Perfectionism is a psychological orientation which, depending on the severity, may have biological and/or environmental causes. To an educated observer, a perfectionist orientation is usually evident by the preschool years, though it may not cause problems until the college years. The perfectionist orientation has two components: impossibly high standards, and the behaviors intended to help achiev…
Personality is fundamental to the study of psychology. The major systems evolved by psychiatrists and psychologists since Sigmund Freud to explain human mental and behavioral processes can be considered theories of personality. These theories generally provide ways of describing personal characteristics and behavior, establish an overall framework for organizing a wide range of information, and ad…
The concept of personality refers to the profile of stable beliefs, moods, and behaviors that differentiate among children (and adults) who live in a particular society. The profiles that differentiate children across cultures of different historical times will not be the same because the most adaptive profiles vary with the values of the society and the historical era. An essay on personality dev…
Unlike generalized anxiety, phobias involve specific, identifiable but usually irrational fears. Phobias are common occurrences among a large segment of the population. People with phobias recognize that their fears are irrational, yet avoid the source to spare themselves of the resultinganxiety. Phobias are classified as disorders only when they interfere substantially with a person's dail…
Although people recognize the brain as the center of mental processes, this contemporary view has not always been accepted. Philosophers and scientists have proposed different ideas throughout history about the process of thinking that have since been rejected as inaccurate. One such rejected approach was phrenology. Phrenologists believed that our different mental capacities were controlled by sp…
Placebos are substances with no known pharmacological value that are given to members of a control group in an experiment. In studies determining the effectiveness of a particular drug, for example, the experimental group is given the drug being studied and the control group is given a placebo, which is made to look exactly like the actual drug. Neither group, nor the researchers, knows which rece…
While the term "play" may refer to an extremely varied range of activities, certain broad, defining characteristics have been noted. Perhaps the most basic one is that play is something that is not required. Although the enjoyment derived from it may be needed emotionally, no single play activity itself is necessary for survival. Thus, play is referred to as "autotelic"…
Among other principles, Freudian psychology states that there is a basic human tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain. It arises from the desire for unrestrained expression of both the life instinct (Eros) associated with sexuality and the death instinct (Thanatos) associated with aggression and destructiveness. Freud described the pleasure principle in terms of the need to discharge or reduce t…
There is an obvious and necessary imprecision in this definition of the term pornography, in the sense that what is considered to be sexually obscene behavior, and, for that matter, what might sexually arouse an audience, vary quite widely from time to time, from place to place, and from individual to individual. Nearly all modern societies have laws that prohibit the possession or distribution of…
Power may be defined in both personal and interpersonal terms. In the first sense, it refers to one's physical, intellectual, or moral capacity to act. In the second, it denotes the ability to influence the behavior of others. Philosophers have often described power as an integral facet of human existence. Psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949) has claimed that power is a more crucia…
Sigmund Freud theorized that the human mind was divided into three parts: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. This schema first appeared in his earliest model of mental functioning, published in his classic work, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Freud believed that the preconscious functions as an intermediate or transitional level of the mind—between the unconscious and the c…
Prejudice has cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. Based on beliefs, it can affect one's emotions and behavior, sometimes leading to discrimination. Prejudiced beliefs primarily take the form of stereotypes, overall impressions based on the assumption that all members of a group possess similar attributes. Various theories have been proposed to explain the causes and dynamics of…
Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) exhibits both physiological and psychological symptoms. The primary physiological symptoms are water retention and bloating, slightly enlarged and tender breasts, and food cravings. Psychological symptoms include irritability and depression. The full range of symptoms that have been attributed to PMS is extremely broad: as many as 150 have been identified. Because the s…
Projective techniques involve asking subjects to interpret or fill in visual stimuli, complete sentences, or report what associations particular words bring to mind. Because of the leeway provided by the tests, subjects project their own personalities onto the stimulus, often revealing personal conflicts, motivations, coping styles, and other characteristics. The best known projective test is the …
The term psyche actually takes its meaning from ancient myth. In Roman mythology, Psyche represented the human spirit and was portrayed as a beautiful girl with butterfly wings. Psyche was a beautiful mortal desired by Cupid, to the dismay of Cupid's mother Venus. Venus demanded that her son order Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest man in the world. Cupid refused and loved Psyche himse…
