GCSE Psychology key terms

148 terms with short definitions you can learn for the exam. Type to filter the list.

Command words 11

Assess: Weigh up all the relevant factors or evidence and decide which matter most, reaching a judgement.
Calculate: Work out a number, showing your working. Include the unit if the answer has one.
Compare: Say how two or more things are alike and how they are different. You need at least one similarity and one difference.
Complete: Fill in all the missing details, for example in a table or a sentence.
Define: Give the meaning of a term.
Describe: Give an account of something. Develop your statements, rather than just listing words.
Draw: Produce a graph or diagram, freehand or with a ruler.
Evaluate: Look at the information, including strengths and weaknesses, and bring it together into a supported conclusion.
Explain: Make a point and then justify it or give an example that shows why or how.
Give, State, Name: Recall one or more pieces of information. No explanation is needed.
Identify: Pick out the key information from a source, scenario or set of data you are given.

Key terms glossary 120

Accommodation: Changing an existing schema, or making a new one, when new information does not fit (Piaget).
Addiction: A dependence on a substance or activity. ICD-10 diagnosis needs three or more signs, such as craving, loss of control, withdrawal and tolerance, in the past year.
Affordance: What an object allows us to do, which Gibson said we perceive directly, such as a chair affording sitting.
Agentic state: A state of mind in which a person sees themselves as acting for an authority figure, so feels less responsible for what they do.
Alternative hypothesis: A testable prediction that there will be a difference (or relationship) between variables.
Anterograde amnesia: Being unable to form new long-term memories after brain damage, while older memories often remain.
Arousal: cost-reward model: Piliavin et al.'s explanation of helping: seeing an emergency causes arousal, and people weigh up the costs and rewards of helping to reduce it.
Assimilation: Fitting new information into an existing schema without changing it (Piaget).
Authoritarian personality: A personality type (Adorno et al., 1950) that is very respectful of authority, rigid and hostile to people of lower status, linked with obedience.
Bottom-up processing: Perception that starts from the sensory information itself, as in Gibson's direct theory.
Bystander effect: People are less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present.
Capacity: How much information a memory store can hold. STM holds about 7 plus or minus 2 items; LTM is potentially unlimited.
Case study: An in-depth study of one person or a small group, often using several methods and producing mostly qualitative data.
Central nervous system (CNS): The brain and spinal cord, which receive information from the body, process it and send out instructions.
Cerebellum: Part of the hindbrain that controls balance and coordination and helps us learn motor skills such as walking.
Circadian rhythm: A bodily rhythm lasting about 24 hours, such as the sleep-wake cycle.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT): A therapy that helps people identify and challenge irrational thoughts and change their behaviour, used for depression and addiction.
Cognitive triad: Beck's idea that depressed people hold negative views of the self, the world and the future.
Collectivist culture: A culture that values group harmony and shared goals more than individual goals.
Conformity: Changing behaviour or beliefs to fit in with a group (majority influence), without being ordered to.
Congruence: When a person's self-image and ideal self are close, which leads to high self-esteem (Rogers).
Conservation: Understanding that an amount stays the same when its shape or arrangement changes. Piaget said it develops in the concrete operational stage.
Corpus callosum: The thick bundle of nerve fibres joining the left and right hemispheres so they can share information.
Correlation: A study of the relationship between two co-variables, which can be positive, negative or none. It cannot show cause and effect.
Counterbalancing: In repeated measures, half the participants do condition A then B and half do B then A, to balance out order effects.
Culture: The shared beliefs, values, norms and customs of a group, passed from one generation to the next.
Deindividuation: Losing your sense of personal identity and responsibility in a group or crowd, often because of anonymity.
Demand characteristics: Clues that let participants guess the aim of a study, so they change their behaviour.
Dependent variable (DV): The variable that is measured to see if the independent variable has had an effect.
Determinism: The view that behaviour is caused by factors outside our control, such as genes or upbringing.
Diathesis-stress: The idea that a problem develops when an inherited vulnerability (diathesis) is triggered by stressful experience.
Diffusion of responsibility: Each person in a group feels less responsible for helping because others are present.
Displacement: In language: being able to talk about things that are not present, past, future or imaginary. Usually seen as unique to humans.
Double-blind: Neither the participants nor the researcher collecting the data know which condition each participant is in.
Duration: How long information lasts in a memory store. STM lasts about 18 to 30 seconds without rehearsal; LTM can last a lifetime.
Ecological validity: How far results apply to real-life settings.
Egocentrism: Being unable to see a situation from another person's point of view. Piaget said it is typical of the pre-operational stage (2 to 7).
Encoding: Changing information into a form that can be stored, for example by sound, meaning or images.
Extraneous variable: Any variable other than the IV that could affect the DV. It may be situational or a participant variable.
Field experiment: An experiment in a natural, everyday setting in which the researcher still manipulates the IV.
Fixed mindset: The belief that ability and intelligence are fixed and cannot be developed (Dweck).
Free will: The belief that people choose their own actions, rather than behaviour being caused by outside forces.
Frontal lobe: The lobe at the front of the brain involved in planning, decision-making, movement and personality.
Growth mindset: The belief that abilities can be developed through effort and practice (Dweck).
Holism: Explaining behaviour by looking at the whole person and how many factors work together, including experience and culture.
Ideal self: The person someone would like to be (Rogers).
Incidence: The number of new cases of a disorder in a population over a period of time.
Independent measures: An experimental design in which different participants take part in each condition.
Independent variable (IV): The variable the researcher changes or manipulates to see its effect.
Informational influence: Conforming because you believe the group knows better, especially when a task is hard or unclear.
Informed consent: Participants agree to take part knowing the aims and what will happen; under-16s need a parent's or guardian's consent.
International Classification of Diseases (ICD): The World Health Organization's list of illnesses and their symptoms, used to diagnose mental health problems.
Laboratory experiment: An experiment in a controlled, artificial setting in which the researcher manipulates the IV.
