the discipline concerned with behavior and mental processes and how they are affected by an organism’s physical state, mental state, and external environment

relying on or derived from observation, experimentation, or measurement

the now-discredited theory that different brain areas account for specific traits, which can be “read” from bumps on the skull

a theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy, originally formulated by Sigmund Freud, that emphasizes unconscious motives and conflicts

a psychological approach that emphasizes bodily events and changes associated with actions, feelings, and thoughts

a field of psychology emphasizing evolutionary mechanisms that may help explain human commonalities in cognition, development, emotion, social practices, and other areas of behavior

a psychological approach that emphasizes how the environment and experience affect a person’s or animal’s actions; it includes behaviorism and social-cognitive learning theories

  a psychological approach that emphasizes mental processes in perception, memory, language, problem solving, and other areas of behavior

a psychological approach that emphasizes social and cultural influences on behavior

a psychological approach that emphasizes unconscious dynamics within the individual, such as inner forces, conflicts, or the movement of instinctual energy

Counseling Psychologists

generally help people deal with problems of everyday life such as test anxiety, low motivation, or family conflicts

work with parents, teachers, and students to enhance students’ performance and resolve emotional difficulties

diagnose, treat, and study mental or emotional problems

do any kind of psychotherapy without any degree regulation

perform psychoanalysis and have an advanced degree

medical doctors trained in psychiatrics and prescribe medications

the ability and willingness to assess claims and make objective judgments on the basis of well-supported reasons and evidence rather than emotion or anecdote

a statement that attempts to predict or to account for a set of phenomena; scientific hypothesis specify relationships among events or variables and are empirically tested

a precise definition of a term in a hypothesis, which specifies the operations for observing and measuring the process or phenomenon being defined

the principle that a scientific theory must make predictions that are specific enough to expose the theory to the possibility of disconfirmation

the tendency to look for or pay attention only to information that confirms one’s own belief, and ignore, trivialize, or forget information that disconfirms that belief

an organized system of assumptions and principles that purports to explain a specified set of phenomena and their interrelationships

1.     Define your terms

2.     Examine the evidence

3.     Analyze assumptions and biases

4.     Avoid emotional reasoning

5.     Don’t oversimplify

6.     Consider other interpretations

7.     Tolerate uncertainty

a group of individuals, selected from a population for study, which matches that population on important characteristics such as age and sex

methods that yield descriptions of behavior but not necessarily causal explanations

a detailed description of a particular individual being studied or treated

procedures used to measure and evaluate personality traits, emotional states, aptitudes, interests, abilities, and values

to develop uniform procedures for giving and scoring a test

established standards of performance

the consistency of test scores from one time and place to another

the ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure

questionnaires and interviews that ask people directly about their experiences, attitudes, or opinions

a descriptive study that looks for a consistent relationship between two phenomena

a measure of how strongly two variables are related to each other

characteristics of behavior or experience that can be measured or described by a numeric scale; variables are manipulated and assessed in scientific studies

an association between increases in one variable and increases in another, or between decreases in one and in the other

as association between increases in one variable and decreases in another

a measure of correlation that ranges in value from -1.00 to +1.00

controlled test of a hypothesis in which the researcher manipulates on variable to discover its effect on another

a variable that an experimenter manipulates

a variable that an experimenter predicts will be affected by manipulations of the independent variable

a comparison condition in which subjects are not exposed to the same treatment as those in the experimental condition

a procedure for assigning people to experimental and control groups in which each individual has the same probability as any other being assigned to a given group

an inactive substance or fake treatment used as a control in an experiment

neither the participants nor the experimenters know which participants are in the control group or the experimental group