Psychology Glossary

20 terms

Psychology is a field of study that explores the mind and behaviour. The object is the human being, and Psychology is trying to understand all the mechanisms of the human mind. To try to understand better this field of study, this glossary is useful. In fact, there is all the words necessary to learn the ropes. People who are hoping to work in this field will need to know these basics since they are all related to Psychology.

Abnormal: Relating to any deviation from what is considered typical, usual, or healthy, particularly if the deviation is considered harmful or maladaptive. In statistics, for example, abnormal scores are those that are outside the usual or expected range. The term, however, is most often applied to behavior that differs from a culturally accepted norm, especially when indicative of a mental disorder.
Adaptation: Adjustments to the demands, restrictions, and mores of society, including the ability to live and work harmoniously with others and to engage in satisfying social interactions and relationships. Also called social adaptation.
Affective: Demonstrating, capable of producing, or otherwise pertaining to emotion or feelings.
Anxiety: An emotion characterized by apprehension and somatic symptoms of tension in which an individual anticipates impending danger, catastrophe, or misfortune. The body often mobilizes itself to meet the perceived threat: Muscles become tense, breathing is faster, and the heart beats more rapidly. Anxiety may be distinguished from fear both conceptually and physiologically, although the two terms are often used interchangeably. Anxiety is considered a future-oriented, long-acting response broadly focused on a diffuse threat, whereas fear is an appropriate, present-oriented, and short-lived response to a clearly identifiable and specific threat.
Barrier: Something that restricts, impedes, or blocks progress or the achievement of an ultimate objective or end. In psychological contexts, barriers are mental, emotional, or behavioral limitations in individuals and groups.
Behaviour: More restrictively, any action or function that can be objectively observed or measured in response to controlled stimuli.
Belief-desire reasoning: The process by which one explains and predicts another’s behavior on the basis of one’s understanding of the other’s desires and beliefs. Belief–desire reasoning is the basis for theory of mind.
Capacity: The maximum ability of an individual to receive or retain information and knowledge or to function in mental or physical tasks.
Cognition: All forms of knowing and awareness, such as perceiving, conceiving, remembering, reasoning, judging, imagining, and problem solving. Along with affect and conation, it is one of the three traditionally identified components of mind.
Consultation: A meeting with an expert, especially a doctor, to get advice or treatment.
Daily stressor: Any normative, day-to-day event (e.g., demanding work, financial pressure, family conflict) that can influence physical and mental health and pose a risk to well-being.
Daydream: A waking fantasy, or reverie, in which wishes, expectations, and other potentialities are played out in imagination. Part of the stream of thoughts and images that occupy most of a person’s waking hours, daydreams may be unbidden and apparently purposeless or simply fanciful thoughts, whether spontaneous or intentional.
Defense mechanism: In classical psychoanalytic theory, an unconscious reaction pattern employed by the ego to protect itself from the anxiety that arises from psychic conflict. Such mechanisms range from mature to immature, depending on how much they distort reality.
Denial: A defense mechanism in which unpleasant thoughts, feelings, wishes, or events are ignored or excluded from conscious awareness. It may take such forms as refusal to acknowledge the reality of a terminal illness, financial problem, substance use or other addiction, or partner’s infidelity. Denial is an unconscious process that functions to resolve emotional conflict or reduce anxiety.
Emotion: A complex reaction pattern, involving experiential, behavioral, and physiological elements, by which an individual attempts to deal with a personally significant matter or event. The specific quality of the emotion (e.g., fear, shame) is determined by the specific significance of the event.
Intuition: The process or result of becoming aware of objects, relationships, and events by means of the senses, which includes such activities as recognizing, observing, and discriminating. These activities enable organisms to organize and interpret the stimuli received into meaningful knowledge and to act in a coordinated manner.
Mental disorder: Any condition characterized by cognitive and emotional disturbances, abnormal behaviors, impaired functioning, or any combination of these. Such disorders cannot be accounted for solely by environmental circumstances and may involve physiological, genetic, chemical, social, and other factors.
Mental health: A state of mind characterized by emotional well-being, good behavioral adjustment, relative freedom from anxiety and disabling symptoms, and a capacity to establish constructive relationships and cope with the ordinary demands and stresses of life.
Personality: The enduring configuration of characteristics and behavior that comprises an individual’s unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns. Personality is generally viewed as a complex, dynamic integration or totality shaped by many forces, including hereditary and constitutional tendencies; physical maturation; early training; identification with significant individuals and groups; culturally conditioned values and roles; and critical experiences and relationships.
Schizophrenia: A psychotic disorder characterized by disturbances in thinking (cognition), emotional responsiveness, and behavior, with an age of onset typically between the late teens and mid-30s.