GLOSSARY

Ability: 1) something that you are able to do, especially because you have a particular mental or physical skill; 2) someone’s, especially a student’s, level of intelligence or skill, especially in school or college work.

Abnormal psychology:the branch of psychology that studies unusual patterns of behaviour, emotion and thought, which may or may not be understood as precipitating a mental disease.

Abnormality:a behavioural attribute that reflects the deviation of mind from its normal state or typical behaviour. Abnormality being a subjective concept, it could be reflected in different forms.

Abstraction:the activity of retaining the relevant information required for a particular purpose by generalizing it.

Accommodation:the acceptance of new information, ideas and experiences results to the alteration of the existing schemas or thoughts.

Acculturation:the exchange of cultural features that results when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first hand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct.

Addiction:an excessive psychological dependence on a particular thing. A person could be addicted to drugs, money, work, gambling, eating, nicotine, pornography, computer, video games, etc.

Adjustment:the activity of balancing the needs that conflict with each other. Adjustment is a behavioural attribute found in both human beings and animals. It also means – to overcome the obstacles presented by the environment in order to fulfill the needs.

Adoption:the legal act of permanently placing a child with a parent or parents other than the birth (or "biological") mother or father.

Adult: a human being or living organism that is of relatively mature age, typically associated with sexual maturity and the attainment of reproductive age.

Ageing (aging AmE):the process of accumulation of changes in an organism over time. The changes that take place are psychological, physiological as well as social. In psychological terms, aging results in the expansion of knowledge and wisdom of a person.

Aggression:the behaviour of an individual which incorporates the intention of causing harm or pain to another individual.

Agitation:the state of restlessness or excitement of emotions.

Aid:the money to support a worthy person or cause. It also denotes public assistance, social welfare (eg. economic aid, financial aid).

Almsgiving(syn: Eleemosynary): the act of giving money, goods or time to the unfortunate, either directly or by means of a charitable trust or other worthy cause. The poor, particularly widows and orphans, and the sick and disabled, are generally regarded as the proper objects of almsgiving.

Almoner:a chaplain or church officer who originally was in charge of distributing charity.

Altruism:1)the behaviour that is unselfish and may even be detrimental but which benefits others;2) selfless concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and central to many religious traditions.

Ambiversion: a term used to describe people who fall more or less directly in the middle of extraversion-introversion and exhibit tendencies of both groups. An ambivert is normally comfortable with groups and enjoys social interaction, but also relishes time alone and away from the crowd.

Andragogy: consists of learning strategies focused on adults. It is often interpreted as the process of engaging adult learners with the structure of learning experience.

Anticipation:an emotion that involves the feeling of pleasure or anxiety with regards to an unexpected event.

Anti-racism:beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism.

Anxiety:the physiological and psychological reaction to an expected danger, whether real or imagined.

Apathy:the state in which a person suppresses his emotions like motivation, excitement, concern, passion.

Aphasia:loss of language abilities due to brain damage, usually on the left side of the brain where most people have their “language centres”. When often see aphasia as the result of an adult who has had a stroke and has trouble naming items, remembering words, categorizing and conversing.Aphasia is a disorder in which any of the language modality of a person gets impaired. In this acquired language disorder, the person is not able to understand or produce written or spoken language.

Apperception:the process through which an individual assimilates and transforms a new experience with the help of the experience of past. It is the process of understanding the new experience in relation to the older experiences.

Appreciation:the act and result of showing someone that you are grateful for something they have done or value it.

Assertiveness:a personality trait characterized by the behaviour of communicating without being afraid to speak one's mind. Assertive people are known to defend their personal boundaries without being aggressive or passive.

Assessment:1) a process in whichyou make a judgment about a person or situation. E.g. What’s your assessment of the situation in Northern Ireland? 2) a calculation about the cost or value of something. E.g. a tax assessment.

Assimilation:1)theprocess and state of getting ready to use new ideas and information; 2) incorporation of new concepts into existing schemes.

Associative learning: the process by which an element is taught through association with a separate, pre-occurring element.

Attachment:the behaviour of person to show his proximity to another individual and which is the result of the activity of a number of behavioural systems.

Attention: acognitive process in which one tries to focus his mind on a single aspect while ignoring the others.

Attitude:a concept that is used to denote the degree of like or dislike an individual exhibits for a particular thing. Attitude is associated with positive or negative views that a person has about places, events or other people altogether.

Attribution:the manner in which an individual describes or explains the cause of events, his own behaviour and the behaviour of others associated with the events.

