5 Steps to a 5 AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition (88 page)

Just noticeable difference (jnd
)
—
experience of the difference threshold.

Kinesthesis
—
body sense that provides information about the position and movement of individual parts of the body with receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints.

Klinefelter’s syndrom
e
—
males with XXY sex chromosomes.

Language
—
communication system based on words and grammar; spoken, written, or gestured words and the way they are combined to communicate meaning.

Latency stage
—
fourth of the Freudian stages of development (6–12); sublimation of sexual pleasure into school work and other activities; if libido fixated here results in feelings of inferiority and poor self-concept.

Latent content
—
according to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream.

Latent learning
—
learning when no apparent rewards are present; it only becomes apparent when there is an incentive to demonstrate it.

Law of effect
—
Thorndike’s observation that behaviors followed by rewards are strengthened and behaviors followed by punishment are weakened. Learning principle that behavior is acquired by virtue of its consequences.

Learned helplessness
—
the feeling of futility and passive resignation that results from inability to avoid repeated aversive events.

Learning
—
a relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of experience.

Lens
—
structure in the eye behind the pupil that changes shape, becoming more spherical or flatter, to focus incoming rays into an image on the light-sensitive retina.

Lesions
—
interruptions in tissue that result from destruction of tissue by injury, tumors, scarring; enables more systematic study of the loss of function when tissue loss results from surgical cutting or removal (also called ablation), or destruction by chemical applications.

Levels of processing theory or semantic network theory
—
ability to form memories depends upon the depth of the processing and the meaningfulness of the information to the individual.

Libido
—
life/sexual energy force of the id (according to Freud).

Linguistic relativity hypothesis
—
Whorfian belief that the language a person speaks guides and determines their thinking; largely discredited.

Lithium carbonate
—
the drug treatment of choice for bipolar disorder; it reduces levels of certain neurotransmitters and decreases the strength of neural firing.

Locus of control
—
the degree to which we expect that a reinforcement or outcome of our behavior is contingent on our own behavior or personal characteristics (internal locus of control) as opposed to the degree to which we expect that a reinforcement or outcome of our behavior is a function of luck or fate, is under the control of others, or is unpredictable (external locus of control).

Long-term memory (LTM
)
—
the relatively permanent and unlimited capacity memory system into which information from short-term memory may pass.

Long-term potentiation (LTP
)
—
an increase in a synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation and possibly the neural basis for learning and memory.

Longitudinal research
—
a method of assessing developmental changes by evaluating the same group of people at different times in their lives.

Lucid dreaming
—
the ability to be aware of and direct one’s dreams.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI
)
—
more detailed computerized images using a magnetic field and pulses of radio waves that cause emission of signals that depend upon the density of tissue.

Maintenance rehearsal
—
repeating a given item over and over again extends your short-term memory usually limited to about 20 seconds.

Major (clinical) depression
—
persistent and severe feelings of sadness (dysphoria) and worthlessness accompanied by changes in appetite, sleeping, and behavior.

Maladaptive behavior
—
is behavior which is counterproductive; interferes with one’s interaction in society and a factor in mental illness.

Mandala
—
According to Jung, is a type of magical circle symbolizing the self archetype in the collective unconscious.

Mania
—
excessive emotional arousal (euphoria) and wild, exuberant, unrealistic activity.

Manifest content
—
according to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream.

Maturation
—
the biological growth processes that bring about orderly changes in behavior, thought or physical growth, relatively unaffected by experience (nature argument).

Mean
—
the arithmetic average of a set of scores.

Median
—
the middle score when a set of data is ordered by size.

Medulla oblongata
—
part of brainstem that regulates heart rhythm, blood flow, breathing rate, digestion, vomiting.

Memory
—
human capacity to register, retain, and retrieve information over time; the persistence of learning.

Menarche
—
first menstrual period at about age 12½, marks female fertility.

Menopause
—
the cessation of the ability to reproduce accompanied by a decrease in production of female sex hormones.

Mental age
—
a measure of your intellectual development; the level of mental development relative to others.

Mental retardation
—
intellectual deficiency characterized by intelligence quotient at least two standard deviations below the mean and difficulty in adapting to and coping with environmental demands of independent living.

Mental set
—
tendency to apply problem-solving methods that have worked in the past rather than trying new or different strategies to solve a new problem, which may or may not help solve the problem.

Mere exposure effect
—
the formation of a positive attitude toward a person, place, or thing based solely on repeated exposure to that person, place, or thing; often used in advertising as form of subtle persuasion.

Mesomorph
—
one of three body types (domineering, aggressive, muscular) developed in Sheldon’s personality theory that correlates personality traits and physique.

Meta-analysis
—
the systematic statistical method for synthesizing the results of numerous research studies dealing with the same variables.

Metabolism
—
the sum total of all chemical processes that occur in our bodies which are necessary to keep us alive.

Metacognition
—
thinking about how we think.

Method of loci
—
a mnemonic device which uses visualization of familiar objects on a familiar path to recall information in a list.

Misattribution error
—
distortion of information at retrieval resulting from confusion about the source
of information, as when we put words in someone else’s mouth.

Misinformation effect
—
the tendency for people to incorporate misleading information into their memories of a given event as evidenced in eyewitness testimony.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2
)
—
most widely used objective test of personality, originally designed to distinguish individuals with different psychological problems from normal individuals; today used in attempting to identify personality characteristics of people in many everyday settings.

Mnemonic devices
—
memory aids such as the method of loci and peg word systems which help to organize, encode, and more easily retrieve information from long-term memory.

Mode
—
most frequently occurring score in a set of research data (quick and dirty).

Modeling
—
process of watching and imitating a specific behavior; important in observational learning.

Monism
—
sees mind and body as different aspects of the same thing.

Monocular cues
—
clues about distance based on the image of one eye, including interposition or overlap, relative size, aerial perspective, relative clarity, texture gradient, relative height, linear perspective, relative brightness, motion parallax, and accommodation.

Monozygotic twins
—
identical twins; genetically identical siblings who share 100 percent of their genes because they developed from a single fertilized egg in utero.

Mood-congruent memory
—
tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood.

Mood disorder
—
affective disorders characterized by significant shifts or disturbances in mood that affect normal perception, thought, and behavior; depression and bipolar disorders.

Moral development
—
growth in the ability to tell right from wrong, control impulses, and act ethically.

Morality principle
—
in Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the way the superego acts as the conscience and assigns pride and guilt for behavior which does and does not conform to its ethical guidelines.

Morphemes
—
the smallest unit of language that has meaning.

Motivation
—
need or desire that energizes and directs behavior.

Motive
—
a need or a want that causes us to act.

Multiple approach-avoidance
—
a conflict in which the individual must choose between two or more alternatives each of which has both positive and negative characteristics.

Multiple intelligences
—
Howard Gardner’s theory that intelligence is composed of many different factors including at least eight intelligences: logical-mathematical, verbal-linguistic, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic.

Myelin sheath
—
a fatty covering of the axon made by glial cells which speeds up conduction of the action potential.

Narcissistic personality disorder
—
exaggerated sense of self-importance and demands for attention.

Narcolepsy
—
is a condition in which an awake person suddenly and uncontrollably falls asleep, often directly into REM sleep.

Narcotics
—
analgesics (pain reducers) which work by depressing the central nervous system and can also depress the respiratory system; include the opiates and synthetic opiates: codeine, heroin, morphine, opium, Percodan, Darvon, Talwin, Dilaudid, methadone, and Demerol.

Nativist perspective
—
human brain has an innate capacity for acquiring language (language acquisition device), possibly during a critical period of time after birth. Children are born with a universal sense of grammar (Noam Chomsky).

Naturalistic observation
—
research method that records behaviors of humans or other animals in real-life situations without intervention.

Nature-nurture controversy
—
deals with the extent to which heredity and the environment each influence behavior.

Nearsighted
—
too much curvature of the cornea and/or lens, focusing image in front of the retina so nearby objects are seen more clearly than distant objects.

Negative reinforcement
—
removal of an aversive consequence that follows a voluntary behavior thereby increasing the probability the behavior will be repeated; two types include avoidance and escape.

Neocortex
—
the cerebral cortex.

Neonate
—
newborn baby from birth to one month old.