Glossary ❮ 341Opponent-process theory of emotions—following
a strong emotion, an opposing emotion counters
the first emotion lessening the experience of that
emotion. On repeated occasions, the opposing
emotion becomes stronger.
Optic nerve—nerve formed by ganglion cell axons;
carries the neural impulses from the eye to the
thalamus of the brain.
Optical or visual illusions—discrepancies between
the appearance of a visual stimulus and its physical
reality.
Oral stage—Freud’s first psychosexual stage;
plea sure is derived from sucking. Crisis is wean-
ing from bottle or breast fixation: oral-dependent
personalities who are gullible, overeaters, or
talkative, and oral-aggressives who are argumenta-
tive or sarcastic.
Organismic self—according to Rogers, the original
(real) self that strives toward positive goals until it
is influenced by society.
Out-group—groups to which we do not belong.
Out-group homogeneity—belief that members of
another group are more similar in their attitudes
than they really are.
Ovaries—gonads in females that produce hormones
necessary for reproduction and development of
secondary sex characteristics.
Overconfidence bias—the tendency to overestimate
the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments which
can hinder problem solving.
Overgeneralization or overregularization—application
of grammatical rules without making appropriate
exceptions.
Overjustification effect—where getting a reward for
doing something we already like to do results in
our seeing the reward as the motivation for per-
forming the task. When the reward is taken away,
the behavior tends to disappear.
Pancreas—gland near stomach that secretes the hor-
mones insulin and glucagon that regulates blood
sugar necessary for fueling all behavioral processes.
Imbalances result in diabetes and hypoglycemia.
Panic disorder—unpredictable attacks of acute anxi-
ety accompanied by high levels of physiological
arousal that last from a few seconds to a few hours.
Parallel distributive processing (PDP)—perform-
ing several operations simultaneously as opposed to
serially or one operation after another.
Parallel processing—to simultaneously analyze dif-
ferent elements of sensory information such as
color, shape, brightness, etc.
Paranoid personality disorder—symptoms include
delusions of persecution that are generally orga-
nized around one theme.Paranoid schizophrenia—a form of schizophrenia
in which the person suffers from delusions of per-
secution, grandeur, reference, or control.
Parapsychology—study of paranormal events that
investigates claims of ESP, including telepathy,
clairvoyance, precognition, and telekinesis or
psychokinesis.
Parasympathetic nervous system—subdivision of
PNS and ANS whose stimulation calms your body
following sympathetic stimulation by restoring
normal body processes.
Parathyroids—endocrine glands in neck that pro-
duce parathyroid hormone which helps maintain
calcium ion level in blood necessary for normal
functioning of neurons.
Parietal lobes—region on the top of the cerebral
cortex the front strip of which is the somatosensory
cortex that processes sensory information includ-
ing touch, temperature, and pain from body parts;
association areas perceive objects.
Peg word mnemonic—memory device which uses a
scheme (“One is a bun, two is.. .”) we memorize,
then associate with names or objects in a series.
Percentile score—the percentage of scores at or
be low a particular score, from 1 to 99.
Perception—the process of selecting, organizing, and
interpreting sensations, enabling you to recognize
meaningful objects and events.
Perceptual constancy—perceiving an object as
unchanging even when the immediate sensation of
the object changes.
Peripheral nervous system (PNS)—portion of the
nervous system outside the brain and spinal cord.
It includes all of the sensory and motor neurons,
and subdivisions called the autonomic and somatic
nervous systems.
Peripheral route of persuasion—(according to the
elaboration likelihood model) changes attitudes by
pairing superficial positive stimuli (supermodels
and celebrities) with an argument; leads to unstable
change in attitudes.
Permissive parenting style—parents set no firm
guidelines for behavior and tend to give in to
demands of the child.
Persona—according to Jung, this is the outward part
of the personality or the mask we wear when deal-
ing with society and opposite of the unconscious
shadow.
Personal constructs—a set of bipolar categories we
use as labels to help us categorize and interpret the
world; Kelly believes that personality is a habitual
way we live our lives trying to make sense out of
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