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Id: According to Freud, humans have three main components to their personality that cause us to behave the way we do and make us who we are. One of these components, the id, is the part that you may consider that little devil sitting on your shoulder trying to get you to do all those things that feel good, even if they are wrong. More specifically, the id is the part of the human personality that is made up of all our inborn biological urges that seeks out immediate gratification (guided by the Pleasure Principle), regardless of social values or consequences. For example, when you are in a bar and see a really attractive person who stirs some sexual feelings in you, the id is what is pushing you to simply go over to this person, grab them, and ravage them right there. Of course you know that this is completely unacceptable behavior so you don't do it, but the id doesn't care about that. It just wants what it wants no matter what. Identical Twins: Unlike fraternal twins that develop from separate eggs and sperm, identical twins develop from a single fertilized egg that splits in two and creates two genetic replicas. Identical twins are just that, identical, so there can't be different sex twins (like there can be with fraternal twins). Identification: According to Freud, as children develop, there comes a time in which the child must adopt the characteristics of one of the parents. During this process of identification, the child adopts the characteristics of the same-sex parent and begins to associate themselves with and copy the behavior of significant others. In addition, Freud stated that this process also involves the development of the child's superego (our moral guide in life - the moral component of personality) which is done by incorporating characteristics of the parents superegos into the child's own. So, a young male child will begin to take on characteristics of the father (act more like his father than his mother in the sense of being a male) and will develop a superego that has similarities to the moral values and guidelines by which the parents live their lives (e.g., if the parents are honest people, the child may come to realize that honesty is important and that lying is wrong). Identity: The easiest way I know to explain and understand identity is this way: a person's identity is his or her own sense of self; of who they are. For example, your identity may be that you are a female, who is honest, warm, caring, intelligent, and sometimes moody. This then might be your identity, and you carry it with you wherever you go. The way you perceive yourself, your actions, your thoughts, and your interactions with others are all influenced by this identity. For example, if you do something very well (like get an "A" on an exam), you might associated it with your identity - "of course I got an 'A', I am an intelligent person who does well on things I set my mind to." Likewise, when we do something wrong, bad, or simply goes against our identity, we may protect ourselves by attributing this behavior to something or someone else (I failed the test because the teacher gave all trick questions, not because I am not intelligent). Idiot Savant: An idiot savant is a person with some type of mental decrement (usually classified as having some level of retardation) but has amazing specific skills, such as in computation or drawing. A main stream easy example of this would be the character Dustin Hoffman played in the movie "Rain Man." His character had autism, but he was a brilliant mathematician. I-Knew-It-All-Along Phenomenon (Hindsight Bias): Can you predict who is going to win the NCAA basketball tournament or the next presidential election? After it is over, would you say "I knew that team (or that person) was going to win"? If so, you are demonstrating the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon in which people tend to believe they would have foreseen how something turned out, after learning the outcome. As they say, "hindsight is 20-20." Illusory Correlation: Sometimes people believe there is some relationship between events, variables, etc., even though none really exists. This is known as the illusory correlation and it occurs in everyday life as well as science. For example, you may have had some experiences with lawyers, some good, some not so good. It is possible that you only recall the bad experiences (maybe where you felt as though you were lied to by the lawyers) which leads you to formulate the conclusion that all lawyers are liars. Thus, you could come to associate (wrongly?) lawyers with lying, and conclude that all lawyers are liars. Imagery: Imagery is simply the formation of any mental pictures. This simple process has great benefit when it comes to memory. By using imagery, we can enhance the processing of information into the memory system. For example, trying to remember a phone number by repeating it in your head is a common method, but what might enhance your processing of the information might be to use imagery - maybe visualize the numbers being written on a chalk board. This allows you to create a mental picture of the numbers that may be processed more completely. Implicit Memory: Implicit memory, also known as nondeclarative memory, involves recollection of skills, things you know how to do, preferences, etc., that you don't need to recall consciously. For example, if you know how to ride a bike and you can do so without having to think about it, you are demonstrating implicit memory. Implosion: Implosion is a therapeutic technique in which clients imagine and re-live aversive scenes associated with their anxiety. The premise that that many different exposures in a safe environment, the aversive stimulus will lose its ability to make the person anxious. Imprinting: Why do chicks (baby birds...jeez) follow the mother bird and do whatever she does? The reason is that they are going through a process of imprinting, in which certain birds and mammals form attachments during a critical period very early in their lives. During this point in development, the birds are so available to form attachments, that even if there is no mother bird, or no bird at all, they may develop attachments to a substitute. For example, if you hatched several baby geese and raised them without having a mother goose around, the chicks may perceive