An instrument used by psychologists for probing the nature of a mental or emotional difficulty.

See PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES.

PHENOMENON discovered in CLASSICAL CONDITIONING. If an animal is conditioned to salivate at a certain stimulus and is then rewarded with food, when the food reward is withdrawn, its CONDITIONED RESPONSE will be inhibited and it will stop salivating. But if a different stimulus is suddenly used, the animal will start salivating again (as though the INHIBITION were itself being inhibited).

The idea that the achievement of many social goals is only possible through the collaboration of different people with shared values who pool their knowledge and ideas.

Compare with PARALLEL DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING.

An idea borrowed from economics to describe an improvement that gets progressively smaller with each succeeding increment. In PSYCHOLOGY, it is used in the study of learning and MEMORY where, after a large gain at the beginning, extra practice begins to provide less and less gain.

In ETHOLOGY, the concept that a male animal will show itself off to the best advantage either to fight or woo when it is approached by the appropriate stimulus of a male or female of the same species. The concept is often applied to human adolescent behaviour.

See JUST NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE.

A grasping reflex found only in very young animals or human infants. The tendacy to be able to grasp a bar and hang suspended.

A term sometimes used in SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY to indicate how effective a person feels in influencing matters of importance to her.

A technique, used mainly in treating severe DEPRESSION, of producing behavioural changes by passing an electrical current briefly through a patient’s brain. The technique causes muscular convulsions and renders the patient unconscious. It is claimed that the patient’s depression can often be eased in this way but nobody knows why, nor whether there are any permanent long-term side effects. Nowadays the patient is usually given a sedative and a muscle-relaxing drug before ECT to reduce the dangers of physical damage occurring. Commonly known as ‘shock treatment’ and considered barbaric by many psychologists.

Anthropological concept borrowed from ancient Greece where Dionysus, the god of wine and physical pleasure, represented the primitive, impulsive and emotional aspects of the human condition. Contrasted with APOLLONIAN.