Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("R")

 

Glossary of Psychology - Contents

1Pschology Glossary and definitions. 2Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("B") 3Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("C") 4Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("D") 5Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("E") 6Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("F") 7Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("G") 8Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("H") 9Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("I") 10Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("J") 11Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("K") 12Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("L") 13Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("M") 14Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("N") 15Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("O") 16Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("P") 17Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("Q") 18Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("R") 19Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("S") 20Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("T") 21Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("U") 22Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("V") 23Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("W") 24Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("X") 25Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("Y") 26Psychology Glossary and definitions. ("Z")

Random Assignment: Random assignment of participants to experimental conditions is a commonly used experimental technique to help ensure that the treatment group and the control group are the same before treatment. For example, let us assume that we're curious to know the effects of eating an apple a day on your health (measured by blood pressure). One way of designing the study would be to select a sample of people and divide them into a control group (i.e., those who don't have an apple a day) and a treatment group (i.e., those who do have an apple a day). How do you decide to divide your subjects? The best way is to do it randomly in order to cancel out the idiosyncrasies of your subject pool. Imagine if you decided to choose the groups based on cholesterol intake. You decide to have the low cholesterol group in the control group and the high cholesterol group in the treatment group. Would this bias the results of your study? Yes. Since cholesterol affects blood pressure, you as an experimenter would not know if the changes in health were due to the apple a day or the amount of cholesterol intake.

Random Sample: Since researchers can't study every person in the world that is of interest to them, they need to study a subset of this entire population, also known as a sample. Then, people are picked from this sample "at random" to participate in the study. It is hoped that the random sample will be representative of the entire population. Often researchers use random numbers table to help them pick participants at random (take a look in the back of your introductory psychology textbook. I bet it has a random numbers table).


Range: A statistical measure of variance. It is calculated by subtracting the lowestt score from the highest score and then adding one (i.e., range = (highest score - lowest score) +1). For example, let us say that the highest score in an introduction psychology course was a 98 and the lowest score was a 43. The range would be 56.

Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (REM): There are two main categories of sleep, Non-Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (NREM; which contains stages 1-4; basically everything except REM), and Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (REM). REM sleep is a sleep period during which your brain is very active, and your eyes move in a sharp, back and forth motion as opposed to a slower, more rolling fashion that occurs in other stages of sleep. In addition, during a "normal" night of sleep, people have REM periods every 60-90 minutes throughout the night. These REM periods start off very light and short, but increase in intensity and duration as the night goes on. Your first REM period might be a minute or only a few minutes, but your fourth REM period could last 30 minutes or longer. People often believe mistakenly that humans only dream during REM sleep, although humans also dream during slow wave sleep (stages 3 and 4). However it is true that the majority of our dreaming occurs during REM sleep.

Rational: The term rational refers to being of sound mind and having (or exercising) the ability to reason. In addition, in psychology being rational means using conscious thought processes to solve problems.

Rational-Emotive Therapy: This type of therapy was created by Albert Ellis who himself defines rational-emotive therapy (also known as rational-emotive behavior therapy) as, " a humanistic, action-oriented approach to emotional growth which emphasizes individuals' capacity for creating their own emotions; the ability to change and overcome the past by focusing on the present; and the power to choose and implement satisfying alternatives to current patterns." The approach to this therapy is to aggressively challenge irrational, illogical, or altered views people have of themselves to help them see that their views are indeed irrational, illogical, etc.

Rationalization: Rationalization is a defense mechanism identified by Freud. According to Freud when people are not able to deal with the reasons they behave in particular ways, they protect themselves by creating self-justifying explanations for their behaviors. For example, if I flunk out of school because I didn’t study properly it might be so hard for me to deal with that I rationalize my behaviors by saying that I simply didn't have enough time to study because I have a full-time job, a baby at home, and so many other demands on my time.

Reaction Formation: A defense mechanism where an individual acts in a manner opposite from his or her unconscious beliefs. A homosexual who joined a gay hate group would be an example of reaction formation. Freud believed that defense mechanisms helped us cope with the world around us by letting us repress our deepest unconscious fears.

