A social situation in which each individual believes himself to be the only exception to the accepted beliefs or BEHAVIOUR of his group.

Sampling data from each subgroup of a given POPULATION.

Treating an abstract idea as though it had a real OBJECTIVE existence.

In STATISTICS, the total number of cases or individuals from which a SAMPLE is drawn for study and about which inferences are to be made.

In GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY, the tendency of any GESTALT towards simplicity, harmony, meaningfulness and a ‘goodness of fit’. For example, a battered old coin seen in a dim light will still be perceived as a circular object.

A situation developed out of GAME THEORY and used by SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS in the study of bargaining BEHAVIOUR. In the game two suspects are caught by the police and questioned separately about the crime. If one prisoner confesses and the other does not the squealer is set free and the fall guy takes the rap. If both confess, both are convicted but dealt with leniendy. If neither confesses, both benefit because they cannot then be convicted.

BRAIN surgery directed at curing a severe psychological disorder.

Where a psychologist reads into someone else’s MIND what is present in his own.

The tendency for an activity to recur even when there is no apparent stimulus and the activity has no obvious usefulness.

The study of the relationship between external stimuli from the physical world and the subjective sensations they produce. The psychological processes involved are still as much a part of the subject matter of EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY as they were when these problems were studied in the first psychological laboratories established in the 1870s. See WUNDT.