Panic disorder

P

Panic disorder

An anxiety disorder marked by a minutes-long episode of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations.

Parallel processing

The processing of several aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain’s natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision.  Contrasts with the step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving.

Parapsychology

The study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis.

Parasympathetic nervous system

The division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy.

Parietal

The portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top of the head and toward the rear; includes the sensory cortex.

Partial (intermittent) reinforcement

Reinforcing a response only part of the timely results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement.

Passionate love

An aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship.

Perception

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.

Perceptual adaptation

In vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaces or even inverted visual field.

Perceptual constancy

Perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change.

Perceptual set

A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.

Peripheral nervous system (PNS)

The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body.

Personal control

Our sense of controlling our environment rather than feelings helpless.

Personal space

The buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies

Personality

An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Personality disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning.

Personal inventory

A questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feeling and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits.

PET (positron emission tomography) scan

A visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task

Phi phenomenon

An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in succession

Phobia

An anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object or situation.

Phoneme

In a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

Physical dependence

A psychological need for a drug, marked by unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the drug is discontinued.

Pitch

A tone’s highness or lowness; depends on frequency.

Pituitary gland

The endocrine system’s most influential gland.  Under the influence of the hypothalamus, the pituitary regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands.

Place theory

In hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea’s membrane is stimulated

Placebo

An inert substance or condition that may be administered instead of a presumed active agent, such as a drug, to see if it triggers the effects believed to characterize the active agent.

Placebo effect

any effect on behavior caused by a placebo

plasticity

the brain’s capacity for modification, as evident in brain reorganization following damage (especially in children) and in experiments on the effects of experience on brain development.

Polygraph

A machine commonly used in attempts to detect lies that measures several of the physiological responses accompanying emotion (such as perspiration, heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing changes).

Population

All the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study.

Positive psychology

The scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote condition that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Posthypnotic amnesia

Supposed inability to recall what one experienced during hypnosis; induced by the hypnotist’s suggestion.

Posthypnotic suggestion

A suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out of the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors.

Preconscious

Information that is not conscious but is retrievable into conscious awareness.

Predictive validity

The success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior

Prejudice

An unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members.  Prejudice generally involved stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action

Preoperational stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learned to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.

Primary reinforcer

An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfied a biological need.

Primary sex characteristics

The body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible.

Priming

The activation, often unconsciously, of a particular associations in memory.

Proactive interference

The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information

Projection

The defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

Projective test

A personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of ones inner dynamics.

Prosocial behavior

Positive, constructive, helpful behavior.  The opposite and antisocial behavior.

Prototype

A mental image or best example of a category.  Matching new items to the prototype provides a quick and easy method for including items in a category (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin.)

Psychiatry

a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy

Psychoactive drug

A chemical substance that alters perceptions and mood

Psychoanalysis

Freud’s theory of personality and therapeutic technique that attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts.  Freud believed the patient’s free association’s, resistances, dreams, and transferences-and the therapist’s interpretations of them-released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight.

Psychological dependence

A psychological need to use a drug, such as to relieve negative emotions.

Psychological disorder

A “harmful dysfunction” in which behavior is judged to be atypical, disturbing, maladaptive, and unjustifiable

Psychology

The science of behavior and mental processes

Psychopharmacology

The study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.

Psychophysics

The study of relationships between the psychical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them.

Psychophysiological illness

Literally, “mind-body” illness; any stress-related physical illness, such as hypertension and some headaches

Psychosexual stages

The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.

Psychosurgery

Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior.

Psychotherapy

An emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and someone who suffers from psychological difficulties.

Psychotic disorder

A psychological disorder in which a person loses contact with reality, experiencing irrational ideas and distorted perceptions.

Puberty

The period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproduction.

Punishment

An event that decreases the behavior that hit follows.

Pupil

The adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters.