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Daily hassles—everyday annoyances such as having
to wait on lines, arguing with a friend, etc.
Daydreaming—state of consciousness characterized
by focus on inner, private realities which can gen-
erate creative ideas.
Decay theory—assumes that memories deteriorate
as time passes.
Declarative memory (explicit)—memory of facts
and experiences that one consciously is aware of
and can declare.
Deductive reasoning—reasoning from the general
to the specific.
Deep processing—involves attaching meaning and
creating associations between the new memory
and existing memories.
Defense mechanisms—unconscious, deceptive
reactions that protect the ego from unpleasant
emotions that are threatening, according to
Freudian theory. They become active when
unconscious instinctual drives of the id come into
conflict with prohibitions of the superego.
Deindividuation—high arousal and anonymity in
groups may lead to antisocial acts.
Deinstitutionalization—movement begun in
1950s to remove patients who were not consid-
ered a threat to themselves or the community
from mental hospitals.
Delayed conditioning—ideal training in classical
conditioning training where the CS precedes
UCS and briefly overlaps.
Delusion—false belief that others are plotting
against one, that one is famous or that one’s
thoughts and actions are controlled by others;
symptomatic of schizophrenia and sometimes
depression.
Demand characteristics—clues participants dis-
cover about the purpose of the study that suggest
how they should respond.
Dendrites—branching tubular processes of
neuron that have receptor sites for receiving
information.
Denial—Freudian defense mechanism, a refusal to
admit a particular aspect of reality.
Dependent variable(DV)—the behavior or mental
process that is measured in an experiment or
quasi-experiment (the effect).
Depressants—psychoactive drugs that reduce the
activity of the central nervous system and induce
relaxation; include sedatives such as barbiturates,
tranquilizers, and alcohol.
Descriptive statistics—numbers that summarize a
set of research data obtained from a sample.
Developmental psychology—study of physical,
intellectual, social, and moral changes over the
entire lifespan from conception to death.
Deviation IQ—Weschler’s procedure for comput-
ing the intelligence quotient; compares a child’s
score with those received by other children of the
same chronological age.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM IV-
TR)—a widely used manual used by mental
health professionals for classifying psychological
disorders; published by American Psychiatric
Association.
Diathesis–stress Model—an account of the cause of
mental disorders based on the idea that mental
disorders develop when a person possesses a
genetic predisposition for a disorder, and later
faces stressors that exceed his or her abilities to
cope with them.
Diffusion of responsibility—a phenomenon that
seems to reduce the sense of personal responsibility
that any one person feels to help others and increases
in proportion to the size of the group present.
Discrimination—in classical conditioning, the ability
to tell the difference between the CS and stimuli
similar to it that do not signal a UCS; in operant
conditioning refers to responding differently to
stimuli that signal that behavior will be reinforced
or not reinforced; in social psychology it refers to
unjustified behavior against an individual or group.
Disinhibition—a behavior therapy for phobias
where modeling is used.
Disorganized schizophrenia (hebephrenia)—a
type of schizophrenia characterized primarily by
disturbances of thought and inappropriate
affect—silly behavior or absence of emotions.
Displacement—expressing feelings toward some-
thing or someone besides the target person,
because they are perceived as less threatening.
Display Rules—culturally determined rules that
prescribe the appropriate expression of emotions
in particular situations.
Dispositional attributions—hold an individual
responsible for his behavior.
Dissociation—experience of two or more streams of
consciousness cut off from each other.
Dissociative amnesia—repression of memory for a
particularly troublesome event or period of time
into the unconscious mind; characterized by theGlossary ❮ 319