Auditory learning: learning based on listening to instructions/information.

Auditory processing:the work of the brain to understand and remember information we hear: paying attention to a sound in the presence of background noise, auditory memory, auditory discrimination between sounds, sequencing the order of what we hear, forming a concept or image or idea.

Autism (orAutism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): 1) a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize; 2) a disorder characterized by impaired communication and social interaction. Repetitive and restricted behaviour is one of the symptoms found in people with this disorder.

Awareness:the ability or state in which a person can feel, perceive or is conscious about the sensory patterns, objects or events around him.

Behaviour: 1) the actions of a system or organism, the response of them to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external, conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary; 2) the actions and reactions of an individual that he displays or exhibits in relation to the surroundings or environment.

Behaviorism:an approach to psychology proposition that behavior can be researched scientifically without recourse to inner mental state. It is a form of materialism, denying any independent significance for the mind.

Burnout:changes in thoughts, emotions, and behaviour as a result of extended job stress and unrewarded repetition of duties. Burnout is seen as extreme dissatisfaction, pessimism, lowered job satisfaction, and a desire to quit.

Campus: the grounds of a school, college or university.

Caseworker (syn: Social worker):a person who is employed by a government agency or a private organization to take on an individual's case and provide them advocacy, information or other services.

Centration:a child's tendency to focus only on his or her own perspective of a specific object and a failure to understand that others may see things differently.

Character:1) the particular combination of qualities that makes someone a particular kind of person. (in this meaning it is close to ‘personality’); 2) a combination of qualities, such as courage and loyalty that are admired and regarded as valuable. E.g. a woman of great character; 3) a person in a book, film.

Charity:1) the act of giving help, money, food, etc, to those in need; 2) an institution or organization set up to provide help, money, etc., to those in need; 3) a kindly and lenient attitude towards people; 4) a foundation created to promote the public good (not for assistance to any particular individuals).

Child: a human between the stages of conception and puberty.

Child abuse:the physical, psychological or sexual maltreatment of children.

Child custody(guardianship): the legal and practical relationship between a parent and his or her child, such as the right of the parent to make decisions for the child, and the parent's duty to care for the child.Foster care (custodianship):a legal basis for the care of children under the British Children's Act 1975, midway between fostering and adoption, devised for children settled in long-term foster care or living permanently with relatives or a step-parent.

Child protection (syn: welfare):a set of usually government-run services designed to protect children and young people who are underage and encourage family stability. These typically include investigation of alleged child abuse, foster care, adoption services, and services aimed at supporting at-risk families so they can remain intact.

Child and adolescent psychiatry: the branch of psychiatry that specializes in the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of psychopathological disorders of children, adolescents, and their families. It encompasses the clinical investigation of phenomenology, biologic factors, psychosocial factors, genetic factors, demographic factors, environmental factors, history, and the response to interventions of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders.

Child psychopathology: the manifestation of psychological disorders in children and adolescents. Oppositional defiant disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder are examples of child psychopathology. Counselors, social workers, psychologist and psychiatrists who work with mentally ill children are informed by research in developmental psychology, developmental psychopathology, clinical child psychology, and family systems.

Class participation: a teaching method allowing to stimulate the learning activity of a group of students by their taking part in an activity during a lesson.

Clinical psychology:1)the branch of psychology concerned with the treatment of abnormal mentation and behaviour; 2) a field of psychology that focuses on diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.

Cognition: the scientific term for "the process of thought". It usually refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological function. Other interpretations of the meaning of cognition link it to the development of concepts, individual minds, groups, and organizations.It is the processes of reasoning, thoughts, attitudes and memories.

Cognitive ability: the overall mental ability for different thinking processes that the brain is capable of.

Cognitive development:a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child’s development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language, learning and other aspects of brain development and cognitive psychology.

Cognitive psychology: a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes of thought such as visual processing, memory, thinking, learning, feeling, problem solving and language. It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak and solve problems.

Cognitive science:the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, which examines how information concerning facilities such as perception, language, reasoning and emotion are represented and transformed in a brain or a machine (e.g., computer). It consists of multiple research disciplines, including psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, neuroscience, learning sciences, linguistics, anthropology, sociology and education.

Collaborating:one of the direct instructional methods of having students work in groups. Collaborating allows students to talk to each other and listen to all points of view in the discussion. It helps students think in a less personally biased way and it allows the teacher to assess the students’ ability to work as a team, leadership skills, or presentation abilities.