Latent content: The hidden meaning of a dream: the unconscious wish behind it (Freud).
Lateralisation: The idea that some functions are controlled mainly by one hemisphere, such as language in the left hemisphere for most people.
Linguistic determinism: The strong view that language determines and limits thought.
Linguistic relativism: The weak view that language influences thought but does not control it.
Locus of control: How far people believe they control events in their lives (internal) or that events are controlled by outside forces (external).
Long-term memory (LTM): The memory store with potentially unlimited capacity and a duration of up to a lifetime.
Manifest content: What a person remembers of a dream: its story, people and events (Freud).
Matched pairs: An experimental design in which participants are paired on key characteristics and one of each pair goes into each condition.
Melatonin: A hormone released by the pineal gland, mainly in darkness, that makes us feel sleepy.
Monocular depth cues: Cues to depth that need only one eye: superimposition, relative size, linear perspective, texture gradient and height in the plane.
Morality: Shared principles in a society about the difference between right and wrong behaviour.
Multi-store model: Atkinson and Shiffrin's (1968) model of memory: sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory, linked by attention and rehearsal.
Narcolepsy: A sleep disorder causing extreme daytime sleepiness and sudden sleep attacks, often with cataplexy; linked to low hypocretin (orexin).
Natural experiment: An experiment in which the IV occurs naturally rather than being manipulated by the researcher.
Nature: The view that behaviour is caused by inherited, biological factors such as genes and brain chemistry.
Neuron: A nerve cell that carries information as electrical impulses.
Neurotransmitter: A chemical messenger released at a synapse that carries a signal to the next neuron, such as serotonin or dopamine.
Non-verbal communication: Communicating without words, through facial expressions, eye contact, posture, gestures and personal space.
Normative influence: Conforming to be accepted by the group and avoid rejection.
Null hypothesis: A prediction that there will be no difference (or relationship), with any difference due to chance.
Nurture: The view that behaviour is caused by the environment and experience, such as upbringing, learning and culture.
Obedience: Following a direct order from an authority figure.
Occipital lobe: The lobe at the back of the brain that processes vision.
Operant conditioning: Learning from consequences: reinforcement makes a behaviour more likely, punishment makes it less likely.
Opportunity sampling: Choosing participants who are available at the time.
Parietal lobe: The lobe at the top of the brain that processes touch and body sensations and keeps track of body position.
Perceptual set: A readiness to perceive things in a certain way, affected by motivation, expectation, emotion and culture.
Prefrontal cortex: The very front of the frontal lobe, involved in decision-making, impulse control and emotion. Damage can cause impulsivity and personality change.
Prosopagnosia: Face blindness: being unable to recognise familiar faces while other visual abilities remain.
Proxemics: The study of how people use personal space when communicating.
Qualitative data: Descriptive data in words, pictures or meanings.
Quantitative data: Numerical data, such as scores, counts and times.
Random sampling: A sampling method in which everyone in the target population has an equal chance of being chosen.
Recidivism: Reoffending: committing crime again after being punished.
Reconstructive memory: Bartlett's theory that we rebuild memories when we recall them, using schemas, so memories change to fit what we expect.
Reductionism: Explaining complex behaviour by breaking it down into simpler parts, such as memory stores or genes.
Rehearsal: Repeating information to keep it in short-term memory; enough rehearsal transfers it to long-term memory.
Reliability: Consistency: a reliable measure or study gives the same results if repeated.
REM sleep: Rapid eye movement sleep: the brain is very active and the body's muscles are paralysed; most vivid dreams happen in REM.
Repeated measures: An experimental design in which the same participants take part in all conditions.
Restorative justice: Bringing an offender and victim together, with a facilitator, so the offender sees the harm caused and can make amends.
Retrieval: Getting information back out of memory storage when it is needed.
Retrograde amnesia: Loss of memories from before brain damage, while new memories can still be formed.
Schema: A mental structure holding our knowledge about something, built from experience. Used by Piaget (development) and Bartlett (memory).
Self-actualisation: Reaching your full potential: the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Self-concept: The set of beliefs a person holds about who they are.
Self-esteem: How much a person values themselves.
Short-term memory (STM): The memory store with a small capacity (about 7 plus or minus 2 items) and short duration (about 18 to 30 seconds without rehearsal).
Size constancy: Seeing an object as staying the same size even when its image on the retina changes with distance.
Social learning theory: Bandura's theory that behaviour is learned by observing and imitating role models, especially when they are seen being rewarded.
SSRI: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor: an antidepressant that blocks the reuptake of serotonin so more stays available at synapses.
Stereopsis: A binocular depth cue: the brain combines the slightly different images from each eye to judge depth.
Stratified sampling: Choosing participants from sub-groups in the same proportions as they appear in the target population.
Synapse: The tiny gap between two neurons, across which neurotransmitters carry the signal.
Temperament: The inborn style of behaving and reacting that a person shows from birth: an internal influence on the self.
Temporal lobe: The lobe at the side of the brain that processes hearing and understanding of spoken language, and is involved in memory.
Token economy: A programme where people earn tokens for good behaviour and swap them for privileges, based on operant conditioning.
Top-down processing: Perception guided by prior knowledge and expectations, as in Gregory's constructivist theory.
Ultradian rhythm: A bodily rhythm shorter than 24 hours, such as the 90-minute sleep cycle.
Unconditional positive regard: Love and acceptance given whatever a person does, which Rogers said helps congruence and growth.
Unipolar depression: Depression without periods of mania; core symptoms include persistent low mood, loss of interest and reduced energy for at least two weeks.
Validity: Accuracy: whether a study measures what it claims to and whether results apply beyond the study.
Vicarious reinforcement: Learning a behaviour by seeing someone else rewarded for it.
Visual agnosia: Being unable to recognise objects by sight even though the person can see them.
Volunteer sampling: Participants choose to take part, for example by answering an advert.
Withdrawal: Unpleasant physical symptoms when use of an addictive substance stops or is reduced.
Zeitgeber: An external cue, such as light or meal times, that resets the body clock.

