Abnormal Psych: Ch 2

Front 1

Multidimensional Integrative Approach

Back 1

Approach to the study of psychopathology that holds psychological disorders are always the products of multiple interacting causal factors.

Front 2

Gene

Back 2

Long deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule, the basic physical unit of heredity that appears as a location on chromosome.

Front 3

Diathesis-stress Model

Back 3

Hypothesis that both an inherited tendency (a vulnerability) and specific stressful conditions are required to produce a disorder.

Front 4

Vulnerability

Back 4

Susceptibility or tendency to develop a disorder.

Front 5

Reciprocal gene-environment model

Back 5

Hypothesis that people with genetic predisposition for a disorder may also have a genetic tendency to create environmental risk factors that promote the disorder.

Front 6

Neuroscience

Back 6

Study of the nervous system and its role in behavior, thoughts, and emotions.

Front 7

Neuron

Back 7

Individual nerve cell responsible for transmitting information

Front 8

Synaptic Cleft

Back 8

Space between nerve cells where chemical transmitters act to move impulses from on neuron to the next.

Front 9

Neurotransmitter

Back 9

Chemical that crosses the synaptic cleft between nerve cells to transmit impulses from one neuron to the next. Relative excess or deficiency or neurotransmitters is involved in several psychological disorders.

Front 10

Hormone

Back 10

Chemical messenger produced by the endocrine gland.

Front 11

Brain Circuit

Back 11

Neurotransmitter current or neural pathway in the brain.

Front 12

Reuptake

Back 12

Action by which a neurotransmitter is quickly drawn back in to the discharging neuron after being released into a synaptic cleft.

Front 13

Agonist

Back 13

In neuroscience, a chemical substance that effectively increases the activity of a neurotransmitter by imitating its effects.

Front 14

Antagonist

Back 14

In neuroscience, a chemical substance that decreases or blocks the effects of a neurotransmitters.

Front 15

Inverse Agonist

Back 15

In neuroscience, a chemical substance that produces effects opposite those of a particular neurotransmitter.

Front 16

Glutamate

Back 16

Amino acid neurotransmitters that excites many different neurons, leading to action.

Front 17

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)

Back 17

Neurotransmitter that reduces activity across the synaptic cleft and thus inhibits a range of behaviors and emotions, especially generalized anxiety.

Front 18

Serotonin

Back 18

Nerotransmitter involved in processing of information and coordination of movement, as well as inhibition and restraint. It also assists in the regulation of eating, sexual, and aggressive behaviors, all of which may be involved in different psychological disorders. Its interaction with dopamine is implicated in schizophrenia.

Front 19

Norepinephrine

Back 19

Neurotransmitter active in the central and peripheral nervous system, controlling heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration, among other functions. Because of its role on the body's alarm reaction, it may also contribute generally and indirectly to panic attacks and other disorders. Also known as noradrenaline.

Front 20

Dopamine

Back 20

Neurotransmitter whose generalized function is to activate other neurotransmitters and to aid in exploratory and pleasure-seeking behaviors (thus balancing serotin). A relative excess of dopamine is implicated in schizophrenia (although contradictory evidence suggest that the connection is not simple), and its deficit is involved in Parkinson's disease.

Front 21

Cognitive Science

Back 21

Field of study that examines how humans and other animals acquire, process, store, and retrieve information.

Front 22

Learned Helplessness

Back 22

Martin Seligman's theory that people become anxious and depressed when they make an attribution that they have no control over the stress in their lives (whether or not they actually have control).

Front 23

Modeling

Back 23

Learning through observation and limitation of the behavior of other individuals and consequences of that behavior

Front 24

Prepared Learning

Back 24

Ability adaptive for evolution, allowing certain associations to be learned more readily than others.

Front 25

Implicit Memory

Back 25

Condition of memory in which a person cannot recall past events despite acting in response to them.

Front 26

Emotion

Back 26

Pattern of action elicited by an external event and a feeling state, accompanied by a characteristic physiological response.

Front 27

Fight or Flight Response

Back 27

Biological reaction to alarming stressors that muster the body's resources to resist or flee a threat.

Front 28

Mood

Back 28

Enduring period of emotionality.

Front 29

Affect

Back 29

Conscious, subjective aspect of an emotion that accompanies an action at a given time.

Front 30

Equifinality

Back 30

Developmental psychopathology principle that a behavior or disorder may have several causes.