Reality Principle: The ego has a tough job trying to satisfy the needs of the id without giving it everything it wants and engaging in inappropriate and unacceptable behaviors. The ego manages to satisfy the id without engaging in all sorts of inappropriate acts by following the reality principle--the guide directing our unacceptable sexual and aggressive urges to more acceptable targets. For example, when you walk down the street and see an extremely attractive person, the ego, working on the reality principle, helps us realize that it is not socially acceptable to cross the street, grab the person, and have sex with them. Instead, the ego follows the reality principle which tells us that there will be other, more appropriate people, places, and times to fulfill these needs.

Recall: Recall is simply bringing a thought or idea learned previously, and thus stored in memory into conscious awareness. When you remember something you are actually "recalling" the memory. When you have to complete an essay exam, you are recalling information learned previously. This is different than recognition in which you only need to identify material you learned previously (e.g., multiple choice test).

Recency Effect: This is the principle that the most recently presented items or experiences will most likely be remembered best. If you hear a long list of words, it is more likely that you will remember the words you heard last (at the end of the list) than words that occurred in the middle. This is the recency effect. You should also note that you will be likely to remember words at the beginning of the list more than words in the middle, and this is called the Primacy Effect.

Reciprocal Determinism: According to Albert Bandura, a person's behavior is both influenced by and influences a person's personal factors and the environment. Bandura suggests that a person's behavior can be conditioned through the operant conditioning (use of consequences like reward and punishment); he also believes that a person's behavior can impact the environment. So it is not just that you are influenced by your environment, but that you also influence the environment around you--each impacts the other.

Recognition: Recognition is identifying something you learned previously and is therefore stored in some manner in memory. For example, taking a multiple choice test requires you to identify material you learned and not necessarily "recall" information learned previously.

Reconditioning: In classical conditioning, an unconditional stimulus (i.e., canned food) is paired with a conditioned stimulus (i.e., an electric can opener). If the electric can opener were no longer followed by the food, the link between the sound of the electric can opener and food would become extinct. If the electric can opener were again followed by the canned food, the connection would then be reestablished and the link would be reconditioned. Reconditioning takes less time to pair the unconditioned stimulus and conditioned stimulus than the initial conditioning.

Recovered Memory: When a repressed memory (memory that has been pushed into our unconscious and is therefore not remembered consciously) is remembered, we say it has been Recovered. A recovered memory can be defined as the emergence of a formerly repressed memory.

You should know that Freud, who pioneered this area, had doubts about the realities of these memories and whether recovered memories were accurate. Thus, it is possible that some or all of these memories are actually false memories

Reflex: Any response you have to a stimulus that is inherent (you are born with it), it is a reflex. You are probably familiar with physical reflexes such as when the doctor hits your knee with that mallet to test the knee-jerk reflex. Another example is when you put your hand too close to the hot stove and have that reaction of yanking it away from the pain. You don't need to think about it, but the message from your hand to the brain and then back again makes it happen automatically.

Refractory Period: A refractory period is a "resting period" after orgasm during which another orgasm is not possible. In men, the refractory period can last from a few minutes to more than a day. Conversely, women have very short refractory periods which make it possible for them to have multiple orgasms (lucky women .

Regression: Regression is another one of the defense mechanisms identified by Freud. According to Freud there are times when people are faced with situations that are so anxiety provoking that they can't deal with it and they protect themselves by retreating to an earlier stage of development. For example, my niece was afraid to go to school for the first time (first day of school can be very scary) so she began to exhibit very childish behaviors like throwing a tantrum, crying, not letting go of her mother's leg, and even wetting her pants.

Regression Toward the Mean: Regression toward the mean is the tendency for scores to average out. In this case extreme scores tend to happen rarely and seem to fall back toward the average (the mean). For example, a golfer with a handicap of 2 averages a score of 73 (for example). This score represents the golfer's average score. On some days he goes wild and shoots a 63 which is awesome, but extreme. Over time the golfer will have many more scores around his average than far away from it as the scores tend to regress toward the mean of 73.

