| applied psychologists | Psychologists who use knowledge of psychology to solve and prevent human problems.
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| behavior | Directly observable and measurable human actions.
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| behaviorism | The school of psychology that emphasizes the process of learning and the measurement of overt behavior.
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| clinical method | The method of studying people while they are receiving psychological help from a psychologist.
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| cognition | Mental processes of perceiving, believing, thinking, remembering, knowing, deciding, and so on.
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| Cognitive psychology | The viewpoint in psychology that emphasizes the importance of cognitive processes, such as perception, memory, and thinking.
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| control group | The group in simple experiments that receives none of the independent variable and is used for comparisons with the treatment group.
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| correlational method | A research method that measures the strength of the relation between variables.
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| cultural relativity | The perspective that promotes thinking of different cultures in relative terms rather than judgmental terms.
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| culture | The patterns of behavior, beliefs, and values shared by a group of people.
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| dependent variable | The variable whose quantitative value depends on the effects of the independent variable.
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| ethnic group | A group of persons who are descendants of a common group of ancestors.
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| ethnic identity | Each person's sense of belonging to a particular ethnic group.
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| experimental group | The group in an experiment that receives some value of the independent variable.
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| formal experiment | Research method that allows the researcher to manipulate the independent variable to study its effect on the dependent variable.
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| functionalism | The nineteenth-century school of psychology that emphasized the useful functions of consciousness.
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| gender identity | One's view of oneself as male or female.
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| Gestalt psychology | The school of thought based on the belief that human consciousness cannot be broken down into its elements.
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| gestalt | An organized or unified whole.
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| humanistic psychology | The psychological view that human beings possess an innate tendency to improve and determine their lives by the decisions they make.
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| independent variable | The variable whose quantitative value can be independently controlled by the researcher.
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| introspection | The process of looking inward at one's own consciousness.
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| mental processes | Private psychological activities that include thinking, perceiving, and feeling.
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| motives | Internal states or conditions that activate behavior and give it direction.
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| naturalistic observation | A research method based on recording behavior as it occurs in natural life settings.
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| neuroscience perspective | The viewpoint in psychology that focuses on the nervous system in explaining behavior and mental processes.
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| phi phenomenon | The perception of apparent movement between two stationary stimuli.
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| psychoanalysis | The technique of helping persons with emotional problems based on Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious mind.
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| psychology | The science of behavior and mental processes.
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| quantitative measures | Capable of being measured in numerical terms.
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| science | Approach to knowledge based on systematic observation.
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| scientific methods | Methods of gathering information based on systematic observation.
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| social learning theory | The viewpoint that the most important aspects of our behavior are learned from other persons in society-family, friends, and culture.
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| sociocultural perspective | The theory of psychology that states that it is necessary to understand one's culture, ethnic identity, and other sociocultural factors to fully understand a person.
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| structuralism | The nineteenth-century school of psychology that sought to determine the structure of the mind through controlled introspection.
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| survey method | A research method that utilizes interviews and questionnaires with individuals in the community.
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| theories | Tentative explanations of facts and relationships in sciences.
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| unconscious mind | All mental activity of which we are unaware.
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| variable | A factor whose numerical value can change.
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2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education