164 terms
Addiction
Addiction involves the body and mind becoming reliant on a substance or behaviour. Four key features describe it: physic
Addiction
Addiction
Some people are more likely to develop an addiction than others. Five key risk factors increase that likelihood: genes,
Addiction
Addiction
Nicotine triggers the release of dopamine, a brain chemical that produces feelings of pleasure. The brain learns to crav
Addiction
Addiction
Learning theory explains how people become addicted to smoking through reward and association. Certain sights, smells, o
Addiction
Addiction
Learning theory explains gambling addiction through conditioning. Gamblers learn to repeat gambling because winning feel
Addiction
Addiction
Gambling keeps people hooked because wins are unpredictable. Rewards that arrive randomly — not every time — make behavi
Addiction
Addiction
Cognitive theory explains gambling addiction through faulty thinking patterns called cognitive biases. These biases caus
Addiction
Addiction
Drug therapy uses prescribed medication to reduce or stop addictive behaviour. Drugs either replace the addictive substa
Addiction
Addiction
Aversion therapy and covert sensitisation are treatments that pair an addictive behaviour with something unpleasant. Thi
Addiction
Addiction
CBT is a talking therapy that helps people with addiction spot and change the faulty thoughts that drive their addictive
Addiction
Addiction
The theory of planned behaviour says three things shape whether someone intends to act: their own attitude, what others
Addiction
Addiction
Prochaska's model describes six stages a person moves through when giving up an addiction. People can move forward, stal
Addiction
Aggression
Certain brain structures and body chemicals influence how aggressively a person behaves. The limbic system, the hormone
Aggression
Aggression
Some genes may make a person more likely to behave aggressively. The MAOA gene controls a brain chemical linked to aggre
Aggression
Aggression
Ethologists argue that animals, including humans, are born with automatic aggressive responses. A specific trigger in th
Aggression
Aggression
Evolutionary explanations argue that humans evolved aggressive behaviours because those behaviours helped our ancestors
Aggression
Aggression
The frustration-aggression hypothesis proposes that aggression always results from frustration. Frustration occurs whene
Aggression
Aggression
Social learning theory says people learn to be aggressive by watching others and copying them. A child who sees aggressi
Aggression
Aggression
De-individuation happens when people lose their sense of personal identity in a crowd or online. This loss of identity r
Aggression
Aggression
Psychologists disagree about why violence occurs in prisons. Some blame the personalities inmates bring with them. Other
Aggression
Aggression
Watching or playing violent media can make people behave more aggressively. Researchers study whether violent computer g
Aggression
Aggression
Watching violent media can make aggression feel normal, lower your resistance to acting aggressively, and put aggressive
Aggression
Attachment
Caregivers and babies communicate through two patterns of behaviour. Each takes turns responding to the other (reciproci
Attachment
Attachment
Schaffer identified four stages that babies pass through as they form emotional bonds with caregivers. Each stage brings
Attachment
Attachment
Babies form emotional bonds with several caregivers, not just one. Fathers can play a distinct role in a child's develop
Attachment
Attachment
Lorenz and Harlow used animals to study how young creatures form close bonds. Their findings helped psychologists unders
Attachment
Attachment
Two theories explain why babies form attachments. Learning theory says babies attach to whoever feeds them. Bowlby's mon
Attachment
Attachment
Bowlby argued that babies must form an attachment within a fixed time window. That early bond then creates a mental temp
Attachment
Attachment
Mary Ainsworth designed a controlled observation called the Strange Situation. It measures the strength and type of atta
Attachment
Attachment
Psychologists classify the bond between a child and their caregiver into three types. Each type describes how the child
Attachment
Attachment
Researchers have tested attachment types across many countries. They find secure attachment is most common everywhere, b
Attachment
Attachment
Bowlby argued that separating a child from their main caregiver during early childhood causes permanent damage to the ch
Attachment
Attachment
Studies of Romanian orphans show how growing up in a care institution, without a consistent caregiver, causes lasting da
Attachment
Attachment
Your first attachment relationship acts as a mental template. It shapes how you behave in friendships, romantic relation
Attachment
Cognition and development
Piaget argued that children build knowledge through mental frameworks called schemas. When new information challenges a
Cognition and development
Cognition and development
Piaget argued that children think differently at different ages. Each stage of development has distinct mental abilities
Cognition and development
Cognition and development
Vygotsky argued that children learn best through guidance from a more skilled person. The zone of proximal development i
Cognition and development
Cognition and development
Renée Baillargeon argued that babies understand basic physical rules far earlier than Piaget claimed. Her research showe
Cognition and development
Cognition and development
Violation of expectation is a research method that measures how long babies stare at an event. Babies stare longer at im
Cognition and development
Cognition and development
Selman described five stages children pass through as they learn to understand other people's thoughts and feelings. You
Cognition and development
Cognition and development
Theory of mind is the ability to understand that other people have their own thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that differ
Cognition and development
Cognition and development
The Sally-Anne study tests whether a child understands that another person can hold a false belief. Children who pass th
Cognition and development
Cognition and development
Mirror neurons are brain cells that fire both when you perform an action and when you watch someone else do it. This sys
