Glossary of Psychological Terms
Definitions of terms used in psychology, psychometric testing and occupational assessment, organised alphabetically.
Gain-loss theory of interpersonal attraction
A theory of liking proposing that changes in the rewarding behaviour we receive from another person affect us more strongly than a consistently steady level of that behaviour. As a result, people tend to feel most positively toward someone who starts out unfavourable and becomes more positive, and least favourably toward someone who starts out positive and becomes negative.
Galton, Francis (1822-1911)
A British scientist, cousin and disciple of Charles Darwin, who pioneered the systematic measurement of individual differences in mental ability, laying groundwork for psychometrics and the study of intelligence, though his later advocacy of eugenics is now regarded as a deeply problematic part of his legacy.
Gallup poll
The first, and still best-known, technique for scientifically sampling public opinion on a large scale, invented by American statistician George Gallup in the 1930s.
Galvanic skin response
A measurable change in the skin's electrical conductivity, detected through electrodes on the skin's surface, that occurs during states of emotional arousal. The correlation between this response and emotional state forms the basis of the polygraph, or “lie detector” test — though, as with any correlation, exactly what a given reading means remains open to interpretation.
Game theory
A mathematical approach to studying conflict and decision-making that models conflict situations as games with defined strategies and rational players. Simpler scenarios studied under this framework, such as the Prisoner's Dilemma, have proven useful to social psychologists as models for generating ideas about real social behaviour.
Gatekeeping
In sociology, the process by which certain people are selected into, or excluded from, a society's elite circles or positions of influence.
Gaussian curve
The bell-shaped curve describing a normal distribution, named after the nineteenth-century German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.
Gender identity
A person's sense of belonging to, or identifying as, male, female, or another gender identity, as distinct from biological sex assigned at birth.
Gene
The basic unit of heredity: a segment of DNA within a cell that carries information determining an inherited characteristic.
Generalisation
The process of forming a judgement about an entire category based on experience with only a limited sample of it — a basic principle underlying both scientific reasoning and everyday learning, though one prone to error when the sample is unrepresentative.
Generalised other
A concept from American sociologist George Herbert Mead for a person's internalised sense of how other people, in general, expect them to behave in a given situation. Compare with significant other, referring to a specific individual whose expectations particularly matter to a person.
Generation gap
Differences in attitudes, beliefs and values between parents and children, attributed at least partly to being socialised during different historical periods. Though generation gaps have likely existed throughout history — suggesting the underlying pattern is real — the size of the gap in any given era may be more apparent than substantive. See also: cohort effect, socialisation, zeitgeist.
Generativity
The central task of the seventh of Erik Erikson's eight psychosocial stages, typically arising in middle adulthood, involving the capacity for creative or productive work, mentorship, or parenting that contributes to future generations.
Genetics
The scientific study of heredity — how traits are passed from parents to offspring through genes.
Genital stage
In Freud's theory of psychosexual development, the final, mature stage in which a person becomes capable of a loving, fully realised sexual relationship, achieved only if earlier stages of development have been successfully navigated without becoming fixated.
Genotype
An individual's full genetically inherited potential, as distinct from the phenotype — the traits that are actually expressed, which result from the interaction between genotype and environment.
Gerontology
The scientific study of old age and the biological, psychological and social processes of ageing.
Gesell development norms
A pioneering set of developmental milestones, produced by American psychologist Arnold Gesell, charting the typical timetable at which physical and motor abilities emerge in infants and young children.
Gestalt completion test
A test using incomplete pictures that can be identified correctly only if the viewer perceives the underlying overall pattern, or gestalt, of the image rather than its individual disconnected parts.
Gestalt psychology
A school of psychology that emerged in the early twentieth century, largely in reaction to the behaviourism of Pavlov and Watson, holding that psychological phenomena must be understood as unified wholes (gestalten) that cannot be reduced to their individual component parts. Its founders, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Köhler and Max Wertheimer, developed the approach chiefly through studies of perception — noting how the brain organises individual dots of light into coherent visual patterns, or separate notes into a melody. Köhler later extended the approach to insight learning in apes (see: aha reaction), and later Gestalt-influenced psychologists such as Kurt Lewin and Kurt Goldstein applied its principles to personality and social psychology. Gestalt insights into perception are now broadly accepted within mainstream psychology and align closely with the cognitive revolution, though some argue certain aspects of behaviour are still best explained by analysing their component elements.
Gestures
Bodily movements, particularly of the hands and face, used for the purpose of communication, whether consciously intended or not.
Glossolalia
“Speaking in tongues”: fluent vocalisation that resembles an unknown language but is not one, most commonly associated with states of religious ecstasy, though also observed in people experiencing severe emotional disturbance.
Goal-directed behaviour
Animal or human behaviour that can only be adequately understood by assuming it is organised around, and intended to achieve, a specific goal, rather than being a simple mechanical response to stimuli.
Goodenough Draw-a-Person Test
An intelligence test for children under 12, developed by American psychologist Florence Goodenough, in which the child is asked to draw a picture of a person; scored for detail and accuracy, it is considered relatively, though not entirely, free of cultural bias compared with many other intelligence measures.
Gradient
A constant, measurable rate of change between two conditions or variables, used across psychology wherever a quantity changes systematically — for instance, a gradient of similarity, or a stimulus gradient in learning theory.
Grand mal
See epilepsy — the severe form of epileptic seizure involving violent convulsions and prolonged loss of consciousness.
Graphology
The analysis of a person's handwriting as a projective technique, on the theory that handwriting style reveals aspects of personality; its scientific validity is not well supported by empirical research.
Grasping reflex
The automatic closing response of the fingers or toes when the palm or sole is touched; present from birth and studied as one of several primitive infant reflexes.
Great-man theory
The historical theory that the course of events is shaped, at crucial turning points, primarily by the decisive actions of a small number of extraordinary individuals — now generally regarded, as an explanation of history, as a considerable oversimplification that neglects broader social, economic and structural forces.
Group norm
The pattern of behaviour expected of every member of a particular group; see also: norm.
Group polarisation
The tendency for group discussion to push individual opinions and decisions toward a more extreme version of the position members already leaned toward beforehand — in either a riskier direction (risky shift) or a more cautious one (cautious shift). Known in American usage as choice shift.
Group test
A test, typically a paper-and-pencil test, administered simultaneously to a large group of people rather than one individual at a time.
Group therapy
Psychotherapy conducted with several people simultaneously, based on the premise that participants can benefit not only from the therapist's guidance but from the shared experience, feedback and companionship of the other group members.
Grouping
The statistical process of combining individual scores into categories, or ranking them relative to one another — for example, sorting scores into percentiles.
Groupthink
A term coined by psychologist Irving Janis in the early 1970s for the tendency of members of a highly cohesive group to become so focused on preserving consensus and unity that their critical, independent judgement becomes dulled, sometimes leading the group toward poor or even disastrous decisions.
Guilt
The awareness of having violated a social norm of behaviour one personally identifies with, accompanied by a feeling of regret. In psychoanalytic theory, guilt arises from unconscious conflict in which the superego dominates, and can produce neurotic symptoms if the underlying conflict is never resolved.
