5 Steps to a 5 AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition (87 page)

Group polarization
—
when like-minded people share ideas, outcome is likely to be more extreme than individual positions.

Group test
—
many people are tested at same time; cheaper and more objective scoring than individualized testing; may not be as accurate.

Groupthink
—
the tendency for individuals to censor their own beliefs to preserve the harmony of the group; lack of diversity of viewpoints that can cause disastrous results in decision making.

Gustation
—
the chemical sense of taste through receptor cells in taste buds in fungiform papillae on the tongue and roof of the mouth, or in the throat.

Gyri
—
folding-out portions of convolutions of the cerebral cortex.

Habituation
—
decreasing responsiveness with repeated presentation of the same stimulus.

Hallucinations
—
perceptual experiences that occur in the absence of external stimulation of the corresponding sensory organ; characteristic of schizophrenia and some drug states.

Hallucinogens
—
also called psychedelics, a diverse group of psychoactive drugs that alter moods, distort perceptions, and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input; include LSD, PCP, marijuana (THC), psilocybin from mushrooms, and mescaline (Peyote).

Hawthorn effect
—
when people know that they are being observed, they change their behavior to what they think the observer expects or to make themselves look good.

Health psychologists
—
psychologists who study how health and illness are influenced by emotions, stress, personality, and lifestyle.

Heritability
—
the proportion of phenotypic variation among individuals, in a population, that results from genetic causes.

Heterosexuality
—
a tendency to direct sexual desire toward people of the opposite sex.

Heterozygous
—
also called hybrid, the condition when the genes for a trait are different.

Heuristic
—
a problem-solving strategy used as a mental shortcut to quickly simplify and solve a problem, but that does not guarantee a correct solution.

Hierarchies
—
systems in which items are arranged from more general to more specific classes.

Hierarchy of needs theory
—
Abraham Maslow’s humanistic theory of priorities from the lower levels of 1) basic biological needs, 2) safety and security needs, 3) belongingness and love, 4) self-esteem needs to 5) self-actualization needs; a lower need must be fulfilled before we can fulfill the next higher need.

Higher-order conditioning
—
classical conditioning in which a well-learned CS is paired with an NS to produce a CR to the NS.

Hindsight bias
—
a tendency to falsely report, after the event, that we correctly predicted the outcome of the event.

Hippocampus
—
part of limbic system of brain that enables formation of new long-term memories for facts and personal experiences.

Holophrase
—
one-word meaningful utterances of children from ages of 1 to 2.

Homeostasis
—
the body’s tendency to maintain a balanced internal state.

Homosexuality
—
a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another person of the same sex.

Homozygous
—
the condition when both genes for a trait are the same.

Hormone
—
chemical messenger that travels through the blood to a receptor site on a target organ.

Hostile aggression
—
deliberate infliction of pain upon an unwilling victim.

Humanistic approach
—
psychological perspective concerned with individual potential for growth and the role of unique perceptions in growth toward one’s potential.

Huntington’s disease
—
dominant gene defect that involves degeneration of the nervous system characterized by tremors, jerky motions, blindness, and death.

Hypnagogic state
—
relaxed state of dreamlike awareness as we fall asleep.

Hypnosis
—
a technique that involves an interaction between the person (hypnotist) who suggests that certain feelings, thoughts, perceptions, or behaviors and the subject who experiences them.

Hypochondriasis
—
a somatoform disorder involving persistent and excessive worry about developing a serious illness.

Hypothalamus
—
part of brain under the thalamus that controls feeding behavior, drinking behavior, body temperature, sexual behavior, threshold for rage behavior, activation of the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, and secretion of hormones of the pituitary.

Hypothesis
—
prediction of how two or more factors are likely to be related.

Iconic memory
—
visual sensory memory.

Id
—
Freud’s original system of the personality; it operates on the pleasure principle and seeks immediate gratification of its wants and needs; unconscious reservoir of primal urges and libido.

Ideal self
—
Rogerian term for the self we desire to be; discrepancy with real self causes psychological problems.

Identical twins
—
also called monozygotic twins, two individuals who share all of the same genes/heredity because they develop from the same zygote.

Identity vs. role confusion
—
in Erikson’s theory, establishing an identity is the developmental task of adolescence or stage 5 of his psychosocial theory of development.

