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Milgram obedience study	Participants often followed instructions from an authority figure even when uncomfortable		tp-college-psychology
Stanford prison experiment	Study of how assigned roles shape behavior; its methods are widely criticized		tp-college-psychology
Asch conformity	People often give wrong answers to match a group		tp-college-psychology
Bystander intervention	Helping drops when more witnesses are present		tp-college-psychology
Diffusion of responsibility	Individuals feel less personally responsible in groups		tp-college-psychology
Social loafing	People put in less effort in a group		tp-college-psychology
Groupthink	Group desire for harmony overrides critical thinking		tp-college-psychology
Social facilitation	Presence of others improves performance on easy tasks		tp-college-psychology
Foot-in-the-door	Agreeing to a small request makes a larger one more likely		tp-college-psychology
Door-in-the-face	A refused large request makes a smaller one more likely to be accepted		tp-college-psychology
Self-serving bias	Taking credit for successes and blaming outside forces for failures		tp-college-psychology
Just-world hypothesis	Belief that people get what they deserve		tp-college-psychology
Halo effect	One good trait colors judgment of the whole person		tp-college-psychology
Stereotype	A generalized belief about a group		tp-college-psychology
Prejudice	An unjustified attitude toward a group		tp-college-psychology
Discrimination	Unfair behavior toward a group		tp-college-psychology
Implicit bias	Unconscious attitudes that affect judgments		tp-college-psychology
Contact hypothesis	Positive contact between groups can reduce prejudice		tp-college-psychology
Attribution theory	How people explain causes of behavior		tp-college-psychology
Mere exposure effect	Liking something more with repeated exposure		tp-college-psychology
Reciprocity norm	Tendency to return favors		tp-college-psychology
Self-fulfilling prophecy	An expectation that causes itself to come true		tp-college-psychology
Pygmalion effect	Higher expectations lead to better performance		tp-college-psychology
Spotlight effect	Overestimating how much others notice us		tp-college-psychology
Illusion of control	Believing we influence chance events		tp-college-psychology
Sunk cost fallacy	Continuing because of past investment		tp-college-psychology
Availability heuristic	Judging likelihood by how easily examples come to mind		tp-college-psychology
Anchoring	Over-relying on the first piece of information		tp-college-psychology
Framing effect	Choices differ depending on how options are presented		tp-college-psychology
Dunning-Kruger effect	People with low skill may overestimate their ability		tp-college-psychology
Hindsight bias	Believing an event was predictable after it happened		tp-college-psychology
Overconfidence	Being more sure of judgments than accuracy justifies		tp-college-psychology
Representativeness heuristic	Judging by how closely something matches a typical example		tp-college-psychology
Schema	A mental framework organizing knowledge		tp-college-psychology
Assimilation	Fitting new information into existing schemas		tp-college-psychology
Accommodation	Changing schemas to fit new information		tp-college-psychology
Theory of mind	Understanding that others have different thoughts and beliefs		tp-college-psychology
Critical period	Window when experience has the greatest effect on development		tp-college-psychology
Imprinting	Rapid attachment to the first moving object seen		tp-college-psychology
Strange Situation	Ainsworth's test of infant attachment types		tp-college-psychology
Secure attachment	Infant uses a caregiver as a safe base		tp-college-psychology
Kohlberg's moral stages	Preconventional, conventional and postconventional reasoning		tp-college-psychology
Identity vs. role confusion	Erikson's adolescent task of forming a sense of self		tp-college-psychology
Emerging adulthood	Period roughly ages 18-25 of exploring identity		tp-college-psychology
Nature vs. nurture	Debate over genes versus environment		tp-college-psychology
Heritability	The share of variation in a trait in a group that is due to genetic differences		tp-college-psychology
Twin study	Compares identical and fraternal twins to separate genes and environment		tp-college-psychology
Epigenetics	Environmental effects on gene activity without changing DNA		tp-college-psychology
Temperament	Inborn emotional reactivity		tp-college-psychology
Reticular formation	Brain structure controlling alertness		tp-college-psychology
