Task Leadership: There are a variety of different types of leaders and leadership styles. None of these leadership styles is right for all people or situations. One works in one situation may not work in another. One type of leadership is task leadership, which is goal-directed or goal-oriented type of leadership. This type of leadership is good when you need to stay focused on goals and move as a unit toward common objectives. Telegraphic Speech: At approximately age 2, children enter the Two-Word Stage of language development. During this stage they exhibit telegraphic speech, which is speech that sounds very much like a telegram, has words arranged in an order that makes sense, and contains almost all nouns and verbs. For example, a child at this stage of development who wants to get milk may say "get milk", as opposed to saying just "milk". As you can see, there are only two words, they are in an order that makes sense, there is one verb and one noun, and it sounds like a telegram. Temperament: Temperment refers to the characteristics and aspects of personality that we are born with. For that reason, they are similar to traits in that they are both innate (born with these things) and enduring. Infants who are anxious and nervous tend to be the same way when they are older. One difference though is that temperment more often relates to emotionality…the specific emotional characteristics such as calm, anxious, or nervous. Temporal Lobes: The area in the brain involved with hearing. The temporal lobes are part of the cerebral cortex and are located above the ears. Interestingly, each lobe is responsible for hearing in the opposite ear -- so the lobe on the left side of your brain is responsible for hearing from the right ear. Testosterone: This is the chemical that makes men, MEN. Just kidding….testosterone is a very important male sex hormone. Although it is considered a male sex hormone, women do have it, just in lesser quantities than men. As a fetus is developing, it is testosterone that promotes the growth of male sex organs and other male-specific features. It's also responsible for the male-specific changes that occur during puberty such as deepening in the voice and increased facial hair. Test-Retest Reliability: A measure of consistency for tests and other instruments. Individuals are asked to take the test of interest and then take the same test again at a later date. The scores are then compared. The closer the scores are, the more reliable the test. Reliability is an important factor in testing because if paves the way for accuracy. Remember, reliability refers to a test producing consistent results, not necessarily valid results. Textural Gradient: Texture gradient relates to the ways in which we perceive depth. Specifically, texture gradient is a monocular cue (meaning it can be seen by either eye alone…don't need both eyes) in which there is a gradual change in appearance of objects from coarse to fine - some objects appear closer because they are coarse and more distinct, but gradually become less and less distinct (and more fine) which makes the objects appear to get further and further away. For example, if you look at a photograph of a crowd of people, the people that were closer to the camera are represented in the picture with more coarse and distinct features. But to make the people who were further away actually appear further away in the photo, they are represented by less distinct and finer features. Thalamus: The thalamus is a structure deep within the brain stem that receives sensory information from the nervous system and passes the information to the cerebral cortex and other parts of the brain. It acts as a director of information related to bodily functions such as seeing, sleeping, hearing, waking, tasting, and touching. Thanatos: According to Freud humans have a life instinct (eros) and a death instinct, called thanatos. This death instinct compels humans to engage in risky and destructive behaviors that could lead to death (remember, it is an instinct for personal death). Behaviors such as thrill seeking, aggression, and risk taking can be considered actions stemming from thanatos. THC: Okay, I am sure this is a completely unknown term to all students…THC, which stands for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is the active ingredient in marijuana. THC is the ingredient responsible for some of the effects of marijuana which, according to scientific evidence, include minor hallucinations, increased sensitivity to colors and sounds, and heightened state of relaxation. Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): This is a projective test that is used to help people express their feelings in a non-threatening manner. This is done by having people create stories about ambiguous characters, scenes, and situations. People are shown ambiguous pictures and then asked to make up stories about them. This allows the person to "project" their own feelings and interests onto the picture. So rather than saying, I feel really angry, the person may indicate that the person in the picture looks really angry and upset about something. Theory: This is one of the most important terms in psychology, so make sure you understand it well. I'm sure you've used this term many times, but you may have been using it in a way that is different than it is used in psychology. The first thing you must remember is that psychology is a science. As such it is based on observable events and the scientific method. But there are so many different events and facts about behavior that trying to make sense of everything is simply not realistic. So, we use theories to help organize lots of different observable events, make sense of them, make predictions about them, and connect them to some more comprehensive principles. In essence, theories explain observable events in a meaningful way. Keep in mind that theories are not as specific as hypotheses, which are so specific that we use them to make predictions in research. Theories are more general explanations about behavior and events. For example, if I see many people scream in pain when they touch a flame, I could theorize that extreme heat causes pain (that's a tough one, eh?). Theory X: What motivates you to work hard? According to Douglas McGregor, there are two categorizations of what motivates people: Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X suggests that people work for extrinsic reasons -- in other words, Money! This theory is linked to management and leadership, and assumes that workers are lazy, selfish, and generally sloppy at their work. As a result, managers with this approach believe their employees must be given really simplistic tasks, little independence or freedom, and tasks that do not involve much creativity. Theory Y: What motivates you to work hard? According to Douglas McGregor, there are two categorizations of what motivates people: Theory X and Theory Y. Theory Y suggests that people are motivated for intrinsic reasons as opposed to extrinsic reasons. What this means is that they are working for reasons that go well beyond Money and include reasons such as feeling satisfied with themsleves, increasing