Rehearsal: I love pizza. Unfortunately I can never remember the phone number for pizza delivery and I'm not smart enough to write it down. So I have to call information for the number. To make sure I don't forget the number from the time the operator tells me to the time I dial it, I engage in rehearsal -- consciously repeating the information over and over so that I can keep it in temporary memory. Rehearsal can also be used to encode it for long-term memory storage, but I can't seem to get it in there and so I have to call the operator every time.

Reinforcement: Reinforcement is a process that increases the frequency of a targeted behavior by either using a negative stimulus or a positive stimulus. An electrical shock (negative stimulus) can make a human jump (targeted behavior) just as well as a suprising someone with a million dollars (positive stimulus). In this example, electrical shock and Money are both reinforces even though one is considered unpleasant by most. As reinforcers, both increase the probablity that the behavior (in this case, jumping) will occur again.

Reinforcer: Reinforcer is a term used in operant condition to describe any event (stimulus, object…anything) that strengthens the frequency of the behavior that precedes it. For example, if I paid you one dollar every time you said hello to me (and we're assuming you like getting the dollar) we may expect the frequency of you saying hello to me to increase. This is because you were being reinforced for saying hello (by getting the dollar). In this case the the dollar works as a reinforcer.

Relative Deprivation: We all have people to whom we compare ourselves. Don't worry, it's natural. But relative deprivation is when you have the perception that you are worse off than these other people you compare yourself to. Having this feeling typically leads to frustration. For example, let's say you have a group of friends you study with (and you tend to compare yourself to them) and on a couple of exams they all do well and you do poorly, even though you all studied the same amount at the same times, etc. You may feel that you are worse off than them because they are doing better than you.

Relative Size: Relative size is a perceptual clue which allows you to determine how close objects are to an object of known size. Sometimes our perceptions are faulty. Humans use relative size to judge the size of the moon. This is why the moon seems bigger and closer when it is near the horizon than when it is high in the sky. We use buildings, trees and other objects of known size to make judgements about the size and closeness of the moon. When the moon is higher in the sky there are no known objects or frame of references to judge the moon's closeness, and thus, appears smaller and farther away. This is called the lunar illusion.

Reliability: Reliability refers to the extent to which a test or other instrument is consistent in its measures. For example, a weight scale can be judged reliable if measures for a 25-pound weight do not vary over time or change for subsequent weightings. Reliability is an important concept in science. If a test is not reliable, we cannot find the answers to our questions. Imagine placing a 25-pound weight on a scale and getting a different answer every time. What purpose would the scale serve? In fact, we most likely would question if indeed the scale is measuring weight or something entirely different. Unreliability would prohibit us from reporting our findings simply because they are not reliable.

REM Rebound: When you are sleep deprived you lose out on two types of sleep, REM and NREM (non-REM). Typically when you have a chance to fall asleep after sleep deprivation you have a tendency to get more REM sleep than you would normally get. This is your body's way of trying to catch up on its REM sleep.

REM Sleep: There are two types of sleep, REM and NREM (non-REM). REM, which is also known as paradoxical sleep, stands for Rapid Eye Movement and occurs in cycles every 60-90 minutes througout your sleep period. This means that every 60-90 minutes you enter a REM stage during which you have rapid eye movements and your muscles become almost paralyzed (this is why it's called paradoxical sleep - the rest of your body is active but your muscles are inactive). The majority of dreams occur in REM sleep, but not all of them.

Replication: Getting some results in one research study is nice, but as scientists we like to make sure of the findings. To be more sure we replicate studies, which means that the study is conducted again in the same way but using different participants. This allows us to retest the subject matter and also to find out if the results can generalize to other participants and maybe even other situations.

