Psychology Glossary

I am Alexis Giroux, and I study Social Science: psychology. This program is about the way that psychology (study of the human mind and its mental processes, feelings, and behavior) has been created and how it has developed. This glossary is for those who want to know more about psychology related words. It contains definitions from google, images from Wikimedia Commons, automatic translations to French, and example sentences from the Lextutor Concordancer.

psychology: noun; The scientific study of the human mind and its mental processes, feelings, and behavior.; Example: Aware of this, the positivists take the view of the behaviourism school of thought, which is restrained to the observable behaviour, captured by the senses, thus discarding emotions, beliefs, values etc In response to this view, that rejects abstract and invisible factors affecting human behaviour, the phenomenologists separated PSYCHOLOGY into cognitive PSYCHOLOGY and social PSYCHOLOGY.; fr: psychologie
behavior: noun; The way a person, animal, system, or machine acts, functions, or responds to its environment.; Example: Some researches suggested that 'stress induced by increased task demands decreases interpersonal sensitivity and helping BEHAVIOR' (Podsakoff et al., 1990: 136).; fr: comportement
mind: noun; The part of a person that enables them to think, feel, perceive, and reason.; Example: He suggests that the images are the product of a 'primal MIND' and that the art is the 'human consciousness in the process of growth'.; fr: esprit
emotions: noun; A complex mental and physical reaction to an internal or external event.; Example: In effect, Armitage's general divergence from the conventional form emulates the atypical way in which he sought to win the affection of the girl he was in love with at the tender age of thirteen; this coupled with the simple language mimics the inability of a child at this age to display their affections appropriately as well as dealing with such EMOTIONS.; fr: émotions
personality: noun; the unique combination of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that makes one individual different from another; Example: The former were against the style of leadership which they dubbed 'vertical centralism' which involved the rule of a minority clique or increasingly a single PERSONALITY.; fr: personnalité
cognition: noun; The mental process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.; Example: For if we don't know how to recognize the COGNITION that is true, how are we to proceed?; fr: cognition
memory: noun; The power or process of recording, storing, and recalling past experiences, information, or learned facts.; Example: A body of data associated with different, through connected, people such as corporate MEMORY.; fr: mémoire
perception: noun; The process of taking in, organizing, and interpreting sensory information to understand the world around us.; Example: Similarly, Porter and Lawler (1968) indicated that performance was caused by the multiplication of effort, abilities and traits of the individual and role PERCEPTION.; fr: perception
motivation: noun; The drive that makes you act, move forward, and reach your goals.; Example: The most complex of these areas is altering the rewards system, as this links to theories of MOTIVATION and job design, of which there are many, often conflicting, views.; fr: motivation
intelligence: noun; The general mental capacity to learn, reason, understand, solve problems, and adapt to new situations.; Example: When she visits Tom at Mr Stelling's house Phillip Wakem notices the 'unsatisfied INTELLIGENCE' in her eyes.; fr: intelligence
mental: adjective; Relating to the mind, thinking, or intellectual activity.; Example: In captivity opportunities to exercise these MENTAL abilities can be provided through object manipulation or feeding devices.; fr: mental
development: noun; The process of growing, changing, or creating something new to become more advanced, mature, or effective.; Example: This report will illustrate a case study of rice production system in Sri Lanka, evaluate constraints on the current productivity and appraise some suggestions for DEVELOPMENT.; fr: développement
therapy: noun; A treatment intended to heal or relieve a physical, mental, or emotional disorder or injury.; Example: Therefore, reperfusion arrhythmias should not be used on its own for the detection of reperfusion after thrombolytic THERAPY, but to be used in conjunction with other reperfusion markers (Kucia and Zeitz 2002, Spriers 2003, Kovac and Gershlick 2001).; fr: thérapie
trauma: noun; An emotional and physical response to an event or a series of events that severely overwhelms a person's ability to cope.; Example: It is a language disorder caused by damage to the brain either by a viral infection, a stroke or head TRAUMA.; fr: traumatisme
stress: noun; The natural physical and mental response your body and brain have when you face a challenge, demand, or change.; Example: However, employees felt STRESS, unsatisfied and unhappy to work in late 1990s because of Greenbury's autocratic approach and cutting of staff.; fr: stresser
anxiety: noun; A normal human emotion characterized by an uncomfortable feeling of worry, apprehension, or dread about future events or perceived threats.; Example: One of my ANXIETY-inducing problems is that I am confused by the discharge planning system.; fr: anxiété
depression: noun; A common and serious mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed.; Example: Yoga practice and meditation could therefore potentially improve Michelle's DEPRESSION.; fr: dépression
neuroscience: noun; The scientific study of the nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves.; Example: Indeed there has been much recent work on the discovery of mirror neurons in NEUROSCIENCE, first discovered in macaques, but now have also been observed in humans in the superior temporal sulcus and Broca's area, both associated with cognitive language capacity (Rizzolatti and Arbib 1998).; fr: neuroscience
research: noun; A careful, systematic process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting information to increase human knowledge, solve problems, or answer specific questions.; Example: Impact of HIV AIDS on African agriculture and the role of the consultative group on agricultural RESEARCH.; fr: recherche
empathy: noun; The ability to understand and share the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another person.; Example: This was to convey a positive attitude and show EMPATHY.; fr: empathie