Ap Psych Unit 3-4 Vocab

Learning

A relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience.

Habituation

A decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations.

Classical conditioning

A learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired.

Behaviorism

A theoretical perspective that emphasizes observable behaviors.

Neutral stimulus (NS)

A stimulus that initially produces no specific response.

Unconditioned response (UR)

An unlearned response that occurs naturally in reaction to an unconditioned stimulus.

Unconditioned stimulus (US)

A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response.

Conditioned response (CR)

A learned response to a previously neutral stimulus.

Conditioned stimulus (CS)

An originally neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a conditioned response.

Acquisition

The initial stage of learning when a response is first established.

Higher-order conditioning

A procedure in which a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus through association with an already established conditioned stimulus.

Extinction

The diminishing of a conditioned response when an unconditioned stimulus no longer follows a conditioned stimulus.

Generalization

The tendency to respond in the same way to different but similar stimuli.

Discrimination

The ability to distinguish between different stimuli.

Operant conditioning

A method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior.

Law of effect

The principle that responses followed by satisfying consequences are more likely to be repeated.

Reinforcement

Any event that strengthens or increases the frequency of a behavior.

Shaping

A conditioning paradigm used primarily in the experimental analysis of behavior.

Positive reinforcement

The addition of a rewarding stimulus following a desired behavior.

Negative reinforcement

The removal of an aversive stimulus to increase the likelihood of a behavior.

Primary reinforcer

An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.

Continuous reinforcement

Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs.

Partial (intermittent) reinforcement

Reinforcing a response only part of the time.

Fixed-ratio schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses.

Variable-ratio schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.

Fixed-interval schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed.

Variable-interval schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.

Punishment

An event that decreases the behavior that it follows.

Cognitive map

A mental representation of the layout of one's environment.

Latent learning

Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.

Insight

A sudden realization of a problem's solution.

Intrinsic motivation

A desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake.

Extrinsic motivation

A desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment.

Coping

The process of managing demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding one's resources.

Learned helplessness

The hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.

External locus of control

The perception that chance or outside forces determine one's fate.

Internal locus of control

The perception that one controls one's own fate.

Self-control

The ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for greater long-term rewards.

Observational learning

Learning by observing others.

Modeling

The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior.

Mirror neurons

Neurons that fire both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another.

Prosocial behavior

Positive, constructive, helpful behavior.

Motivation

A need or desire that energizes and directs behavior.

Instinct

A complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned.

Drive-reduction theory

The idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state that motivates an organism to satisfy that need.

Homeostasis

A tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state.

Incentive

A positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior.

Yerkes-Dodson law

The principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases.

Hierarchy of needs

Maslow's pyramid of human needs, beginning at the base with physiological needs and ending with psychological needs.

Glucose

A simple sugar that is an important energy source in living organisms.

Set point

The point at which an individual's weight thermostat is supposedly set.

Refractory period

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

Estrogens

Sex hormones, such as estradiol, that are secreted in greater amounts by females than by males.

Testosterone

The most important male sex hormone.

Emotion

A response of the whole organism, involving physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience.

James-Lange theory

The theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli.

Cannon-Bard theory

The theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers physiological responses and the subjective experience of emotion.

Two-factor theory

The Schachter-Singer theory that to experience emotion one must be physically aroused and cognitively label the arousal.

Stress

The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging.

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three stages: alarm, resistance, exhaustion.

Psychophysiological illness

A mind-body illness, any stress-related physical illness.

Psychoneuroimmunology

The study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect the immune system and resulting health.

Lymphocytes

The two types of white blood cells that are part of the body's immune system.

Coronary heart disease

The clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle.

Type A

Friedman and Rosenman's term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people.

Type B

Friedman and Rosenman's term for easygoing, relaxed people.

Personality

An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Free association

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind.

Psychoanalysis

Freud's therapeutic technique that involves the patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences.

Unconscious

According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories.

Id

In Freud's theory, the part of the personality that contains our primitive impulses.

Ego

In Freud's theory, the largely conscious,

Superego

In Freud's theory, the part of personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment.

Psychosexual stages

The childhood stages of development during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.

Oedipus complex

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

Identification

The process by which children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos.

Fixation

A lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage.

Defense mechanisms

In psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

Repression

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

Psychodynamic theories

View personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences.

Collective unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history.

Projective test

A personality test, such as the Rorschach, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

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

Rorschach inkblot test

The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots designed by Hermann Rorschach.

Humanistic theories

View personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth.

Self-actualization

According to Maslow, the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met.

Unconditional positive regard

A caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude that Carl Rogers believed would help people develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Self-concept

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in an answer to the question, 'Who am I?'

Trait

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act.

Personality inventory

A questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests.

Empirically derived test

A test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.

Social-cognitive perspective

Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits and their social context.

Reciprocal determinism

The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

Positive psychology

The scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Self

In contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Spotlight effect

The tendency to overestimate others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders.

Self-esteem

One's feelings of high or low self-worth.

Self-efficacy

One's sense of competence and effectiveness.

Self-serving bias

A readiness to perceive oneself favorably.