Inferiority complex
The feeling that a person has as a result of real or imagined deficiency.
Dictionary
Methodological Subjectism
A proposition which emphasizes upon the use of techniques not open to verification by another observer.
Psychoanalysis
Three meanings- (i) A school of psychology founded by Sigmund Freud (ii) a method of psychotherapy and (iii) a theory of personality.
Puzzle box
A box invented originally by Thorndike and which prevents an organism from reaching a goal until a certain kind of behaviour is done.
Reductionism
The view that the complex phenomena should be under-stood through its reduction or analysis into simpler components.
Reflexology
A school of psychology enunciated by Bekhterev and which holds that reflexes and combination of reflexes are the major basis of all human behaviour.
Respondent behaviour
A response which is elicited by a specific stimulus.
Tabula rasa
A proposition which states that mind at birth is blank and later,experience writes something on it.
Unconscious
Refers to that portion of mind which consists of activities with which the person is not aware.
Absolute threshold
The smallest amount of a stimulus that can be detected 50 percent of the time.
Accommodation
In Piaget’s theory of cognitive development modification of existing mental framework for explaining any new information.
Act Psychology
A system of psychology developed by Brentano and emphasizes upon mental processes rather than contents of consciousness.
Adaptation
In Piaget’s theory of cognitive development building mental representation of the situation by making interaction with it.
Adaptive behaviour
A unit of behaviour emphasized by Harvey Carr which involves three phases (1) a stimulus (ii) a sensory situation and (iii) a response that alters the situation to satisfy the motivating conditions.
Afterimage
The lingering sensation commonly reported in visual stimulation after removal of stimulation.
All-or-none principle
A principle which dictates that a neuron responds completely or not at all.
Anal stage
A period in Freud’s theory of psychosexual development that mainly emphasizes upon interest or pleasure in anal region.
Analytic Psychology
Carl Jung’s system of psychoanalysis, a system which came into being after formal separation of Jung from Freud.
Anecdotal method
A method that depends upon the use of casually observed events as scientific data.
Anima
According to Jung, the archetype representing feminine side of male.
Animal
An animal is a living organism that feeds on organic matter, has specialised sense organs and a nervous system, and can respond quickly to stimuli.
Animus
In Jung’s theory the archetype representing the masculine side of females.
Apperception
A clear and vivid perception of things, events or situation. Approach-approach conflict: In Lewin’s theory a conflict that occurs when the person tries to reach two goals, only one of which can be obtained at a time.
Approach-avoidance conflict
In Lewin’s theory a conflict that occurs when the same goal has both positive and negative valance for the person.
Archetype
According to Jung inherited images in collective unconscious that determine our perception of the environment.
Artificial intelligence
Capacity of the computers to demonstrate performance that could be described as intelligence if produced by human beings.
Assimilation
In Piaget’s theory a tendency of the person to understand new information in terms of existing mental works.
Associationism
A system in psychology which emphasizes that mental complexity can be produced through learned connections between simple sensations and ideas.
Avoidance-Avoidance conflict
In Lewin’s theory a conflict that occurs when a person in required to choose between two undesirable goals.
Basic Anxiety
In Harvey’s theory the feeling of a child being isolated and helpless in a potentially hostile world.
Behaviour Space
Similar to Lewin’s concept of life space, a totality of factors that affect the behaviour of a given individual.
Behaviourism
A system of psychology founded by Watson and which emphasizes that all psychological functions can be explained in terms of stimulus and response.
Belief-value Matrix
Hierarchy of learned expectations concerning the different objects and their role in relation to behaviour.
Biopsychology
A branch of psychology that concerns with how biological processes affect important behaviour and cognitions.
Birth trauma
A concept propounded by Otto Rank that emphasizes the emotional experience of the new born ending its prenatal life.
Brunswik ratio
A ratio that emphasizes the relationship between real or physical to sensory representations of an object, indicating the extent to which physical attributes determine any given perception.
Bundle hypothesis
A hypothesis which emphasizes that a complex perception is a group of simple perceptions.
Catharsis
A psychoanalytic principle of emotional release.
Cognition
A general mental activity associated with thought, knowledge, perception, memory etc.
Cognitive development
Changes in cognitive abilities and functioning as individuals grow order.
Cognitive maps
A mental representation of the spatial location of different objects in the environment. Collective Unconscious: In Jung’s theory, a part of unconscious shared by all human beings.
Complex
A debilitating belief held by an individual despite contradictory objective evidence.
Conditioned reflex
A response that is produced by a mental stimulus after being paired presented with an initially effective stimulus.
Connectionism
A school of psychology that explain all or most behaviour in terms of stimulus-response connection.
Consciousness
A state of awareness with one’s own mental condition.
Construct
A concept representing relationship between objects or events.
Context theory of meaning
The fact that the meaning of anything results from the context in which it occurs in consciousness.
Contiguity
A principle that emphasizes upon nearness in time and/or space.
Continuity
A principle of learning that emphasizes upon small, smooth and regular changes step by step.
Creative synthesis
A principle that lay emphasis upon the fact that new characteristics generally emerge from the combination of elements into wholes.
Cybernetics
Study of communication and control mechanism. Control is typically achieved by feedback information about the behaviour done.
