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| Scientific study that aims to solve practical problems. |
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| Pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base. |
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| A branch of psychology concerned with the links between biology and behavior. |
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| A branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorder. |
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| A branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living and in achieving greater well being. |
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| The interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language). |
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| Thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it examines assumption, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions. |
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| A school of psychology that focused on how our mental and behavioral processes function -- how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish. |
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| Historically significant perspective that emphasized the growth potential of healthy people and the individual's potential for personal growth. |
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| I/O (Industrial-organization) Psychology |
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| The application of psychological concepts and methods for optimizing human behavior in the workplace. |
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| The long standing controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. Today's science sees traits and behaviors arising from the interaction of nature and nurture. |
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| The principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those attributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations. |
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| Therapy deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition that views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and seeks to enhance self-insight. |
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| A branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by phisicians who sometimes provide medical treatments as well as psychological therapy. |
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| The science of behavior and mental processes. |
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| An early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the structural elements of the human mind. |
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| An observation technique in which one person is studies in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles. |
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| In an experiment, the group that is not exposed to the treatment; contrasts with the experimental group and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effects of treatment. |
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| A measure of the extent of which two factors vary together, and thus how well either factor predicts the other. |
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| The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next. |
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| The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable. |
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| a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect of some behavior or mental process (dependent variable). By random assignment of participants, the experimenter aims to control other relevant factors. |
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| In an experiment, the group that is exposed to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable. |
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| The tendency to believe, after learning the outcome, that one would have foreseen it. |
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| A testable prediction, often implied in a theory. |
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| The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied. |
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| The arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores. |
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| The middle score in a distribution; half the scores or above it and half are below it. |
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| The most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution. |
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| Observing and recording behavior in a naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate or control the situation. |
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| A statement of the procedures used to define research variables. |
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| Effect experimental result caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by administration of an inert substance of condition, which the recipient assumes is an active agent. |
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| A technique for ascertaining the self reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of the group. |
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| An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors of events. |
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| A neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon. |
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| Two lima bean-sized neural clusters in the limbic system; linked to emotion. |
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| the extension of a neuron, ending in branching terminal fibers, through which messages pass to other neurons or muscles or glands. |
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| The brain and spinal cord. |
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| the "little brain" at the end of the brain stem; functions include processing sensory input and coordinating movement output and balance. |
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| the intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells covering the cerebral hemispheres; the body's ultimate control and information-processing center. |
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| The large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them. |
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| The bushy, branching extension of a neuron that receives messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body. |
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| Portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead; involved in speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgments. |
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| The base of the brain stem. controls heart beat and breathing. |
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| Bundled axons that form "neural" cables connecting the central nervous system with muscles, glands, and sense neurons. |
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| A nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system. |
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| Portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head; includes areas that receive information from the visual fields. |
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| Portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top of the head and toward the rear; receives sensory input for touch and body position. |
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| Peripheral Nervous System |
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| The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body. |
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| A simple, automatic response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee-jerk response. |
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| The junction between the axon tip and the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. The tiny gap at this junction is called the synaptic gap. |
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| Portion of the cerebral cortex lying roughly above the ears; includes the auditory areas, each receiving information primarily from the opposite ear. |
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| The brain's sensory switchboard, located on top of the brain stem; it directs messages to the sensory receiving areas in the cortex and transmits replies to the cerebellum and medulla. |
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| A sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion. |
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| The difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution. |
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