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| The mental process of modifying existing schemes and creating new ones in order to incorporate new objects, events, experiences, and information. |
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| The sudden reversal of the resting potential, which initiates the firing of a neuron. |
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| A pair of endocrine glands that release hormones that prepare the body for emergencies and stressful situations and also create corticoids and small amounts of sex hormones. |
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| A progressive and incurable disorder that involves widespread degeneration and disruption of brain cells, resulting in dementia. |
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| A structure in the limbic system that plays an important role in emotion, particularly in response to unpleasant or punishing stimuli. |
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| The mental process by which new objects, events, experiences, and information are incorporated into existing schemes. |
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| Areas of the cerebral cortex that house memories and are involved in thought, perception, and language. |
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| The early, close relationship formed between infant and caregiver. |
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| Parents who make arbitrary rules, expect unquestioned obedience from their children, punish misbehavior, and value obedience to authority. |
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| Parents who set high but realistic and reasonable standards, enforce limits, and encourage open communication and independence. |
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| The slender, tall-like extension of the neuron that transmits signals to the dendrites or cell body of other neurons and to muscles, glands, and other parts of the body. |
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| A method of changing behavior through a systematic program based on the learning principles of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, or observational learning; also called behavior therapy. |
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| A treatment approach that is based on the idea that abnormal behavior is learned and that applies the principles of operant conditioning, classical conditioning, and/or observation learning to eliminate inappropriate or maladaptive behaviors and replace them with more adaptive responses. |
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| Physiological status as a male or female |
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| A therapy (drug therapy, electroconvulsive therapy, or psychosurgery) that is based on the assumption that psychological disorders are symptoms of underlying physical problems. |
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| A perspective that focusing on health as well as illness and holds that both are determined by a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors. |
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| A mood disorder in which manic episodes alternate with periods of depression, usually with relatively normal periods in between. |
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| The structure that begins at the point where the spinal cord enlarges as it enters the brain can handles all functions critical to physical survival. It includes the medulla, the pons, and the reticular formation. |
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| An impairment in the physical ability to produce speech sounds or, in extreme cases, an inability to speak at all; caused by damage to Broca’s area. |
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| That area in the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that controls the production of speech sounds. |
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| A type of schizophrenia characterized by complete stillness or stupor or excitement and agitation; patients may assume an unusual posture and remain in it for long periods of time. |
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| The part of a neuron that contains the nucleus and carrying out the metabolic functions of the neuron. |
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| The part of the nervous system comprising the brain and spinal cord. |
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| The brain structure that helps the body execute smooth, skilled movements and regulates muscle tone and posture. |
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| The gray, convoluted covering of the cerebral hemispheres that is responsible for the higher mental processes of language, memory, and thinking. |
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| The right and left halves of the cerebrum, covered by the cerebral cortex and connected by the corpus callosum; they control movement and feeling on the opposite sides of the body. |
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| The largest structure of the human brain, consisting of the two cerebral hemispheres connected by the corpus callosum and covered by the cerebral cortex. |
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| A type of learning through which an organism learns to associate one stimulus with another. |
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| A nondirective, humanistic therapy developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist creates an accepting climate and shows empathy, freeing clients to be themselves and releasing their natural tendency toward self-actualization. |
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| A therapy designed by Aaron Beck to help patients stop their negative thoughts as they occur and replace them with more objective thoughts. |
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| concrete operational stage |
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| Piaget’s third stage of cognitive development (ages 6 to 11 or 12 years), during which a child acquires the concepts of reversibility and conservation and is able to attend to two or more dimensions of a stimulus at the same time. |
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| conditioned response (CR) |
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| The learned response that comes to be elicited by a conditioned stimulus as a result of its repeated pairing with an unconditioned stimulus. |
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| conditioned stimulus (CS) |
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| A neutral stimulus that, after repeated pairing with an unconditioned stimulus, becomes associated with it and elicits a conditioned response. |
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| The thoughts, feelings, sensations, or memories of which a person is aware at any given moment. |
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| The understanding that a given quantity of matter remains the same if it is rearranged or changed in its appearance, as long as nothing is added or taken away. |
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| Kohlberg’s second level of moral reasoning in which the individual has internalized the standards of others and judges right and wrong in terms of those standards. |
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| The thick band of nerve fibers that connects the two cerebral hemispheres and makes possible the transfer of information and the synchronization of activity between the hemispheres. |
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| The oldest theory of forgetting which holds that memories, if not used, fade with time and ultimately disappear altogether. |
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| The subsystem within long-term memory that stores facts, information, and personal life events that can be brought to mind verbally or in the form of images and then declared or stated; also called explicit memory. |
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| A means used by the ego to defend against anxiety and to maintain self-esteem. |
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| In a neuron, the branchlike extensions of the cell body that receive signals from other neurons. |