College: 1) a school for advanced education, especially in a particular subject or skill. E.g. a teacher training college, technical and commercial colleges (the Russian «колледж», «техникум»); 2) a place of higher education both in the USA and in Great Britain (the Russian «университет»); 3) a part of a university. For instance the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London are composed of groups of largely autonomous colleges.

Communication:the process by which people exchange information or express their thoughts and feelings.

Communication skills: ways of expressing yourself well so that other people will understand well. E.g. a week’s course in improving communication skills.

Community chest:a charity supported by individual subscriptions; defrays the demands on a community for social welfare.

Comparative psychology: refers to the study of the behavior and mental life of animals other than human beings. Comparative psychology has also been described as branch of psychology in which emphasis is placed on cross-species comparisons—including human-to-animal comparisons.

Comprehensive school: is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is resricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United Kingdom, where comprehensive schools were introduced in the late 1960s. It corresponds broadly to the German Gesamtschule and to the high school in the United States and Canada. About 90% of British pupils attend comprehensive schools. Most comprehensives are secondary schools for children between the ages of 11 to at least 19, but in a few areas there are comprehensive middle schools, and in some places the secondary level is divided into two, for students aged 11 to 14 and those aged 14 to 19, roughly corresponding to the US middle school (or junior high school) and high school, respectively.

Compulsive behaviour: behaviour which a person does compulsively – in other words, not because they want to do so but because they have to do so.Compulsive behaviour is intended and appears to follow rules.

Computation:the process, skill or the result of calculating.

Conformity:changing your attitudes, beliefs, thoughts, or behaviours in order to be more consistent with others.

Consciousness:awareness of yourself and the world around you.

Cost of living:the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living. Changes in the cost of living over time are often operationalized in a cost of living index.

Counseling: a theory-based process of helping persons who are fundamentally psychologically healthy resolve developmental and situational issues.

Creativity:a human mental phenomenon based around the deployment of mental skills and/or conceptual tools which, in turn, originate and develop innovation, inspiration and insight. Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby something new is created which has some kind of value. Creative thinking is the type of thinking that produces new or effective ideas, results etc.

Cross-Cultural psychology:the scientific study of human behavior and mental process, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions.

Defectology:a branch of science that is concerned with the study of the principles and characteristics of the development of children with compound physical and mental defects and the problems of their training and upbringing.

Demonstration:1) an act of explaining and showing how something works or is done; 2) a teaching method to provide an opportunity to learn new exploration and visual learning tasks from a different perspective. A teacher may use experimentation to demonstrate ideas in a science class. A demonstration may be used in the circumstance of proving conclusively a fact, as by reasoning or showing evidence.

Depression:a disorder characterized by low self-esteem, low mood and lack of interest in the activities to be performed in daily life.

Development(syn: evolution): the process of gradual change of physical, mental and spiritual forces of a person which provide the realization and formation of his personality.

Developmental psychology(or human development):the scientific study of systematic psychological changes that occur in human beings overthe course of their life span.

Didactic method: a teaching method that follows a consistent scientific approach or educational style to engage the student’s mind.

Didactics: the theory of teaching and practical application of teaching and learning. In demarcation from "Mathetics" (the science of learning), didactics refers only to the science of teaching. This theory might be contrasted with Open learning, in which people can learn by themselves, in an unstructured manner, on topics of interest.

Disability:a condition or function judged to be significantly impaired/distorted relative to the usual standard or spectrum of an individual of their group. The term is often used to refer to individual functioning, including physical impairment, sensory impairment, cognitive impairment, intellectual impairment, mental illness, and various types of chronic disease.

Discussion:– a different kind of group work. After some preparation and with clearly defined roles as well as interesting topics, discussions may well take up most of the lesson, with the teacher only giving short feedback at the end or even in the following lesson. Discussions can take a variety of forms, e.g. fishbone discussions.

Discretionary benefits: for those in need who are not covered otherwise. Because some needs are unpredictable, many social assistance schemes have some kind of discretionary element to deal with urgent or exceptional needs; where social assistance is tied to social work, discretionary payments may also be used as a means of encouraging and directing appropriate patterns of behaviour.

Disorientation:the state in which a person is confused about place, time, direction and identity. Disorientation arises as a result of intoxication or delirium.

Domestic violence (domestic abuse or spousal abuse): attempts of a family member, partner or ex-partner to dominate another physically or psychologically.

Donation:a gift given by physical or legal persons, for charitable purposes. A donation may take various forms, including cash, services, new or used goods, clothing, toys, food, vehicles. It also may consist of emergency, relief or humanitarian aid items, development aid support, and can also relate to medical care needs as i.e. blood or organs for transplant.

