casta

literally, it means lineage but in the colonial period, the word referred to people of mixed race

casta painting

this was a style of painting, typical of the eighteenth century, which represented the various racial mixtures possible in Latin America

categorization

Process that involves perceiving someone or something as belonging to a specific category. In the case of people we refer to social categorization as the process of perceiving individuals as members of a given social group.    

change blindness

difficulty observers have in noticing changes to visual scenes, when the change is accompanied by some other visual disturbance

child-based twin design

a twin study that relies on twin children

choice blindness

failure to detect changes in a decision outcome when the choice was covertly manipulated

chronic dieters

highly motivated to restrict their calorie intake in order to control their body weight; however, they are rather unsuccessful dieters as they are not only known for their food restriction, but also for their repeated lapses of restraint (Herman & Polivy, 1980)

Synonyms: restrained eaters

Classical conditioning

Learning that “one event predicts another”; or more specifically, a type of associative learning in which “a neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response when it is associated with a stimulus that already produces that response” (Gazzaniga et al., 2016, p. 226). 

cognitive accessibility

the ease with which a given concept comes to mind

refers to the ease or speed with which information stored in memory comes to mind (i.e., can be retrieved)

cognitive decline

 refers to a decreasing ability to perform well on tasks that require speedy, analytical, or creative thinking due to aging

cognitive dissonance

psychological discomfort that is caused by people’s awareness of inconsistency among important beliefs, attitudes, or actions; people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance 

Collaboration

A set of techniques used to appeal to the source’s reward system, with the aim to increase compliance. Examples include: making bargains with the source, offering special rewards and reinforcements. 

 

collective efficacy

the ability to solve the community’s problems collectively

Collective unconscious

An inherited universal psychic system that stores potentials and capacities for patterns of thought and behavior, consisting of “pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents” (Jung, 1959a, p. 42-4). Also see the entries for “archetypes” and “instincts.”

collectivism

refers to a cultural worldview that encourages a focus on duties above rights and an emphasis on group membership, harmony, interpersonal connectedness, context sensitivity

a cultural orientation where people tend to stress in-group cohesion, priority on group goals, community and society, common in Asia (Triandis, 1995)

commitment

is the belief that you wish to make a relationship keep working into the future; if you have this without the other two then you have “empty love”

common ground

the information or knowledge that conversation partners share; the things they (have come to) mutually know, believe, and/or recognize

common sense

the ability to perceive, understand and judge practical matters with little reflection or argument; this is generally assumed to be a universal human ability (van Holthoon & Olson, 1987) 

commons dilemma

The difficulty of managing shared natural resources - which results in many of the environmental problems that exist today - was allegorised in a social dilemma called “The Tragedy of the Commons” (also called the commons dilemma) by Garrett Hardin, an ecologist (1968). Hardin described a field for grazing cattle which is shared by a village. The field must not be overused otherwise the grass will get used up, perhaps to a stage when replenishment is no longer possible. If everyone allows one cow onto the land, there is enough for all. If an individual villager allows more than one cow to graze, that villager - called a free-rider - will benefit. But if others follow suit, everyone suffers as the resource becomes depleted. The dilemma is therefore the choice between short-term individual and long-term collective interests. Taking more than others (competition) may provide temporary benefits to some, but agreeing to limit your use of the resource (cooperation) ultimately benefits all. A good example of the temptation not to cooperate in a commons dilemma is our reluctance to limit our fuel usage. Have you ever reasoned to yourself like this: “If I don’t use up some of the remaining fuel in the world, someone else will; all I can do is delay the inevitable depletion by a few seconds”? (See laboratory social dilemmas for a description of how this works experimentally.)

Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, 1243– 1248.

communal sharing

people treat each other as equivalent and undifferentiated concerning a certain social domain

communal sharing relationship

a type of social relationship in which members implicitly assume that their bodies share a common substance that binds them together. This relationship is typically found among close kin or members of a group with a salient shared identity

companionate love

is intimacy plus commitment; you’re great friends, you’re dedicated to being together, you just don’t have the erotic emotionally supercharged insanity of passion (which is good for, say, siblings)

comparative suffering hypothesis

states that seeing the offender suffer from fate is sufficient for victims to feel satisfaction

Compensatory control theory

was developed to understand how people  maintain the belief that they live in an orderly and stable world when experiencing fluctuations in perceived personal control; when personal control is perceived to be low, people can compensate by affirming beliefs in external sources of control, such as supernatural agents and governmental bodies

 

competence

means being intelligent, skillful, and able

concept activation

the process by which general ideas (like “action” or “inaction”) are mentally triggered, sometimes resulting in an impact on associated behaviors

conceptual metaphors

refers to the idea that people use concrete sensory information to understand dissimilar abstract information (e.g., LOVE is a JOURNEY)

concern with future consequences

an individual’s tendency to be concerned with immediate vs. future consequences, and base one’s decisions on those consequences that are important to the individual

conditioned response

“A response to a conditioned stimulus; a response that has been learned” (Gazzaniga et al., 2016, p. 227).

conditioned stimulus

“A stimulus that elicits a response only after learning has taken place” (Gazzaniga et al., 2016, p. 227).