The role of psychoactive drugs, also called psychotherapeutic agents or psychotropic drugs, in the treatment of mental illness is dependent on the disorder for which they are prescribed. In cases where mental illness is considered biological in nature, such as with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, pharmaceutical therapy with psychotherapeutic drugs is recommended as a primary meth…
Punishment is defined as the administration of aversive stimulus to reduce or eliminate unwanted behavior. It can be either physical or nonphysical. Punishment differs from negative reinforcement in that the latter increases the frequency of behavior by removing a negative event. Punishment can be as simple as giving electric shocks to lab rats to prevent them from touching a lever or as complex&#…
Research psychologists can collect two kinds of information: quantitative data and qualitative data. Quantitative data are often represented numerically in the form of means, percentages, or frequency counts. Such data are often referred to as "measurement" data, referring to the fact that we often like to measure the amount or extent of some behavior, trait, or disposition. For exam…
Throughout human history, people have tended to divide each other into groups. Most often, physical characteristics are used to distinguish between groups, and the groups are called races. Some people have long believed that many characteristics about a person could be determined by simply looking at the person's race. Intelligence is one trait that has been studied in an attempt to correla…
Racism is most commonly used to describe the belief that members of one's own race are superior physically, mentally, culturally, and morally to members of other races. Racist beliefs provide the foundation for extending special rights, privileges, and opportunities to the race that is believed to be superior, and to withholding rights, privileges, and opportunities from the races believed …
Rape is essentially an act of power and dominance. Although an estimated 15 to 40 percent of American women are victims of rape or attempted rape, men are raped as well. Women are more likely to be raped by someone they know; between 50 and 70 percent of all rapes occur within the context of a romantic relationship, and more than half the time the assault takes place in the victim's home. R…
First described in 1953 by Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene Aserinsky, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is also called active sleep because the EEG (electroencephalogram) patterns in this stage are similar to the patterns during the awake stage. The four stages of slow-wave, or non-REM, sleep are accompanied by deep breathing, a relatively slow heartbeat, and lowered blood pressure. In contrast, levels…
Several categories of reaction time, such as simple reaction time, have been established and studied in experimental psychology. In a simple reaction time experiment, the subject is presented with one simple stimulus, such as a light, and instructed to perform one simple response, such as pressing a button. In a discrimination reaction time experiment, the subject is presented with one of two or m…
Very often in Western culture, listening is considered to be the passive part of a conversation while speaking is seen as active. Reflective listening practices requires focus, intent, and very active participation. The term stems from work done by psychologist Carl Rogers who developed client-centered therapy. Rogers believed that by listening intently to the client, a therapist could determine b…
In a simple reflex, a sensory receptor initiates a nerve impulse in an afferent sensory nerve fiber which conducts it to the spinal cord. In the gray matter of the spinal cord, the afferent nerve impulse is fired over the synaptic gap to an efferent motor fiber which passes along the impulse to the appropriate muscle, producing the reflex. There are other reflexes which involve neural pathways con…
Rehabilitation begins once a debilitating condition has been evaluated and treatment is either in progress or completed. Impairments are evaluated for their effects on the individual's psychological, social, and vocational functioning. Depending on the type of disability involved, "self-sufficiency" may mean a full-time job, employment in a sheltered workshop, or simply an ind…
In classical (Pavlovian) conditioning, where the response has no effect on whether the stimulus will occur, reinforcement produces an immediate response without any training or conditioning. When meat is offered to a hungry dog, it does not learn to salivate, the behavior occurs spontaneously. Similarly, a negative reinforcer, such as an electric shock, produces an immediate, unconditioned escape …
Psychologists have long studied religion and religious practices. Using principles of traditional psychology, researchers try to understand religious experience, including prayer, cults, and mystical experiences. The study of religion and psychology began in the early twentieth century, but faded before it was revived in the 1980s, when the American Psychological Association began to formally inve…
Psychologists use a wide variety of techniques to answer research questions. The most commonly used techniques include experiments, correlational studies, observational studies, case studies, and archival research. Each approach has its own strengths and weaknesses. Psychologists have developed a diversity of research strategies because a single approach cannot answer all types of questions that p…
