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Cardinal Trait: According to Gordon Allport, the human personality is comprised of three traits. The most dominant of these traits are the cardinal traits which are dominant traits that characterizes almost all of a person's personality. For example, Mother Teresa is often identified as exemplifying the cardinal trait, altruism, as her life was completely devoted to helping others, even at her own expense. Case Study: A case study is one type of observational data collection technique in which one individual is studied in-depth in order to identify behavioral, emotional, and/or cognitive qualities that are universally true, on average, of others. Case studies often include face-to-face interviews, paper and pencil tests, and more. CAT Scan: A CAT Scan is "Computerized Axial Tomography" (also known as a CT Scan), which is a process of using computers to make a 3-dimensional image from a 2-dimensional picture (X-ray). During the process a series of x-ray photographs are taken from different angles and then combined by computer into a composite 3-dimensional representation. So, pictures are taken one slice at a time going through the whole object and then the slices are combined to get a great visual of the whole thing. Catatonic Schizophrenia: People with this type of schizophrenia exhibit unusual motor behaviors, and act in bizarre ways. There are two type of behavioral classes that the catatonic schizophrenic will engage in; catatonic excitement and catatonic stupor. During catatonic excitement, the schizophrenic will act in bizarre, high-strung like behaviors such as pacing quickly, babbling, talking incoherently, etc., while during catatonic stupors, the person will assume one position and remain that way for long periods of time (sometimes for hours). Even more interesting is the fact that the person will typically remain aware of what is going around them despite being frozen. Catharsis: Catharsis is a psychodynamic principle that, in its most basic sense, is simply an emotional release. Further, the catharsis hypothesis maintains that aggressive or sexual urges are relieved by "releasing" aggressive or sexual energy, usually through action or fantasy. For example, a young male may watch a film in which an attractive woman engages in sexual behavior. The young male may become sexually aroused from this and subsequently frustrated because of his inability to act out his sexual desires. To release this sexual tension, the young male may go outside and play sports or engage in fantasies about himself and the woman. Cathexis: The term cathexis refers to an investment of mental or emotional energy put into a person, object, or idea. For example, when you have a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend and it is on your mind, you are stressed out about it, keep going over it, thinking about the other person, what will happen to the relationship, etc., you are investing mental and emotional energy in that situation, event, and person. Causation: You are probably familiar with this word as it relates to “cause and effect”…which is a very important phrase in psychology and all science. Causation is the demonstration of how one variable influences (or the effect of a variable) another variable or other variables. When one variable does have an effect on another, you can say that you have “causation”. Cause and Effect: Cause and effect is the panacea for researchers. It is a term you’ve likely heard many times already, or will hear many times as you study psychology. Psychologists look to identify the “effect” one variable has on other variables…does one variable “cause” other variables to change. Establishing cause and effect is not easy and requires researchers to conduct studies that not only follow the scientific method, but also classify as “true experiments” (studies that include random assignment of participants to groups and manipulation of an independent variable). For example, can a psychologist truly say that smoking causes cancer? Can we conduct a true experiment on the effects of smoking…can you randomly assign participants to smoking and non-smoking groups, have them smoke or not smoke for a period of time and then measure the growth of cancer? You could, but not ethically. As a result, you can’t establish a cause and effect relationship…you can establish that one variable (smoking) influences the other (cancer) using a correlational approach, but you really can’t establish cause and effect. Cell Assembly: In 1949, Donald O. Hebb coined this term. It refers to a group of cortical neurons that function to sustain the active memory trace that remains for a short time after some stimulus has been perceived. Central Nervous System (CNS): CNS is a term that describes the brain and the spinal cord. This is a term you are probably familiar with, since it is one of the most commonly used scientific terms around. Despite this, there is some small debate about the CNS - some claim that the retina is also part of the CNS. However, the most accepted view is that the CNS contains only the brain and spinal cord, and that the retina is part of peripheral nervous system. Cerebellum: The cerebellum is a structure often referred to as the "little brain" that is located in the rear of the brainstem. The cerebellum helps control voluntary movements such as eye movement and tracking of moving objects, as well as coordination and balance in behaviors that are very fast (for example, running or sprinting). Cerebral Cortex: The thin outer layer of the brain's (approximately 2 mm) cerebral hemispheres that acts as the main control center and information processing center. The cerebral cortex is not required for performing many simple actions, but is crucial for creating new episodic memories, the fancier associations, and many new movement programs. The cerebral cortex is made up of two