Darwinism
Principle of organic evolution enunciated by Charles Darwin in 1859.
Death Instinct
Desire of the person to return to an inorganic state.
Defence mechanism
Mechanisms or techniques adopted by ego to keep unacceptable materials or thinking out of consciousness so that anxiety can be kept at minimum.
Determining tendency
A tendency to behave in specific way.
Determinism
The view that all events are explicable in terms of antecedent factors or cause-and-effect manner.
Difference threshold
The minimum amount by which two stimuli must differ in order to be just noticeably different.
Double-aspect view
A metaphysical position in which both mind and body are held to be function of one underlying reality.
Drive
A concept used by Hull to refer to the subjective feelings associated with needs.
Dynamic
The motivational forces underlying behaviour.
Eclecticism
The selection of what seems to be best from various system or theories.
Ego
In Freudian system that part of the personality which is concerned with reality and which thinks, feels and decides.
Ego-defence mechanism
Unconscious process adopted by ego to protest itself from various kinds of anxiety and threatening situation.
Empirical
Refers to facts and sensory experience
Empricism
A school which emphasizes that all knowledge originates in experience; Also a methodology that emphasizes data and gives little emphasis on theoretical inference.
Environment
A totality of stimuli or events that impinges the organism.
Environmentalism
The principle which dictates that environmental factors are the major determinants of behaviour.
Equivalence belief
A concept enunciated by Tolman to indicate a state of an organism due to which it behaves towards the subgoals as if thing were goals.
Erogenous Zones
Zones or region of the body which are especially sensitive to manipulation. Ethology: A branch of zoology which studies animal behaviour through observation in actual field situation.
Existential Psychology
A school of personality theories who lay emphasis upon individuals self-understanding. Also the name applies to the structuralism an important school of psychology founded by Titchener because it treated elements of consciousness as existent
Expectancy
In Tolman’s theory anticipation of a particular relationship between stimulus and response.
Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
Perceptions that are not based upon input from our sensory receptors. Telepathy and Clairvoyance are included under this
Factor Analysis
A statistical technique based on correlation and which is used to extract the underlying factor or factors, that account for the observed relationship between scores.
field expectation
In Tolman’s theory a kind of expectation on the part of the organism that a particular response to a particular stimulus or cue will lead to a particular consequences.
Field Theory
A theory that apply to fields of force as an explanation of psychological events.
Field-cognition modes
In Tolman’s theory a combination of thinking, perceiving and remembering of the organism that helps in knowing specific characteristic of the environment.
Figure-ground relationship
Person’s tendency to divide the perceptual world into two distinct types-clear and distinction part usually called figure and relatively vauge and indistinct part usually called background against which figure stands out.
fixation
In psychoanalytic theory persistence of immature behavior or thinking accompanied by a lack of normal development.
Fixed-Interval Schedule
A schedule of reinforcement in which a fixed interval of time must elapse before a response is reinforced.
Fixed-ratio schedule
A schedule of reinforcement in which reinforcement is given only after a fixed number of reinforcements have occurred.
Free association
An important procedure in psychoanalysis in which individuals spontaneously report all thoughts, even trivial ones, to the therapist.
Fully functioning persons
In Roger’s theory a psychologically healthy person who enjoy life to the utmost in realistic way.
Functional autonomy
A concept enunciated by Allport in which the person maintains a behaviour by motives other than the ones originally responsible for the occurrence of that behaviour.
Functional Fixedness
The tendency to think about the objects only as they have been used in past.
Functionalism
A school of psychology that emphasizes upon the function or utility of behaviour in making adaptation to the environment.
Genital stage
A final stage in psychosexual development in which the individual desires to have sexual relationship with members of opposite sex .
Goal gradient
An important concept in Hull’s theory emphasizing the gradual increment in response strength that occurs as a result of nearness to goal.
Grestalt Psychology
A system of psychology that emphasizes upon the phenomenological study of molar stimulus and response units, that is, upon the tendency to perceive sensory patterns as well-organized wholes rather than as separate and isolated parts.
Habit
A learnt response to a stimulus or situation.
Habit family hierarchy
A hierarchy in which total set of responses occurring in a given stimulus situation are arranged according to their strength.
Habit strength
An intervening variable in Hull’s theory that states that learning is a function of number of reinforcements given after the occurrence of the response.
Heirarchy of needs
A concept in Maslow’s theory that states that human needs exist in a certain hierarchy so that higher-level needs are not satisfied till the lower level needs are satisfied.
Heredity
Biologically inherited act eristics of the organism.
Hodological space
A concept in Lewin’s theory which emphasizes upon vectors to represent dynamic psychological factors.
Homeostasis
A state of physiological balance within the body of the organism.
Hypnosis
An altered state of consciousness in which individuals appear to be highly susceptible to the suggestions given by others and in which they sometimes behave as if in a state of trance.
Hypothelico-deductive method
A method which starts with a few general postulates from which testable theorems and carollaries are derived by rigorous deductions and subsequently, the derivations are tested empirically.
Hypothesis
A tentative answer to a research question.
Hypothetical construct
A construct whose meaning really goes beyond the relationship between stimulus and response.
Id
In psychoanalytic theory the portion of personality which is concerned with immediate satisfaction of primitive needs.