In normal human adults, each hemisphere of the brain, working in concert with the other, performs certain types of functions more efficiently than the other. While the left-brain hemisphere is dominant in the areas of language and logic, the right-brain hemisphere is the center of nonverbal, intuitive, holistic modes of thinking. Each hemisphere mostly receives perceptions from and controls the ac…
In ancient times, there were rituals of scapegoating. A tribe or person would literally sacrifice an animal to the gods, or send an animal into the desert declaring that that animal was carrying away the tribe's sins. In today's culture, psychology uses the term to discuss certain forms of victimization. A particular child of an alcoholic family can be deemed the scapegoat, for insta…
The scientific method involves a wide array of approaches and is better seen as an overall perspective rather than a single, specific method. The scientific method that has been adopted was initially based on the concept of positivism, which involved the search for general descriptive laws that could be used to predict natural phenomena. Once predictions were possible, scientists could attempt to …
Security objects are items, usually soft and easily held or carried, that offer a young child comfort. Security objects are also referred to as attachment objects, inanimate attachment agents, nonsocial attachments, comfort habits, transitional objects, not-me possessions, substitute objects, cuddlies, treasured possessions, soothers, pacifiers, special soft objects, Linus phenomenon, and security…
The term self-actualization was used most extensively by Abraham Maslow, who placed it at the apex of his hierarchy of human motives, which is conceived as a pyramid ascending from the most basic biological needs, such as hunger and thirst, to increasingly complex ones, such as belongingness and self-esteem. The needs at each level must be at least partially satisfied before those at the next can …
Self-concept—the way in which one perceives oneself—can be divided into categories, such as personal self-concept (facts or one's own opinions about oneself, such as "I have brown eyes" or "I am attractive"); social self-concept (one's perceptions about how one is regarded by others: "people think I have a great sense of humor")…
Succeeding or failing to meet the standards, rules, and goals of one's group or society determines how well an individual forms relationships with other members of the group. Living up to one's own internalized set of standards—or failing to live up to them—is the basis of complex emotions. The so-called self-conscious emotions, such as guilt, pride, shame, and hubris, …
Psychologists who write about self-esteem generally discuss it in terms of two key components: the feeling of being loved and accepted by others and a sense of competence and mastery in performing tasks and solving problems independently. Much research has been conducted in the area of developing self-esteem in children. Martin Seligman claims that in order for children to feel good about themselv…
One's beliefs about other people determine how one acts towards them, and thus play a role in determining the behavior that results. Experiments have demonstrated this process in a variety of settings. In one of the best-known examples, teachers were told (falsely) that certain students in their class were "bloomers" on the verge of dramatic intellectual development. When the …
The most basic question of sex differences is whether the differences between the sexes are a result of our sex chromosomes, and genetic in nature, or did humans learn them from our social and cultural environments? This argument, usually referred to as the nature-nurture controversy, is one that is common in psychological work. Most psychologists attribute our differences to a combination of natu…
Men and women are different not only in anatomy, but also in terms of how they behave and in the interests they express. Certain behavioral differences are believed to be biologically determined. For example, the male sex hormone testosterone is believed to be the reason why males are considered more aggressive than females. However, many nonanatomical differences appear to be based on sex roles t…
Sexual abuse includes any sexual act or experience which is forced upon a person or which occurs as a result of coercion. In general, any sexual experience or exposure that occurs between a child and an older child, an adolescent, or an adult, for the gratification of the older individual, is considered to be sexual abuse. Sexual abuse includes rape, incest, inappropriate touching, exhibitionism, …
While sex is not necessary for an individual's survival, without it a species would cease to exist. The determinants of sexual motivation and behavior include an individual's physiology, learned behavior, the physical environment, and the social environment. A person's sex is determined at conception by whether one out of the 23 chromosomes in the father's sperm is eith…
Most people, from social recluses to the rich and famous, probably have experienced feelings of shyness at various times in their lives. Physiological symptoms may include blushing, increased heart rate, sweating, and shaking. Just as these outward manifestations vary in type and intensity from person to person, so do the inner feelings. Anxious thoughts and worries, low self-esteem, self-criticis…
One of the early goals of psychologists was to measure the sensitivity of our sensory systems. This activity led to the development of the idea of a threshold, the least intense amount of stimulation needed for a person to be able to see, hear, feel, or detect the stimulus. Unfortunately, one of the problems with this concept was that even though the level of stimulation remained constant, people …