Drive:an internal motivation to fulfill a need or reduce the negative aspects of an unpleasant situation.

Educate (v): to teach people over a long period of time, in all kinds of knowledge not just school subjects.

Education: 1) the process by which your mind develops through learning at a school, college, or university; 2) the knowledge and skills that you gain from being taught. Education in the largest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another.

Educational psychology(syn: school psychology):the psychological science studying how children and adults learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of various educational strategies, the psychology of teaching and the social psychology of schools or organizations and how schools function as organizations.

Egocentrism (or self-centredness):1) the state in which an individual is incapable of differentiating between the self and the world completely; 2) the tendency to perceive, understand and interpret the world in terms of the self. An egocentric person understands, analyses and interprets the world in his own terms.

Emergency management (disaster management or disaster relief):the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks. It involves preparing for disaster before it occurs, disaster response (emergency evacuation, quarantine, mass decontamination, etc.), and supporting, and rebuilding society after natural or human-made disasters have occurred.

Empathy:the ability to understand another person's perceptions and feelings.

Emotion: the complex psycho-physiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical (internal) and environmental (external) influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience”. Emotion is associated with mood, temperament, personality and disposition, and motivation. It is a pattern of intense changes in physiological arousal, behaviour, cognitive processes and environmental influences that are described in subjective terms such as happiness, fear or anger.

Employment services:general measures to manage the issues of unemployment through economic policy.

Encourage (v):to say or do something that helps someone to have the courage or confidence to do something.

Evaluation: the act of considering something to decide how useful or valuable it is. E.g. an intensive evaluation of the educational programme.

Evolutionary psychology: is based on the idea that knowledge concerning the function of the psychological phenomena affecting human evolution is necessary for a complete understanding of the human psyche. Even the project of studying the evolutionary functions of consciousness is now an active topic of study.

Explaining:similar to lecturing. Lecturing is teaching by giving a discourse on a specific subject that is open to the public, usually given in the classroom. This can also be associated with modeling. Modeling is used as a visual aid to learning. Students can visualize an object or problem, then use reasoning and hypothesizing to determine an answer.

Extraversion: 1) the personality style where the individual prefers outward and group activity as opposed to inward and individual activity; 2) the state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the sel. Extraverts tend to enjoy human interactions and to be enthusiastic, talkative, assertive, and gregarious. They take pleasure in activities that involve large social gatherings, such as parties, community activities, public demonstrations, and business or political groups. Politics, teaching, sales, managing and brokering are fields that favor extraversion.

Extrinsic motivation:the desire or push to perform a certain behaviour based on the potential external rewards that may be received as a result.

Family therapy (or couple therapy or family systems therapy): a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development.

Fellowship:money granted by a university or foundation or other agency for advanced study or research.

Food bank:a non-profit organization which distributes non-perishable goods and perishable food items to non-profit agencies involved in local emergency food programs.

Forensic developmental psychology: includes autobiographical memory, memory distortion, eyewitness identification, narrative construction, personality, and attachment as topics covered by this field of research. Forensic developmental psychology is oriented toward children's actions and reactions in forensic contexts.

Forensic social work:a branch of social work that deals with the practice of social work in criminal and civil law settings.

Foster care:a system by which a certified, stand-in "parent(s)" cares for minor children or young people who have been removed from their birth parents or other custodial adults by state authority.

Frustration:the feelings, thoughts, and behaviours associated with not achieving a particular goal or the belief that a goal has been prematurely interrupted.

Functional psychology (or functionalism): a general psychological philosophy that considers mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to the person's environment^. As such, it provides the general basis for developing psychological theories not readily testable by controlled experiments and for applied psychology.

Gender identity:an individual's perception about whether they are male or female.

Genetics:the study of heredity of physical and psychological traits.

Geriatric psychiatry: a subspecialty of psychiatry dealing with the study, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders in humans with old age. The diagnosis, treatment and management of dementia is one area of this field.

Gerontology:the study of social, psychological and biological aspects of aging.

Gift:something acquired without compensation.

Globalization:an ongoing process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a globe-spanning network of communication and trade.

Global public good:a good that has the three following properties: 1) it is non-rivalrous. Consumption of this good by anyone does not reduce the quantity available to other agents. 2) It is non-excludable. It is impossible to prevent anyone from consuming that good. 3) It is available worldwide.

Grade(esp. AmE): a mark given for a particular piece of work at school, or for your work during all or part of a year. E.g. You need good grades to go to college.

