Neuroleptics—antipsychotic drugs to reduce hallu-
cinations, delusions, and jumbled thought
processes; include Thorazine (chlorpromazine),
Haldol, Clozaril.
Neuron—the basic unit of structure and function of
your nervous system. Neurons perform three
major functions: receive information, process it,
and transmit it to the rest of your body.
Neuropsychologists—neuroscientists who explore
the relationships between brain/nervous systems
and behavior. Neuropsychologists are also called
biopsychologists, behavioral geneticists, physiolog-
ical psychologists, and behavioral neuroscientists.
Neuroticism—Eysenck’s personality dimension that
measures our level of instability, how moody, anx-
ious, and unreliable we are; as opposed to stabil-
ity, how calm, even-tempered, and reliable we are.
Neurotransmitters—chemical messengers released
by the terminal buttons of the presynaptic neuron
into the synapse.
Night terrors—most frequently childhood sleep dis-
ruptions from stage 4 sleep characterized by a
bloodcurdling scream and intense fear.
Nightmares—are frightening dreams that occur
during REM sleep.
Nodes of Ranvier—spaces between segments of
myelin on the axons of neurons.
Nomothetic methods—personality techniques such
as tests, surveys, and observations that focus on
variables at the group level, identifying universal
trait dimensions or relationships between differ-
ent aspects of personality.
Nonconscious—level of consciousness devoted to
processes completely inaccessible to conscious
awareness such as blood flow, filtering of blood by
kidneys, secretion of hormones, and lower level
processing of sensory such as detecting edges, esti-
mating size and distance of objects, recognizing
patterns, etc.
Non-declarative (implicit) memory—retention
without conscious recollection of learning the
skills and procedures to do things thought to be
stored in the cerebellum.
Non-REM or NREM sleep—sleep stages 1-4 during
which rapid eye movements do NOT occur.
Normal distribution—bell-shaped curve that repre-
sents data about how lots of human characteristics
are dispersed in the population.
Normative social influence—going along with
the group, even if you do not agree with their
decisions, because you desire to gain their social
approval.
Norms—(in social psychology), rules either implicit
or explicit that govern the behavior of group
members; (intesting), scores established from the
test results of the representative sample, which are
then used as a standard for assessing the perform-
ances of subsequent test takers.
Object permanence—awareness that objects still
exist when out of sight; milestone of Piaget’s sen-
sorimotor period, 0-2 years.
Observational learning—learning that takes place
by watching and imitating others behavior.
Obsession—an involuntary recurring thought, idea,
or image.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder—recurrent, unwanted
thoughts or ideas and compelling urges to engage
in repetitive ritual-like behavior.
Occipital lobes—region in the back of the cerebral
cortex that is the primary area for processing
visual information.
Omission training—removal of a rewarding conse-
quence that follows a voluntary behavior thereby
decreasing the probability the behavior will be
repeated.
Operant conditioning—learning that occurs when
an active learner performs certain voluntary
behavior and the consequences of the behavior
(pleasant or unpleasant) determine the likelihood
of its recurrence.
Operational definition—a description of the spe-
cific procedure used to determine the presence of
a variable (such as a smile for happiness).
Opponent-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 stonger.
Oral stage—Freud’s first psychosexual stage;
pleasure derived from sucking; crisis is weaning
from bottle or breast fixation: dependent
personalities who are smokers, overeaters, talka-
tive, etc.
Organismic self—according to Rogers, the original
(real) self that strives towards 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 are.328 ❯ Glossary