Thalamus	Sensory relay station		tp-college-psychology
Limbic system	Brain circuits for emotion and memory		tp-college-psychology
Prefrontal cortex	Area for planning, judgment and self-control		tp-college-psychology
Phineas Gage	Railroad worker whose injury showed frontal lobe roles in personality		tp-college-psychology
Split brain	Severing the corpus callosum affects communication between hemispheres		tp-college-psychology
Lateralization	Different functions in each hemisphere		tp-college-psychology
Mirror neurons	Neurons that fire both when acting and when watching others act		tp-college-psychology
Blind spot	Spot on the retina with no receptors		tp-college-psychology
Rods and cones	Retinal cells for dim light and for color		tp-college-psychology
Trichromatic theory	Color vision from three receptor types		tp-college-psychology
Opponent-process theory	Color perception through opposing pairs		tp-college-psychology
Place theory	Pitch is determined by where on the cochlea the wave peaks		tp-college-psychology
Gate-control theory	Pain signals can be blocked at the spinal cord		tp-college-psychology
Signal detection theory	How we detect faint stimuli amid noise		tp-college-psychology
Selective attention	Focusing on one stimulus		tp-college-psychology
Inattentional blindness	Failing to notice an unexpected object while focused elsewhere		tp-college-psychology
Change blindness	Failing to notice changes in a scene		tp-college-psychology
Cocktail party effect	Hearing your name in a noisy room		tp-college-psychology
Stages of sleep	Light sleep, deep sleep, and REM, cycling through the night		tp-college-psychology
Hypnosis	A state of focused attention and heightened suggestibility		tp-college-psychology
Habituation	Decreased response to repeated stimulus		tp-college-psychology
Latent learning	Learning that is not shown until needed		tp-college-psychology
Learned helplessness	Giving up after repeated uncontrollable events		tp-college-psychology
Taste aversion	Avoiding a food linked with sickness; learned in one try		tp-college-psychology
Shaping	Reinforcing steps toward a target behavior		tp-college-psychology
Spontaneous recovery	Return of an extinguished response after rest		tp-college-psychology
Generalization	Responding similarly to similar stimuli		tp-college-psychology
Discrimination (learning)	Responding only to specific stimuli		tp-college-psychology
Flashbulb memory	Vivid memory of an emotional event		tp-college-psychology
Serial position effect	Remembering first and last items best		tp-college-psychology
Chunking	Grouping information into units		tp-college-psychology
Levels of processing	Deeper thinking leads to stronger memory		tp-college-psychology
Method of loci	Memory technique linking items to places		tp-college-psychology
Misinformation effect	Memory distorted by later information		tp-college-psychology
Source amnesia	Forgetting where information was learned		tp-college-psychology
Tip-of-the-tongue	Feeling that a word is known but not recalled		tp-college-psychology
Context-dependent memory	Easier recall in the setting where learning happened		tp-college-psychology
Ebbinghaus forgetting curve	Forgetting is fastest soon after learning		tp-college-psychology
Linguistic relativity	The idea that language shapes thought		tp-college-psychology
Fluid intelligence	Ability to reason and solve new problems		tp-college-psychology
Crystallized intelligence	Accumulated knowledge and skills		tp-college-psychology
Multiple intelligences	Gardner's proposal of several distinct kinds of intelligence		tp-college-psychology
Flynn effect	Rising average test scores over generations		tp-college-psychology
Yerkes-Dodson law	Performance is best at moderate arousal		tp-college-psychology
Drive-reduction theory	Behavior is motivated to reduce internal tension		tp-college-psychology
Set point theory	Body tends to maintain a particular weight		tp-college-psychology
Self-determination theory	Motivation depends on autonomy, competence and relatedness		tp-college-psychology
Display rules	Cultural norms for showing emotion		tp-college-psychology
Stress response	Alarm, resistance and exhaustion stages in Selye's model		tp-college-psychology
Eustress	Positive, motivating stress		tp-college-psychology
Coping	Efforts to manage stress		tp-college-psychology
Locus of control	Belief about whether control lies within or outside oneself		tp-college-psychology
Positive psychology	Study of strengths and well-being		tp-college-psychology
Flow	Being fully absorbed in an activity		tp-college-psychology