Grammar school:a school in Britain for children over the age of 11 who have to pass a special examination to go there. Originally they were schools teaching classical languages (Latin and Ancient Greek) but more recently academically-oriented types of secondary school. Over time the curriculum was broadened to include European languages, as well as the natural sciences, mathematics, history, geography and other subjects. In the late Victorian era, grammar schools were re-organised to provide secondary education across the United Kingdom with the exception of Scotland, which had developed a different system. Grammar schools of these types were also established in British territories. Grammar schools became the selective tier of the Tripartite System of state-funded secondary education operating in England and Wales from the mid-1940s to the late 1960s. With the move to non-selective comprehensive schools in the 1960s and 1970s, some grammar schools became fully independent and charged fees, while most others were abolished or became comprehensive. In both cases, many of these schools kept "grammar school" in their names. Some parts of England retain forms of the Tripartite System, and there are also a few surviving grammar schools in otherwise comprehensive areas. Some of the remaining grammar schools can trace their histories to before the 16th century.

Grant:any monetary aid.

Group dynamics: relevant to the fields of psychology, sociology, a group is two or more individuals who are connected to each other by social relationships. Because they interact and influence each other, groups develop a number of dynamic processes that separate them from a random collection of individuals. These processes include norms, roles, relations, development, need to belong, social influence, and effects on behavior. The field of group dynamics is primarily concerned with small group behavior. Groups may be classified as aggregate, primary, secondary and category groups (eg. peer groups).

Group psychotherapy:a form of psychotherapy in which one or more therapists treat a small group of clients together as a group. The term is usually applied to psychodynamic group therapy when the group content and group process is explicitly utilized as a mechanism of change by developing, exploring and examining interpersonal relationships within the group.

Habit: a repeated behaviour that develops as a result of experience and occurs subconsciously and almost automatically. Habitual behaviour often goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting it, because a person does not need to engage in self-analysis when undertaking routine tasks. Habituation is an extremely simple form of learning, in which an organism, after a period of exposure to a stimulus, stops responding to that stimulus in varied manners.

Hall of residence (BrE): a college or university building where students live. (AmE: dormitory).

Heuristic: refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. Heuristic methods are used to come to an optimal solution as rapidly as possible. Part of this method is using a "rule of thumb", an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, or common sense.

Homelessness:the condition and societal category of people who lack fixed housing, usually because they cannot afford a regular, safe, and adequate shelter.

Handicap:the loss or limitation of opportunities to take part in the life of the community on an equal level with others.

Hostility:a form of denial or angry internal rejection. The term is generally used as a synonym for aggression or anger.

Housing costs: mainly mortgage relief and insurance for owner-occupiers; rent is dealt with through the Housing Benefit scheme.

Imagination:the ability to form mental images, or the ability to spontaneously generate images within one's own mind.

Imitation:the learning of behaviour through the observation of others behaviour.

Immigration:the movement of people between countries. While the movement of people has existed throughout human history at various levels, modern immigration implies long-term, legal, permanent residence.

Imprinting:the phase of learning at an early age when a person forms a specific pattern of behaviour. Imprinting is also observed in animals.

Income support:a limited proportion of all the money spent on social security, it guarantees a minimum level of income for many recipients.

Income maintenance:mainly the distribution of cash in the event of interruption of employment, including retirement, disability.

Individuality:is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires.

Innate: occurring without learning, inborn.

Instinct:an inborn pattern of behaviour often responsive to specific stimuli.

Instructing:refers to the facilitating of learning, usually by a teacher.Instruct (v): to teach someone, especially in a practical way and about a practical skill.

Intelligence:1)an underlying ability which enables an individual to adapt to and function effectively within a given environment; 2) the mental capacity to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language and learn. In psychology, the study of intelligence generally regards this trait as distinct from creativity, personality, character or wisdom.

Intraversion: 1) the tendency to focus energy inward resulting in decreased social interaction; 2) the state of being predominantly concerned with and interested in one's own mental life. Introverts are people whose energy tends to expand through reflection and dwindle during interaction. Introverts tend to be more reserved and less outspoken in large groups. They often take pleasure in solitary activities such as reading, writing, music, drawing, tinkering, playing video games, watching movies and plays, and using computers.

Intrinsic motivation:the motivation or desire to do something based on the enjoyment of the behaviour itself rather than relying on external reinforcement.

Introspection:the process of examining one's own consciousness.

Intuition:the person's ability to acquire knowledge without inference or logical reasoning. Intuition is a natural tendency used by some people to make decisions.