#psychology terms

• Enticed — Having been attracted, convinced, or misled by tricks, false promises, or special charms; a person or animal that has succumbed to a bait or an external temptation. In a broad sense, it describes the state of an individual whose vigilance has been diminished by the illusion of quick gain or immediate satisfaction.
• Spoiled — Having received tokens of affection and tenderness; a person, especially a child, treated with great indulgence and whose wishes or whims are instantly satisfied. In a behavioral sense, it describes a spoiled, pretentious, or affected attitude adopted to attract attention or to obtain unjustified privileges.
• Amorphognosia — A cognitive neurological disorder of the agnostic type, consisting of the patient's inability to recognize, through tactile palpation, the general shape or geometric dimensions of objects, in the absence of elementary skin sensory deficiencies. This structural defect indicates a focused lesion within the contralateral parietal lobe of the cerebral cortex.
• Anxiety — An unpleasant and diffuse emotional state, characterized by feelings of apprehension, indeterminate fear, insecurity, and internal tension in the absence of a real or imminent threat; a complex psychological and physiological reaction that often includes vegetative symptoms such as palpitations, intense sweating, tremors, and shallow breathing.
• Anxious — Suffering from anxiety, being gripped by a state of diffuse apprehension, indeterminate fear, and pronounced internal tension; characteristic of or specific to the psychological or physiological manifestations of pathological fear experienced in the absence of a real danger.
• Depersonalization — The act of depersonalizing or losing individuality and its result; a process by which a person loses their individual traits, unique psychological identity, or sense of self, becoming neutral, anonymous, or mechanically integrated into a collective mass. In an organizational context, it represents the elimination of the subjective factor in favor of purely objective procedures.
• Appetitive — Stimulating, increasing, or relating to the appetite or to the tendencies to satisfy an organic drive; eupeptic. In classical psychology and scholastic philosophy, the term describes a faculty of the soul or a behavior oriented toward seeking and acquiring a desired object or fulfilling a biological need.
• Apractophagie — A severe neuropsychological disorder, considered a specific form of ideomotor apraxia, manifested by the loss of the ability to execute the coordinated motor sequences required for eating (such as chewing, using utensils, or bringing food to the mouth), despite intact elementary swallowing reflexes and muscle functions. This structural phenomenon is usually associated with extensive lesions of the frontal or parietal lobe.
• Apraxia — A neurological disorder characterized by an individual's pathological inability to execute coordinated, intentional, and goal-directed movements or gestures, despite completely intact elementary motor functions (strength, tone, reflexes) and sensory pathways. This structural phenomenon is caused by lesions located in the association areas of the cerebral cortex, particularly in the parietal or frontal lobe.
• Arctophile — A person who has a special passion, deep affection, or collector's interest for teddy bears and similar anthropomorphic plush toys. In a structural and psychological sense, the term describes either a hobby manifested through gathering rare or vintage specimens, or a comforting emotional attachment to these symbolic objects, viewed as sources of safety, mental comfort, and childhood nostalgia.
• Asexual — 1. (In biology) Occurring, developing, or reproducing in the absence of sexual processes or male and female sexual cells; reproduction through division, budding, or spores. 2. (In psychology and sociology) Designating a person who experiences no sexual attraction toward any individual, regardless of gender. This structural phenomenon constitutes a legitimate and delicate sexual orientation, distinct from voluntary celibacy or abstinence, focusing instead on non-sexual emotional or romantic connections.
• Asocial — Manifesting a deep lack of interest or an aversion toward social interactions, preferring isolation and rejecting community standards; (as a noun) a person who refuses to integrate into society or whose behaviors ignore the structural rules of collective conduct, without necessarily being actively hostile or destructive like an antisocial individual.
• Association — The act of uniting, grouping, or bringing together elements, ideas, people, or organizations to achieve a common goal; (in a legal sense) the constitution of a collective entity or commercial partnership; (in psychology) a mental process establishing a functional or cognitive link between two distinct concepts, images, or sensations.
• Association — The act of associating or joining together and its result; a structural process of union, grouping, or partnership between individuals, companies, or legal entities to achieve a common goal; (in psychology and linguistics) a mental or logical connection established between two related ideas, concepts, images, or phenomena.
• Asomatognosia — A structural neurological and body schema disorder characterized by a patient's inability to recognize, identify, or perceive a part of their own body or the entire body as belonging to them; this clinical phenomenon is usually caused by focal lesions localized in the right parietal lobe of the non-dominant cerebral hemisphere and often manifests within unilateral spatial neglect syndrome.
• Amusia — A rare disorder of musical perception or a specific form of auditory agnosia characterized by a person's pathological inability to distinguish, recognize, or reproduce musical sounds, rhythms, or tones, despite the peripheral auditory function and the ability to understand spoken language remaining fully intact.
• Asthenic — A person exhibiting a physical constitution characterized by a slender build, poorly developed musculature, a narrow chest, and long limbs, a body type described in Kretschmer's typology as being prone to introversion; by extension, it refers to an organism lacking physical strength, exhausted, or marked by profound weakness.
• Self-regulation — The property of biological, technical, or psychological systems to maintain their optimal operating state through internal control and correction mechanisms, without external intervention. Although the combined form exists, the hyphenated compound variant 'auto-reglare' is heavily used in modern cognitive psychology textbooks and industrial data sheets to emphasize the active process performed by the system, not being listed separately in the main dexonline body.
• Self-analyzed — Having undergone self-analysis; a person who has examined themselves rigorously, deeply, and lucidly from a psychological or behavioral point of view.
• Self-contemplation — The act of self-contemplating and its result; a profound process of introspection, meditation, and inner analysis through which an individual examines their own thoughts, emotional states, psychological mechanisms, and self-awareness. This structural practice allows for achieving superior existential clarity and a detached evaluation of one's own identity.