different sub-components: the motor cortex and the sensory cortex. Chromosomes: The threadlike structures made of DNA molecules that contain the genes. A human cell has twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, one member of each pair coming from each parent. It is these cells that are so important in determining who we are from a genetic standpoint. But don't forget, our genetic makeup is only one part of the equation. Who we are is a combination of our genetic makeup and our experiences (our environment). Chunking: A very basic definition is that chunking is a way of organizing information into familiar groupings. This is done with all sorts of information, including numbers, single words, and multiple-word phrases which are collapsed into a single word, to create acronyms. The main advantage of this type of mnemonic device is that it enhances retention and memory. For example, how do you remember the names of the 5 Great Lakes? If you just remember the acronym, HOMES, you may find it easier to remember that the names of the Great Lakes are Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. Circadian Rhythms: Circadian rhythms are what people often refer to as your body's internal, biological clock. The typical human circadian rhythm occurs on a cycle of approximately 24 hours. However, the clock is not really functioning on time, but on body temperature. It is just that body temperature fluctuates on somewhat of a regular type of schedule, and so many people often believe that the circadian rhythms are time oriented instead of body temperature oriented. For example, your body temperature begins to increase in the morning (as you wake and start your day), then gets higher during the day while you are active, and begins to drop during the evening, producing feelings of fatigue and preparing for sleep. Classical Conditioning: First proposed and studied by Ivan Pavlov, classical conditioning is one form of learning in which an organism "learns" through establishing associations between different events and stimuli. For example, when a neutral stimulus (such as a bell) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (such as food) which produces some involuntary bodily response all on its own (such as salivating), the neutral stimulus begins to trigger a response by the organism similar (some salivation) to that produced by the unconditioned stimulus. In this way, the organism has "learned" that the neutral stimulus equals something good (just like the unconditioned stimulus). Clinical Psychology: Clinical psychology is the branch of psychology involving assessment and treatment of people with psychological disorders. In addition, clinical psychologists do conduct some research and experimentation, with topics that focus primarily on practical applications (such as developing new treatments, prevention for addictions, etc.). Closure: Closure is a Gestalt principle of perceptual organization that explains how humans fill in visual gaps in order to perceive disconnected parts as a whole object. For example, can you tell what shape this elements make? [__] -- answer = square Coactors: People who are work on the same noncompetitive task at the same time. When you play on a sports team, work on team or organizational group at the office, do a group project together, or anything where you work with other people toward a goal without competing with them, you are all coactors. This is an important component to social facilitation and the study of how people influence each other. Cochlea: The cochlea (from the Greek word meaning "snail") is a bony, spiral-shaped, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves travel and trigger nerve impulses. The cochlea looks very much like a snail and is a vital component in hearing. Nerve impulses that send auditory signals to the brain for interpretation are sent from it. Cognition: All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering. As you can tell, any of your ideas, thoughts, memories, etc., are all types of cognitive processes. What you are doing (reading and learning this explanation) is a type of cognition. Cognitive Ability Tests: These tests are designed to measure a person's intelligence and mental ability. Some of the specific areas measured by cognitive ability tests include problem-solving, verbal ability, numerical ability, reasoning, memory, and general intelligence. Cognitive Developmental Theory: Although there are many different theories of cognitive development, we are referring here to Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory. According to Piaget. His theory of cognitive development is a "stage theory" which has several stages of development, and in each stage of development, children are faced with challenging situations which they must deal with and overcome through increased mental abilities. Once the challenge is successfully dealt in that stage, the children can move on to the next stage of cognitive development. This is similar to Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, but this is a cognitive theory…it's based on cognitive challenges and cognitive advancements by the child which allow them to overcome the challenges. After each new stage is reached, there is a plateau during which the child/person is able to think in new and more advanced ways. For example, an infant can't think in abstract terms like you can because you have reached a more advanced stage of cognitive development and a higher stage in Piaget's theory. Cognitive Dissonance Theory: Proposed by Festinger, the cognitive dissonance theory asserts that people often have two conflicting or inconsistent cognitions which produce a state of tension or discomfort (also known as "dissonance"). People are then motivated to reduce the dissonance, often in the easiest manner possible. For example, if you are a pacifist, but punched someone, there is inconsistency -- you think you should be passive, but you became angry enough to punch someone -- which would likely produce tension (you would feel discomfort from this - "how could I do this" ..." I don't believe in violence" ...etc.). You may reduce this tension by claiming that you don't believe in violence, EXCEPT in certain circumstances, like this one! In Festinger's classic study of dissonance, people who had engaged in a boring task for along period of time had to tell the next participant who was going to engage in the same task that it was actually a lot of fun (dissonance = telling a lie, but most people do not view themselves as liars). Participants were either paid $1 or $20 for engaging in the boring task. It turned out that people who were paid $1 told the biggest lies - they said the task was great, so much fun, etc...while the people paid $20 said it wasn't so great. Why? How can someone who just did a boring task for along time, and got paid so little for doing it, tell someone else how much fun it was? They change their attitude to actually believe that they DID enjoy the task. The people who received $20 didn't have to justify anything - the task was boring, but you get paid $20, so who cares. There is little or no dissonance in the $20 situation. Cognitive Map: A cognitive map is a mental representation of the layout of one's environment. It seems that many animals, not just humans, are able to form a mental representation of an environment that they have been in or are currently in. For example, when a friend asks you for directions to your house, you are able to create an image in your mind of the roads, places to turn, landmarks, etc., along the way to your house from your friend's starting point. This representation is the cognitive map. Cognitive Perspective: The Cognitive Perspective is the psychological viewpoint that the focuses on the how people (and other animals) process, store, and retrieve information and how this information is used to reason and solve problems. Obviously, the part about reasoning is generally reserved for humans, although there is some argument concerning the possibility that other animals also reason and engage in problem-solving behaviors. Cognitive Therapy: Cognitive therapy is a form of therapy developed by Aaron Beck who suggested that our beliefs and perceptions influence our emotional responses to the world around us. According to cognitive therapy, our negative thought patterns (not unconscious conflicts or early life traumas as psychoanalysis suggests) cause depression, anxiety and some other mental disorders. Cogitive Therapy helps patients by making them aware of these beliefs, how they produce so many problems, and then working to change these dysfunctional beliefs. Cohort: Essentially, cohort refers to people who are approximately the same age. When researchers conduct different types of studies (for example, developmental/cross sectional studies), they use cohorts to see how people of different ages compare on some topic at one point in time. For example, a researcher may compare the effects of a new study aid in three different cohorts: 10th graders, 11th graders, and 12th graders. In this way, you can examine the study aid across three different grade levels. Collective Unconscious: According to Carl Jung, each person not only has their own unique unconscious mind, but also shares some elements of unconsciousness with all other people. He called this shared unconscious, the collective unconscious. Jung suggested that there are archetypes (images and memories of important human experiences) that are passed down from generation to generation. These archetypes can be common designs, shapes, colors, and figures seen over and over again throughout time. For example, Jung suggested that a rash of disk shaped UFO sightings were related to an archetype of god -- he believed that the disk-shape was an archetype of godlike form and perfection and the rash of sightings was an expression by people who wanted to be saved from destruction by some superhuman force. Collectivism: Collectivism is a social psychological term that relates to the manner in which humans identify themselves and prioritize their goals. Collectivism, which is the opposite of individualism, focuses on the priorities of the group and not the individual. In a collectivist society, people identify themselves with the goals of the group much more so than the goals of individuals. Collectivism also focuses on things such as fitting into the group, behaving in ways that are line with social norms, group solidarity, and gaining a sense of identity from being part of the group. America is a more individualistic country (we do value individualism) whereas many Asian countries place a greater value on collectivism. Color Constancy: Color constancy is a Gestalt principle of perception that suggests that the context in which an object we are viewing appears in, influences the way we perceive the color of that object. (Wow, is that as wordy and vague as I think??) Here is an example. You are looking at a bowl of fruit, which has in it a bright red apple, bananas, grapes, and some mangos. If you saw only a small portion of the apple, but did not know that it was an apple, the color would appear to change a little as the light changed. However, once you know it is an apple, you will still perceive the color as bright red even when the light changes a little (really). Community Psychology: This is a branch of applied psychology that deals with mental health and social welfare issues within the community setting. In addition, community psychologists try to involve the community members in proposed solutions to those problems. According to Orford (1992), community psychology is about understanding people within their social worlds and using this understanding to improve people's well-being. Some of the topics addressed include substance