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The diffferent areas tested by the AP Psychology exam each include specialized vocabulary.  These terms and their synonyms along with definitions, explanations, and examples were compiled to aid you in your preparations for the exam.

Important figures from psychology are all listed within the confines of the 14 topics

 

1. WILHELM WUNDT: trained subjects in introspection at the first psychological lab in Germany and is therefore considered the "Father of Modern, or Scientific Psychology

2. INTROSPECTION: a technique in which subjects accurately record their cognitive reactions to simple stimuli thereby revealing basic mental processes

3.WILLIAM JAMES:as author of the Principles of Psychology, James established the Theory of functionalism and brought psychology to the United States

4.  FUNCTIONALISM: examines how the mental processes described by Wundt function in our lives

5.  MAX WERTHEIMER:  A Gestalt psychologist who tried to examine a person's total experience in the belief that the whole experience is often more than just the sum of its parts

6.  SIGMUND FREUD:   believed he discovered a part of the mind over which we do not have conscious control and which determines, in part, how we think and behave.

7.  MARGARET WASHBURN:  first woman to earn a Ph. D. in Psychology and was known for hr experimental work involving animal behavior and the processes of sensation and perception

8.  JOHN WATSON:  declared that psychology must limit itself to observable phenomena, not observable concepts and wanted to establish behaviorism as the dominant paradigm of psychology. 

9.  IVAN PAVLOV:  he performed pioneering conditioning experiments on dogs which led to the development of the classical conditioning model of learning

10.  B. F. SKINNER:  expanded basic ideas of behaviorism to include the idea of reinforcement and punishment--environmental stimuli that either encourage or discourage certain responsses--and established the operant conditioning model of learning

11.  MARY CALKINS: despite her work as a student of William James and her presidency of the American Psychological Association, Harvard refused to award her a Ph.D. at the completion of her work, simply because she was a woman.

12.  HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVE:stresses individual choice and free will which contrasts with the deterministic behaviorists--Humanists believe that we choose our behaviors guided by physiological, emotional, or spiritual needs

13.PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE:  Freud's search for impulses or memories pushed into the unconscious mind developed this perspective based upon the belief that we do not have conscious control over or access to parts of our thoughts and actions and that unique techniques had to be developed to find and understand these areas

14.  NEUROSCIENCE PERSPECTIVE:  also call biopsychology--human thought and behavior is explained strictly in terms of biological processes, i.e. ,cognition and reactions are caused by effects on our genes, hormones, and neurotransmitters in the brain

15.  EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE:  sometimes called sociobiologists--human thoughts and actions are examine in terms of natural selection--traits might be advantageous for survival and subsequently inherited--often considered a subset of Biopsychology

16.  BEHAVIORAL PERSPECTIVE:  human thought and behavior is explained only as learned--the dominant force in psychology from the 1920s through the 1960s

17.  COGNITIVE PERSPECIVE:thoughts and behaviors are examined in terms of how we interpret, process, and remember environmental events--behavior is dominated by the rules and/or methods we use to view the world

18.  SOCIAL-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE:  based upon examining how our thoughts and behaviors vary from people living in other cultures and how our culture influences the way we think and act

19  HINDSIGHT BIAS:  after an event occurs, it is relatively easy to explain why it happened--the goal of scientific research, however, is to predict what will happen

20.  APPLIED RESEARCH:  research that has clear, practical applications such as investigating how people can best resolve personality conflicts at work

21.  BASIC RESEARCH:  research that explores questions of interest (which parts of the brain are involved in seeing color) but not intended to have immediate, real-world application

22.  HYPOTHESIS:  a statement that expressses a relationship between two variables and is tested by manipulating the independent varable and then measuring the dependent variable

23.  THEORY:the explanation of some phenomenon that allows researchers to generate testable hypotheses

24.  OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS:  an explanation of how variables are measured

25.  VALIDITY: research measures what the researcher set out to measure

26.  RELIABILITY:  research that can be replicated --if the researcher conducted the same research in the same way, the researcher would get similar results

27.  SAMPLING; the process by which the group of participants in research are selected

28.  POPULATION:  the group from which a sample is selected--anyone or anything that could possibly be selected to represent a larger population

29.  RANDOM SAMPLING:a method of selecting a sample from a population in which every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected--this increases the likelihood that the sample represents the population and that one can generalize the findings to the larger population

30.  STRATIFIED SAMPLING:  a process that allows a researcher to ensure that the sample represents the population on some criteria, such as age or race.

