Psychology Definitions

the mental activities involved in acquiring, retaining, and using knowledge.

the manipulation of mental representations of information in order to draw interferences and conclusions.

a mental representation of objects or events that are not physically present.

a mental category of objects or ideas based on properties they share.

a mental category that is formed by learning the rules or features that define it.

a mental category that is formed as a result of everyday experience.

the most typical instance of a particular concept.

individual instances of a concept or category, held in memory.

thinking and behavior directed toward attaining a goal that is not readily available.

a problem-solving strategy that involves attempting different solutions and eliminating those that do not work.

a problem-solving strategy that involves following a specific rule, procedure, or method that inevitably produces the correct solution.

a problem-solving strategy that involves following a general rule of thumb to reduce the number of possible solutions.

the sudden realization of how a problem can be solved.

coming to a conclusion or making a judgement without conscious awareness of the thought processes involved.

the tendency to view objects as functioning only in their usual or customary way.

the tendency to persist in solving problems with solutions that have worked in the past.

a strategy in which the likelihood of an event is estimated on the basis of how readily available other instances of the event are in memory.

a strategy in which the likelihood of an event is estimated by comparing how similar it is to the prototype of the event.

a system for combining arbitrary symbols to produce an infinite number of meaningful statements.

the hypothesis that differences among language cause differences in the thoughts of their speakers.

the study of animal learning, memory, thinking, and language; also called comparative cognition.

the global capacity to think rationally, act purposefully, and deal effectively with the environment.

a measurement of intelligence in which an individual's mental level is expressed in terms of the average abilities of a given age group.

a measure of general intelligence derived by comparing an individual's score with the scores of others in the same age group.

a test designed to measure a person's level of knowledge, skill, or accomplishment in a particular area.

a test designed to asses a person's capacity to benefit from education or training.

the administration of a test to a large, representative sample of people under uniform conditions for the purpose of establishing norms.

a bell-shaped distribution of individual differences in a normal population in which most scores cluster around the average score.

the ability of a test to produce consistent results when administered on repeated occasions under similar conditions.

the ability of a test to measure what it is intended to measure.

the notion of a general intelligence factor that is responsible for a person's overall performance on tests of mental ability.

behavioral syndrome associated with differences in brain functioning and sensory responses, and which is characterized by impaired social interaction, impaired verbal and nonverbal communication skills, repetitive or odd motor behaviors, and highly restricted interests and routines.

behavioral syndrome characterized by varying degrees of difficulty in social and conversational skills but normal-to-above-average intelligence and language development; often accompanied by obsessive preoccupation with particular topics or routines.

disorder characterized by intellectual function that is significantly below average, usually defined as a measured IQ of 70 or below and which is caused by brain injury, disease, or a genetic disorder.

Sternberg's theory that there are three distinct forms of intelligence: analytic, creative, and practical.

the percentage of variation within a given population that is due to heredity.

a psychological predicament in which fear that you will be evaluated in terms of a negative stereotype about a group to which you belong creates anxiety and self-doubt, lowering performance in a particular domain that is important to you.