In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is social isolation. Social isolation involves an objective removal from social contact and relationships, which may occur voluntarily or involuntarily. The term perceived social isolation is used to include a subjective sense of loneliness. While loneliness and social … Continue reading What is… Social Isolation
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is herd behaviour. Are we people or sheeple? Turns out we're actually a lot more sheeplish than we might like to think that we are, and herd behaviour is exhibited across a range of different contexts. Kameda and … Continue reading What is… Herd Behaviour
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is the inner child. The concept of an inner child, or childlike aspect within each of us, has some roots in psychology, but it's also a pop culture phenomenon. A search of Google Scholar for inner child psychology … Continue reading What is… the inner child
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's terms are anxiety vs. worry. Anxiety and worry are both normal human experiences, but when severe they can be elements of mental illness. Notably, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) features both of them. People with high levels of neuroticism as … Continue reading What is… Anxiety vs. Worry
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is rumination. According to the response styles theory, rumination involves the passive, repetitive focus on the nature of one's own distress and its causes and potential consequences. It is self-referential, meaning it's focused on one's own thoughts and … Continue reading What is… Rumination
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week we'll look at the Stanford prison experiment. The Stanford prison experiment was a social psychology study conducted at Stanford University in 1971. Male student volunteers were randomly assigned to be either "prisoners" or "guards" in a mock prison set … Continue reading What is… The Stanford Prison Experiment
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) incorporates a number of different alternative healing approaches, including neuro-linguistic programming, acupuncture meridians, and energy medicine. It is not generally accepted within mainstream psychology, and has been described as … Continue reading What is… Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is pluralistic ignorance. Pluralistic ignorance is a type of social group bias in which members of a social group privately disagree with a certain belief or behaviour, but they publicly go along with what they perceive to be … Continue reading What is… Pluralistic Ignorance
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is the enneagram. The enneagram is a personality typology that includes nine different personality types, which are depicted in the 9-pointed figure shown above. A key influence in the development of the enneagram as it is currently used … Continue reading What is… the Enneagram
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term ism intelligence quotient (IQ). We've probably all heard of the IQ test as a standard way of measuring intelligence. What's actually involved, though? Well, to begin, we should consider what intelligence is. There is no single agreed-upon definition, … Continue reading What is… IQ
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is not so much a single term as a group of terms that fall within the umbrella of Freudian psychoanalytic theories. Love him or hate him, Sigmund Freud was quite remarkable in terms of his impact on the … Continue reading What is… Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence involves the ability to recognize emotions in both the self and others, and then make decisions that take into account those emotions. The first noted use of the term dates back to 1964. … Continue reading What is… Emotional Intelligence
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term: dreaming We all have dreams, whether we remember them or not, but what exactly are they? The reality is that no one really knows for sure. There are a few things we do know, though. Dreams occur mostly … Continue reading What is… Dreaming
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term: enmeshment Enmeshment was first described by family therapist Salavador Minuchin. It occurs when there is an extreme lack of boundaries, which prevents healthy differentiation into autonomous individuals. It tends to be seen most often in families, although it … Continue reading What is… Enmeshment
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term: imposter syndrome. I've seen a number of people write about this lately, so I don't remember anyone specific to mention for inspiring this post. The term imposter syndrome was first used in a 1978 paper in the journal … Continue reading What is… Imposter Syndrome