31.  EXPERIMENT:the only research method that can show a causal relationship by allowing the researcher to manipulate an indepedent variable and control for confounding variables

32.  CONFOUNDING VARIABLES: any difference between the experimental and control conditions (such as time of day), except for the independent variable, that might affect the dependent variable

33.  DOUBLE-BLIND PROCEDURE:method followed such that neither the participants nor the researcher are aware of who is in the experimental or control groups while the experiment is going on

34.  HAWTHORNE EFFECT: just selecting a sample of people and including them in an experiment will affect the performance of the sample, as the chosen participants will try to please the researcher

35.  CORRELATION:  a statistical measure of a relationship between two variables that can be either positive or negative--its strength is represented y a correlation coefficient

36.  SCATTER PLOT:  a graph of correlated data

37.  SURVEY METHOD:  often used to gather opinions or attitudes for correlational research by asking people to fill out surveys

38.  NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION:  observing participants without interacting with them in an effort to get a realistic and rich picture of the participants' behavior

39.  CASE STUDY:  a research method used to get a full, detailed picture of one participant or a small group of similar participants often used to present information about particular disorders

40.  DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS:  ways of describing a set of data

 

 

41.  NEURON:  an individual neural cell

42.  DENDRITES:  rootlike parts of the cell that stretch out from the cell body and grow to make synaptic connections with other neurons

43.  CELL BODY OR SOMA:  contains the nucleus and other parts of the cell needed to sustain its life

44.  AXON:  wirelike structure ending in the terminal buttons that extends from the cell body

45.  MYELIN SHEATH:  fatty covering around the axon of some neurons that speeds neural impulses

46.  TERMINAL BUTTONS:  branched end of the axon that contains neurotransmitters

47.  NEUROTRANSMITTERS:chemicals contained in terminal buttons that enable neurons to communicate (dopamine and serotonin)

48.  SYNAPASE:  space between the terminal buttons of one neuron and the dendrites of the next neuron

49.  RECEPTOR SITES:  areas on a dendrite designed to receive a specific neurotransmitter

50.  THRESHOLD:  level of neurotransmitters required to "fire" a neuron

51.  ACTION POTENTIAL:  electric charge that spreads down the length of a neuron after the threshold is achieved

52.  ALL-OR-NONE PRINCIPLE:  the neuron either fires completely or it does not fire at all 

53.  NEURAL FIRING:  an electrochemical process that involves electricity moving from the dendrites to the terminal buttons and chemicals moving from cells in the synapse (ELECTRICITY DOES NOT JUMP BETWEEN THE NEURONS)

54.  EXCITATORY NEUROTRANSMITTERS:     chemicals released from the terminal buttons of a neuron that excite the next neuron into firing

55.  INHIBITORY NEUROTRANSMITTERS:  chemicals released from the terminal buttons of a aneuron that inhibit the next neuron from firing

56.  ACETYLCHOLINE:  necessary for motor movement

57.  DOPAMINE:  associated with motor movement and alertness--too much associated with schizophrenia--too little associated with Parkinson's

58.  ENDORPHINS:  neurotransmitter associated with pain control--also involved in drug addictions

59,  SEROTONIN:  neurotransmitter associated with mood control and memory--lack of serotonin is associated with clinical depression

60.  AFFERENT NEURONS (SENSORY NEURONS): neurons that take information from the senses to the brain

61.  EFFERENT NEURONS (MOTOR NEURONS):neurons that take information from the brain to the rest of the body

62.  CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM: all of the nerves that are housed within bone, i.e. the brain and the spinal cord

63.  SPINAL CORD:  a bundle of nerves that run through the center of the spine

64.  PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM:  all the nerves not encased in bone: divided into two categories: somatic and autonomic

65.  SOMATIC NERVOUS SYSTEM:  controls voluntary muscle movements

66.  AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM:  controls the automatic functions of the human body--heart, lungs, internal organs, glands, etc

67.  SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM:  mobilizes our body to respond to stress by accelerating some functions (such as heart rate) but slows down other functions (digestion) to conserve resources

68.  PARASYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM:  responsible for slowing down the body after a stress response

69.  ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM: EEG:  procedure that detects brain waves used to generalize about brain function

70.  COMPUTERIZED AXIAL TOMOGRAPHY: CAT/CT SCAN:a sophisticated x-ray that shows the structure of the brain in three dimensions