you as the mother and imprint to you. They would follow you around, try to mimic lots of your behaviors, etc., just as if you were the mother. This is the way they learn the behaviors and characteristics of their species. Incentives: The environment is critical not only in our development, but in determining almost all of our behaviors; why we act the way we do all the time. Incentives are those stimuli in the environment, both positive or negative, that motivate our behavior. These things pull us to behave in certain ways (as opposed to drive which pushes us from within). For example, if you are offered Money to perform a certain behavior, the money is the incentive to perform that behavior. Independent Variable: In an experiment there are two variables; the Independent Variable (IV) and the Dependent Variable (DV). In the most basic sense, you need two variables because as a researcher, you want to be able to examine if something (a drug, a therapy, a teaching technique, whatever) has an effect on some participant (person, people, animals, etc.). To accomplish this, you need to have something to examine (and manipulate -- this is the IV); some variable of interest, as well as something to measure the effect the IV has (this is the DV). Therefore, we can define the independent variable as the experimental variable or variable that is manipulated by the research and has some effect on the DV. If there is a change or effect, we may conclude that the IV affected the DV. The ultimate here is to establish that the IV caused the change in the DV (this is the magical "cause-effect"). As a quick example, if you want to study the effect of drinking 12 ounces of beer before an exam on exam performance, the beer would be the IV (we may have one treatment group whose participants drink the beer and one control group who does not drink the beer); the performance on the exam would be the DV. Individualism: Individualism is a social psychological term that refers to the ways in which people identify themselves and focus their goals. Individualism, which is the opposite of collectivism, gives priority to personal goals (as opposed to the goals of a group or society). In addition, individualists tend to define their own identities according to their own personal behaviors and attributes. America is a more individualistic country (we do value individualism) whereas many Asian countries place a greater value on collectivism. Industrial and Organizational Psychology (I/O Psychology): A branch of psychology that studies behavior in the workplace and the marketplace. IO Psychologists are involved in many areas of industry, including how communication throughout companies, ergonomics, personnel test development, and much more. Their main goals are to enhance the workplace, making it a better environment in which to work and to be more productive; and to influence the marketplace by making companies work better to increase productivity and profits. Inferential Statistics: Unlike descriptive statistics, inferential statistics provide ways of testing the reliability of the findings of a study and "inferring" characteristics from a small group of participants or people (your sample) onto much larger groups of people (the population). Descriptive statistics just describe the data, but inferential let you say what the data mean. An example of inferential statistics is the analysis of variance (ANOVA). Inferiority Complex: Inferiority complex is a term used to describe people who compensate for feelings of inferiority (feeling like they're less than other people, not as good as others, worthless, etc.) by acting ways that make them appear superior. They do this because controlling others may help them feel less personally inadequate. Informational Social Influence: When you make decisions about how to behave, there are many sources of information available to help you make these decisions. Sometimes you may need to seek out experts, conform to the way others or a group are behaving, or look to some other source of information. One other way is to use informational social influence; you look to the behaviors of others who are also in the same or similar situation to see how they behave. Then, you can follow their lead. For example, you travel to another planet, where some nice aliens offer to show you around. They decide to take you to one of their sporting events that is unlike anything you have ever seen. The problem is that, since you have no idea what the game is about, you don't know what is good, bad, when to cheer, boo, or how to act in general. What can you do? You can simply watch how others are behaving, what they react to, what is going on when they cheer, when they boo, etc. In this way, you seek information from your social surroundings, which influence your behavior. Ingroup Bias: Ingroup bias is a simple concept, but one that has very powerful affects on people, societies, and life in general. Ingroup bias is simply the tendency to favor one's own group. This is not one group in particular, but whatever group you associate with at a particular time. So, for example, when you play on an intramural softball team that meets once a week, you are part of that softball team's ingroup. Or, it can be something on a much more grand scale like, the situation between religious groups in Ireland. They have been killing each other for years, because they each perceive their own group as being the "right" and "good" group, while the other group (the outgroup) is "bad" and "evil". Inhibition: This is the opposite of facilitation and refers to a mental state in which there is a hesitation or blockage of action. There are different types of inhibition across disciplines such as social inhibition (social psychology) and inhibition (learning and conditioning), but they all refer to this hesitation of blockage of action. Inner Ear: The innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea (the spiral shape part that has lots of neural receptors for picking up auditory stimuli), semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs. Sorry, but there isn't much more to say about this one. Insane: The term "insane" is a strictly legal term for someone who has committed a crime but is judged not to have known the difference between right and wrong at the time the crime was committed. If the person is judged to not have known that the act was