GloSSARy G-4humanist psychology A psychological approach that emphasizes free will,
personal growth, resilience, and the achievement of human potential.
humanist therapy A form of psychotherapy based on the philosophy of
humanism, which emphasizes the client’s free will to change rather than
past conflicts.
hypnosis A procedure in which the practitioner suggests changes in a
subject’s sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings, or behavior.
hypothalamus A brain structure involved in emotions and drives vital to
survival, such as fear, hunger, thirst, and reproduction; it regulates the
autonomic nervous system.
hypothesis A statement that attempts to predict or to account for a set
of phenomena; scientific hypotheses specify relationships among events
or variables and are empirically tested.
id In psychoanalysis, the part of personality containing inherited psychic
energy, particularly sexual and aggressive instincts.
implicit learning Learning that occurs when you acquire knowledge
about something without being aware of how you did so and without
being able to state exactly what it is you have learned.
implicit memory Unconscious retention in memory, as evidenced by the
effect of a previous experience or previously encountered information on
current thoughts or actions.
inattentional blindness Failure to consciously perceive something you
are looking at because you are not attending to it.
independent variable A variable that an experimenter manipulates.
individualist cultures Cultures in which the self is regarded as autono-
mous, and individual goals and wishes are prized above duty and rela-
tions with others.
induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells Stem cells derived from adult
tissues.
induction A method of child rearing in which the parent appeals to the
child’s own resources, abilities, sense of responsibility, and feelings for
others in correcting the child’s misbehavior.
inferential statistics Statistical procedures that allow researchers to
draw inferences about how statistically meaningful a study’s results are.
informed consent The doctrine that human research subjects must par-
ticipate voluntarily and must know enough about a study to make an
intelligent decision about whether to participate.
instinctive drift During operant learning, the tendency for an organism
to revert to instinctive behavior.
intelligence An inferred characteristic of an individual, usually defined
as the ability to profit from experience, acquire knowledge, think
abstractly, act purposefully, or adapt to changes in the environment.
intelligence quotient (IQ) A measure of intelligence originally computed
by dividing a person’s mental age by his or her chronological age and
multiplying the result by 100; it is now derived from norms provided for
standardized intelligence tests.
intermittent (partial) schedule of reinforcement A reinforcement sched-
ule in which a particular response is sometimes but not always reinforced.
internal desynchronization A state in which biological rhythms are not in
phase (synchronized) with one another.
intersex conditions Conditions in which chromosomal or hormonal
anomalies cause a child to be born with ambiguous genitals, or genitals
that conflict with the infant’s chromosomes.
intrinsic motivation The pursuit of an activity for its own sake and for the
internal pleasure it provides.
intrinsic reinforcers Reinforcers that are inherently related to the activity
being reinforced, such as enjoyment of the task and the satisfaction of
accomplishment.
justification of effort The tendency of individuals to increase their liking
for something that they have worked hard or suffered to attain; a common
form of dissonance reduction.
just-world hypothesis The notion that many people need to believe that
the world is fair and that justice is served, that bad people are punished
and good people rewarded.functionalism An early psychological approach that emphasized the
function or purpose of behavior and consciousness.
fundamental attribution error The tendency, in explaining other peo-
ple’s behavior, to overestimate personality factors and underestimate the
influence of the situation.
g factor A general intellectual ability assumed by many theorists to
underlie specific mental abilities and talents.
ganglion cells Neurons in the retina of the eye, which gather information
from receptor cells (by way of intermediate bipolar cells); their axons
make up the optic nerve.
gate-control theory The theory that the experience of pain depends in
part on whether pain impulses get past a neurological “gate” in the spi-
nal cord and thus reach the brain.
gender identity The fundamental sense of being male or female; it is
independent of whether the person conforms to the social and cultural
rules of gender.
gender schema A cognitive schema (mental network) of knowledge,
beliefs, metaphors, and expectations about what it means to be male
or female.
gender typing The process by which children learn the abilities, inter-
ests, and behaviors associated with being masculine or feminine in their
culture.
general adaptation syndrome According to Hans Selye, a series of physi-
ological reactions to stressors occuring in three phases: alarm, resis-
tance, and exhaustion.
generalized anxiety disorder A continuous state of anxiety marked by
feelings of worry and dread, apprehension, difficulties in concentration,
and signs of motor tension.
genes The functional units of heredity; they are composed of DNA and
specify the structure of proteins.
Gestalt principles Principles that describe the brain’s organization of
sensory information into meaningful units and patterns.
glia [Gly-uh or GlEE-uh] Cells that support, nurture, and insulate neu-
rons, remove debris when neurons die, enhance the formation and main-
tenance of neural connections, and modify neuronal functioning.
graduated exposure In behavior therapy, a method in which a person
suffering from a phobia or panic attacks is gradually taken into the feared
situation or exposed to a traumatic memory until the anxiety subsides.
graph A drawing that depicts numerical relationships.
groupthink In close-knit groups, the tendency for all members to think
alike for the sake of harmony and to suppress disagreement.
heritability A statistical estimate of the proportion of the total variance
in some trait that is attributable to genetic differences among individuals
within a group.
heuristic A rule of thumb that suggests a course of action or guides
problem solving but does not guarantee an optimal solution.
higher-order conditioning In classical conditioning, a procedure in
which a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus through asso-
ciation with an already established conditioned stimulus.
hindsight bias The tendency to overestimate one’s ability to have predicted
an event once the outcome is known; the “I knew it all along” phenomenon.
hippocampus A brain structure involved in the storage of new informa-
tion in memory and its later retrieval.
histogram (bar graph) A graph in which the heights (or lengths) of bars
are proportional to the frequencies of individual scores or classes of
scores in a distribution.
hormones Chemical substances, secreted by organs called glands, that
affect the functioning of other organs.
HPA (hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal cortex) axis A system activated
to energize the body to respond to stressors. The hypothalamus sends
chemical messengers to the pituitary gland, which in turn prompts the
adrenal cortex to produce cortisol and other hormones.
hue The dimension of visual experience specified by color names and
related to the wavelength of light.