71.  MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING: MRI SCAN:  measures the density and location of brain material 

72.  POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY: PET SCAN:  measures how much of a certain chemical parts of the brain are using, therefore indicating high activity 

73.  FUNCTIONAL MRI:  combines elements of the MRI and PET scan showing details of brain structure with information about blood flow

74.  HINDBRAIN:structures in the top part of the spinal cord  that control the basic biological functions that keep us alive: houses the medulla, pons, and cerebellum

75.  MEDULLA:involved in the control of our blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing

76.  PONS:  located just above the medulla, it connects the hindbrain with the midbrain and forebrain and controls facial expressions and sleep regulation

77. CEREBELLUM:  "little brain" that coordinates some habitual muscle movements, such as tracking a target with our eyes or playing the saxophone

78,  MIDBRAIN;  controls the ability to focus attention and coordinates simple movements with sensory information

79.  RETICULAR FORMATION:  controls general body arousal; if it does not function, we fall into a deep coma

80.  FOREBRAIN:  controls what we think of as thought and reason: houses the thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus

81.  THALAMUS: receives sensory signals coming up the spinal cord and sends them to the appropriate areas in the rest of the forebrain

82.  HYPOTHALAMUS:  controls metabolic functions such as body temperature, sexual arousal, hunger, thirst, and the endocrine system

83.  AMYGDALA:  vital to our experiences of fear and aggression

84:  HIPPOCAMPUS:  memories are processed through this area but not stored there

85.  LIMBIC SYSTEM:  a group os structures: thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus

86.  CEREBRAL CORTEX:  thin layer of densely packed neurons that covers the rest of the brain

87.  HEMISPHERIC SPECIALIZATION:  the specialization of function in each brain hemisphere

88.  CORPUS CALLOSUM: bundle of nerves that connects the two brain hemispheres

89.  BROCA'S AREA:  controls the muscles involved to produce speech: in the frontal lobe

90, WERNICKE'S AREA:  in the left temporal lobe interprets both written and spoken speech

91.  BRAIN PLASTICITY:  parts of the brain can adapt themselves to perform other functions if needed

 

 

 

92.  PROPRIOCEPTION: the sense of our body in space 

93.  SENSORY ADAPTATION--decreasing responsiveness to stimuli due to constant stimulation

94  SENSORY HABITUATION--our perception is partially determined by how used to them we are

95.  COCKTAIL-PARTY PHENOMENON--selective attention --something of particular interest to you allows you to filter out what you don't want to pay attention to

96.  SENSATION:  something in the environment activates one or more of our senses

97.  PERCEPTION--the brain's interpretation of sensory messages

98.  CORNEA--protective covering on the front of the eye that helps focus the light

99.  PUPIL--the opening in the center of the eye controlled by the iris, allowing in to open to let more light in and become smaller to let less light in

100.  OCCIPITAL LOBE--the part of the brain that receives impulses via the optic nerve and processes vision sensations in the visual cortex

101. FEATURE DETECTORS--groups of neurons in the visual cortex that respond to different types of visual images ( lines, curves, and motion) discovered by researchers Hubel and Weisel

102.RODS AND CONES--special neurons in the retina that are activated by light : cones are activsated by color and rods respond to black and white and motion

103. FOVEA--indentation at the center of the retina where cones are concentrated that results in the sharpest and clearest visual perception

104.  BLIND SPOT--spot on the retina where the optic nerve leaves the retina and there are no rods or cones--our brains and the movement of our eyes accommodate for the blind spot, so we usually don't notice it

105,  TRICHROMATIC THEORY--also called Young-Helmholtz theory--hypothesizes that we have three types of cones in the retina that are activated in different combinations to produce all the colors of the visible spectrum

106..OPPONENT-PROCESS THEORY--the other theory of color vision--states that sensory receptors in the retina come in pairs and if one sensor is stimulated, its pair is inhibited (BEST EXPLANATION FOR AFTERIMAGES AND COLOR BLINDNESS)

107. COLOR BLINDNESS: dichromatic color blind persons cannot see either red/green shades or blue/yellow shades: those with monochromatic color blindness only see shades of gray

108. SOUND WAVES--vibrations in the asir that are colected by our ears

109. COCHLEA--where transduction takes place and sound waves move the fluid that moves the hair cells that activste the neurons that send messages to the auditory cortex