Representative Sample: When conducting a study, a researcher selects a relatively small group of participants (a sample) from an entire population of all possible participants (for example, selecting college students at a couple of colleges from all college students in the world). Ideally, the researcher would have a Representative Sample, which is when your participants closely match the characteristics of the population, which helps you generalize your results from your small group of people to large groups of people. For example, imagine you are at the supermarket picking out grapes. There are red, green, small, large, and globe grapes. In a representative sample you would have an equivalent number of each type of grape. You could then taste them all and make generalizations about all grapes just from tasting these few because your sample represents the larger population.

Repression (repressed memory): When explaining repression, Freud compared the process to "condemnation" and stated the following: "Let us take a model, an impulse, a mental process seeking to convert itself into action: we know that it can suffer rejection, by virtue of what we call 'repudiation' or 'condemnation'; whereupon the energy at its disposal is withdrawn, it becomes powerless, but it can continue to exist as a memory. The whole process of decision on the point takes place with the full cognizance of the ego. It is very different when we imagine the same impulse subject to repression: it would then retain its energy and no memory of it would be left behind; the process of repression, too, would be accomplished without the cognizance of the ego."

Wow - what does all that mean? In a nutshell, Freud was saying that when we have memories, impulses, desires, and thoughts that are too difficult or unacceptable to deal with, we unconsciously exclude them from our consciousness (some people like to say we "push" them down from our consciousness to our uncosciousness). This is similar to suppression with one key difference - suppression is a conscious exclusion (or "pushing" down) of these painful memories, thoughts, etc., and is more similar to Freud's explaination of condemnation.

Resistance: During psychoanlysis there are many signs that the client and therapist are making progress and working toward identifying the root of the problem. One sign is resistance, which is a somewhat disruptive response by the client to some topic they find sensitive. The reason it is sensitive is because it is the source or close to the source of the anxiety. For example, the client might make a off-handed remark or joke, claim they forgot the information, or pick a fight with the therapist. When they act in these types of counterproductive ways in response to the therapist addressing certain topics (i.e., the resistance), the therapist is getting closer to the root of the problem.

Reticular Activating System: Reticular activating system is a structure in the brain stem that is responsible for arousal and sleep. The reticular activation system is responsible for getting you up in the morning and putting you asleep at night.

Retina: The retina is the area in back of the eye that contains your rods and cones. Rods help you detect movement while cones help you see color. Both of these receptors transfer light into electrical impulses so that your brain can interpret them.

Retrieval: Retrieval is the process in which information in your memory can be recalled. Information concerning events, images and feelings are all stored in our memory. Just because you cannot remember something doesn't mean that it is not in your memory. It maybe a problem with being able to locate it for retrieval.

Retroactive Amnesia: Retroactive amnesia is the inability to retrieve or recall information before the traumatic event. An individual who has suffered a bump to his head and now cannot remember his telephone number would be suffering from retroactive amnesia. The other type of amnesia, anterograde amnesia, is when an individual cannot retain any information after the traumatic event.

Retroactive Interference: Retroactive interference is when a person has difficulty recalling old information because of newly learned information. For example, you may have difficulty skiing because of recently learning how to snowboard.

Rods: There are two types of receptor cells in the human eye; the cones and the rods. The rods are the receptors in the eye which detect movement. Rods are also used in night vision.

Role: We all have roles that we play. No, not in roles in a "play", but roles we play in life. To a psychologist, a role is a set of expectations about the ways in which people are supposed to behave in different situations. Roles are dependent on all sorts of things like the position a person holds, the culture, etc. For example, a person who is the CEO of a company is expected to act in certain ways specifically because of the title the person holds and the expectations we have in our society about the ways CEOs should behave.

Rooting Reflex: Reflexes have reasons for occurring…typically. The rooting reflex occurs in infants (we outgrow it) and is a tendency for the infant, when stroked on the side of the face, to move its face in the direction being stroked, open its mouth, and search for a nipple. This reflex is for survival as it helps infants locate food.

Rorschach Inkblot Test: There are many types of projective tests, but the most widely used is the Rorschach Inkblot Test. In this test individuals are shown various ambiguous inkblot pictures and asked to describe what they see. By analyzing the responses given by the people, psychologists attempt to understand the person's inner feelings, thoughts, and issues.