Psychology Glossary
Taken from DE100 module textbooks – Investigating Psychology, Investigating
Intelligence, and Investigating Methods.
Acquiescence Response Bias – A tendency to agree with statements presented in scales,
regardless of content.
Anti-Semitism – Prejudice and hostility towards Jewish people.
Aphasia – Impairment to language or language disorder.
Attachment – A relatively long-term, emotionally important relationship in which one
individual seeks proximity to and derives security and comfort from the presence of
another.
Attention – A cognitive process involving the selection of information for further processing,
such as the extraction of meaning.
Attitudes – A person’s beliefs and feelings about issues, events, objects, or people, which
are thought to influence behaviour.
Authoritarian Personality – A kind of personality typified by obedience to authority, strict
adherence to rules, and hostility towards anyone different from oneself.
Autobiographical Memory – Remembering events that are of personal relevance.
Automatic Processing – The automatic processing of stimuli that occurs without conscious
awareness.
Avatar – A term used to describe an alternative virtual identity that is used in three-
dimensional computer games, or an image used to represent oneself in online
communication.
Battery of Tests – A series of tests aimed at measuring the same thing, such as intelligence.
Behaviour Shaping – The procedure of giving reinforcement for successive approximations
to the desired response.
Behaviourism – An approach in psychology, which argued that only observable behaviour
should form the object of study.
Between-Participants Design – Also referred to as an independent groups design. This is a
term used to describe the design of an experiment where participants take part in only one
condition.
Case Study – In neuropsychology, a case study is the in-depth study of a single individual,
which typically involves the collection of data from a variety of sources, using a range of
different methods.
Classical Conditioning – Conditioning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to trigger a
response by virtue of its pairing with an unconditional stimulus.
, Code/Coding – A way of describing observed behaviour using a set of predetermined
categories.
Cognitive – To do with mental processes, such as perception, memory and thinking.
Cognitive Interview – A procedure for interviewing witnesses that draws on research on
memory and incorporates a number of retrieval strategies.
Cognitive Psychology – The study of internal mental processes such as perception,
attention, memory, thinking, and learning.
Cognitive Style – The habitual way a person processes information.
Collectivist Cultures – Cultures characterised by a focus on values such as concern for others
and harmonious relationships.
Condition – A variation in the experimental procedure. By comparing different conditions,
researchers can make inferences about the effects of one variable on another.
Confirmatory Bias – A tendency to pay most attention to those features of a phenomenon
that appear to confirm prior expectations.
Confounding Variable – A variable that is not controlled by the controlled by the researcher
but that can affect the results.
Content Analysis – An approach to the analysis of written, audio, and visual material that
involves identifying and counting pre-selected features relevant to the research question.
Control Condition – The ‘baseline’ condition, against which experimental conditions can be
compared.
Control Group – Participants who are allocated to the ‘baseline’ or control condition.
Controlled Attention – The conscious allocation of resources to the processing of specific
stimuli.
Correlation – An association between two events, meaning that they tend to occur together
more often than one might expect by chance.
Correlation Coefficient – This is a measure of the strength and direction of the relationship
between two variables.
Cortex – The outer layer of the brain.
Counterbalancing – An aspect of experimental design that includes all possible orders in
which participants complete tasks or conditions, or in which experimenters present stimuli –
this is to control for order effects.
Craniometry – The study of people’s intellectual abilities based on the size and shape of
their head.
Crystallised Intelligence – The ability to apply acquired skills, knowledge, and experience to
novel situations.
Taken from DE100 module textbooks – Investigating Psychology, Investigating
Intelligence, and Investigating Methods.
Acquiescence Response Bias – A tendency to agree with statements presented in scales,
regardless of content.
Anti-Semitism – Prejudice and hostility towards Jewish people.
Aphasia – Impairment to language or language disorder.
Attachment – A relatively long-term, emotionally important relationship in which one
individual seeks proximity to and derives security and comfort from the presence of
another.
Attention – A cognitive process involving the selection of information for further processing,
such as the extraction of meaning.
Attitudes – A person’s beliefs and feelings about issues, events, objects, or people, which
are thought to influence behaviour.
Authoritarian Personality – A kind of personality typified by obedience to authority, strict
adherence to rules, and hostility towards anyone different from oneself.
Autobiographical Memory – Remembering events that are of personal relevance.
Automatic Processing – The automatic processing of stimuli that occurs without conscious
awareness.
Avatar – A term used to describe an alternative virtual identity that is used in three-
dimensional computer games, or an image used to represent oneself in online
communication.
Battery of Tests – A series of tests aimed at measuring the same thing, such as intelligence.
Behaviour Shaping – The procedure of giving reinforcement for successive approximations
to the desired response.
Behaviourism – An approach in psychology, which argued that only observable behaviour
should form the object of study.
Between-Participants Design – Also referred to as an independent groups design. This is a
term used to describe the design of an experiment where participants take part in only one
condition.
Case Study – In neuropsychology, a case study is the in-depth study of a single individual,
which typically involves the collection of data from a variety of sources, using a range of
different methods.
Classical Conditioning – Conditioning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to trigger a
response by virtue of its pairing with an unconditional stimulus.
, Code/Coding – A way of describing observed behaviour using a set of predetermined
categories.
Cognitive – To do with mental processes, such as perception, memory and thinking.
Cognitive Interview – A procedure for interviewing witnesses that draws on research on
memory and incorporates a number of retrieval strategies.
Cognitive Psychology – The study of internal mental processes such as perception,
attention, memory, thinking, and learning.
Cognitive Style – The habitual way a person processes information.
Collectivist Cultures – Cultures characterised by a focus on values such as concern for others
and harmonious relationships.
Condition – A variation in the experimental procedure. By comparing different conditions,
researchers can make inferences about the effects of one variable on another.
Confirmatory Bias – A tendency to pay most attention to those features of a phenomenon
that appear to confirm prior expectations.
Confounding Variable – A variable that is not controlled by the controlled by the researcher
but that can affect the results.
Content Analysis – An approach to the analysis of written, audio, and visual material that
involves identifying and counting pre-selected features relevant to the research question.
Control Condition – The ‘baseline’ condition, against which experimental conditions can be
compared.
Control Group – Participants who are allocated to the ‘baseline’ or control condition.
Controlled Attention – The conscious allocation of resources to the processing of specific
stimuli.
Correlation – An association between two events, meaning that they tend to occur together
more often than one might expect by chance.
Correlation Coefficient – This is a measure of the strength and direction of the relationship
between two variables.
Cortex – The outer layer of the brain.
Counterbalancing – An aspect of experimental design that includes all possible orders in
which participants complete tasks or conditions, or in which experimenters present stimuli –
this is to control for order effects.
Craniometry – The study of people’s intellectual abilities based on the size and shape of
their head.
Crystallised Intelligence – The ability to apply acquired skills, knowledge, and experience to
novel situations.
