Glossary of Psychological Terms
Definitions of terms used in psychology, psychometric testing and occupational assessment, organised alphabetically.
T maze
The simplest form of maze, shaped like the letter T, presenting an animal with a single choice between two paths.
T-group
A form of sensitivity training, conducted in small groups focused on developing self-awareness and interpersonal skills through open discussion of feelings and group process.
T-test
In statistics, a test used to determine whether the means of two groups of scores differ from each other by more than would be expected by chance alone.
Task leader
The person who tends to emerge within a small group as the one who keeps the group focused on its task and ensures the work actually gets done. Compare with socio-emotional leader, who instead focuses on maintaining group morale and relationships.
TAT
An abbreviation for the Thematic Apperception Test — see that entry.
Teaching machine
A mechanical or electronic device designed to support programmed learning, presenting material in small steps and giving the learner feedback on their responses.
Technophobia
An excessive or irrational fear of, or aversion to, technology.
Telegraphic speech
The characteristic speech pattern of children roughly 18 months to 2 years old, in which only the essential content words of a sentence are used, while grammatical connectors such as “the,” “and” or “is” are typically omitted — for example, “want cookie” rather than “I want a cookie.”
Telekinesis
A term, coined by publisher Henry Holt, for the direct influence of mind over a physical object or system, unaccounted for by any known physical force — essentially synonymous with psychokinesis, though sometimes used more narrowly to refer specifically to the movement of physical matter.
Teleology
Within psychology, the study of psychological phenomena on the assumption that they serve some underlying goal or purpose, together with the attempt to identify what that purpose is.
Telepathy
The claimed direct communication between two minds, or knowledge by one person of another's thoughts, without relying on any of the ordinary recognised senses; a form of claimed extrasensory perception.
Territoriality
A concept developed mainly within ethology, describing the tendency of certain animal species to stake out and defend a territory for their own or their group's exclusive use, generally assumed to be an innate behaviour pattern in those species. Any apparently similar territorial behaviour in humans should be labelled with considerable caution, since there is no solid evidence that such behaviour is innate in human beings in the same sense. See also: crowding behaviour.
Thanatology
From thanatos, Freud's term for the death instinct: the interdisciplinary study of death, dying, and how people and societies understand and cope with them.
Thematic Apperception Test
A projective technique, developed by American psychologist Henry Murray, consisting of a series of ambiguous drawings (typically depicting one or more human figures in an undefined situation) about which the respondent is asked to construct a story. The recurring themes that emerge across these stories are then used to help identify underlying areas of emotional conflict or concern.
Thought-disorder
A significant disturbance in a person's normal patterns and organisation of thought, often regarded as one of the core symptoms of psychosis, particularly schizophrenia.
Totem
An anthropological term for a living creature, object, or its symbolic representation, revered by a particular group of people as a protective ancestral or spiritual figure, often central to that group's identity and rituals.
Tracking
The process of making continuous adjustments, particularly of the eyes, to follow a moving object; often assessed clinically in examining infants' visual development or in evaluating patients for possible brain damage.
Trait
Any relatively stable, enduring characteristic of a person's behaviour or personality, used as a basic building block in trait theories of personality.
Transactional analysis
A form of group therapy, developed by Eric Berne, in which the relationships and communications between group members are analysed in terms of interactions between three internal states — “parent,” “child” and “adult” — each person is understood to shift between.
Transfer of training
The phenomenon by which learning achieved in one situation carries over and influences performance in a different, related situation. This transfer can be positive (already knowing Spanish can make learning Italian easier) or negative (already knowing how to steer a car with a wheel can make it harder to learn to steer a boat with a tiller). See also: learning set.
Trauma
A significant physical or psychological shock resulting from an injury, violent incident, or other deeply distressing experience, with effects that can persist well beyond the event itself.
Trial and error learning
The gradual, step-by-step form of learning that occurs over repeated attempts, characteristic of much animal learning and a good deal of human learning, and the basic mechanism underlying most conditioning procedures. Considerably slower and more laborious than insight learning, in which a solution appears suddenly rather than through incremental trial and correction.
