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habit: a behaviour that develops as a result of experience and occurs almost automatically. For instance, behaviours that satisfy psychological cravings (through for example chain smoking).
habituation: the process whereby an organism’s response to repeated stimuli temporarily decreases.
hallucination: false perceptions that occur with the lack of relevant sensory stimuli, such as hearing voices.
halo effect: a form of perceptual bias which transpires when our rating of a person on one characteristic as being positive or negative of a person affects the rating of the individual on other characteristics (similarly positive or negative). For instance, if an individual is viewed as intelligent, the rater also perceives them to be friendly.
hardiness: personality factors (control, commitment and challenge) identified by Kobasa that help mitigate against negative effects of stress.
health behaviours:
activities that maintain or improve health.
health promotion:
refers to strategies and tactics that help enable people to
gain control of, and therefore enhance, their health through
changes in lifestyle and preventative practices,
significantly reduce the risk of illness.
health psychology:
area of
psychology that aims to understand why people become
ill, how they stay healthy and how they respond and cope
with illness.
hedonic relevance:
the
likelihood of making a dispositional
attribution if we are directly involved and the
consequences are serious. Therefore, we are likely to
overstate the influence of dispositional factors, and
underestimate the importance of situational factors.
hedonism:
a belief
that all behaviour is, or should be,
motivated toward the
pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
Heider (1896-1988):
Austrian
psychologist who focused on interpersonal relationships,
proposing
balance theory
and
attribution theory.
helping behaviour:
see
altruism (human
)
and
bystander behaviour.
heredity:
the biological transmission of inherited characteristics from
parents to offspring.
Heritability estimate:
measured by H, the heritability ratio, a statistical
estimate of the degree of inheritance of a specific
trait or behavior, measured by the degree of similarity
between individuals who share differing amounts of
genetic similarity.
hertz:a
measure of frequency, cycles per second.
heterosexuality:
an attraction to the opposite sex.
heuristic:
cognitive strategies, or rules of thumb? Heuristics
provide informal strategies to aid problem solving, which
are usually more successful than random search, but less
effective than algorithms..
hierarchy of needs:
Maslow’s
model of basic human motives, which he saw as
organised in a hierarchical structure; needs range from the
bottom level of
physiological (e.g. food, water, shelter) to the highest
level –
self-actualisation. Needs at each level of the hierarchy
must be met before the next level can be achieved.
hippocampus:
part
of the
limbic system, located in the medial
temporal lobe.
Important for spatial orientation and navigation, and is
crucial for
memory, in particular the transfer of
information from
short-term to
long-term memory.
histogram:
used to
represent the distribution of scores for one set of data.
The data must be numerical and there should be no gaps
between the bars.
HIV
(human
immunodeficiency virus): a virus that attacks white
blood cells in the blood, reducing the bodys ability to
fight off illness. HIV causes
AIDS and can be transmitted through unprotected sex, by
drug users who use similar equipment and from an infected
mother to her unborn child.
holistic:
used to
describe an approach that focuses on the whole person,
rather than their constituent parts.
Holmes and Rahe (1967):
constructed
the
Social
Readjustment Rating Scale?
to measure the impact of significant life events.
homeostasis:
a state
of equilibrium or balance of the internal conditions of the
body.
homeostatic drive theory
(of eating and drinking):
refers to the proposition that eating and drinking
are driven by internal
homeostasis.
homosexuality:
a term used
to describe either sexual contact with members of the same
sex, or a sexual preference for one’s own sex.
hormone:
chemical
messengers, secreted by the
endocrine glands, that affect a range of aspects of
metabolism and body functioning, for instance, mood and
sexual characteristics.
hostile aggression:
a form
of
aggression to cause intentional harm of injury to
another person or object.
humanistic psychology:
a perspective in
psychology, that views every individual as unique and as
possessing an inherent capacity for making rational choices,
positive growth and ultimately, maximum potential.
humanistic therapies:
treatment whereby the therapist seeks see the world through
the clients perspective, and to allow the client to view
their situations with greater insight and acceptance, with
an ultimate goal of growth and fulfilment. Examples of
humanistic therapies include
client-centred therapy.
Huntington’s disease (HD):
is a fatal
heredity disease that destroys
neurons in areas of the
brain involved in the
emotions,
intellect,
and movement.
hyperactivity:
a higher degree of inappropriate motor activity
than is considered typical for a particular age group. See
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).
hyperfocus: is an intense form
of
mental concentration or visualisation that focuses
consciousness on a narrow subject, or beyond objective
reality and onto subjective
mental planes,
daydreams, concepts, fiction, the
imagination, and other objects of the
mind.
hypothetical: based on
assumption rather than fact or reality.
hypnosis:
the induction of an altered state of
consciousness, manifested in a sleep-like state or of
deep relaxation. Consequently, changes in
perception,
memory and self-control leave an individual more
vulnerable to suggestion. The use of
hypnosis in
therapy still remains highly controversial, particularly
with the occurrence of
false memories being recovered?
hypothalamus: part of the brain that is crucial in control the autonomic nervous system, maintaining homeostasis and regulating motivated behavior (e.g. appetite) and hormonal functions.
hypothesis: a testable statement, predicting the relationship between two (or more) variables, which can be accepted or rejected as a result of the research outcome.
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