EPPP Part 2 Skills key terms

The proportion of people in a given population who actually have a condition before any test result is known. Low base rates sharply reduce the predictive value of positive findings, even for accurate tests.

The proportion of people who truly have a disorder and are correctly identified by a test as having it. A highly sensitive measure yields few false negatives and is useful when missing a case is costly.

The proportion of people who do not have a disorder and are correctly identified by a test as not having it. A highly specific measure yields few false positives and helps confirm a diagnosis.

The probability that a person who tests positive actually has the condition. It depends on sensitivity, specificity, and the base rate of the condition in the population being tested.

An estimate of how much an individual's observed score is likely to vary from their true score because of measurement error. It is used to build confidence intervals around a score.

The consistency or reproducibility of scores across items, occasions, or raters. It caps validity: a measure cannot be more valid than it is reliable, though reliability alone does not ensure validity.

The degree to which a measure or study supports the interpretations and uses intended for it. Evidence may come from content, response processes, internal structure, relations to other variables, and consequences.

Evidence that a measure behaves the way the theoretical construct should: it correlates with related measures, diverges from unrelated ones, and shows expected group differences or change over time.

The extent to which a study's design allows causal conclusions about the effect of the independent variable, ruling out confounds, selection differences, maturation, history, and attrition as explanations.

The extent to which study findings generalize to other people, settings, times, and operationalizations. Tight laboratory control often trades off against broad generalizability.

Placing participants into conditions by chance so groups are probabilistically equivalent at the start. It supports causal inference by distributing known and unknown confounds across conditions.

The probability that a study will detect an effect that truly exists, conventionally targeted at .80. Power rises with larger samples, larger effects, and less measurement error.

Rejecting a true null hypothesis, that is, concluding an effect exists when it does not. Its probability is set by the alpha level, commonly .05.

Failing to reject a false null hypothesis, that is, missing a real effect. Its probability is beta, and one minus beta equals statistical power.

A standardized index of the magnitude of a difference or association, such as Cohen's d or a correlation coefficient. It is independent of sample size and informs practical significance.

A range of plausible values for a population parameter, constructed so that a stated percentage of such intervals would capture the true value across repeated sampling.

An extraneous variable that is associated with both the presumed cause and the outcome, creating a spurious or distorted relationship if it is not controlled.

Learning in which a neutral stimulus repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus comes to elicit a conditioned response. Extinction, spontaneous recovery, and stimulus generalization describe its course.

Learning in which behavior changes according to its consequences. Reinforcement increases behavior and punishment decreases it, and schedules of delivery shape persistence and response patterns.

An increase in the frequency of a behavior because it removes or prevents an aversive stimulus. It is not punishment, and it often maintains avoidance behavior seen in anxiety disorders.

A limited-capacity system that temporarily holds and manipulates information for ongoing tasks. It underlies reasoning, comprehension, and attentional control, and its capacity varies across development.

A set of higher-order control processes including inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and planning that regulate goal-directed behavior. Deficits appear in attention disorders, brain injury, and typical aging.

The principle that retrieval is best when cues at recall match the way information was encoded. It explains context- and state-dependent memory effects.

In free recall of a list, earlier items are remembered well because they entered long-term memory, and later items are remembered well because they remain in short-term memory.

The nervous system's capacity to change structure and function in response to experience, injury, or training. It underlies learning, recovery after stroke, and sensitive-period effects in development.

A window of development during which a system is especially responsive to particular experiences. Unlike a critical period, effects of deprivation may be partly reversible with later intervention.

An enduring emotional bond between infant and caregiver, organized into secure, avoidant, resistant, and disorganized patterns that predict later relationship expectations and emotion regulation.

A mental representation of self and others built from early caregiving experiences that guides expectations, affect, and behavior in later close relationships.

An organized knowledge structure that filters, interprets, and fills gaps in incoming information. Schemas speed processing but can produce systematic distortion and memory errors.

The tendency to explain others' behavior mainly by disposition while underweighting situational factors, with the reverse bias often appearing when explaining one's own behavior.

The tendency to attribute one's successes to internal qualities and one's failures to external circumstances, protecting self-esteem and shaping how people present outcomes.

The tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information that supports existing beliefs while ignoring or discounting contradictory evidence. It affects clinical judgment as well as lay reasoning.

A structured way of assessing how a client's cultural identity, explanatory models, stressors, supports, and clinician-client differences shape presentation, diagnosis, and treatment planning.

An orientation of openness, self-reflection, and power-sharing in which clinicians recognize the limits of their cultural knowledge and remain accountable to clients' stated identities and priorities.

Systematic, repeated confrontation with feared stimuli without avoidance or safety behaviors, allowing fear to extinguish and corrective learning to occur. It is a first-line treatment for anxiety disorders.

A treatment method that teaches clients to identify, evaluate, and revise distorted thoughts and beliefs, replacing them with more accurate and balanced appraisals.

Obtaining a person's voluntary agreement to assessment or treatment after disclosing purpose, procedures, risks, benefits, alternatives, limits of confidentiality, and the right to withdraw.

Holding a professional role with someone while also holding another role with that person or someone closely associated with them, which risks impaired objectivity or exploitation.

Practicing only within the boundaries of one's education, training, supervised experience, and current abilities, and seeking consultation or referral when a case exceeds those limits.

A relationship in which a more experienced clinician monitors and develops a supervisee's clinical work, holding both evaluative and gatekeeping responsibilities to protect clients and the public.