Idiographic methods
—
personality techniques that look at the individual such as case studies, interviews, and naturalistic obervations.

Imagery
—
mental pictures.

Implicit memory (nondeclarative memory
)
—
long-term memory for skills and procedures to do things affected by previous experience without that experience being consciously recalled.

Imprinting
—
the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.

In-group
—
a group of which one is a member and one tends to favor.

In vivo desensitization
—
behavior therapy for phobics; the client actually is placed in the fearful settings rather than imagining them as in systematic desensitization.

Incentive
—
a positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior, pulling us toward a goal.

Incongruence
—
in Rogerian therapy, discrepancy between a client’s real and ideal selves.

Incubation
—
putting aside a problem temporarily; allows the problem solver to look at the problem from a different perspective.

Independent variable
(IV)—
the factor the researcher manipulates in a controlled experiment (the cause).

Individualism
—
identifying oneself in terms of personal traits with independent, personal goals.

Individualized tests
—
given to individuals in 1:1 setting; cost of hiring a professional makes them expensive; probably better for determining individual IQ scores; subjective grading.

Individuation
—
according to Jung is the psychological process by which a person becomes an individual, a unified whole, including conscious and unconscious processes.

Inductive reasoning
—
reasoning from the specific to the general, forming concepts about all members of a category based on some members.

Industrial/Organizational psychologists
—
psychologists who aim to improve productivity and the quality of work life by applying psychological principles and methods to the workplace.

Inferential statistics
—
statistics that are used to interpret data and draw conclusions.

Information processing model of memory
—
explanation of memory that compares operation of human memory to a computer involving encoding, transfer to storage, and retrieval from storage.

Informational social influence
—
accepting others’ opinions about reality, especially in conditions of uncertainty.

In-groups
—
groups of which we are members.

Inhibitory neurotransmitter
—
chemical secreted at terminal button that reduces or prevents neural impulses in the postsynaptic dendrites.

Insight learning
—
the sudden appearance (often creative) or awareness of a solution to a problem.

Insomnia
—
the inability to fall asleep and/or stay asleep.

Instinct
—
inherited, complex automatic species-specific behavior.

Instinct theory
—
theory of motivation that physical and mental instincts such as curiosity and fearfulness cause us to act.

Instinctive drift
—
the tendency of an animal to revert to instinctive behavior which interferes with learning.

Instrumental aggression
—
hostile act intended to achieve some goal.

Instrumental learning
—
learning that occurs when a response is weakened or strengthened by its consequence.

Intellectualization
—
Freudian defense mechanism that involves reducing anxiety by reacting to emotional situations in a detached, unemotional way.

Intelligence
—
the global capacity to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with the environment.

Intelligence quotient
(IQ)—
mental age divided by chronological age multiplied by 100.

Interference theory
—
learning some items may prevent retrieving others, especially when the items are similar.

Intermittent reinforcement
—
the occasional reinforcement of a particular behavior; produces responding that is more resistant to extinction than continuous reinforcement.

Internal locus of control
—
based on Julian Rotter’s research, the belief that you control what happens to you through your own individual effort and behavior.

Internalization
—
the process of absorbing information from a specified social environmental context (according to Lev Vygotsky).

Interneuron
—
nerve cell in the CNS that transmits impulses between sensory and motor neurons.

Intimacy vs. isolation
—
In Erikson’s theory, the ability to establish close and loving relationships is primary task of late adolescence and early adulthood.

Intrinsic motivation
—
a desire to perform an activity for its own sake rather than an external reward.

Introvert
—
Jungian term for the opposite of extravert; a person with a tendency to get energy from individual pursuits; a person with the trait of shyness, the desire to avoid large groups, and who prefers to pay attention to private mental experiences (according to Eysenck).

Iris
—
colored muscle surrounding the pupil that regulates the size of the pupil’s opening.

James-Lange theory
—
the conscious experience of emotion results from one’s awareness of autonomic arousal and comes only after the behavioral response to situations.

Jigsaw classroom
—
Aronson and Gonzales devised learning experience where students of diverse backgrounds are first placed in expert groups where they learn one part of lesson and then share that information in jigsaw groups made up of one student from each of the expert groups. Students are dependent upon each other, self-esteem and achievement of “poorer” students improves, and former stereotypes are diminished.