Cognition and development
Eating behaviour
Evolution shaped what humans enjoy eating. We evolved to prefer safe, energy-rich foods and to avoid unfamiliar or poiso
Eating behaviour
Eating behaviour
People learn to prefer certain foods through experience, not just instinct. The people around us and the culture we grow
Eating behaviour
Eating behaviour
The brain and hormones work together to control when you feel hungry and when you feel full. A brain structure called th
Eating behaviour
Eating behaviour
Biological explanations argue that genes and brain chemistry make some people vulnerable to anorexia nervosa — a serious
Eating behaviour
Eating behaviour
Family systems theory argues that unhealthy family dynamics can trigger anorexia nervosa. The person uses control over e
Eating behaviour
Eating behaviour
Social learning theory argues that people develop anorexia by watching others restrict food and receiving praise for bei
Eating behaviour
Eating behaviour
Cognitive theory argues that people with anorexia nervosa hold distorted, faulty thoughts about their body and food. The
Eating behaviour
Eating behaviour
Some people become obese partly because of their genes or differences in how their brain controls hunger. These biologic
Eating behaviour
Eating behaviour
Some psychologists explain obesity through the way people think about food and dieting. Trying too hard to restrict eati
Eating behaviour
Eating behaviour
Psychologists use several theories to explain why diets sometimes work and often fail. These theories focus on how the b
Eating behaviour
Forensic Psychology
The top-down approach uses crime scene evidence to place an offender into a pre-built category. Investigators then predi
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
The bottom-up approach builds a picture of an unknown offender by analysing patterns in crime scene evidence. Psychologi
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Geographical profiling uses the locations of a series of crimes to predict where an offender most likely lives or works.
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Lombroso argued that criminals are born, not made. He claimed you could identify a criminal by their physical appearance
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Some researchers argue that genes and brain structure can make a person more likely to commit crimes. These biological f
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Eysenck argued that some people are born with a personality type that makes them more likely to commit crime. Three pers
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Cognitive explanations argue that faulty thinking patterns cause criminal behaviour. Offenders process social situations
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Some offenders think about situations in distorted ways that make offending feel justified. Two key distortions are misr
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Differential association theory argues that people learn to commit crimes from others. Spending more time with pro-crimi
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Psychodynamic explanations argue that offending comes from unresolved conflicts in the unconscious mind. Early childhood
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Custodial sentencing means sending someone to prison. Courts use it for several different reasons, and imprisonment also
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Recidivism means reoffending — when a person who has already been convicted of a crime goes on to commit another crime.
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Behaviour modification uses rewards to change offenders' behaviour inside prison. Psychologists design programmes that r
Forensic Psychology
Forensic Psychology
Anger management teaches offenders to control their emotions and behaviour. Restorative justice brings offenders face-to
Forensic Psychology
Gender
Sex refers to biological differences between males and females. Gender refers to the psychological and social sense of b
Gender
Gender
Androgyny means having both masculine and feminine traits at the same time. Sandra Bem created a questionnaire called th
Gender
Gender
Your biological sex comes from chromosomes inherited at conception. Hormones then shape your body and may also influence
Gender
Gender
Sometimes people are born with an unusual number of sex chromosomes. Klinefelter's syndrome (XXY) affects males, and Tur
Gender
Gender
Kohlberg argued that children actively think their way through three stages to understand their own gender. They move fr
Gender
Gender
Gender schema theory explains how children build mental frameworks about gender. They use these frameworks to organise t
Gender
Gender
Freud argued that children develop their gender identity during a specific stage of childhood. They do this by copying t
Gender
Gender
Freud argued that children resolve unconscious desire for the opposite-sex parent by copying the same-sex parent. This c
Gender
Gender
Social learning theory says children learn gender-typed behaviour by watching and copying others. They are more likely t
Gender
Gender
Culture and media shape what behaviours a society considers normal for men and women. Different societies and different
Gender
Gender
Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences deep distress because their gender identity does not match th
Gender
Gender
Psychologists disagree about what causes gender dysphoria. Some point to biological factors like genes and hormones. Oth
Gender
Issues and debates in Psychology
Psychology claims to discover truths about all humans. But many studies only test certain groups, so their findings may
Issues and debates in Psychology
Issues and debates in Psychology
Gender bias occurs when psychology research treats one gender's experience as the norm. This distorts our understanding
Issues and debates in Psychology
Issues and debates in Psychology
Cultural bias happens when psychologists judge other cultures using their own culture as the standard. This distorts res
Issues and debates in Psychology
Issues and debates in Psychology
Hard determinism says every human action has a prior cause, leaving no room for choice. Soft determinism accepts that ca
Issues and debates in Psychology
