NASM-BCS Glossary
Accomodating
A learning style in which people learn by doing and feeling.
Action
The fourth stage in the Stages of Change model, in which the person has made specific
overt modifications in his or her lifestyle within the past six months.
Adherence
Adoption of healthier behaviors.
Aggressiveness
An act that achieves the desire goals by hurting or taking advantage of others; it is
expressive but, at the expense of other people.
Agreeableness
One of the Big Five personality dimensions; it reflects a person's tendency to be
compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others.
Alternative Thoughts
More constructive, hopeful and positive thoughts that represent means to avoid
automatic problematic thoughts; also know as "turn-around" thoughts.
Anecdotal Reports
Individuals' reports of their own experiences.
Assertiveness
Any act that serves to maintain a person's rights; the open expression of preferences by
words or actions in a manner that causes others to take them into account.
Assertive Training
Training in assertiveness that includes a heavy emphasis on role playing; a form of
Modeling.
Assessment
The process by which they understand their clients and gather adequate data to
formulate diagnoses.
Assimilating
A learning style in which people learn by watching and thinking.
Automatic Problematic Thoughts (APTs)
Irrational thoughts based on extreme words, which tend to exaggerate ideas and
events, sometimes creating a sense of hopelessness and absolute words, sometimes
called "categorical imperatives", which demand certain actions or outcomes.
Barriers
Elements of life that clients perceive as getting in the way of meeting their health goals.
Barriers can be viewed as either positive or negative.
Behavioral Coaching
A type of coaching that emphasizes modeling and guided imitation.
Behavior Therapy
The application of principles derived from scientific research and theorizing about
learning, generally called modern learning therapy (classical and operant conditioning)
to problems in living.
Beneficence
, Striving to benefit those with whom the professional works; one of the APA Ethics
Codes General Principles.
Big Five
Five broad dimensions of personality that describe people's general tendencies to
behave in predictable ways: openness to experiences, conscientiousness, extraversion,
agreeableness, and neuroticism
Bio-informational theory
A theory based on the assumption that an image
is a functionally organized set of propositions stored in the brain; it holds that a
description of an image consists of two main types of statements: response and
stimulus propositions.
Body mass index (BMI)
A standard measure of weight divided by height.
Case studies
Studies in which the researcher closely observes, monitors, and records an individual's
behavior over a period of time.
Classical conditioning
Learning through associations between a neutral environmental stimulus (a conditioned
stimulus) and a naturally occurring stimulus (the unconditioned stimulus).
Coaching
In a helping profession, the connection between two individuals, in which the coach,
primarily through asking questions, encourages the client to make the changes the
client desires in his or her life
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
A group of psychological treatments
based on science that focus on how people's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors affect
one another.
Cognitive distortions
Viewpoints that highlight the information that supports
a schema and minimize the information that contradicts it.
Cognitive restructuring
See Rational emotive therapy.
Collective efficacy
A social approach to self-efficacy in which only groups
of people can achieve tasks, not just the individual.
Compliance
Following the fitness or wellness professional's suggestions.
Conditioned response
A response to a conditioned stimulus that is learned
via a repeated pairing between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli.
Conditioned stimulus
A neutral stimulus that, after becoming associated with
an unconditioned stimulus, eventually comes to trigger (via a learning process) a
specific response
Conscientiousness
Accomodating
A learning style in which people learn by doing and feeling.
Action
The fourth stage in the Stages of Change model, in which the person has made specific
overt modifications in his or her lifestyle within the past six months.
Adherence
Adoption of healthier behaviors.
Aggressiveness
An act that achieves the desire goals by hurting or taking advantage of others; it is
expressive but, at the expense of other people.
Agreeableness
One of the Big Five personality dimensions; it reflects a person's tendency to be
compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others.
Alternative Thoughts
More constructive, hopeful and positive thoughts that represent means to avoid
automatic problematic thoughts; also know as "turn-around" thoughts.
Anecdotal Reports
Individuals' reports of their own experiences.
Assertiveness
Any act that serves to maintain a person's rights; the open expression of preferences by
words or actions in a manner that causes others to take them into account.
Assertive Training
Training in assertiveness that includes a heavy emphasis on role playing; a form of
Modeling.
Assessment
The process by which they understand their clients and gather adequate data to
formulate diagnoses.
Assimilating
A learning style in which people learn by watching and thinking.
Automatic Problematic Thoughts (APTs)
Irrational thoughts based on extreme words, which tend to exaggerate ideas and
events, sometimes creating a sense of hopelessness and absolute words, sometimes
called "categorical imperatives", which demand certain actions or outcomes.
Barriers
Elements of life that clients perceive as getting in the way of meeting their health goals.
Barriers can be viewed as either positive or negative.
Behavioral Coaching
A type of coaching that emphasizes modeling and guided imitation.
Behavior Therapy
The application of principles derived from scientific research and theorizing about
learning, generally called modern learning therapy (classical and operant conditioning)
to problems in living.
Beneficence
, Striving to benefit those with whom the professional works; one of the APA Ethics
Codes General Principles.
Big Five
Five broad dimensions of personality that describe people's general tendencies to
behave in predictable ways: openness to experiences, conscientiousness, extraversion,
agreeableness, and neuroticism
Bio-informational theory
A theory based on the assumption that an image
is a functionally organized set of propositions stored in the brain; it holds that a
description of an image consists of two main types of statements: response and
stimulus propositions.
Body mass index (BMI)
A standard measure of weight divided by height.
Case studies
Studies in which the researcher closely observes, monitors, and records an individual's
behavior over a period of time.
Classical conditioning
Learning through associations between a neutral environmental stimulus (a conditioned
stimulus) and a naturally occurring stimulus (the unconditioned stimulus).
Coaching
In a helping profession, the connection between two individuals, in which the coach,
primarily through asking questions, encourages the client to make the changes the
client desires in his or her life
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
A group of psychological treatments
based on science that focus on how people's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors affect
one another.
Cognitive distortions
Viewpoints that highlight the information that supports
a schema and minimize the information that contradicts it.
Cognitive restructuring
See Rational emotive therapy.
Collective efficacy
A social approach to self-efficacy in which only groups
of people can achieve tasks, not just the individual.
Compliance
Following the fitness or wellness professional's suggestions.
Conditioned response
A response to a conditioned stimulus that is learned
via a repeated pairing between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli.
Conditioned stimulus
A neutral stimulus that, after becoming associated with
an unconditioned stimulus, eventually comes to trigger (via a learning process) a
specific response
Conscientiousness
