5 Steps to a 5 AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition (90 page)

Pituitary gland
(sometimes called master gland)—endocrine gland in brain that produces stimulating hormones which promote secretion by other glands, including TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone); ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone), which stimulates the adrenal cortex; FSH, which stimulates egg or sperm production; ADH (antidiuretic hormone), to help retain water in your body; and HGH (human growth hormone).

Place theory
—
the position on the basilar membrane at which waves reach their peak depending on the frequency of a tone. Accounts well for high-pitched sounds.

Placebo
—
a physical or psychological treatment given to the control group that resembles the treatment given to the experimental group, but contains no active ingredient.

Placebo effect
—
a response to the belief that the independent variable will have an effect, rather than to the actual effect of the independent variable; can be a confounding variable.

Plasticity
—
modifiability of neural connections that enables generation of new synapses which results in storing and retrieval of memories or one part of the brain taking over the function of another, etc.

Pleasure principle
—
Freud claims that the id part of the personality seeks immediate gratification of its wants and needs.

Pons
—
part of brainstem that includes portion of reticular activating system or reticular formation critical for arousal and wakefulness; sends information to and from medulla, cerebellum, and cerebral cortex.

Population
—
all of the individuals in the group to which the study applies.

Positive psychology
—
the scientific study of optimal human functioning.

Positive reinforcement
—
a rewarding consequence that follows a voluntary behavior thereby increasing the probability the behavior will be repeated.

Positron emission tomography
(PET)—shows brain activity when radioactively-tagged glucose rushes to active neurons and emits positrons.

Postconventional level
—
Kohlberg’s third and final level of moral development, in which people come to understand that moral rules include principles that apply across all situations and societies.

Post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD)—an anxiety disorder in which the individual has feelings of social withdrawal accompanied by atypically low levels of emotion caused by prolonged exposure to a stressor, such as a catastrophe; may experience flashbacks and nightmares.

Power tests
—
difficulty level measured; untimed tests which include easy to more difficult questions, used to assess intelligence and other capacities.

Preconscious
—
the level of consciousness that is outside of awareness but contains feelings and memories that can easily be brought to conscious awareness.

Preconventional level
—
Kohlberg’s first level of moral development, which bases moral behavior on obedience and punishment, or acting in one’s own best interests.

Predictive validity
—
the extent to which a test accurately forecasts a specific future result.

Prefrontal lobotomy
—
a surgical procedure that destroys the tracts connecting the frontal lobes to lower centers of the brain, once believed to be an effective treatment for schizophrenia.

Prejudice
—
unjustified attitudes we hold about others; generally negative evaluation based on ethnicity, race, sex, or some other criteria.

Prelinguistic speech
—
initial steps of cooing and babbling, later accidental imitation, and finally deliberate imitation as precursors to language development.

Premack Principle
—
a high probability response can serve as a reward for a low probability behavior, thus increasing it.

Prenatal development
—
period of development that begins with fertilization, or conception, and ends with birth.

Preoperational stage
—
Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development (2–7 yrs) during which the child represents and manipulates objects with symbols (language) and is egocentric.

Primacy effect
(Law of Primacy)—the tendency to remember initial information; in the memorization of a list of words, the primacy effect is evidenced by better recall of the words early in the list.

Primary emotions
—
joy, fear, anger, sadness, surprise, and disgust which are inborn.

Primary motives
—
internal mechanism directing behavior dealing with sustaining processes biologically necessary for survival such as thirst, hunger, and sex.

Primary reinforcers
—
important automatic and unlearned (inborn) rewards like food and drink.

Primary sex characteristics
—
the reproductive organs (ovaries, uterus, and testes) and external genitals (vulva and penis).

Priming
—
activating specific associations in memory either consciously or unconsciously.

Proactive interference
—
occurs when something you learned earlier disrupts recall of something you experience later.

Problem solving
—
the active efforts we undertake to discover what must be done to achieve a goal that isn’t readily attainable.

Procedural memory
—
memories of perceptual, motor, and cognitive skills.

Projection
—
Freudian defense mechanism that attributes our undesirable feelings to others.

Projective personality tests
—
present ambiguous stimuli such as inkblots (Rorschaach) or pictures (TAT) with the assumption that test takers will project their unconscious thoughts or feelings onto the stimuli (according to psychoanalytic approach).