Research methods: maths skills and formulas 17

Bar chart and histogram: Bar charts show separate categories with gaps between bars (often comparing means). Histograms show continuous data with touching bars.
Estimation: Round each number to 1 significant figure to check an answer is sensible: 48 × 19 is about 50 × 20 = 1000.
Fractions: Part of a whole, simplified by dividing top and bottom by a common factor: 18/24 = 3/4.
Frequency table: Shows how often each score or category occurs; tally marks can be used and then counted.
Mean: Add up all the scores and divide by the number of scores. Uses every score but is distorted by extreme scores.
Median: The middle score when scores are put in order; with an even number of scores, the mean of the middle two. Not affected by extreme scores.
Mode: The most common score. The only average for categories; there may be no mode or more than one.
Normal distribution: A symmetrical, bell-shaped curve with the mean, median and mode equal at the centre; most scores near the middle, few at the extremes (for example IQ, mean 100).
Percentage: Part ÷ whole × 100. Example: 18 of 24 participants helped: 18 ÷ 24 × 100 = 75%.
Percentage change: Change ÷ original value × 100. Always divide by the starting value.
Range: Highest score minus lowest score. A measure of dispersion (spread); uses only two scores.
Ratios: Compare one part with another: 30 females to 20 males is 30 : 20 = 3 : 2, so 3/5 of the sample is female.
Scatter diagram: Plots two co-variables, one point per participant. Points rising left to right show a positive correlation, falling show a negative correlation, no pattern shows none.
Significant figures: Count from the first non-zero digit and look at the next digit to round: 0.04782 to 2 s.f. is 0.048.
Standard form: A × 10^{n}, where A is at least 1 and less than 10: 45 000 = 4.5 × 10^{4}; 0.0032 = 3.2 × 10^{-3}.
Stratified sample size: Proportion of the sub-group in the population × sample size. Example: 360 of 600 students are girls, sample of 50: 360/600 × 50 = 30 girls.
Types of data: Primary (collected first-hand) or secondary (collected by someone else); quantitative (numbers) or qualitative (words and descriptions).

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