AP Psychology - Unit 5 Vocabulary - Vocab #1

vocab quiz on mon/tues 04-07/08-25

Health psychology

a subfield of psychology that explores the impact of psychological, behavioral, and cultural factors on health and wellness

Psychoneuroimmunology

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

Stress

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

Approach and avoidance motives

the drive to move toward (approach) or away from (avoid) a stimulus

General adaptation syndrome

Selye’s concept of the body’s adaptive response to stress in three phases — alarm, resistance, exhaustion

Tend-and-befriend response

under stress, people (especially women) may nurture themselves and others (tend) and bond with and seek support from others (befriend)

Coronary heart disease

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

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

Catharsis

in psychology, the idea that “releasing” aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges

Coping

alleviating stress under emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods

Problem-focused coping

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

Emotion-focused coping

attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to our stress reaction

Personal control

our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless

Learned helplessness

the hopelessness and passive resignation humans and other animals learn when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

External locus of control

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

Internal locus of control

the perception that we control our own fate

Self-control

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

Positive psychology

the scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of promoting strengths and virtues that foster well-being, resilience, and positive emotions, and that help individuals and communities to thrive

Subjective well-being

self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life. used along with measures of objective well-being (for example, physical and economic indicators) to evaluate people’s quality of life

Feel-good, do-good principle

people’s tendency to be helpful when in a good mood

Adaptation-level phenomenon

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

Relative deprivation

the perception that we are worse off relative to those with whom we compare ourselves

Broaden-and-build theory

proposes that positive emotions broaden our awareness, which over time helps us build novel and meaningful skills and resilience that improve well-being

Character strengths and virtues

a classification system to identify positive traits; organized into categories of wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendance

Resilience

the personal strength that helps people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma

Aerobic exercise

sustained exercise that increases heart and lung fitness; also helps alleviate anxiety

Mindfulness meditation

a reflective practice in which people attend to current experiences in a nonjudgmental and accepting manner

Gratitude

an appreciative emotion people often experience when they benefit from other’s actions or recognize their own good fortune

Psychological disorder

a disturbance in people’s thoughts, emotions, or behaviors that causes distress or suffering and impairs their daily lives

Medical model

the concept that diseases, in this case psychological disorders, have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hospital

Diathesis-stress model

the concept that genetic predispositions (diathesis) combine with environmental stressors (stress) to influence psychological disorders

Epigenetics

“above” or “in addition to” (epi)genetics; the study of the molecular mechanisms by which environments can influence genetic expression (without a DNA change)

DSM-5-TR

the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision; a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders

Anxiety disorders

a group of disorders characterized by excessive fear and anxiety and related maladaptive behaviors

Social anxiety disorder

intense fear and avoidance of social situations

Generalized anxiety disorder

an anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal

Panic disorder

an anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable, minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person may experience terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations; often followed by a worry over a possible next attack

Agoraphobia

fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide open places, where one may experience a loss of control and panic

Specific phobia

an anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation