AP Psychology Glossary

The period during which a neuron lies dormant after an action potential has been completed.

The minimum amount of stimulation needed for a person to detect the stimulus 50 percent of the time.

The process by which the shape of an eye's lens adjusts to focus light from objects nearby or far away. Also: the modification of a schema as new information is incorporated.

A neurotransmitter involved in muscle movement, attention, arousal, memory, and emotion.

An impulse to master challenges and reach a high standard of excellence.

An assessment that measures skills and knowledge that people have already learned.

A word made out of the first letters of several words.

A sentence or phrase in which each word begins with a letter that acts as a memory cue.

A short-lived change in electric charge inside a neuron.

A theory proposing that neurons in the brain activate randomly during REM sleep.

A feature of client-centered th erapy that involves empathetic listening, by which the therapist echoes, restates, and clarifies what the client says.

An inherited characteristic that increases in a population because it provides a survival or reproductive advantage.

Behaviors that increase reproductive success.

The process of listing the attributes of each element of a decision, weighing them according to importance, adding them up, and determining which one is more appealing based on the result.

Studies in which researchers examine trait similarities between adopted children and their biological and adoptive parents to figure out whether that trait might be inherited.

The outer part of the adrenal glands, which secretes corticosteroids.

The inner part of the adrenal glands, which secretes catecholamines.

A hormone released by the pituitary gland that stimulates release of corticosteroids from the adrenal cortex.

Bundles of axons that carry information from muscles and sense organs to the central nervous system.

A color we perceive after another color is removed.

The point at which a fetus has some chance of surviving outside the mother if born prematurely.

Chemicals that mimic the action of a particular neurotransmitter.

A disorder involving anxiety about situations from which escape would be difficult or embarrassing or places where there might be no help if a panic attack occurred.

A step-by-step procedure that is guaranteed to solve a problem.

States that neurons fire to generate an action potential only if stimulation reaches a minimum threshold.

Type of brain waves present when a person is very relaxed or meditating.

The ability of a test to produce the same results when two different versions of it are given to the same group of people.

Language that can be understood in several ways.

The height of a wave.

A part of the limbic system of the brain that is involved in regulating aggression and emotions, particularly fear.

The belief that inanimate objects are alive.

A disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a body weight in the normal range, intense fear about gaining weight, and highly distorted body image.

Chemicals that block the action of a particular neurotransmitter.

An inability to remember events that occurred after a brain injury or traumatic event.

A disorder characterized by a lack of conscience and lack of respect for other people's rights, feelings, and needs, beginning by age fifteen.

The process of evaluating an environmental challenge to determine whether resources are available for dealing with it.

A conflict between two desirable alternatives.

A conflict that arises when a situation has both positive and negative features.

An assessment that predicts people's future ability to acquire skills or knowledge.

Images or thoughts that have the same meaning for all human beings.

The broadening of an existing schema to include new information.

Hardening of arteries because of cholesterol deposits.

The close bond between babies and their caregivers.

Types of attachment, which include secure attachment, anxious-ambivalent attachment, and avoidant attachment.

Evaluations people make about objects, ideas, events, or other people.

Inferences people make about the causes of events and behavior.

A new class of antipsychotic drugs that are effective for treating negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia. They target the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine.

A nerve that sends impulses from the ear to the brain.

Self-defeating judgments people make about themselves.

The part of the peripheral nervous system connected to the heart, blood vessels, glands, and smooth muscles.

A rule-of-thumb strategy in which people estimate probability based on how quickly they remember relevant instances of an event.

A conflict that arises when a choice must be made between two undesirable alternatives.

A disorder involving social withdrawal, low self-esteem, and extreme sensitivity to being evaluated negatively.

A therapy in which a stimulus that evokes an unpleasant response is paired with a stimulus that evokes a maladaptive behavior.

A fiber that extends from a neuron and sends signals to other neurons.

A producton of sounds that resemble many different languages.

The rate at which energy is used when a person is at complete rest.

A membrane in the inner ear that runs along the length of the cochlea.

The study of behavior and personality differences among people.

Treatments involving complex conversations between therapists and clients that are aimed at directly influencing maladaptive behaviors through the use of learning principles.

The process of rejecting evidence that refutes one's beliefs.

A class of antianxiety drugs. They are also called tranquilizers.

The type of brain waves present when a person is awake and alert.

The distortion of results by a variable that is not part of the hypothesis.

Five basic personality traits from which other traits are derived. They include neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

Depth perception cues that require both eyes.

Periodic physiological changes.

Treatments that involve efforts to directly alter biological functioning through medication, electric shocks, or surgery.

The idea that physical illness is the result of a complicated interaction among biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors.

Disorders in which people alternate between periods of depression and mania.

A membrane that lets some substances from the blood into the brain but keeps out others.

A disorder characterized by impulsive behavior and unstable relationships, emotions, and self-image.

The main organ in the nervous system.

Tracings that show the electrical activity of the brain.

A part of the brain, in the left frontal lobe, that is involved in speech production.

A disorder involving binge eating followed by compensatory behaviors such as vomiting, fasting, excessive exercise, or use of laxatives, diuretics, and other medications to control body weight.

The tendency of people to be less likely to offer help to someone who needs it if other people are also present.

The idea that the experience of emotion happens at the same time that physiological arousal happens.

A research method in which an individual subject is studied in depth.

The fear a male child has that his father will cut off his penis for desiring his mother.

A subtype of schizophrenia characterized by unnatural movement patterns such as rigid, unmoving posture or continual, purposeless movements, or by unnatural speech patterns such as absence of speech or parroting of other people's speech.

Hormones released by the adrenal medulla in response to stress.

The release of tension that results when repressed thoughts or memories move into a patient's conscious mind.

The part of the nervous system that includes the brain and the spinal cord.

The tendency to focus on one aspect of a problem and ignore other key aspects.

A part of the hindbrain that controls balance and coordination of movement.

The fluid that cushions and nourishes the brain.

The largest part of the brain, involved in abstract thought and learning.

Thin strands of DNA that contain genes.

The process of combining small bits of information into bigger, familiar pieces.

Hair cells that are embedded in the basilar membrane of the ear.

A surgical procedure that involves destruction of part of the frontal lobes. It is sometimes done to treat severe disorders that do not respond to other treatments.

Biological cycles that occur about every twenty-four hours.

A type of learning in which a subject comes to respond to a neutral stimulus as he would to another stimulus by learning to associate the two stimuli. It can also be called respondent conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning.

A humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, that aims to help clients increase self-acceptance and personal growth by providing a supportive emotional environment.

The tendency to interpret familiar, incomplete forms as complete by filling in gaps.

A coiled tunnel in the inner ear that is filled with fluid.

Thinking. It involves mental activities such as understanding, problem solving, decision making, and creativity.

The idea that people's experience of emotion depends on the way they appraise or evaluate the events around them.

The development of thinking capacity.