• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Functionalism—early psychological perspective concerned with how an organism uses its perceptual abilities to adapt to its environment

Fundamental attribution error—the tendency to overestimate the significance of dispositional factors and underestimate the significance of situational factors in explaining other people’s behavior.

g—According to Spearman, a factor of intelligence that is common to all intellectual tasks; generalized intelligence which fuels special abilities.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)—a neurotransmitter that inhibits firing of postsynaptic neurons. Huntington’s disease and seizures are associated with malfunctioning GABA systems.

Ganglion cells—third layer of neurons in the retina whose axons converge to form the optic nerve.

Gate-control theory—idea that pain is experienced only if pain messages can pass through a gate in the spinal cord on their route to the brain. This gate is opened by small nerve fibers that carry pain signals and is closed by neural activity of larger nerve fibers that conduct most other sensory signals, or by information coming from the brain.

Gender—is the social definition of being male or female.

Gender consistency—understanding that one’s sex won’t change even if he/she acts like the opposite sex.

Gender identity—person’s sense of being male or female.

Gender roles—sets of expectations that prescribe how males and females should act, think, and feel.

Gender role stereotypes—broad categories that reflect our impressions and beliefs about males and females.

Gender schema theory—mental set of what society considers appropriate behavior for each of the sexes; assumes that gender becomes a cognitive “lens” through which children experience and acquire their gender identity.

Gender stability—understanding that sex identity is stable over time.

Gene—each DNA segment of a chromosome that determines a trait.

General adaptation syndrome (GAS)—Selye’s three-stage process (alarm, resistance, and exhaustion) that describes our biological reaction to sustained and unrelenting stress.

Generalization—in classical conditioning, CRs elicited by stimuli that resemble the CS used in training. In operant conditioning, the occurrence of responding when a stimulus similar (but not identical) to the discriminative stimulus is present.

Generalized anxiety disorder—an anxiety disorder characterized by persistent, pervasive feelings of doom for at least six months not associated with a particular object or situation.

Generalized reinforcer—secondary reinforcers that are associated with a wide variety of other reinforcers, like money, which is almost guaranteed to be motivating.

Genital stage—the final of Freud’s psychosexual stages, during which the adolescent develops adult sexual desires; pleasure from intercourse and intimacy with opposite sex and/or same sex.

Genotype—the genetic make-up of an individual for a trait.

Gerontologist—person who specializes in the study of aging.

Gestalt therapy—developed by Perls, a humanistic therapy emphasizing the unity of mind and body; teaches the client to “get in touch” with unconscious bodily sensations and emotions.

Glial cells—supportive cells of the nervous system that guide the growth of developing neurons, help provide nutrition for and get rid of wastes of neurons, and form an insulating sheath around neurons that speeds conduction.

Grammar—a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

Grasping reflex—infant closes his/her fingers tightly around an object put in his/her hand.

Group polarization—when like-minded people share ideas, outcome is likely to be more extreme than individual positions.

Group test—many people are tested at same time; cheaper and more objective scoring than individualized testing; may not be as accurate.

Groupthink—the tendency for individuals to censor their own beliefs to preserve the harmony of the group; lack of diversity of viewpoints that can cause disastrous results in decision making.

Gustation—the chemical sense of taste through receptor cells in taste buds in