confabulation

a confusing imagination with memory

Confrontation and Competition

A set of techniques that rely on threats or perceived punishment. For example: emphasize the investigator’s authority, threaten the source with longer sentence, and use deception. 

connectedness functions

refer to those functions of gossip that help individuals obtain acceptance and liking from important individuals and groups

conscientiousness

one of the Big Five personality factors, characterized by traits such as organization, thoroughness, reliability, and practicality, and their relative absence of careless, negligence, and unreliability

consensual non-monogamy

a form of romantic relationship configuration where all partners involved agree to engage in romantic and/or sexual relationships with other peoplel; this includes (but is not limited to): polyamory (partners involved agree on loving sexual and romantic relationships with others), swinging (partners agree on sexual relationships with others, typically engaged in as a couple and often at parties) and open relationships (partners agree on sexual engagements with others, typically with the expectation that love is not part of the equation)

consequentialism

A system of ethics that, at its simplest, uses the consequences of our actions to determine whether they are right or wrong. (This is in contrast to a deontological system of ethics, in which actions have intrinsic moral value, regardless of their consequences.)

Consolidation

Consolidation happens when new information is transferred from short-term memory (which can be easily disturbed) to long-term memory (which is more stable). Memory consolidation requires time.    

Consolidation

The step in the memory process in which a memory is stabilized allowing short-term memories to be converted into long-term memories

consummate love

is intimacy plus passion plus commitment; you’ve got it all; they don’t give prizes for this, it IS a prize

contact hypothesis

 the notion that contact between members two groups tends to reduce tensions between them, particularly when it occurs under certain types of circumstances

Context Manipulation

A set of non-verbal, non-interpersonal techniques used for altering the physical and/or temporal space where the interrogation takes place with the aim to increase the likelihood of a successful outcome. 

Context Manipulation

A set of non-verbal, non-interpersonal techniques used for altering the physical and/or temporal space where the interrogation takes place with the aim to increase the likelihood of a successful outcome. 

contradictory details

information in eyewitness accounts that was initially reported and is later changed

contradictory details

information in eyewitness accounts that was initially reported and is later changed

control condition

Many psychological experiments are designed to examine the impact of a specific variable (in the case of this paper: sleep deprivation) on different facets of human functioning (in the case of this paper: decision making). To examine this impact scientifically, two groups (also called conditions) are compared: the experimental condition in which the variable of interest is present (i.e., sleep deprivation) and a control condition in which the variable is not present (i.e., a well-rested group). Apart from the variable of interest, both conditions have to be as similar as possible. The difference in functioning (i.e., decision making) between both groups informs about the impact of the variable under study.

cooperation

In the context of a social dilemma, cooperative behaviour acts in the interests of the collective, rather than acting in the individual’s interests. This will involve forgoing immediate benefits to the individual in order to preserve the shared resource. The alternative behaviour is competition, where the individual does whatever is necessary to gain maximum personal benefit.

coping

the process of managing taxing circumstances, and seeking to reduce or tolerate stress or conflict

Cortisol

A steroid hormone belonging to a group of hormones called glucocorticoids; produced in humans by the zona fasciculate of the adrenal cortex in the adrenal gland (near kidney)

counterfactual

phenomena are phenomena that are physically implausible or nonexistent; in psychology mostly known for counterfactual thinking: pondering about what would have happened if one had done something different at a certain point in time; so though the phenomenon can easily be thought about, it’s just impossible in the present reality

counterintuitive

phenomena are phenomena that are at odds with factual or logical reasoning; ironically, counterintuitive can also stand for phenomena at odds with gut feelings and intuition, which are often disproven; take the earth for an example, the idea that the earth is flat is an intuitive idea; the discovery that the earth was a round spheroid, is therefore a counterintuitive idea; yet, this doesn’t mean that the idea isn’t true: it’s just unlikely to be thought

coyote

one of the terms proposed for the racial mixture represented by a person with one indigenous and one mestizo parent

craving

a subjective feeling in which one experiences a strong urge or desire to engage in a certain behavior 

creative conceptual expansion

the process of extending the conceptual boundaries of an existing concept by synthesizing it with other seemingly irrelevant concepts

creativity

a much-studied phenomenon typically attributed to a) a person, b) a product, c) a process or d) an environment ; it is distinguished by the production of novel and useful things, whereas countless approaches to defining, generating and facilitating creativity have been developed in the four areas

cue

Every characteristic of a person that is informative of his/her membership to a given group.

Cued recall

A memory test in which people are asked to provide answers, assisted by memory cues (e.g., specific questions, cues, hints, etc.)

cultural anthropologist

belongs to a branch of the social sciences that studies cultural variation among humans

cultures of dignity

based on the conviction that each person has an intrinsic value; dignity cultures try to balance ideals of equality and liberty: everyone’s worth is the same; one’s worth is not dependent on other’s judgments (Kim, Cohen, Au, 2010)

cultures of honor

cultures that are concerned with the preservation of personal and group honor and reputation

cystic fibrosis

is a childhood-onset hereditary disease that affects mucus producing glands found in the liver, pancreas, and especially the lungs; there is currently no cure for cystic fibrosis and many who suffer from this disease die at age 20 or 30; however, with new treatments some cystic fibrosis sufferers’ life expectancy is increasing to 40 or 50

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