When researchers measure a behavior, they often compare groups to determine whether they differ on that behavior. The ultimate goal is to determine whether the difference would occur if the measurements were administered a second time, or whether the difference is accidental and not likely to recur. The degree of reliability relates to the concept of significance level. The significance level refe…
A healthy adult sleeps an average of 7.5 hours each night and most people (approximately 95 percent) sleep between 6.5 and 8.5 hours. Tracking brain waves with the aid of electroencephalographs (EEGs), researchers have identified six stages of sleep (including a pre-sleep stage), each characterized by distinctive brain-wave frequencies. Stage 0 is the prelude to sleep, which is characterized by lo…
Olfaction is one of the two chemical senses: smell and taste. Both arise from interaction between chemical and receptor cells. In olfaction, the chemical is volatile, or airborne. Breathed in through the nostrils or taken in via the throat by chewing and swallowing, it passes through either the nose or an opening in the palate at the back of the mouth, and moves toward receptor cells located in th…
Social competence refers to the social, emotional, and cognitive skills and behaviors that children need for successful social adaptation. Despite this simple definition, social competence is an elusive concept, because the skills and behaviors required for healthy social development vary with the age of the child and with the demands of particular situations. A socially competent preschool child …
Human behavior is influenced by other people in countless ways and on a variety of levels. The mere presence of others—as co-actors or spectators—can stimulate or improve one's performance of a task, a process known as social facilitation (and also observed in non-human species). However, the increased level of arousal responsible for this phenomenon can backfire and create so…
Researchers have confirmed the conventional wisdom that first impressions are important. Studies show that first impressions are easily formed, difficult to change, and have a long-lasting influence. Rather than absorbing each piece of new information about an individual in a vacuum, it is common for people to invoke a preexisting prototype or schema based on some aspect of the person (for example…
Special education refers to a range of services, including social work services and rehabilitative counseling, provided to individuals with disabilities from ages 3-21 through the public school system, including instruction given in the classroom, at home, or in institutions. Special education classes are taught by teachers with professional certification. Some teachers specialize in working with …
Speech perception, the process by which we employ cognitive, motor, and sensory processes to hear and understand speech, is a product of innate preparation ("nature") and sensitivity to experience ("nurture") as demonstrated in infants' abilities to perceive speech. Studies of infants from birth have shown that they respond to speech signals in a special way, sug…
Psychologists have demonstrated that even simple human tasks, like thinking of a word when viewing an object, involve separate subtasks within the brain. These smaller tasks involve identifying the object, assessing its use, remembering what other objects are related to it, determining how many syllables are in the word associated with the object, and so on. People do not realize the complexity of…
Some people believe and perpetuate stereotypes about particular ethnic groups: Italians are emotionally sensitive, loud, and talk with their hands; Irish people drink too much; Germans are serious and intelligent. While such characteristics may apply to few members of that ethnic group, some people characterize all people in a certain group to share these traits. Psychologists have also noted the …
Stimulants are used for the treatment of certain psychiatric conditions and also used (and abused) for recreational purposes, enhanced levels of energy, and weight loss. They may be prescription or over-the-counter medications, illegal street drugs, or ingredients in commonly ingested substances, such as the caffeine in coffee or the nicotine in cigarettes. Whatever their form, stimulants increase…
While there is little consensus among psychologists about the exact definition of stress, it is agreed that stress results when demands placed on an organism cause unusual physical, psychological, or emotional responses. In humans, stress originates from a multitude of sources and causes a wide variety of responses, both positive and negative. Despite its negative connotation, many experts believe…
The term subliminal is derived from the Latin words sub (below) and limen (threshold). The threshold, in this case, is the threshold of conscious awareness. Can we be influenced by stimuli that are so faint or brief that we are unaware of their presence? In other words, can people be affected by invisible stimuli? This controversial notion has intrigued scientists and the public for decades. A pub…
The annual death toll from suicide worldwide is 120,000, and it is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for one percent of all deaths. Between 240,000 and 600,000 people in the U.S. and Canada attempt suicide every year, and over 30,000 succeed. The suicide rate is three times higher for men than for women in the United States, although females make three times as man…
The superego is one of three basic components of human personality, according to Sigmund Freud. The id is the most primitive, consisting of largely unconscious biological impulses. The ego uses reality and its consequences to modify the behavior being urged by the id. The superego judges actions as right or wrong based on the person's internal value system. Freud believed that a child devel…
