| Term | Definition |
| • Psyche | Mind |
| • Logos | Knowledge or study |
| • Behavior | Overt (i.e., can be directly observed) |
| • Mental processes | Covert (i.e., cannot be directly observed) |
| • Description of Behaviors | Naming and classifying various observable, measurable behaviors |
| • Understanding | Being able to state the causes of a behavior |
| • Prediction | Predicting behavior accurately |
| • Control | Altering conditions that influence behaviors |
| • Positive use | To control unwanted behaviors (e.g., smoking, tantrums, etc.) |
| • Negative use | To control people’s behaviors without their knowledge |
| • Palmistry | Lines on your hands (palms) predict future and reveal personality |
| • Phrenology | Personality traits revealed by shape of skull |
| • Graphology | Personality traits are revealed by your handwriting |
| • Astrology | The positions of the stars and planets at birth determine personality traits and affect your behavior |
| • Wilhelm Wundt | “Father” of psychology |
| • Introspection | Looking inward (i.e., examining and reporting your thoughts, feelings, etc.) |
| • Cognitive | Study thoughts, memory, expectations, perceptions, and other mental processes |
| • Biopsychology | All of our behavior can be explained through physiological processes |
| • Positive Psychology | Study of human strengths, virtues, and optimal behavior |
| • Social Constructionism | Focus on importance of social and cultural contexts in influencing our behavior |
| • Evolutionary Psychology | Attempts to explain how useful mental and psychological traits are functional products of evolution in natural selection. |
| • Independent variable | Condition(s) altered by the experimenter; experimenter sets their size, amount, or value; these are suspected causes for behavioral differences |
| • Dependent variable | Demonstrates effects of the independent variable on behavior |
| • Extraneous variables | Conditions that a researcher wants to prevent from affecting the outcomes of the experiment (e.g., number of hours slept before the experiment) |
| • Observer effect | Changes in subject’s behavior caused by an awareness of being observed |
| • Observer bias | Occurs when observers see what they expect to see or record only selected details |
| • Positive correlation | Increases in one variable are matched by increases in the other variable |
| • Negative correlation | Increases in one variable are matched by decreases in the other variable |
| • Natural clinical tests | Studying natural events, such as a tsunami, that provide psychological data, rather than recreating an experience of a tsunami. |