Issues and debates in Psychology
Determinism is the view that forces outside our control cause our behaviour. Psychologists disagree about whether those
Issues and debates in Psychology
Issues and debates in Psychology
Science tries to find causes — it asks what makes behaviour happen, not just what behaviour looks like. Psychology adopt
Issues and debates in Psychology
Issues and debates in Psychology
The nature-nurture debate asks whether genes or life experiences shape who we are. Psychologists disagree about how much
Issues and debates in Psychology
Issues and debates in Psychology
The interactionist approach argues that nature (genes) and nurture (environment) work together to shape behaviour. Neith
Issues and debates in Psychology
Issues and debates in Psychology
Reductionism breaks behaviour down into its simplest parts. Holism argues you must study the whole person to fully under
Issues and debates in Psychology
Issues and debates in Psychology
Reductionism means explaining complex behaviour using only one simple level of analysis. Biological reductionism uses br
Issues and debates in Psychology
Issues and debates in Psychology
Psychologists either study individuals in depth to understand what makes them unique (idiographic), or study large group
Issues and debates in Psychology
Issues and debates in Psychology
Some psychological research produces findings that can harm or stigmatise entire social groups. Socially sensitive resea
Issues and debates in Psychology
Memory
The multi-store model describes memory as three separate stores. Information flows from the sensory register into short-
Memory
Memory
Each memory store handles information differently. The three stores — sensory register, short-term memory, and long-term
Memory
Memory
Long-term memory (LTM) splits into three types. Episodic memory stores personal experiences, semantic memory stores fact
Memory
Memory
The working memory model, proposed by Baddeley and Hitch, describes short-term memory as four separate components. Each
Memory
Memory
Each part of working memory handles a different type of information. The phonological loop processes sounds, the visuo-s
Memory
Memory
Interference explains forgetting by arguing that similar memories compete with each other. Old memories can disrupt new
Memory
Memory
Sometimes a memory exists but you cannot access it because the right trigger is missing. Retrieval failure explains forg
Memory
Memory
Misleading information can distort what an eyewitness remembers. This happens through biased questions during interviews
Memory
Memory
Anxiety — the feeling of stress or fear — can change how accurately a witness remembers a crime. High anxiety sometimes
Memory
Memory
Psychologists have developed interviewing techniques to help witnesses remember crime events more accurately. The most r
Memory
Psychopathology
This definition labels behaviour as abnormal when it breaks the unwritten rules a society expects people to follow. Refu
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
Failure to function adequately defines someone as abnormal when they can no longer cope with the demands of everyday lif
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
Statistical infrequency defines a behaviour as abnormal when it is rare in the population. Psychologists use statistics
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
Psychologist Marie Jahoda listed six qualities that mentally healthy people possess. Anyone who lacks several of these q
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
A phobia is an intense, irrational fear of a specific object or situation. Psychologists describe phobias using three ty
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
Depression produces three types of characteristics. Behaviourally, people withdraw and slow down. Emotionally, they feel
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
OCD causes people to experience unwanted, repetitive thoughts and feel compelled to carry out rituals to relieve the anx
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
The two-process model explains how phobias first develop through a frightening experience, then persist because avoiding
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
Systematic desensitisation treats phobias by gradually exposing a person to their fear. The therapist pairs each small s
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
Flooding treats phobias by exposing a person directly to their most feared stimulus all at once. The person stays in tha
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
Aaron Beck argued that depressed people hold three interlocking negative beliefs: about themselves, about the world, and
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
Ellis's ABC model says that irrational beliefs — not bad events themselves — cause depression. A negative event triggers
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
CBT is a talking therapy that treats depression by helping patients identify and challenge the negative, distorted thoug
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
The biological approach argues that OCD runs in families due to inherited genes. It also links OCD to abnormal activity
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
Doctors treat OCD with drugs that correct chemical imbalances in the brain. The most common drugs increase the availabil
Psychopathology
Relationships
Evolutionary psychology argues that humans evolved specific preferences for romantic partners. These preferences exist b
Relationships
Relationships
Self-disclosure means sharing personal information with another person. Gradually revealing more about yourself builds t
Relationships
Relationships
People tend to find physically attractive individuals more appealing as romantic partners. The matching hypothesis adds
Relationships
Relationships
Filter theory says people narrow down potential partners in three stages. Each stage acts like a filter, removing unsuit
Relationships
Relationships
Social exchange theory says people treat relationships like financial deals. They weigh up the rewards they gain against
Relationships
Relationships
Equity theory says people feel satisfied in a relationship when both partners receive rewards proportional to what they
Relationships
Relationships
