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a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span |
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the fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo |
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the developing human organism from 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month |
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the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth |
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agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that canreach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm |
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fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) |
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physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases |
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biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience |
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interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas |
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adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information |
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in Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities |
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the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived |
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in Piaget's theory - the stage (from 2 to about 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic |
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properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects |
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in Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view |
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concrete operational stage |
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during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events |
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during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts |
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an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation |
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an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development |
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the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life |
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a set of expected behaviors for males or for females |
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the period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing |
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research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period |
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a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; |
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our sense of being male or female |
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the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines |
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the first menstrual period |
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primary sex characteristics |
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the body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible |
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secondary sex characteristics |
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nonreproductive sexual characteristics, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair |
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a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another |
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internal locus of control |
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the perception that you control your own fate. |
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external locus of control |
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the perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate. |
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unconditional positive regard |
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a caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients to develop self-awareness and self-acceptance |
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a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics. |
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Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history. |
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the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. |
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individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated. |
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the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness. |
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the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality. |
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a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved |
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a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father. |
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mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories |
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the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations. |
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Mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain. |
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a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification. |
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Freud's theory of personality and therapeutic technique that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts. |
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an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. |
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one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved |
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psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others. |
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the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones. |
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a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing. |
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a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports. |
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a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores. |
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mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. |
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defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group. |
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tests designed to assess what a person has learned. |
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tests designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn. |
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the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions. |
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the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test. |
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Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) |
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contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests. |
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a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data |
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belief in our own competence to master the environment and reach personal goals. |
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a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test |
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the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. |
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Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) |
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psychological disorder marked by the appearance by afe 7 of one or more of three key symptoms: extreme inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. |
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a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders. |
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psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety. |
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anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable minutes-long episode of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations. |
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anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation. |
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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) |
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an anxiety disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and/or actions (compulsions). |
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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) |
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psychological stress disorder charcterized by episodes of anxiety, sleeplessness, and nightmares resulting from some disturbing event in the past |
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disorder characterized by physical symptoms for which no known physical cause exists |
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a mental disorder characterized by the conversion of mental conflict into somatic forms |
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somatoform disorder characterized by excessive preoccupation with health concerns and incessant worry about developing physical illnesses. |
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disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings |
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Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) |
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a rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities |
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psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes |
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Major depressive disorder |
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mood disorder where a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or a medical condition, two or more weeks of significantly depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished interest or pleasure in most activities |
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mood disorder marked by a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state |
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mood disorder in which a person fluctuates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the hyperactivity of mania |
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group of severe disorders characterized by disorganized or delusional thinking, disturbed perceptions, and inappropriate emotions and actions |
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false beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders |
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psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning |
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Antisocial personality disorder |
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personality disorder in which a person exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even towards friends and family. Such a person could be aggressive and ruthless or a con artist |
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false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus |
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dissociative disorder involving sudden loss of memory and the assumption of a new identity in a new location |
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dissociative disorder characterized by the sudden and extensive inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature |
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type of schizophrenia marked by striking motor disturbances, ranging from muscular rigidity to random motor activity |
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type of schizophrenia that is dominated by delusions of persecution along with delusions of grandeur |
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disorganized schizophrenia |
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type of schizophrenia characterized by severely disturbed thought processes, frequent incoherence, disorganized behavior, and inappropriate affect |
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a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal |
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psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. |
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medical procedure that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior. |
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(electroconvulsive therapy) ECT |
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biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient. |
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used to treat schizophrenic patients |
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the patient's transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships |
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the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting, empathic environment to facilitate clients' growth. |
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systematic desensitization |
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type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli |
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treatment for phobias in which clients are exposed repeatedly and intensively to a feared object and made to see that it is actually harmless |
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type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior |
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people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats |
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empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies |
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uses techniques from various forms of therapy |
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endency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present |
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unselfish regard for the welfare of others |
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tendency for liking to increase with the frequency of exposure |
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tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get |
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tendency to recall faces of one's own race more accurately than faces of other races |
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theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame |
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tendency to favor one's own group |
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unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members |
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generalized belief about a group of people |
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unjustifiable attitude toward a group and its members |
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classification of people based on physical and biological characteristics such as the color of skin, hair, and eyes |
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thinking your ethnicity is the best |
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when feeling pressured many people may react by doing the opposite of what is expected |
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an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior |
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behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people transmitted from one generation to the next |
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occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives |
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enhancement of a groups prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group |
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loss of self awareness and self restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity |
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tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts towards attaining a common goal than when individually accountable |
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improved performance of tasks in the presence of others |
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adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard |
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tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later to a larger request |
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tendency to view one's successes as stemming from internal factors and one's failures as stemming from external factors |
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fundamental attribution error |
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tendency for observers, when analyzing others behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personality |
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any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy |
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condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it |
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self-fulfilling prophecies |
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events that happen as the result of being foretold, expected, or talked about |
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situation in which the conflicting parties by each rationally pursuing their self-interest became caught in destructive behavior |
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