OCR GCSE Psychology key terms

A culture that places relatively greater emphasis on group needs, cooperation and community goals.

A depression or anxiety-related condition that causes emotional distress and interferes with daily functioning.

The ethical principle of working to an appropriate professional standard within the limits of one's knowledge, skills, training and experience.

Publicly going along with a group to gain approval while privately disagreeing.

Learning through associations, including associations between behaviour and its consequences.

Unintentionally filling gaps in memory with inaccurate details that the person believes are true.

Protecting information about participants so that identifiable personal information is not disclosed to unauthorised people.

Changing attitudes or behaviour to match those of a group.

The part of the mind containing thoughts and feelings a person is currently aware of.

An emotional or behavioural outcome following a person’s interpretation of an activating event.

Understanding that quantity remains the same when appearance changes, provided nothing is added or removed.

The ability to understand that the number of objects remains the same when their arrangement changes, provided none are added or removed.

The extent to which a measurement tool actually measures the psychological concept being studied.

Data measured on a scale that can take any value within a range, such as time in seconds.

An observation usually conducted in a controlled environment, such as a laboratory, where the researcher can manipulate the independent variable.

Awareness of oneself and the surroundings in the present moment.

A relationship between two variables in which their values tend to vary together. A correlation alone does not establish cause and effect.

Research that examines a relationship between measured variables without manipulating them. A correlation alone cannot establish cause and effect.

A way of controlling order effects by having different participants complete the experimental conditions in different orders.

One of the two variables measured in a correlational investigation.

An observation in which participants are unaware of the researcher’s presence as an observer and do not know their behaviour is being studied.

Behaviour that breaks the law.

Research that compares different groups of people of different ages rather than following the same people as they grow older.

Collective behaviour involving a large number of people gathered in the same place at the same time.

An imbalance in research that favours one culture or ethnicity, including judging other cultures by its standards or treating its findings as universal.

The shared values, beliefs, norms and practices of a social group.

Crime that occurs but does not appear in official statistics because it is not reported, detected or recorded.