110.  PITCH THEORIES: (2) PLACE THEORY (hair celss in the cochlea respond to different frequencies of sound based on location AND FREQUENCY THEORY  (lower tones are sensed by the rate at which the cellos fire)

111.  GATE CONTROL THEORY--NOT a physical gate swinging open and shut in the nerve, but a way to envision how pain messages are sent : high priority requests are "let in" and low priority requests are kept out

112.  GUSTATION--taste--taste buds on the tongue absorb chemicals from what we ingest --we sense sweet, salty, sour, umami, and bitter--flavor is a combination of taste and smell

113.OLFACTION--molecules settle in a mucous membrane at the top of each nostril and are absorbed by receptor cells that are inked to the olfactory bulb which sends information to the amygdala and then to the hippocampus

114.  VESTIBULAR SENSE-- three semicircular canals in the inner ear give the brain feedback about body orientation 

115.  KINESTHETIC SENSE--receptors in our muscles and joints send information to our brain about the position and orientaton of specific body parts 

116.  ABSOLUTE THRESHOLD--smallest amount of stimulus we can perceive 50% of the time

117. SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES--stimuli below our absolute threshold: research DOES NOT support the claim that subliminal messages affect our behaviors in overt ways

118. JUST NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE--smallest amount of change needed in a stimulus before we detect a change--computed by Weber's Law

119.  WEBER'S LAW--describes difference thresholds for different senses --the change needed is proportional to the original intensity of the stimulus

120.  SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY--investigates the effects of the distractions and interferences we perceive while experiencing the world 

121. TOP DOWN PROCESSING-- using background knowledge to fill in gaps in what you perceive ; eperiences create schemata (mental representations of how we expect the world to be)--these schemata influence how we perceive the world

122 PERCEPTUAL SET-- predisposition to perceiving something in a certain way

123. BOTTOM UP PROCESSING: use on the features of the object itself to build a complete perception NOT our experiences

124.  GESTALT RULES--described the principles that govern how we perceive groups of objects based on the observation that we normally perceive images as groups, not as isolated elements 

125.  CONSTANCY--our ability to maintain a constant perception of an object despite the minute changes in what we see that occur constantly (three types: size, shape, and brightness)

126.  SLEEP:  state of consciousness in which we are less aware of ourselves and our environment than we are when we are in our normal awake state

127.  SLEEP CYCLE:  a typical pattern of sleep recorded using EEG machines

128.  REM SLEEP:  paradoxical in that our brain waves appear as active and intense as they do when we are wide awake: dreams usually occur here; and the more stress we experience during the day, the longer our REM periods are

129.  INSOMNIA:  people have persistent problems getting to sleep and./or staying asleep at night

130.  NARCOLEPSY: very rare:  people suffer from periods of intense sleepiness and may fall asleep at unpredictable and inappropriate times --can be treated with medication

131. SLEEP APNEA:  very common--sleeper stops breathing for short periods of time during the night and the person awakens to gasp for air

132  DREAMS:  story-like images we experience as we sleep 

133.  FREUDIAN DREAM INTERPRETATION:  according to Freudian psychoanalysis, dream interpretation is a method to uncover the repressed information in the unconscious mind: dreams are wish fulfilling; manifest content is the literal content of our dreams; latent content is the unconscious meaning of the manifest content

134.  ACTIVATIOIN-SYNTHESIS DREAM THEORY:  proposes that dreams are only the brain's interpretations of what is happening physiologically during REM--dreams are therefore a biological phenomena

135.  INFORMATION-PROCESSING DREAM THEORY:  the brain is dealing with daily stress and information during Rem dreams: stress during the day increases the number and intensity of dreams: the function of REM sleep may therefore be to integrate the information processed during the day into our memories

136.  HYPNOSIS:an altered state of consciousness in which a person is highly suggestible 

137.  ROLE THEORY OF HYPNOSIS:  indicate that hypnotism is a social phenomenon not an alternate state of consciousness in that some people are more easily hypnotized than others

138.  STATE THEORY OF HYPNOSIS:  hypnotists can suggest that we become more or less aware of our environments and reap dramatic heath benefits such as pain control

139.  DISSOCIATION THEORY OF HYPNOSIS: research by Ernest Hilgard sugests that hypnosis causes us to divide our consciousness voluntarily so that part of us responds to suggestions and another part  or level retains awareness of reality

140.  PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS:  chemicals that change the chemistry of the brain and the rest of the body and induce an altered state of consciousness--some changes are due to physiological processes and some are due to expectations about the drug

