Psychology Vocabulary

An emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure.

A

A range of mental processes relating to the acquisition, storage, manipulation, and retrieval of information.

C

A repetitive behavior or mental act that a person feels driven to perform in response to an obsession.

C

A logical approach whereby one uses general observations to make specific conclusions.

D

A mental process where a person disconnects from their thoughts, feelings, memories or sense of identity.

D

In psychoanalytic theory, that portion of the human personality which is experienced as the “self” or “I” and is in contact with the external world through perception.

E

A conscious mental reaction subjectively experienced as a strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body.

E

The ability to both manage one’s own emotions and understand the emotions of people around one.

E

The gradual weakening of a conditioned response that results in the behavior decreasing or disappearing.

E

The psychoanalytic technique of allowing a patient to discuss, without input or direction, thoughts, dreams, memories, or words, regardless of coherency, in order to analyze current issues.

F

A person's internal and individual sense and experience of gender.

G

A decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations.

H

A false perception of objects or events involving one’s senses.

H

A type of cognitive bias in which our overall impression of a person influences how we feel and think about their character.

H

In psychoanalytic theory, the primitive and instinctive component of personality.

I

Orientation toward the internal private world of one’s self and one’s inner thoughts and feelings, rather than toward the outer world of people and things.

I

In psychoanalytic theory, psychic drive or energy, usually conceived as sexual in nature, but sometimes conceived as including other forms of desire.

L

A repeated thought, urge, or mental image that is intrusive, unwanted, and that may cause anxiety.

O

A period of extreme anxiety and physical symptoms such as heart palpitations, shakiness, dizziness and racing thoughts.

P

An overwhelming and debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal.

P

The process of rewarding or reinforcing desirable behavior in order to increase the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated in the future.

P

A defense mechanism by which an individual unconsciously attributes their behaviors, emotions, impulses, undesirable characteristics, and thoughts to others.

P

The loss of at least some contact with reality, possibly involving hallucinations, delusions and/or disorientation.

P

A defense mechanism whereby one attempts to justify behaviors, thoughts or feelings with a logical (but false) explanation.

R

A tendency to fill in gaps in our memory with information we learned after the event, and to believe the “filler” represents actual memories.

R

A defense mechanism by which unpleasant emotions, impulses, memories, and thoughts are pushed out of conscious awareness.

R

Any agent, event, or situation — internal or external — that elicits a response.

S

Anything, internal or external, that applies psychological pressure on an individual.

S

In psychoanalytic theory, the ethical component of the personality that provides the moral standards by which the “self” operates.

S

The vast sum of operations of the mind that take place below the level of conscious awareness.

U