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| A stimulus that signals whether a certain response or behavior is like to be rewarded, ignored, or punished. |
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| disorganized schizophrenia |
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Definition
| The most serious type of schizophrenia, marked by extreme social withdrawal, hallucinations, delusions, silliness, inappropriate laughter, grotesque mannerisms, and other bizarre behavior. |
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| dissociative identity disorder |
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Definition
| A dissociative disorder in which two or more distinct, unique personalities occur in the same person, and there is severe memory disruption concerning personal information about the other personalities. |
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| A neurotransmitter that plays a role in learning, attention, movement, and reinforcement; neurons in the brains of those with Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia are less sensitive to its effects. |
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| The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, a manual published by the American Psychiatric Association, which describes the criteria used to classify and diagnose mental disorders. |
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| In Freud’s theory, the logical, rational, largely conscious system of personality, which operates according to the reality principle. |
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| A memory strategy that involves relating new information to something that is already known. |
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| electroencephalograph (EEG) |
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| A record of brain-wave activity made by a machine called the electroencephalograph. |
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| A response involving reappraisal of a stressor to reduce its emotional impact. |
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| The process of transforming information into a form that can be stored in memory. |
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| A cause of forgetting that occurs when information was never put into long-term memory. |
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| A system of ductless glands in various parts of the body that manufacture hormones and secrete them into the bloodstream, thus affecting cells in other parts of the body. |
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| Chemicals produced naturally by the brain that reduce pain and the stress of vigorous exercise and positively affect mood. |
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| The type of declarative memory that records events as they have been subjectively experienced. |
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| extinction (in operant conditioning) |
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Definition
| The weakening and eventual disappearance of the conditioned response as a result of the withholding of reinforcement. |
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| extinction (in classical conditioning) |
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Definition
| The weakening and eventual disappearance of the conditioned response as a result of repeated presentation of the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned response. |
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| A condition that is caused by maternal alcohol intake early in prenatal development and that leads to facial deformities as well as mental retardation. |
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| Piaget’s fourth and final stage of cognitive development (ages 11 or 12 and beyond), which is characterized by the ability to apply logical thinking to abstract problems and hypothetical actions. |
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| The largest of the brain’s lobes, which contain the motor cortex, Broca’s area, and the frontal association areas. |
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| functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) |
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Definition
| A brain-imaging technique that reveals both the brain structure and brain activity more precisely and rapidly than PET. |
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Definition
| The psychological and sociocultural definition of masculinity or femininity, based on the expected behaviors for males and females. |
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| Cultural expectations about the behaviors appropriate to each gender. |
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| general adaptation syndrome (GAS) |
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Definition
| The predictable sequence of reactions (alarm, resistance, and exhaustion stages) that organisms show in response to stressors. |
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Definition
| In classical conditioning, the tendency to make a conditioned response to a stimulus. In operant conditioning, the tendency to make the learned aresponse to a stimulus similar to that for which the response was originally reinforced. |
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| Little stressors, including the irritating demands that occur daily, that may cause more stress than major life changes do. |
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| The subfield within psychology that is concerned with the psychological factors that contribute to health, illness, and recovery. |
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| A structure in the limbic system that plays a central role in the storing of new memories, the response to new or unexpected stimuli, and navigational ability. |
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| A chemical substance that is manufactured and released in one part of the body and affects other parts of the body. |
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| The school of psychology that focuses on the uniqueness of human beings and their capacity for choice, growth, and psychological health. |
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| A somatoform disorder in which persons are preoccupied with their health and fear that their physical symptoms are a sign of some serious disease, despite reassurance from doctors to the contrary. |
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| A small but influential brain structure that regulates hunger, thirst, sexual behavior, internal body temperature, other body functions, and a wide variety of emotional behaviors. |
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| The unconscious system of the personality, which contains the life and death instincts and operates on the pleasure principle; source of the libido. |
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| information processing approach |
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Definition
| An approach to the study of mental structures and processes that uses the computer as a model for human thinking. |
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Definition
| A cause of forgetting that occurs because information or associations stored either before or after a given memory hinder the ability to remember it. |
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| A paper-and-pencil test with questions about a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, which measures several dimensions of personality and can be scored according to standard procedure. |
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| A relatively permanent change in behavior, knowledge, capability, or attitude that is acquired through experience, and cannot be attributed to illness, injury, or maturation. |
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| A group of structures in the midbrain, including the amygdale and hippocampus, that are collectively involved in emotional expression, memory, and motivation. |
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| The memory system with a virtually unlimited capacity that contains vast stores of a person’s permanent or relatively permanent memories. |
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