abuse and prevention, addressing poverty issues, school failure, community development, risk and protective factors, empowerment, diversity, delinquency, and many more. Companionate Love: Compassionate love is when two people first fall in love, they often have an intense passion for each other; they want to touch all the time, kiss all the time, and have very absorbing feelings, like "floating on a cloud". However, over time, this type of intense passion subsides. What evolves from this type of love can be nothing, or it can turn into "companionate love," a deep, mature, affectionate attachment between people who love each other, like each other, and respect each other. Concept: A mental grouping of similar things, events, and people that is used to remember and understand what things are, what they mean, and what categories or groups they belong to. For example, if I say to you, "think of a car," the concept, "car" will evoke some ideas in your head about what a car is and what types of characteristics it contains -- does your concept of a car have black tires, two doors, four doors, is it red, white, black, etc.? Concrete Operational Stage of Development: Jean Piaget, arguable the most prominent developmental theorist, outlined his perspective about the stages children pass through as they age and develop cognitively. In the concrete operational stage of cognitive development (from about 7 to 12 years of age) children gain the abilities and mental operations that allow them to think logically about concrete events such as mathematical operations and principles, and conservation. Conditioned Response: In classical conditioning, the conditioned response (CR) is the learned response (reflexive behavior) to a conditioned stimulus (CS). This response is almost identical to the Unconditioned Stimulus except that now the reflexive behavior occurs in response to a conditioned stimulus as opposed to an unconditioned stimulus. For example, a dog salivates (UR) from the smell of a bone (US) naturally, without any conditioning. Once some neutral stimulus (CS) (for example, a "beep" that the dog would not naturally or normally cause the dog to salivate) has been paired with the bone for some time, the dog will salivate (CS) when the "beep" occurs. Conditioned Stimulus: In classical conditioning, a formerly neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to produce a conditioned response. For example, a dog salivates (UR) from the smell of a bone (US) naturally, without any conditioning. Once some neutral stimulus (for example, a "beep" that the dog would not naturally or normally cause the dog to salivate) has been paired with the bone for some time, the dog will salivate (CR) when the "beep" occurs. Once the beep has the capacity to elicit the salivation, it is now considered a conditioned stimulus (CS). Cone Receptor: Conereceptors are cells concentrated near the center of the retina that allow vision during daylight or in well-lit conditions. In addition, the cones aid in the detection of fine detail and aid in seeing colors. The cones can become washed out (like being bleached) after being in a dark environment for some time. This is why it is often painful when you have, for example, been asleep, and a light is turned on; the pain actually comes from the cones being reintroduced to the light. Cones: The human eye has many different parts that are all needed to help us see, including rods, the optic nerve, and cones. The cones are receptor cells that help us see fine details of things and tend to help us see in situations where there is light or daylight. The majority of cones are in the center of the retina (we have approximately 6 million cones in each eye). When you squint to try to read or see something more clearly, what you are actually doing is focusing the image on this grouping of the cones in order to see the fine details. Cones also help us with color perception. Confirmation Bias: Do you know anyone who identifies things that support some position or opinion they have but ignore information that contradicts it? If so, you know someone who is exhibiting the confirmation bias, which is a tendency for a person to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions. For example, I know someone who says that all Republicans are only concerned with healing the upper class at the expense of those who are not wealthy. He likes to identify Republican politicians who try to pass, for example, tax laws that help the upper class, which confirms his position. However, when some Republican politician proposes a law that favors those in the lower socioeconomic class, he says that it is just a smoke screen -- that they know it will never pass and only do it to make themselves look like they care when they actually don't. Conflict: Although conflict is a very common term, in psychology it refers to anytime you have opposing or incompatible actions, objectives, or ideas, you have conflict. Conflicts can be between two people, countries, groups, or even within one person (an internal conflict). Conflicts are problematic and must be addressed in order to have peace, productivity, or harmony. Conformity: Conformity can be defined as adjusting one's behavior or thinking to match those of other people or a group standard. There are lots of reasons why people conform, including the desire/need to fit in or be accepted by others and maintaining order in ones life. For example, when you go to class, do you sit in a chair like other students or sit in the aisle? Do you face the front of the room like everyone else or do you sit facing the back wall? Why? Well, according to Muzafer Sherif (he was one of the most influential conformity researchers in psychological history), "When the external surroundings lack stabile, orderly reference points, the individuals caught in the ensuing experience of uncertainty mutually contribute to each other a mode