facial feedback hypothesis The view that facial expressions play a key role in initiating, or at least modulating, the experience of emotion. 11
factor analysis A mathematical technique similar to a correlation whereby individuals are given various tests and their responses compared to all other responses to find similarities. 13, 14
factors Basic abilities; the components of intelligence. 14
family-systems therapies Psychotherapy that stresses the im-portance of altering family roles and patterns of communication that maintain maladaptive behavior. 16
Fechner’s law A law stating that as the intensity of a stimulus increases, larger and larger increases in intensity are required to produce subjectively equivalent changes. 4
fetal alcohol syndrome A group of defects including mental retardation, deficient growth, and defects of the skull, face, and brain that tend to occur in the infants of women who consume large amounts of alcohol during pregnancy. 5
fight-or-flight response A physiological reaction to stress in which an organism is aroused either to attack a threatening invader or to flee. 12
fixation According to psychoanalytic theory, a state of arrested development whereby an individual becomes stuck in a particular psychological battle, repeating the conflict in symbolic ways. 13
fixed-interval (FI) schedule A partial reinforcement schedule in which a reward is given for the first correct response after a certain time interval. 6
fixed-ratio (FR) schedule A partial reinforcement schedule in which a reward is given after a specified number of responses. 6
flashbulb memories Memories of extraordinary events, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. 7
flooding In behavior therapies, an exposure-based treatment involving intense, rapid exposure to fearful stimuli. 16
foot-in-the-door phenomenon A tendency to comply with a larger request if a person has previously agreed to a smaller one. 18
forebrain Also the cerebral hemispheres. The two large structures lying above the brain’s central core that are involved in learning, speech, reasoning, and memory. 3
forgetting function Hermann Ebbinghaus’s pattern of forgetting, characterized by two distinct features: forgetting is initially very rapid (within an hour, savings have fallen to 50 percent), but the rate eventually levels off (even after a month’s delay, savings are about 25 percent). 7
form perception The ability to detect unified patterns in a mass of sensory data. 4
formal operations stage Piaget’s term for the cognitive changes in adolescence marking the onset of adultlike thinking, characterized by the ability to think hypothetically and in abstract terms. 9
formal-operational period The last stage of Piaget’s theory of intellectual growth (from adolescence through adulthood), during which a person learns to think simulta-neously about many systems of operations and to think hypothetically. 9
forward conditioning Presenting the conditioned stimulus slightly before the unconditioned stimulus in order to create the perception of a contingency. 6
fovea A pitlike depression near the center of the retina, densely packed with cones but no rods, that provides a person’s sharpest, most detailed vision. 4
free association A psychoanalytic technique for exploring the unconscious through a patient’s unrestrained expression of thoughts that occur spontaneously. 16
frequency A measure of the timing between light waves, calculated by counting how many waves occur in a given unit of time. For sound waves, the number of compression-rarefaction cycles that occur per second; the frequency of a sound wave corresponds to the pitch one hears. 4
frequency theory A theory of pitch arguing that the basilar membrane vibrates in exactly the same frequency pattern as the original sound wave. Thus pitch is determined by the frequency per second of neural impulses sent to the brain. 4
frontal lobes The portion of each cerebral hemisphere that is concerned with the regulation of voluntary movements. 3
frustration An unanticipated interference with any goal-directed behavior. 18
frustration-aggression hypothesis John Dollard’s view that aggression is always a consequence of frustration and that frustration always leads to some form of aggression. 18
fully functioning Carl Rogers’ term for people who are open, undefensive, realistic, creative, and self-determining, and have an underlying confidence in themselves. 13
functional fixedness The tendency to overlook novel uses for things. 8
functionalism The view, influenced by Darwin’s theories and expounded chiefly by William James, that psychological processes have adaptive functions that allow the human species to survive and that these processes are more important to investigate than the mind’s structure. 1
fundamental attribution error The tendency to attribute others’ behavior to their inner dispositions rather than to situational factors. 17
fundamental needs In Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy, those needs associated with physical requirements, such as satisfying thirst and hunger, and those related to obtaining a safe environment. 13