Kerala Plus Two Psychology (DHSE) flashcards

33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Intelligence

The global capacity to understand the world, think rationally, and use available resources effectively when faced with challenges; it is inferred from behaviour rather than directly observed.

Deviation IQ

A standard score comparing a person's test performance with the mean of the same age group, expressed in standard deviation units; used in Wechsler scales instead of the ratio IQ.

Ratio IQ formula

Mental age divided by chronological age, multiplied by 100. A child with mental age 12 and chronological age 10 scores an IQ of 120 on this ratio scale.

Multiple intelligences

Gardner's view that intelligence is not a single general ability but several relatively independent competencies, such as linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.

Triarchic theory

Sternberg's model dividing intelligence into componential (analytical), experiential (creative), and contextual (practical) aspects, each describing a different way mental processes serve adaptation.

Aptitude versus achievement test

An aptitude test predicts future performance in a specific field, whereas an achievement test measures knowledge or skill already acquired through instruction and experience.

Psychoanalytic personality structure

Freud's division of personality into the id (pleasure principle), ego (reality principle), and superego (morality), which interact to shape behaviour and produce anxiety when in conflict.

Defence mechanisms

Unconscious strategies the ego uses to reduce anxiety from conflicting demands, including repression, projection, displacement, reaction formation, rationalisation, and sublimation.

Big Five factors

The trait model of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, describing personality along continuous dimensions rather than discrete types.

Self-efficacy

Bandura's term for a person's belief in their own capability to organise and execute the actions required to manage prospective situations; it influences effort and persistence.

Projective test

A personality test using ambiguous stimuli, such as inkblots or pictures, so that respondents project their own needs and conflicts into their interpretations; scoring depends on trained judgement.

Locus of control

Rotter's concept distinguishing internal control, the belief that outcomes depend on one's own actions, from external control, the belief that luck, fate, or powerful others decide outcomes.

General Adaptation Syndrome

Selye's three-stage model of the stress response: alarm, with initial physiological arousal; resistance, with sustained coping; and exhaustion, when resources are depleted.

Cognitive appraisal

Lazarus's explanation that stress depends on primary appraisal of whether an event is threatening and secondary appraisal of whether one has the resources to cope with it.

Problem-focused coping

Coping aimed at changing or managing the stressful situation itself, such as planning, seeking information, or taking direct action; most useful when the stressor is controllable.

Hardiness

Kobasa's stress-resistant personality pattern of commitment, control, and challenge, which leads people to appraise potentially stressful events as manageable challenges rather than threats.

Burnout

A work-related stress syndrome marked by emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation or cynicism toward clients, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment.

Panic disorder

An anxiety disorder involving recurrent, unexpected panic attacks with intense fear and physical symptoms, often accompanied by worry about further attacks and avoidance behaviour.

Obsession versus compulsion

An obsession is a recurrent, intrusive, unwanted thought or image; a compulsion is a repetitive behaviour or mental act performed to reduce the distress the obsession causes.

Positive symptoms

In schizophrenia, symptoms that add to normal experience, such as delusions, hallucinations, and disorganised speech, in contrast to negative symptoms that involve loss of function.

Mood disorder

A category of psychological disorders in which disturbance of mood is the central feature, including major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder with its manic and depressive episodes.

Anorexia nervosa

An eating disorder marked by deliberate restriction of food intake, intense fear of gaining weight, and a disturbed body image, often leading to significantly low body weight.

Systematic desensitisation

Wolpe's behaviour therapy in which a client learns relaxation and then confronts feared situations in a graded hierarchy, so relaxation becomes conditioned to previously anxiety-arousing cues.

Cognitive restructuring

A therapeutic technique that identifies distorted automatic thoughts and replaces them with more realistic interpretations, thereby reducing emotional distress and maladaptive behaviour.

Client-centred therapy

Rogers's humanistic approach in which the therapist offers unconditional positive regard, empathy, and congruence, leaving the client to direct the exploration and decide the goals.

Informed consent

The ethical requirement that clients voluntarily agree to treatment after being told its nature, likely benefits and risks, alternatives, and limits of confidentiality.

Cognitive dissonance

Festinger's state of tension produced when a person holds inconsistent cognitions or acts against an attitude; the tension motivates change in attitude or behaviour to restore consistency.

Fundamental attribution error

The tendency to overestimate dispositional causes and underestimate situational causes when explaining other people's behaviour, while making the opposite attribution for one's own.

Bystander effect

The finding that a person is less likely to help when other bystanders are present, largely because responsibility is diffused across the group and each person waits for others to act.

Groupthink

Janis's phenomenon in which a cohesive group's desire for unanimity suppresses dissent, leading members to ignore alternatives and reach poor decisions without critical evaluation.

Social loafing

The reduction in individual effort when people work collectively on an additive task and their personal contribution cannot be identified or evaluated.

Crowding

A subjective experience of insufficient space and unwanted social contact; it is distinct from density, which is the objective number of people per unit area.

Active listening

A helping skill in which the listener attends fully, paraphrases the speaker's meaning, and reflects feelings, checking understanding rather than giving advice or judging.