Prosocial behavior
—
positive, helpful, and constructive behavior.

Prototype
—
a mental image or “best example” that incorporates all the features you associate with a particular category.

Psychiatrist
—
medical doctor and mental health professional who can prescribe medication or perform surgery.

Psychoactive drug
—
a chemical that can pass through the blood-brain barrier to alter perception, thinking, behavior, and mood.

Psychoanalysis
—
Freudian form of therapy involving free association, dream analysis, resistance, and transference aimed at providing the patient insight into his/her unconscious motivations and conflicts.

Psychoanalyst
—
a therapist who has taken specialized postdoctoral training in psychoanalysis generally after earning either an M.D. or a Ph.D.

Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic approach
—
psychological perspective concerned with how unconscious instincts, conflicts, motives, and defenses influence behavior.

Psychological dependence
—
intense desire to achieve a drugged state in spite of adverse effects.

Psychology
—
the science of behavior and mental processes.

Psychometricians
(measurement psychologists)—focus on methods for acquiring and analyzing psychological data; measure mental traits, abilities and processes.

Psychopathology
—
a pattern of abnormality evidenced by emotions, behaviors, or thoughts inappropriate to the situation that lead to personal distress or the inability to achieve important goals.

Psychopharmacotherapy
—the use of psychotropic drugs to treat mental disorders.

Psychophysics
—
study of the relationship between physical energy and psychological experiences.

Psychosis
—
set of disorders including schizophrenia characterized by an apparent break from reality.

Psychosurgery
—
any surgical technique in which neural pathways in the brain are cut in order to change behavior, including lobotomy.

Psychoticism
—
Eysenck’s personality dimension that measures our level of tough-mindedness, how hostile, ruthless, and insensitive we are; as opposed to tender-mindedness, how friendly, empathetic, and cooperative we are.

Puberty
—
the early adolescent period marked by accelerated growth and onset of the ability to reproduce.

Punishment
—
an aversive consequence that follows a voluntary behavior thereby decreasing the probability the behavior will be repeated.

Pupil
—
small, adjustable opening in the iris of the eye that is smaller in bright light and larger in darkness.

Quasi-experiment
—
research method similar to a controlled experiment, but in which random assignment to groups is not possible. It can provide strong evidence suggesting cause and effect relationships.

Random assignment
—
division of the sample into group such that every individual has an equal chance of being put in any group or condition.

Random selection
—
choosing of members of a population such that every individual has an equal chance of being chosen.

Range
—
the difference between the largest score and the smallest score (quick and dirty).

Rational emotive therapy
(RET)—cognitive treatment developed by Ellis which is based on confronting irrational thoughts; change in irrational thinking will lead to a change in irrational behavior.

Rationalization
—
a Freudian defense mechanism that provides socially acceptable reasons for our inappropriate behavior.

Reaction formation
—
the Freudian defense mechanism involving acting in a manner exactly opposite to our true feelings.

Real self
—
according to Rogers, the positive and original organism we are before society imposes conditions of worth on us.

Reality principle
—
the manner in which the ego delays gratification and otherwise deals with the environment in a planned rational fashion (in Freudian theory).

Recall
—
retrieval of previously learned information.

Recessive gene
—
the gene that is hidden or not expressed when the genes for a trait are different.

Reciprocal determinism
—
the characteristics of the person, the person’s behavior, and the environment all affect one another in two-way causal relations (according to Bandura).

Reciprocity
—
compliance technique used by groups; individuals feel obligated to go along with a request for a small donation if they have first accepted a small gift.

Recognition
—
identification of learned items when they are presented.

Reconstruction
—
retrieval of memories often distorted by adding, dropping, or changing details to fit a schema.

Reflex
—
the simplest form of behavior.

Reflex arc
—
the path over which the reflex travels which typically includes a receptor, sensory or afferent neuron, interneuron, motor or efferent neuron, and effector.

Regression
—
Freudian defense mechanism characterized by immature, pleasurable behavior of an earlier level of development.

Rehabilitation psychologists
—
help clients with mental retardation, developmental disabilities, and disabilities resulting from stroke or accidents adapt to their situations.

Rehearsal
—
the conscious repetition of information to either maintain information in STM or to encode it for storage into long-term memory.

Reinforcer
—
in operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.

Relearning
—
a measure of retention of memory that assesses the time saved compared to learning the first time when learning information again.