Rusbult's investment model explains why people stay in relationships. It says commitment depends on how satisfied you fe
Relationships
Relationships
Duck's phase model describes four stages a person moves through when a relationship breaks down. Each stage involves dif
Relationships
Relationships
Online relationships change how much people reveal about themselves. People often share more personal information online
Relationships
Relationships
In face-to-face relationships, gates are barriers — like physical appearance or shyness — that can stop a relationship f
Relationships
Relationships
A parasocial relationship is a one-sided bond a person feels with a celebrity. Researchers identify three levels of inte
Relationships
Relationships
The absorption-addiction model explains how a fan's attachment to a celebrity can escalate through three increasingly in
Relationships
Relationships
Attachment theory suggests that the type of bond a person formed with their caregiver in childhood shapes how they form
Relationships
Schizophrenia
Classification means placing schizophrenia into a category using agreed diagnostic rules. Clinicians use two main system
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Positive symptoms are experiences that healthy people do not normally have. They add something to a person's behaviour,
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Negative symptoms are things a person with schizophrenia loses or stops doing. Speech poverty means speaking very little
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Diagnosing schizophrenia is difficult because clinicians often disagree, and several factors — including overlapping sym
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Biological explanations argue that schizophrenia has physical causes inside the body. These include inherited genes and
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Some psychologists explain schizophrenia through family relationships and faulty thinking patterns. Toxic communication
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Doctors treat schizophrenia with antipsychotic drugs. Older 'typical' drugs mainly reduce hallucinations and delusions.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
CBT helps patients challenge the distressing beliefs caused by schizophrenia. Family therapy reduces stress in the home
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
A token economy rewards patients with tokens whenever they show desirable behaviours. Staff then let patients exchange t
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
An interactionist approach combines biological and psychological factors to explain schizophrenia. No single cause tells
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
The diathesis-stress model says schizophrenia develops when a biological vulnerability combines with environmental stres
Schizophrenia
Social influence
Conformity means changing your behaviour or beliefs to match a group. Psychologists identify three types: compliance, id
Social influence
Social influence
Two processes drive conformity. Informational social influence (ISI) happens when you copy others because you think they
Social influence
Social influence
Asch found that how much people conform depends on three key factors. These are the size of the group, whether everyone
Social influence
Social influence
People often behave according to the role they are given, even when that role is artificial. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison
Social influence
Social influence
Milgram proposed two reasons why people obey authority figures. People hand over personal responsibility to the authorit
Social influence
Social influence
Certain features of a situation — how close you are to the victim, where you are, and whether authority figures wear uni
Social influence
Social influence
Some people obey authority more readily because of their personality type. Adorno called this the Authoritarian Personal
Social influence
Social influence
Sometimes people refuse to conform or obey, even under strong pressure. Two key reasons are having an ally who agrees wi
Social influence
Social influence
Minority influence happens when a small group persuades a larger majority to change their views. Three key conditions ma
Social influence
Social influence
Social change happens when whole societies shift their attitudes or behaviours. Processes like minority influence and co
Social influence
Stress
When the body faces a threat, it goes through a predictable sequence of physical responses. Hans Selye called this three
Stress
Stress
The HPA system is the body's slow-acting stress response. It runs from the brain to the adrenal glands and releases a ho
Stress
Stress
When you face a sudden threat, your brain triggers a fast hormonal chain reaction. This floods your body with adrenaline
Stress
Stress
Prolonged stress damages the body in two main ways. It weakens the immune system, making infection more likely, and it s
Stress
Stress
Stress can come from two main sources. Major life events — like divorce or bereavement — cause stress, and so do small,
Stress
Stress
Workplace stress occurs when job demands feel unmanageable. Two key causes are having too much work (workload) and havin
Stress
Stress
Psychologists use questionnaires to measure how stressed a person is. Two key tools are the Social Readjustment Rating S
Stress
Stress
Physiological measures record body changes that happen during stress. Skin conductance response (SCR) detects tiny incre
Stress
Stress
People differ in how they respond to stress based on their personality type. Types A, B and C each describe a distinct p
Stress
Stress
Hardiness is a personality trait that helps some people resist the damaging effects of stress. It has three components:
Stress
Stress
Doctors prescribe two main drug types to reduce stress. Benzodiazepines calm the nervous system, and beta blockers slow
Stress
Stress
Stress inoculation therapy teaches people to reframe stressful thinking and rehearse coping skills before stress hits. B
Stress
Stress
Men and women tend to cope with stress in different ways. Research suggests women lean toward seeking social support, wh
Stress
Stress
Social support from other people helps us cope with stress. It comes in three forms: practical help, emotional comfort,
Stress