 

141. teratogens;chemicals or agents thst can cause harm if ingested or contracted by the mother

142.  newborn reflexes: rooting, sucking, grasping, startled, Babinski

143  Harry Harlow: studied  the impact of nurturing touch, warmth, and food on infant monkey attachment

144.  secure attachment: one of the categories of infant attachment studied by Mary Ainsworth

145.  avoidant attachment: infants resisting being held by parents and chose to explore the environment instead

146.  authoritarian parents  set strict stasndards for their children's behavior and apply punishments for violations of these rules

147.  permissive parents: do not set clear guidelines for their children; rules that do exist are constantly changed or are not enforced consistently 

148. authoritative parents: set consistent standards for their children's behavior, but the standards are reasonable and explained; the rationale for family rules are discussed with children old enough to understand them

149.  Sigmund Freud: the first to theorize that we pass through different stages in childhood; he labeled them psychosexual stages

150: Erik Erikson:a neo-Freudian who believed in the basics of Freud,s theory but adapted it to fit his own observations of the influence of experiences: he calls them eight psychosocial stages

151.  Jean Piaget: Cognitive Development Theory describes how children view the world through schemata, cognitive rules we use to interpret the world 

152.  assimilation:  the incorporation of experiences into existing schematas

153.  accommodation;changing our schemata to incorporate new information

154.  Sensorimotor Stage: birth to two years old: Piaget stage where we need to develop object permanence

155.  Object permanence:  the understanding that objects continue to exist when we cannot see them

156.  Preoperational State:  two to about sever years old: Piaget stage where children learn language and remain egocentric

157.  egocentric: the inability to look at the world from anyone's perspective but our own

158.  Concrete Operation Stage:  eight to about 12: Piaget stage where children learn to think more logically and learn the concept of conservation

159.  conservation: the realization that properties of objects remain the same even when their shapes change

160.  Formal Operation Stage:  age 12 through adulthood: Piaget's final stage describes adult reasoning and metacognition

161.  metacognition: the ability to trace a thought process and evaluate the effectiveness of how we solved a problem

162.  agonists: drugs tha mimic neurotransmitters 

163.  antagonist: drugs that block neurotransmitters

164.  tolerance: the physiological state when the brain produces less of a specific neurotransmitter because it is being artificaially supplied by a psychoactive drug; more of the drug will be needed in order to achieve the effect continually

165. stimulants: used to speed up body processes, including autonoomic nervous system functions such as heart and respiration rate

166.  depressants: used to slow down body processes, including reactions and judgment, by slowing down brain processes

167.  id;  propelled by the pleasure principle, one of the components of Freud's Psychoanalytic Personality Theory

168.  ego: follows the reality principle and negotiates between the desires of the id and the limitations of the environment

169.  superego: what Freud says is our sense of conscience, how we think about what is right and wrong

170.  defense mechanisms:  used by the ego to help protect the conscious mind

171.  trait theories; stipulate that we can describe people's personalities by specifyig their main traits such as honesty, laziness, ambition

172.  Big Five Personality Traits;a number of contemporary trit theorists believe that personality can be described using thise five characteristics only: OCEAN (OR CANOE) openness,conscientiousness, extraversion,agreeableness, neuroticism

173.  factor analysis: a statistical technique used to analyze results of personality tests

174.  biological theories of personality: view genes, chemicals,, and body types as the central determinants of who a person is

175.  heritability:the percentage of variation between people tht can be attributed to genetic factors

176.  behaviorists theories of personality: view the idea of personality as meaningless because the reinforcement contingencies to which one is exposed creates the personality at that moment

177.  temperaments;a person's emotional style and characteristic way of dealing with the world

178.  social-cognitive personalitytheories: combines behaviorists' emphasis on the importance of the environment with cognitive focus on patterns of though 

179.  reciprocal determinism: Bandura's suggestion that personality is created by an interaction between the person (traits), the environment, and the person's behavior

180.  self-efficacy:   an optimism about one's own ability to get things done

181. personal-construct theory: George Kelly:  argued that people develop their own individual systems of personal constructs in their attempts to understand their world--they consist of pairs of opposites such as fair and unfair, smart and dumb, exciting and dull

182.  locus of control: Julian Rotter:  people believe they are responsible for what happens to them (internal) or luck and other forces outside of their own control determine their destinies (external)