The study of psychology generally does not include any emphasis on these seemingly irrational beliefs that motivate behavior. Nevertheless, superstitious actions are common in our society. Avoiding walking under ladders in order to ward off disaster, crossing fingers for good luck, and knocking on wood surfaces to ensure continued prosperity or avoid tragedy are examples of commonplace superstitio…
Every thought, movement, and sensation occurs due to communication between different neurons, which provide information throughout the nervous system. Within a single neuron, information proceeds through electrical signals, but when information must be transmitted from one neuron to a succeeding neuron, the transmission is chemical. For two neurons to communicate, chemical messengers, or neurotran…
Taste, or gustation, is one of the two senses triggered by chemical stimuli (the other is olfaction). A person has approximately 10,000 taste buds. Most are on the tongue, but some are located in the back of the throat. Grouped together in bumps or papillae on the surface of the tongue, the taste buds contain receptors that respond to four basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. (It has also…
Individual variations in temperament are most readily observed in newborn babies. Even immediately after birth, some babies are calm while others cry a lot. Some respond favorably to being held while others squirm and protest. Some are soothed by soft music and others do not stop crying long enough to hear it. Because of these immediately observable variations, temperament is often considered a bi…
The thalamus is a relatively large collection of cell body clusters shaped like two small footballs. It is involved in receiving sensory information from the eyes and other sense organs, processing that information, and then transmitting it to primary sensory zones in the cerebral cortex. The thalamus also processes pain signals from the spinal cord as well as information from different parts of t…
The sense of touch is located in the skin, which is composed of three layers: the epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis. Different types of sensory receptors, varying in size, shape, number, and distribution within the skin, are responsible for relaying information about pressure, temperature, and pain. The largest touch sensor, the Pacinian corpuscle, is located in the hypodermis, the innermost thick…
Traits include such personality characteristics as introversion, aggressiveness, generosity, nervousness, and creativity. Systems that address personality as a combination of qualities or dimensions are called trait theories. The first comprehensive trait theory was that of Gordon Allport (1897-1967). Over a period of thirty years, Allport investigated over 18,000 separate traits, proposing severa…
Transference is the tendency for a client in psychotherapy, known as the analysand, to transfer emotional responses to their therapists that reflect feelings the analysand has for other significant people in his or her life. Transference often echoes clients' relationships with their parents or with other persons who played a central role in their childhood. They may become excessively depe…
Transgender, or transsexualism, a condition in which the individual defines him or herself as male or female in opposition to their physical gender, or feels strongly that he or she wants to live as a member of the other gender, is rare. By some estimates, no more than 1 person in 350,000 believes he or she was born the wrong gender. As they progress through childhood, their inability to relate to…
In the 1970s, psychologists started investigating possible links between personality and health. Initial research seemed to indicate that persons with a type A Personality were at higher risk for coronary heart disease—a medical condition that consists of a narrowing of the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart. Type A people are achievement oriented, irritable, impatient with delays…
Sigmund Freud assumed that the human mind was divided into three divisions: the id, ego, and superego, which, in turn, had both conscious and unconscious portions. The id, motivated by two biological drives—sex and aggression—operates according to the pleasure principle, seeking satisfaction and avoiding pain. Guided by the reality principle, the ego's goal is to find safe and…
Unconscious motivation plays a prominent role in Sigmund Freud's theories of human behavior. According to Freud and his followers, most human behavior is the result of desires, impulses, and memories that have been repressed into an unconscious state, yet still influence actions. Freud believed that the human mind consists of a tiny, conscious part that is available for direct observation a…
The high incidence of violence in the United States is of great concern to citizens, lawmakers, and law enforcement agencies alike. Between 1960 and 1991, violent crime in the U.S. rose over 370 percent, and over 600,000 Americans are victimized by handgun crimes annually. Violent acts committed by juveniles are of particular concern: the number of American adolescents arrested for homicide has in…
The human eye is sensitive to only a limited range of radiation, consisting of wavelengths between approximately 400 to 750 nanometers (billionths of a meter). How the eye works. (Hans & Cassidy. Gale Research. Reproduced with permission.) The full spectrum of visible color is contained within this range, with violet at the low end and red at the high end. Light is converted into neu…
Withdrawal behavior is characterized by the tendency to avoid the unfamiliar, either people, places, or situations. Though withdrawal, or avoidance, can be the result of a temperamental tendency toward inhibition to unfamiliar events, anxiety over the anticipation of a critical evaluation, or a conditioned avoidant response, often called a phobia, can produce withdrawal. These are three different …