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| data based upon secondhand reports |
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| anthropometric laboratory |
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Definition
| Galton's laboratory for the measurement of human characteristics such as sensory acuity and reaction time |
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| Ascription of human mental capacities such as abstract reasoning to animals |
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| Darwin's theory of reproduction, according to which offspring inherit half of the particles that pass through the adult parents to their reproductive organs. |
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| theory that human capacities such as the perception of relations and abstract thought are distinctive forms of human psychology that emerge at more complex levels of biological organization and development. |
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| study of the behavior of animals in their natural environment |
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| Galton's term (from Greek for "well-born") for programs of artificial selection that encourage or promote the breeding of the "highly gifted" and discourage or prevent the breeding of "idiots and imbeciles" |
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| Theory that the electrical nature of the nervous system is the basis of life and mind |
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| Theory of heredity according to which the mechanism of inheritance through biological reproduction is independent of the life history of organisms. |
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| inheritance of acquired characteristics |
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Definition
| Doctrine that useful modifications that are made to existing organs through increased use or that are developed in response to environmental pressure during the lifetime of an organism tend to be inherited by future offspring. |
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| the attempt to understand animal mentality on the basis of analogies with human mentality accessible to introspection. |
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| In economic theory, the doctrine (from French for "leave to do") that governments should not intervene in the market. In Spencer's theory of evolution, the doctrine that government should not intervene to alleviate the condition of the poor, sick, and unemployed and that societal progress is best assured by leaving biological, psychological, and social evolution to take its natural course. |
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| the selection of variations in inheritable characteristics that are conducive to the survival of a species through the struggle for existence. |
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| Theory of evolution that represents the mechanism of natural selection as sufficient to account for the evolution of species. |
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| Theory that humans evolved by retaining the juvenile traits of their ancestors. |
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| the growth of individual organims. |
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| the evolutionary history of a species. |
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| Doctrine that everyone has a chance to rise in society as long as they make the effort to adapt to changing circumstances and that only those who make the effort deserve to benefit. |
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| Ernst Haeckel's theory that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. |
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| Doctrine that governments should introduce programs designated to create social conditions that encourage individuals to improve themselves (such as improved public health and education). |
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| Theory of individual learning according to which behavior is selected via its consequences for the organism. |
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| the application of theories of evolution based upon the survival of the fittest to theories of social change and political practice. |
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| Theory of heredity according to which the mechanism of inheritance through biological reproduction can be influenced by the life history of organims. |
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| Phrase coined by Spencer to describe competition between members of a population for limited food resources. |
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