Homozygous—the condition when both genes for a
trait are the same.
Hormone—chemical messenger that travels through
the blood to a receptor site on a target organ.
Hostile aggression—deliberate infliction of pain
upon an unwilling victim.
Humanistic approach—psychological perspective
concerned with individual potential for growth
and the role of unique perceptions in growth
towards one’s potential.
Huntington’s disease—dominant gene defect that
involves degeneration of the nervous system char-
acterized by tremors, jerky motions, blindness,
and death.
Hypnagogic state—relaxed state of dreamlike
awareness as we fall asleep
Hypnosis—a technique that involves an interaction
between the person (hypnotist) who suggests that
certain feelings, thoughts, perceptions or behav-
iors and the subject who experiences them.
Hypochondriasis—a somatoform disorder involv-
ing persistent and excessive worry about develop-
ing a serious illness.
Hypothalamus—part of brain under the thalamus
that controls feeding behavior, drinking behavior,
body temperature, sexual behavior, threshold for
rage behavior, activation of the sympathetic and
parasympathetic systems, and secretion of hor-
mones of the pituitary.
Hypothesis—prediction of how two or more factors
are likely to be related.
Iconic memory—visual sensory memory.
Id—Freud’s original system of the personality; it
operates on the pleasure principle and seeks
immediate gratification of its wants and needs;
unconscious reservoir of primal urges and libido.
Ideal self—Rogerian term for the self we desire to
be; discrepancy with real self causes psychological
problems.
Identical twins—also called monozygotic twins,
two individuals who share all of the same
genes/heredity because they develop from the
same zygote.
Identity vs. role confusion—in Erikson’s theory,
establishing an identity is the developmental task
of adolescence or stage 5 of his psychosocial
theory of development.
Idiographic methods—personality techniques that
look at the individual such as case studies, inter-
views, and naturalistic obervations.
Imagery—mental pictures.
Implicit memory (nondeclarative memory)—long-
term memory for skills and procedures to do
things affected by previous experience without
that experience being consciously recalled.
Imprinting—the process by which certain animals
form attachments during a critical period very
early in life.
In-group—a group of which one is a member and
one tends to favor.
In vivo desensitization—behavior therapy for pho-
bics; the client actually is placed in the fearful set-
tings rather than imagining them as in systematic
desensitization.
Incentive—a positive or negative environmental
stimulus that motivates behavior, pulling us
toward a goal.
Incongruence—in Rogerian therapy, discrepancy
between a client’s real and ideal selves.
Incubation—putting aside a problem temporarily;
allows the problem solver to look at the problem
from a different perspective.
Independent variable (IV)—the factor the
researcher manipulates in a controlled experiment
(the cause).
Individualism—identifying oneself in terms of per-
sonal traits with independent, personal goals.
Individualized tests: given to individuals in 1:1
setting; cost of hiring a professional makes them
somewhat prohibitive; probably better for
determining individual IQ scores; subjective
grading.
Individuation—according to Jung is the psycholog-
ical process by which a person becomes an indi-
vidual, a unified whole, including conscious and
unconscious processes.
Inductive reasoning—reasoning from the specific
to the general, forming concepts about all
members of a category based on some members.
Industrial/Organizational psychologists—psy-
chologists who aim to improve productivity and
the quality of work life by applying psychological
principles and methods to the workplace.
Inferential statistics—statistics that are used to
interpret data and draw conclusions.
Information processing model of memory—
explanation of memory that compares operation
of human memory to a computer involving
encoding, transfer to storage, and retrieval from
storage.324 ❯ Glossary