self esteem, helping others, etc. This is really an approach toward management and leadership. A manager that takes a Theory Y approach gives workers more freedom so that they can be independent, strive for success, and be more creative. Threshold: The term "threshold" has a couple of different meanings, but let's start with the simple one. A threshold is the minimum amount of stimulation needed to start a neural impulse (you know, the electrical impulses that travel throughout your body carrying important information). There is a very scientific explanation to this that includes the actual mV (millivolts) of the inside and outside of the neural membrane, how the sodium pottasium channel works, and lots more, but for this definition let's just leave it as is. Token Economics: A student once told me that token economics was a type of economics created by J.R.R. Tolkien…Yes, the same guy who wrote Lord of the Rings. Sorry, but token Economics is a behavioral approached used to change the behavior of patients with severe psychological disorders (although it can be used with anyone, this is often how we talk about it in psychology). Patients in a hospital are rewarded with tokens for exhibiting and performing desired behaviors. The tokens are then used to purchase things that the patient wants. For example, extra time watching TV or playing a video game. In this way, patients learn to "modify" their "behavior" in order to receive tokens. Tolerance: Although there are a few different ways to define and use this term, in this case we are talking about tolerance as it relates to drugs. When you take medications or drugs your body begins to get used to the drug. As a result, you may need to take more and more of it in order to get the same effects. This reduced effect of the drug is tolerance - your body is getting used to the drug causing a reduction in its effectiveness. In some cases, psychologists require patients to go without medications or take breaks from their medications (drug holidays) in order to reduce tolerance and maintain its effectiveness. Trait: You've probably used the term "character traits" before when referring to ways in which people behave, or explained someones behavior by saying, "that's just the type of person he/she is". These phrases all refer to a person's enduring characteristics or dispositions which give rise to their behaviors or behavior patterns. For example, you may view yourself as a curious type of person. In this case, curiosity is one of your traits - it is enduring (won't disappear over time) and leads you to act in specific ways (like reading a lot to gather new information). Transduction: Technically speaking, transduction is the process of converting one form of energy into another. As it relates to psychology, tranduction refers to changing physical energy into electrical signals (neural impusles) that can make their way to the brain. For example, your ears receive energy (sound waves) and transduce (or convert) this energy into neural messages that make their way to your brain and are processed as sounds. Transference: Transference is a phenomenon where patients undergoing clinical therapy begin to transfer their feelings of a particular person in their lives to the therapist. For example, the patient may begin to feel the same feelings towards his or her therapist as the patient does for his or her lover. These types of feelings may be positive or negative. The therapist must be aware of this phenomenon and may even be able to use it to help the patient. For example, role playing with the patient. Transsexual: A transsexual is an individual who has a strong desire to be the opposite sex and undergo surgery to change their sex. Before surgery most transsexuals report a feeling of being trapped in their body and believe they should have been born the opposite sex. True Experimental Design: A true experimental design is one in which the researcher manipulates the Independent Variable (or variables) to observe its effect on some behavior or cognitive process (the dependent variable) while using random assignment of participants to groups in order to control external factors from influencing the results. Without both manipulation of the IV and random assignment of participants, you do not have a true experimental design and, as a result, can’t establish cause and effect. Two-Factor Theory: This is also known as Schachter's Two-Factor Theory of Emotion, after Stanley Schachter. Schachter proposed that human emotions contain two factors or parts: physical arousal and a cognitive label. According to Schachter, both of these elements must be present for you to experience an emotion. Some form of arousal occurs (e.g., increased heart rate, persperation, etc.), you then put some label on this arousal, and then experience the emotion. For example, imagine playing a physically demanding game like basketball. As soon as you are done with the game (and you are hot, your heart is racing, etc., which is the state of arousal) someone gives you some bad news. In response, you get angry (label the emotion as anger), and feel that anger. The question is, would you have gotten less angry about this news if you were not aroused from playing basketball? According to Schachter, you are probably going to be more angry in the aroused state than if you got the news in a less aroused state. Two-Word Stage: Ah, children. How we love to hear them speak! Children go through a variety of different stages as they learn to speak. At approximately 2 years of age, they leave the one-word stage and enter the two-word stage. During this stage children start using two-word sentences more than just using single words for everything. For example, a child who wants to get milk may say "get milk" as opposed to only being able to say "milk". This shows a marked advancement in language skills. This stage is also marked by telegraphic speech. Type A Personality: Friedman and Rosenman conducted studies on the relationship between stress and heart disease. One of the outcomes was the discovery of Type A and Type B personalities. People who are classified as having Type A personality have characteristisc like: they have a sense of time urgency, find it difficult to relax, and often become impatient and angry when they get delayed (or if they are going to be late) or are around other people whom they view as incompetent. They are the opposite of Type B people. Type B Personality: Friedman and Rosenman conducted studies on the relationship between stress and heart disease. One of the outcomes was the discovery of Type A and Type B personalities. People who are classified as having Type B personality are better at relaxing without feeling guilty and working without becoming anxious or agitated. Some of the other characteristics include being more relaxed about time (they don't get overly stressed about being late), and are not easily angered. You probably know people who just seemed to be relaxed people who don’t get angry often (they roll with the punches well)…these are the characteristics of a Type B. They are the opposite of Type A people.
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