Cannon-Bard theory -  The idea that the experience of emotion happens at the same time that physiological arousal happens.

Case study -  A research method in which an individual subject is studied in depth.

Castration anxiety -  The fear a male child has that his father will cut off his penis for desiring his mother.

Catatonic type -  A subtype of schizophrenia characterized by unnatural movement patterns such as rigid, unmoving posture or continual, purposeless movements, or by unnatural speech patterns such as absence of speech or parroting of other people’s speech.

Catecholamines -  Hormones released by the adrenal medulla in response to stress.

Catharsis -  The release of tension that results when repressed thoughts or memories move into a patient’s conscious mind.

Central nervous system -  The part of the nervous system that includes the brain and the spinal cord.

Centration -  The tendency to focus on one aspect of a problem and ignore other key aspects.

Cerebellum -  A part of the hindbrain that controls balance and coordination of movement.

Cerebrospinal fluid -  The fluid that cushions and nourishes the brain.

Cerebrum -  The largest part of the brain, involved in abstract thought and learning.

Chromosomes -  Thin strands of DNA that contain genes.

Chunking -  The process of combining small bits of information into bigger, familiar pieces.

Cilia -  Hair cells that are embedded in the basilar membrane of the ear.

Cingulotomy -  A surgical procedure that involves destruction of part of the frontal lobes. It is sometimes done to treat severe disorders that do not respond to other treatments.

Circadian rhythms -  Biological cycles that occur about every twenty-four hours.

Classical conditioning -  A type of learning in which a subject comes to respond to a neutral stimulus as he would to another stimulus by learning to associate the two stimuli. It can also be called respondent conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning.

Client-centered therapy -  A humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, that aims to help clients increase self-acceptance and personal growth by providing a supportive emotional environment.

Closure -  The tendency to interpret familiar, incomplete forms as complete by filling in gaps.

Cochlea -  A coiled tunnel in the inner ear that is filled with fluid.

Cognition -  Thinking. It involves mental activities such as understanding, problem solving, decision making, and creativity.

Cognitive appraisal -  The idea that people’s experience of emotion depends on the way they appraise or evaluate the events around them.

Cognitive development -  The development of thinking capacity.

Cognitive dissonance -  An unpleasant state of tension that arises when a person has related cognitions that conflict with one another.

Cognitive schema -  A mental model of some aspect of the world.

Cognitive therapies -  Therapies aimed at identifying and changing maladaptive thinking patterns that can result in negative emotions and dysfunctional behavior.

Collective unconscious -  The part of our minds, according to Carl Jung, that contains universal memories of our common human past.

Color blindness -  A hereditary condition that makes people unable to distinguish between colors.

Commitment -  The intent to continue a romantic relationship even in the face of difficulties.

Community mental health movement -  A movement that advocates treating people with psychological problems in their own communities, providing outpatient treatment, and preventing psychological disorders.

Compassionate love -  Warmth, trust, and tolerance of a person with whom one is romantically involved.

Compensation -  According to Alfred Adler, the process of striving to get rid of normal feelings of inferiority.

Complexity -  The range of wavelengths in light.

Componential intelligence -  The ability assessed by intelligence tests.

Compulsions -  Repetitive behaviors that help to prevent or relieve anxiety.

Computerized tomography (CT) -  A method for studying the brain that involves taking x-rays of the brain from different angles.

Concept -  A mental category that groups similar objects, events, qualities, or actions.

Concordance rate -  The percentage of both people in a pair having a certain trait or disorder.

Conditioned response -  In classical and operant conditioning, a response that resembles an unconditioned response, achieved by pairing a conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus.

Conditioned stimulus -  In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus that comes to evoke a response similar to an unconditioned response through pairing with an unconditioned stimulus.

Cones -  Photoreceptor cells in the retina that allow people to see in color.

Confabulation -  A phenomenon in which a person thinks he or she remembers something that did not really happen.

Confirmation bias -  The tendency to look for and accept evidence that supports what one wants to believe and to ignore or reject evidence that refutes those beliefs.

Conflict -  The experience of having two or more incompatible desires or motives.

Conformity -  The process of giving in to real or imagined pressure from a group.

Congruence -  According to Carl Rogers, the accurate match between self-concept and reality.

Conscious -  The part of the mind that contains all the information that a person is paying attention to at a particular time.

Consciousness -  The awareness people have of themselves and the environment around them.

Conservation -  The ability to recognize that measurable physical characteristics of objects can be the same even when objects look different.

Consolidation -  Transfer of information into long-term memory.

Contact comfort -  Comfort derived from physical closeness with a caregiver.

Contact hypothesis -  A hyposthesis stating that prejudice declines when people in an ingroup become more familiar with the customs, norms, food, music, and attitudes of people in an outgroup.

Content validity -  A test’s ability to measure all the important aspects of the characteristic being measured.

Contextual intelligence -  The ability to function effectively in daily situations.

Continuity -  The tendency to perceive interrupted lines and patterns as being continuous by filling in gaps.

Continuous reinforcement -  A reinforcement schedule in which reinforcement happens every time a particular response occurs.

Control group -  A group of subjects in an experiment that receives the same treatment and is treated exactly like the experimental group, except with respect to the independent variable.

Convergence -  The turning inward of eyes when an object is viewed close up.

Convergent thinking -  A style of thinking in which a person narrows down a list of possibilities to arrive at a single right answer.

Conversion disorder -  A disorder characterized by medically unexplained symptoms that affect voluntary motor functioning or sensory functioning.

Coping -  Efforts to manage stress.

Cornea -  The transparent outer membrane of the eye.

Corpus callosum -  A band of fibers that divides the cerebrum into two halves.

Correlation coefficient -  A measurement that indicates the strength of the relationship between two variables. In a positive correlation, one variable increases as the other increases. In a negative correlation, one variable decreases as the other increases.

Correlational research method -  A research method that provides information about the relationship between variables. It is also called a descriptive research method.

Corticosteroids -  Hormones released by the adrenal cortex in response to stress.

Couples therapy -  A type of therapy in which a therapist helps couples identify and resolve conflicts.

Creativity -  The ability to generate novel, useful ideas.

Criterion validity -  A test’s ability to predict another criterion of the characteristic being measured.

Crystallized intelligence -  Intelligence based on the knowledge and skills accumulated over the life span.

Culture-bound disorders -  Psychological disorders that are limited to specific cultural contexts.