of orderliness to establish their own orderly pattern." (Sherif, 1996, pp. xii-xiii; cited in Forsyth, 1995). Confound: Confounding is when a researcher does not control some extraneous variables that may influence the results…the only variable that should influence the results is the variable being studied. If a variable other than the one that is manipulated by the researcher has any affect at all on the measurements, then the study is said to be confounded. This is a very serious problem since the researcher can’t really claim that he/she established cause and effect. If the researcher is studying the effect of some pain medication (drug A) on the reduction of pain, but the researcher fails to control for participants taking other medications at the same time, how can the researcher claim that the results are due to the pain medication (drug A) or the other drugs that participants took? When the researcher controls all extraneous variables and can claim that only the variable that was manipulated has any effect on the results, the study is said to have internal validity. Congruence: Carl Rogers stated that the personality is like a triangle made up of the real self, the perceived self, and ideal self. According to Rogers, when there is a good fit between all three components, the person has congruence. This is a healthy state of being and helps people continue to progress toward self-actualization. Connectedness: Connectedness is a sensation and perception term that refers to the perception of uniform or linked spots, lines, or areas as a single unit. When these these forms are linked together or uniform, they simply appear to form a single unit and seem to go together. For example, do you perceive the following as belonging together?: 0-0 0-0 0-0 Consciousness: Consciousness, many have argued, is what separates humans from other animals. Consciousness refers to our awareness of our own mental processes, such as our thoughts, feelings, and sensations. It is possible that we are the only beings on this planet that have this type of self awareness or level of consciousness and the ability to introspect, or look inward and examine these processes. For example, if you are angry, you can try to understand your anger, why you are angry, what that anger feels like, etc. But can a cat? Conservation: Conservation is one of Piaget's developmental accomplishments, in which the child understands that changing the form of a substance or object does not change its amount, overall volume, or mass. This accomplishment occurs during the operational stage of development between ages 7 and 11. You can often see the lack of conservation in children when there are, for example, several different sizes of juice on a table, and they chose the glass that is the tallest because they perceive the taller glass as having more juice inside of it (even though the tallest glass may also be the thinnest). All the glasses may have the same amount of juice in them, but children who haven't accomplished conservation will perceive the tall glass as being most full. Construal: Construal is a social psychological term that refers to the way in which (or the process of) people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the world around them. We all need to interpret the world around us so that we can make sense of the world and determine our own actions and judgements. For example, imagine you are walking down the street and in front of you someone stops, falls to the ground, grabs their chest, and starts to turn blue. You would begin to interpret this situation, running through all the possible explanations for this situation and the person's behavior. Is it a joke, are they choking, having a heart attack, is this an emergency, etc. This would be contrual - your interpretation of the situation. Constructive Recall: According to schema theory of memory organization (please look up the term "schema" for additional information), long-term memories are stored as parts of schemas (cognitive structures used for organizing information about events). Ulric Neisser suggested that there are times when our memories are distorted by adding or changing some of the details in order to fit with a schema. It is possible to have very accurate memory of the themes of specific events but innacurate accounts of the specific details of the event. We may change or tweak the memory a bit in order that it be more consistent with a schema. In other words, we adjust the memory a little bit so that it is more consistent with some schema we already have. Content Validity: Content validity is an important research methodology term that refers to how well a test measures the behavior for which it is intended. For example, let's say your teacher gives you a psychology test on the psychological principles of sleep. The purpose of this test is to measure your knowledge or mastery of the psychological priniciples of sleep, right? If the test does indeed measure this, then it is said to have content validity -- it measures what it is supposed to measure. Context: This term refers to the situation or circumstances in which an event occurs…the particular setting in which the event occurs. For example, when attempting to understand behavior, it is important to look at the situation or circumstances present at the time of the behavior. If a person was rude to you, was it because they are simply rude or because of something in the situation? To make a determination, you need to look at the context. Contiguity: Contiguity is a behaviorist approach that states, for learning to occur, the response must occur in the presence of or very soon after a stimulus is presented, or an association will not occur. In essence, this is a behaviorist view based on the idea that learning will occur only if events occur relatively close together in time. Continuity: Continuity is a Gestalt principle of perceptual