Kerala Plus Two Psychology (DHSE) key terms

A numerical score expressing a person's mental ability relative to others of the same age, traditionally calculated as mental age divided by chronological age multiplied by 100.

The level of mental ability a person shows, expressed as the age at which an average child reaches that same level of performance on a test.

A person's potential for acquiring a particular skill or knowledge with training, usually assessed by tests that predict future performance rather than current achievement.

A test that measures how much a person has already learned in a specific subject or skill area, reflecting current competence rather than future potential.

Gardner's view that ability is not a single general factor but a set of relatively independent capacities such as linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences.

The drop in test performance that occurs when people feel at risk of confirming a negative stereotype about their social group, adding anxiety to the task itself.

The organised set of beliefs and perceptions a person holds about their own qualities, abilities and social roles, which shapes how they interpret new experiences.

The evaluative component of the self, reflecting how positively or negatively a person judges their own worth and competence.

A person's belief about their capacity to organise and carry out the actions needed to reach a specific goal in a given situation.

A relatively stable and enduring characteristic of a person that predisposes them to behave in consistent ways across situations and over time.

A trait theory describing personality through five broad dimensions: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

An approach that classifies people into broad categories, such as introverts and extraverts, on the assumption that each category has a distinct pattern of characteristics.

A personality assessment in which a person responds to ambiguous stimuli, such as inkblots or incomplete sentences, and their interpretations are assumed to reveal hidden needs and conflicts.

An assessment in which the person answers questions or statements about their own behaviour, feelings and beliefs, for example on a personality inventory.

The pattern of physical and psychological responses a person shows when they perceive that demands exceed their ability to cope with them.

Any internal or external event, condition or demand that a person appraises as threatening, challenging or harmful and that triggers a stress response.

Selye's model describing a non-specific bodily reaction to prolonged stress in three stages: alarm, resistance and exhaustion.

The cognitive and behavioural efforts a person makes to manage, reduce or tolerate the demands created by a stressful situation.

The process of evaluating an event, first as relevant or irrelevant and threatening or benign, and then as something one can or cannot handle.

The capacity to maintain or regain psychological well-being and effective functioning after adversity, trauma or significant stress.

Behaviour judged to deviate from accepted norms in ways that are distressing, dysfunctional or dangerous, assessed against statistical, social and personal criteria.

A firmly held false belief that persists despite clear evidence to the contrary and is not shared by others in the person's culture.

A sensory experience of something that is not actually present, such as hearing voices, occurring without any external stimulus.

An intense, persistent and irrational fear of a specific object, situation or activity that leads to avoidance and interferes with daily functioning.

A diffuse, unpleasant feeling of apprehension and tension accompanied by bodily arousal, often without a clearly identifiable external threat.

A disorder marked by recurrent intrusive thoughts that cause distress and by repetitive behaviours or mental acts performed to reduce that distress.

A planned, systematic form of treatment in which a trained professional uses psychological methods to help a person understand and change troubling feelings, thoughts or behaviour.

A treatment approach that helps clients identify and modify distorted or irrational beliefs and negative automatic thoughts that maintain emotional distress.

Ellis's approach in which the therapist challenges the client's irrational beliefs about events and replaces them with more rational, realistic interpretations.

A behaviour therapy in which a client learns relaxation and then confronts a graded hierarchy of feared situations while remaining relaxed, so the fear gradually weakens.

A learned tendency to evaluate an object, person or issue in a favourable or unfavourable way, involving beliefs, feelings and readiness to act.

The process of inferring the causes of one's own and others' behaviour, for example attributing an outcome to internal dispositions or to external circumstances.

The tendency to overestimate dispositional causes and underestimate situational causes when explaining other people's behaviour.

A generalised belief about the characteristics of members of a group, often oversimplified and applied to all individuals regardless of actual differences.

A negative attitude towards members of a group based on their group membership rather than on individual qualities, typically involving hostile feelings and unfair beliefs.

A change in behaviour or belief towards a group standard as a result of real or imagined pressure from other people.

Compliance with the direct commands or orders of a person in a position of authority, often occurring even when the instruction conflicts with personal judgement.

A change in behaviour in response to a direct request, without any claim to authority or internal change in belief.

The tendency for group discussion to shift members' initial views towards a more extreme position in the direction they already favoured.

A flawed decision-making pattern in cohesive groups where the desire for unanimity suppresses dissent and realistic evaluation of alternatives.

The capacity to understand another person's experience from their frame of reference and to respond with appropriate feeling and sensitivity.

A counselling skill in which the listener attends closely, reflects back the speaker's meaning and feeling, and checks understanding rather than simply hearing words.

Rogers's therapeutic attitude of accepting the client fully as a person without judging or attaching conditions to that acceptance.