183. unconditional positive regard: Carl Rogers' personality theory based on the belief that people are innately good and need to feel accepted in order to make strides toward self-actualization (Maslow)

184.   intelligence: the ability to gather and use information in productive ways

185.  Spearman's General Intelligence Theory: expresses intelligence by a single factor--g

186.  Sternberg's Triarchic Theory:three types of intelligence exist: analytic, creative, practical

187.  Gardner's Multiple Theory: wide variety of abilities used to measure intelligence

188.  Flynn Effect: performance on intelligence tests has ben increasing steadily throughout the century

189.  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders  (DSM): reference that describes the syptoms of everything currently considered to be a psychological disorder--currently on version DSM-5

190.  Phobias:  intense unwarranted fear of a situation or object 

191.  Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:  condition wherein persistent, unwanted thoughts cause someone to feel the need to engage in a particular action

192.  Conversion Disorder: condition wherein a person will report the existence of a severe physical problem, such as paralysis or blindness, and will, in fact, be unable to move their arms or see but no biological reason for the problem can be identified

193.  Bipolar Disorder:  depressed and manic episodes

194.  learned helplessness;  occurs when one's prior experiences have caused a person to view hemself as unable to control aspects of the future that should be controllable

195.  Schizophrenic disorders:  one of the most severe and debilitating psychological disorders marked by distorted thinking often demonstrated through delusions and hallucinations

 

196.  Drive Reduction Theory:  out behavior is motivated by biological needs, i.e., our requirements for survival

197.  Confirmation Bias: tendency to look for evidence that confirms our beliefs and to ignore evidence that contradicts what we think is true

198.  Functional Fixedness:  the inability to see a new use for an object

199.  heuristic:  a problem-solving rule of thumb that is generally true and helps us make judgments

200.  algorithm:a problem-solving rule that guarantees the right solution by using a formula or other foolproof method

201.  prototypes:  the typical example of any given concept

202.  social impairment:  being watched by others hurts performance when the task being observed is a difficult one rather than a simple, well-practiced skill

203.  group polarization:  the tendency of a group's views to get stronger during group discussions, which may lead to more extreme decisions

204.  conformity:  the tendency off people to go along with the views or actions of others

205.  Bystander Effect:  the larger the number of people who witness an emergency situation, the less likely anyone will be to intervene

206.  superordinate goal:contact between hostile groups will reduce animosity if the groups are made to work toward a goal that benefits all and necessitates the participation of all--established by Robbers Cave study 

207.  discrimiination;  acting on a prejudice

208.  prejudice:  an undeserved, usually negative, attitude toward a group of people

209.  just-world bias:  people evidence a bias toward thinking that bad things happen to bad people--misfortunes befall people who deserve the, (people are unemployed because they are lazy)

210.  collectivist culture: a person's link to various groups, such as family or company, is stressed (an example is the Japanese culture)

211.  Individualistic culture: the importance and uniqueness of the individual is stressed

212.  attitude; a set of beliefs and feelings 

213  waxy flexibility: a characteristic of catatonia, sufferers allow their bodies to be moved into any alternative shape and will then hold that new pose

214.  delusions of grandeur:belief that you enjoy greater power and influence than you really do

215.  psychoanalysis:a therapeutic technique developed by Freud through which conversation, dream analysis, and free association allow the therapist to see what is at the root of the patient's problem

216.  manifest content:  a term used by psychoanalysts when using dream analysis in order to uncover unconscious conflicts--what a patient reports about a dream

217.  latent content:  content of a dream revealed only as a result of the therapist's interpretive work

218.  somatic treatments: medical treatments for psychological disorders, including drug treatments, psychosurgery, and electroconvulsive shock therapy

219. bulimia:an eating disorder in which the person eats large amounts of food and a short period of time (binging) and then rids themselves of the food (purging) by vomiting, exercising excessively, or using laxatives

220.  anxiety hierarchy: part of the process of systematic desensitization through which  a rank-ordered list of what the client fears, starting with the least frightening and ending with the most frightening is developed

221.  syntax:the particular word order of any language

222.  morphemes:  the smallest unit of meaningful sound

223.  phonemes:  the smaller units of sound used in a language

224.  long-term potentiation:  neurons can strengthen connections between each other through repeated firings because the receiving neuron becomes more sensitive to the messages from the sending neuron

225.  tardive dyskinesia:  muscle tremors and stiffness caused by extensive use of anti-psychotic drugs