organization that states people have a tendency to group stimuli into continuous lines and patterns. For example, when you see geese flying south for the winter, they fly in a formation that, to us, looks like a big "V". Continuous Reinforcement: This is an operant conditioning principle in which an organism is reinforced every single time that organism provides the appropriate operant response. For example, you, as a researcher, might present a food pellet every time the rat presses the lever. One of the biggest dangers when using this type of reinforcement is saturation (the organism basically gets full - you keep feeding it and it no longer wants the reinforcement because it is stuffed), so the idea that giving reinforcement all the time is the best way to teach/learn is not necessarily true. Control Condition (control group): During many experiments, researchers often include treatment groups (the groups that are given the treatment/IV) and a control group, which is identical to the treatment group in every single way except that the control group does not get the treatment/IV. In this way, the researcher can study effect(s) of the treatment thoroughly. For example, if I am studying the effects of 2 different pain medications of headaches, I may give people who have headaches (the treatment groups) either Tylenol or Bayer (these are the levels of the IV). I can then wait one hour and ask participants to rate the level of pain they are experiencing. If the amount of pain in one group goes down significantly more than the other, I may conclude that one medication is more effective than the other in reducing headache pain. However, I can't say that either are more effective than giving nothing at all. Maybe there was a placebo effect, and simply getting a pill made people believe their pain was reduced. So, I could include another group - a control group - which is treated and exposed to everything the other groups are except that they are given a placebo (maybe a sugar pill) instead of either Tylenol or Bayer. (Also see Experimental Condition). Convergence: In order to perceive depth properly, your eyes must move slightly inward or converge. In so doing, people are able to determine if objects are close to them or far away. Convergent Thinking: A cognitive process (a mode of critical thinking) in which a person attempts to find a single, correct answer to a problem. This is opposite from divergent thinking in which a person generates many unique, creative responses to a single question or problem. Convergent Validity: Convergent validity refers to the degree to which scores on a test correlate with (or are related to) scores on other tests that are designed to assess the same construct. For example, if scores on a specific form a aggressiveness test are similar to people's scores on other aggressiveness tests, then convergent validity is high (there is a positively correlation between the scores from similar tests of aggressiveness). Conversion Disorder: There are lots of disorders that people often believe are just made up. While I may not necessarily agree with this opinion, conversion disorder doesn't help the clinical perspective. The reason is that conversion disorder is a rare somatoform disorder in which a person has specific, genuine, physical symptoms, but there is no physiological basis for the symptoms; at least there is no physiological basis that can be found. Coronary Heart Disease: Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and is a narrowing of the blood vessels that nourish the heart muscle, thus depriving the heart of the necessary blood to function properly. Corpus Callosum: This area contains the largest bundle of nerve fibers in the brain and connects the two sides (hemispheres) of the brain. The corpus callosum doesn't just sit there, it is responsible for allowing the two hemispheres to communicate with each other and share information. Thus, the corpus callosum carries massages between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Correlation: A correlation is a statistical index used to represent the strength of a relationship between two factors, how much and in what way those factors vary, and how well one factor can predict the other. Using correlations does NOT (I repeat, does not) provide you with cause and effect information; it will not tell you if one factor causes or is caused by the other. This fact was an important component in the court cases against the tobacco companies that occurred in the late 1990's. The studies conducted previously on the effects of smoking indicated a positive correlation between smoking and cancer. This means that the studies found that as the rate of smoking increased, so did the occurrence of cancer; smoking goes up, presence of cancer goes up. BUT, this does not demonstrate that smoking causes cancer (does anyone disagree that it does?), only that there is a relationship between the two factors. Correlation Coefficient: This is a measure of the direction (positive or negative) and extent (range of a correlation coefficient is from -1 to +1) of the relationship between two sets of scores. Scores with a positive correlation coefficient go up and down together (as with smoking and cancer). A negative correlation coefficient indicates that as one score increases, the other score decreases (as in the relationship between self-esteem and depression; as self-esteem increases, the rate of depression decreases). Counseling Psychology: The branch of psychology that focuses on personal problems not classified as serious mental disorders, such as academic, social, or vocational difficulties of students. This is similar to clinical psychology, except that most of the issues addressed by counseling psychologists are less “serious”. For example, a clinical psychologist would be more likely to deal with schizophrenia and other “serious” psychological disorders than a counseling