An INNATE unlearned tendency or impulse which is fixed and unchanging and shared by all the members of a species. When a particular form of BEHAVIOUR is termed instinctive in an animal, it becomes the province of ETHOLOGY. Referring to any form of human behaviour as instinctive leads immediately to heated controversy bedevilled by politics and ideology. In any event, the concept appears to be of dubious value in understanding any particular piece of human behaviour, most of which is learned.

Having essentially unchanging characteristics: the basic unity of a PERSONALITY, especially the SELF-IMAGE.

Copying another person’s BEHAVIOUR whether as a CONSCIOUS or an UNCONSCIOUS act.

See also MODELLING.

In SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, a way of resolving COGNITIVE DISSONANCE which underlies the most powerful kind of attitude change, e.g. if you feel, on reflection, that you have an awful job, you can resolve (psychologically) the dissonance between the COGNITIONS’I am a sensible person’ and ‘I choose to work in an awful job’ either externally or internally. An external justification might be ‘I do it for the money’, but that wouldn’t change your opinion of the job. However, if you began to consider the job in a different light and saw its more positive aspects, you would be justifying your decision to work in an awful job internally.

A table of CORRELATIONS between each and every one of a series of VARIABLES.

Forming a generalised judgement of a person by trying to make sense of the various bits of information we have about them.

See also IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT.

The task of ERIKSON’S fifth stage of PERSONALITY development in ADOLESCENCE, where the individual has to find his own personal IDENTITY.

The attempt to infer general principles from specific cases.

Compare with DEDUCTIVE REASONING.

Literally the opposite of EVOLUTION, i.e. decline or deterioration: used of mid-life physical and psychological crises and changes.

See INVOLUTIONAL MELANCHOLIA and MIDDLESCENCE.

NEUROTIC concern for one’s health. Refers to excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness. An individual suffering from hypochondriasis is known as a hypochondriac. Often, hypochondria persists even after a physician has evaluated a person and reassured them that their concerns about symptoms do not have an underlying medical basis or, if there is a medical illness, the concerns are far in excess of what is appropriate for the level of disease. Many hypochondriacs focus on a particular symptom as the catalyst of their worrying, such as gastro-intestinal problems, palpitations, or muscle fatigue.