activation of many physiological systems in response to frequent or chronic stressors.

Cytokines

Molecules, released as part of the body’s natural immune response, that respond to injury or infection by causing fever and inflammation.

Alcohol Myopia

A phenomenon whereby alcohol intoxication leads to a narrowing of attention and impairment of the ability to exert top-down control over impulses.

Type A Personality

A label used to describe a collection of traits that include being highly competitive and driven, hot-tempered and hostile, and urgently focused on time and time management.

Type B Personality

A label used to describe a collection of traits that include being reflective, creative, and less competitive

Resilience

One’s ability to effectively cope with stressful events and return to baseline levels quickly.

Gene x Environment Interactions

The interaction between environmental factors and a person’s genetic predispositions that determine the unique phenotypes expressed in personality.

Diathesis-Stress Model

A conception of psychopathology that distinguishes the factors that create a risk of illness (the diathesis) from the factors that turn the risk into a problem (the stress).

Differential Sensitivities Hypothesis

The idea that some people have a genetic predisposition to be more strongly affected by variation in their environment, especially during early childhood.

Epigenetics

The study of how life events can change how genes are expressed.

Broaden-and-Build Functions

The idea that positive emotions evolved as a signal of safety, allowing for exploration and creativity.

Social Support

The degree to which people believe they can turn to other people for information, help, advice, or comfort.

Flow

A subjective experience of having one’s attention so focused on an activity or task that any sense of self-awareness disappears.

Implementation Intentions

Specific “if-then” thoughts that cognitively connect a desired action to some triggering event or stimulus.

Sleep Hygiene

A regimented routine at bedtime that allows one’s body to learn cues for sleep.

Psychological Disorder

A clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior that is usually associated with significant distress or disability in social, occupational, and other important activities.

Syndrome

A cluster of physical or mental symptoms that are typical of a particular condition or psychological disorder and that tend to occur simultaneously.

Symptom

A physical or mental feature that may be regarded as an indication of a particular condition or psychological disorder.

Psychopathology

(1) The scientific study of psychological disorders, or (2) the disorders themselves.

Point Prevalence

The percentage of people in a given population who have a given psychological disorder at any particular point in time.

Lifetime Prevalence

The percentage of people in a certain population who will have a given psychological disorder at any point in their lives.

Clinical Assessment

A procedure for gathering the information that is needed to evaluate an individual’s psychological functioning and to determine whether a clinical diagnosis is warranted.

Clinical Interview

An interview in which a clinician asks the patient to describe his or her problems and concerns.

Self-Report Measures

A standardized clinical assessment tool that consists of a fixed set of questions that a patient answers.

Projective Tests

A form of clinical assessment in which a person responds to unstructured or ambiguous stimuli; it is thought that responses reveal unconscious wishes and conflicts.

Diathesis-Stress Model

A conception of psychopathology that distinguishes the factors that create a risk of illness (the diathesis) from the factors that turn the risk into a problem (the stress).

Learned Helplessness

A state of passive resignation to an aversive situation that one has come to believe is outside of one’s control.

Neuroticism

A personality dimension associated with heightened levels of negative affect.

Biopsychosocial Model

A way of understanding what makes people healthy by recognizing that biology, psychology, and social context all combine to shape health outcomes.

Anxiety

A feeling of intense worry, nervousness, or unease.

Specific Phobia

A marked fear of or anxiety about a particular object or situation, such as snakes, bridges, lightning, dentists, or blood.

Social Anxiety Disorder

An anxiety disorder characterized by extreme fear of being watched, evaluated, and judged by others.

Panic Disorder

An anxiety disorder characterized by the occurrence of unexpected panic attacks.

Panic Attacks

A sudden episode of uncontrollable anxiety, accompanied by terrifying bodily symptoms that include one or more of the following: labored breathing, choking, dizziness, tingling hands and feet, sweating, trembling, heart palpitations, chest pain.

Agoraphobia

A fear of being in situations in which help might not be available or escape might be difficult or embarrassing.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

An anxiety disorder characterized by continuous, pervasive, and difficult-to-control anxiety.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

An anxiety disorder that manifests itself through obsessions (unwanted and disturbing thoughts) and/or compulsions (ritualistic actions performed to control the obsessions).

Obsessions

A recurrent unwanted or disturbing thought.

Compulsions

A ritualistic action performed to control an obsession.

Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders

Psychological disorders that are triggered by an event that involves actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violation.

Acute Stress Disorder

A trauma- or stressor-related disorder than lasts less than one month.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

A trauma- or stressor-related disorder that lasts one month or longer.

Comorbodity

The occurrence of two or more disorders in a single individual at a given point in time.

Concordance Rate

The probability that a person with a particular familial relationship to a patient (for example, an identical twin) has the same disorder as the patient.

Mood-Related Disorders

Disorders that involve prominent disturbances in a person’s positive and negative feeling states.

Major Depressive Disorder

A mood disorder characterized by feelings of sadness, emptiness, and anhedonia (diminished interest or pleasure in activities that usually provide pleasure, such as eating or exercising).