psychologist. Counterbalance: Counterbalancing is a type of experimental design in which all possible orders of presenting the variables are included. For example, if you have two groups of participants (group 1 and group 2) and two levels of an independent variable (level 1 and level 2), you would present one possible order (group 1 gets level 1 while group 2 gets level 2) first and then present the opposite order (group 1 gets level 2 while group 2 gets level 1). This way you can measure the effects in all possible situations. Obviously there are limitations with this procedure as not all studies can be designed this way and as you increase the number of variables, conditions, etc., it just becomes logistically problematic. Counterconditioning: Counterconditioning is a type of therapy based on the principles of classical conditioning that attempts to replace bad or unpleasant emotional responses to a stimulus with more pleasant, adaptive responses. For example, do you remember the case of Little Albert - the boy that John Watson conditioned to fear little white rats? Well, if Watson attempted to "uncondition" the fear response to the rats, he would be engaging in counterconditioning - attempting to replace the unpleasant response (fear) to the rats with a more pleasant response (happiness). Countertransference: Countertransference is a situation in which a therapist, during the course of therapy, develops positive or negative feelings toward the patient. These feelings may be the therapist's unconscious feelings that are stirred up during therapy which the therapist directs toward the patient. A therapist might start feeling uneasy about therapy or the patient, unhappy with the way therapy is going, or unhappy with themselves. Just like transference, this is not an uncommon situation in the therapeutic situation. Of course, therapists must not act on any feelings they have Creativity: This is a simple one that you probably already know, but here it is anyway. Creativity is the ability to produce new ideas. Some definitions also state that ideas created should be valuable, but I'm not convinced this is accurate. The reason I say this because the term "valuable" is subjective and varies according to situations such as culture and social values. But, the "valuable" aspect is included in some definitions so I wanted to make sure it's mentioned here. Criterion: When you take a test or create a test, what is it that the test is designed to measure? Regardless of what the "that" may be (future performance, intelligence, aptitude, etc), it is the criterion. For example, if you are trying to predict how a person will perform in school, you may try to predict grades (the behavior) using a predictive test (such as the SAT). But does that mean that a test is valid? Hmmmm, if you are not sure, you better look up validity and reliability. Critical Period: This one is just as it sounds...a critical period really is a specific time during which an organism has to experience stimuli in order to progress through developmental stages properly. Have you ever taken a language class in school? Did you find it difficult? One reason is that we, as humans, have a critical period for language development. During that time, we are much more capable of learning a new language than at other, later times -- it just comes much easier during that time. In particular, if children don't start speaking around a certain time, it can become even more difficult for them to pick up their native language. Thus, there are critical periods for learning language. A related term is Sensitive Period. Critical Thinking: Some people say I'm argumentative, opinionated, even a pain in the ass. I like to think I am a critical thinker. Being a critical thinker (and thus the meaning of critical thinking) means that you do not simply accept arguments or perspectives that are presented to you blindly. Instead, you think about things carefully, consider different aspects of the arguments, evaluate the merits, and generally make more in depth conclusions. Okay, maybe I'm a pain in the ass, but that IS the definition of critical thinking. Cross-Sectional Study: A cross-sectional study is one type of study in which people of different ages are examined at the same time(s). This is usually done with cohorts, so that researchers can examine how people of different ages perform, behave, or respond to a particular function. For example, a researcher may give one type of test to children in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades, to examine the differences in performance across these age groups. Crystallized Intelligence: The amount of information you obtain and the verbal skills you develop over time. Together these elements form your crystallized intelligence. One argument that many people have offered against tests such as the SAT is that, although the creators and supports claim that the SAT is designed to measure potential, that it in fact measures crystallized intelligence, which is not predictive, but achievement. Culture: Culture is the set of ideas, behaviors, attitudes, and traditions that exist within large groups of people (usually of a common religion, family, or something similar). These ideas, behaviors, traditions, etc. are passed on from one generation to the next and are typically resistant to change over time. Cultures vary widely not only across the world, but even right next door. For example, if you live in America and then visit different areas of Europe, you may notice that people often get closer to each other physically in social settings - tables are often closer together at restaurants, people stand closer to each other when they speak, etc. These are examples of cultural differences.
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Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("C")
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