wrong when the act was committed, then that person is considered to have been "insane" at the time of the crime. Insight: When the solution to a problem comes to you in an all-of-a-sudden manner, it can be considered insight. More specifically, insight can be defined as the sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem. This is the opposite type of solution to trial-and-error solutions. Insight Learning: This is an extension of the term, insight (which we also have defined in the glossary) which was identified by Wolfgang Kohler while studying the behavior of chimpanzees. He said that insight learning is a type of learning or problem solving that happens all-of-a-sudden through understanding the relationships various parts of a problem rather than through trial and error. Sultan, one of Kohler's chimpanzes, learned to use a stick to pull bananas from outside of his cage by putting pieces of stick together. Given two sticks that could be fitted together to make a single pole that was long enough to reach the bananas, aligned the sticks and in a flash of sudden inspiration, fitted the two sticks together and pulled in the bananas. He didn't do this by trial and error, but had a sort of sudden inspiration or insight. Insomnia: Insomnia is a type of sleep disorder in which the person has trouble in one of the following areas of sleep: falling asleep, staying asleep throughout the night, or waking up to early and not going back to sleep. Insomnia is not as common as people often like to think. When you are having sleep problems toward the end of the semester for a week, this is not really insomnia. True insomnia occurs for extended periods of time and causes devastating effects on those who suffer from it. One of the big problems with sleep is that the more anxious you are, the less likely you will be to sleep. What often happens with sleep difficulties and insomnia is that a person has some problems falling asleep, they then begin to worry that the sleep problems will continue. Then when they go to bed, they are anticipating having sleep problems, they become anxious, and sure enough, they are unable to relax and fall asleep. It is a viscous cycle, and unfortunately, one of the ways to solve it is to reduce tension and stress; the exact things that result from the problems sleeping then cause additional sleep problems. Yikes! Instinct: A behavior that is genetically programmed into an entire species. Thus, the behavior is not the result of learning, and can be seen across members of a species. For example, there are specific nest building behaviors that are part of different species of birds. If you hatch one of these birds in captivity and raise it without any contact with any other members of its species, it will still do those species-specific nest building behaviors. Integrity: According to Erikson's theory of adulthood, when a person achieves integrity, then that person has established a complete sense or feeling that his or her life has been meaningful and worthwhile. This stage occurs in the latter years of life and is reached when people do not look back on their lives and dwell on mistakes, or feelings of regret for things they did or did not do. The alternative in this stage according to Erikson's theory is despair. Intellectualization: Intellectualization is another one of the defense mechanisms in which a person adopts a distanced perspective or engages in abstract thinking to aviod confrontation of a matter that actually creates strong unpleasant feelings. Intelligence: There has often been debate about exactly what intelligence is. A few years ago, a book called the "Bell Curve" was written about intelligence and it stirred up so much controversy that one of the authors went into hiding for fear of his safety. At its core, we can define intelligence as the capacity for goal-directed, adaptive behavior. This type of behavior is that which helps us achieve the goals we set and the challenges we face. If we are stuck in a very bad situation, those with a lot of intelligence should be more likely to find a solution or a way out of the bad situation than those without a lot of intelligence. In addition, intelligence is not just inborn, but increases with experience. Thus high intelligence is both innate and socially influenced. Intelligence Quotient (IQ): This is a mathematical formula that is supposed to be a measure of a person's intelligence. When it was first created, it was defined as the ratio of mental age (MA) to chronological age (CA) multiplied by 100 (thus IQ = MA/CA x 100). For example, if a 20 year old answers the questions like a "typical" or "average" 20 year old would, the person would have an IQ of 100 (20/20 x 100 = 100). More recently psychologists decided that it's better look at relative IQ score - how a person scores relative to other people the same age. Now people get assigned an average score of 100 and then we compare their actual scores on the series of intelligence tests to this average score in terms of a standard deviation. For example, if you score 2 standard deviations above the mean (mean being 100), then you would score a 130 since each standard deviation is 15 points (that's just the formula used). Intelligence Test: An intelligence test is a measure of one's intelligence (how do you like that definition?). Seriously, it is a test designed to measure a person's mental aptitude or inherent ability. The measure is taken, a numerical score is assigned, and then compared to others who've taken the same test. Intensity: Intensity refers to light and sound waves, and is defined as the amount of energy in a light or sound wave. This exact amount is determined by amplitude (the size or height) of the sound or light wave. So, the higher the amplitude (the larger the wave), the greater the intensity. Interaction Effect: this is a research term that often confuses students, but is not that difficult if you just take it slowly and one step at a time. Let's start with a scientific definition of interaction effect; "the differing effect of one independent variable on the dependent variable, depending on the particular level of another independent variable" (Cozby, 1997; p. 314). Believe it or not, this is one of the best definitions we could find, but we still think it is not very clear, so let's try an example. Let's say you are doing a study on the effect of some sleep drug (Halcion) and alcohol consumption on overall sleep time. As you can see, there are two independent variables (IVs) and one DV. The IVs are 1) sleep drug (Halcion), and 2) alcohol consumption. The DV is overall sleep time. Now, let's say we randomly assign participants to receive either 1 mg (milligram) or 10 mg of Halcion. These then are the "levels" of the IV (one level is 1 mg, one level is 10 mg). In addition, we randomly assign participants to different levels of the other IV; either 12 oz beer or 36 oz beer. So, we have four groups overall; two IVs with two Levels each. What possible outcome could we get. It is possible that each IV by itself influences sleep (e.g., that the sleep drug affects sleep time and also possibly that alcohol affects sleep time). But what about the fact that participants are getting both the sleep drug and alcohol? Isn't it possible that the two IVs are "interacting" in some way to affect sleep time? The answer is yes, and this is the interaction effect. It is possible that levels of the IVs interact and affect the DV differently than each by itself. For example, maybe there is no effect when participants get only 1 mg of the sleep drug and 12 oz of beer. But when you give them 1 mg of the sleep drug and 36 oz of beer there is an effect. In this case, you would have an interaction effect. See, it's not too bad...is it? Internal Locus of Control: Who controls your behavior? Are you the master of your own domain? Is your life already predetermined and everything that happens is fated? If you believe that you control your own destiny and that your behaviors are under your control, then you have an internal locus of control. This concept has quite a bit of importance when we try to make attributions for our behaviors. For example, if you did well on a test, how would you explain it? If you said that it was because you got lucky or the teacher made an easy test, then you would be exhibiting and "external" locus of control. However, if you attribute your good performance to your hard work, good study habits, and interest in the topic, you would being exhibiting and internal locus of control. Internal Validity: Internal validity occurs when a researcher controls all extraneous variables and the only variable influencing the results of a study is the one being manipulated by the researcher. This means that the variable the researcher intended to study is indeed the one affecting the results and not some other, unwanted variables. (Take a look at the definition for “confound”) There are several “threats to internal validity” including: history, maturation of participants, testing, instrument decay, and statistical regression. Interneuron: Information (neural impulses/action potentials) travel throughout your nervous system along a network of 3 types of neurons; sensory neurons, motor neurons, and interneurons. The interneurons are found in the CNS (the sensory and motor neurons are not) and receive input from about 2,000-10,000 motor neurons and transmits its output to a similar number of sensory neurons. Information from the environment enters the body through one of the sense, and is converted into an electrical signal that begins its journey on the sensory neurons. The signal is then brought to the CNS where it jumps onto the interneurons, which eventually bring the information to the motor neurons in the brain. After the brain processes the information, the resulting information (what response to give, what to say, what muscle to move, etc.) travels from the motor neurons back onto the interneurons, and then to the sensory neurons. It is a big loop, with the interneurons being the middle man in the process. Intimacy: This term comes from Erikson's theory of development, and refers to a person's ability form close, loving relationships, which he stated is the primary developmental task of early adulthood. You often hear women claim that men are unable to commit, are afraid of commitment, etc...Erikson would claim (if this absurd generalization were even remotely true) that this is because men have not developed intimacy yet. Intrinsic Motivation: Why do you work or come to class or study for a test? Do you do it because you want to Money, a degree, and good grades? If so, you are extrinsically motivated - motivated to perform specific behaviors to achieve promised outside rewards or to avoid punishment from others. However, if you are working at a job because you get a great feeling of personal satisfaction from it, and you are trying to perform the behavior for its own sake (not for money), then you are intrinsically motivated. We are not saying that this is better or worse than extrinsic motivation, only different. Intrinsic motivation does seem to be more satisfying to people though. People who are extrinsically motivated tend to be less satisfied and become unhappy more easily (in general, not always). Introspection: The process of “looking inward” and examining one's self and one's own actions in order to gain insight. This was a central component to the early days of psychology during the Structuralist period. Wundt and other psychologists had people introspect and then report on their feelings, thoughts, etc. Of course, the problem with introspection is, if you are having some feeling and then you have to stop to think about and report on the feeling, you’ve just changed the experience and therefore, the feeling itself. Intuition: Intuition is a person's capacity to obtain or have direct knowledge and/or immediate insight, without observation or reason. It's the "gut feeling" you get. People often place an enormous amount of faith on their intuition, even making decisions that seem to go against all available evidence. For example, a coach might play a second string player instead of a start player just because they had a "hunch" the second string player would do well. This would be a case of using intuition to make a decision. Iris: This is the part of the eye that gives you those beautiful blue (or whatever color) eyes that you have. Specifically it is a ring of muscle tissue that not only forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil, but also is responsible for controlling the size of the pupil opening.
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Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("I")
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