100 Psychological Terms Every Adult Should Know

No.	Item	Definition
1.	amnesia	Significant loss of memory.
2.	anchoring	Relying too much on first information.
3.	anxiety	Worry and tension about possible threats.
4.	arousal	Level of physiological activation.
5.	attachment	Emotional bond with another person.
6.	attention	Focused awareness on selected information.
7.	availability bias	Judging by easily recalled examples.
8.	avoidance	Evading feared thoughts or situations.
9.	bias	Systematic distortion in judgment.
10.	black-and-white thinking	Seeing things in extremes only.
11.	burnout	Exhaustion from prolonged stress.
12.	bystander effect	Less helping when others are present.
13.	catastrophizing	Expecting the worst possible outcome.
14.	codependency	Unhealthy reliance on another’s needs.
15.	cognition	Mental processes involved in knowing.
16.	cognitive dissonance	Discomfort from conflicting beliefs or actions.
17.	compulsion	Repetitive act driven by anxiety.
18.	conditioning	Learning through associations or consequences.
19.	confirmation bias	Favoring evidence that supports beliefs.
20.	coping	Managing stress or difficult emotions.
21.	defense mechanism	Unconscious strategy reducing emotional conflict.
22.	delusion	Fixed false belief despite evidence.
23.	dementia	Severe decline in thinking abilities.
24.	denial	Refusing to accept painful reality.
25.	depression	Persistent low mood and loss of interest.
26.	discrimination	Distinguishing between different stimuli.
27.	displacement	Redirecting feelings to a safer target.
28.	dissociation	Disconnection from thoughts, feelings, or surroundings.
29.	emotion	A felt response with bodily changes.
30.	emotional regulation	Managing intensity and expression of feelings.
31.	empathy	Understanding or sharing another’s feelings.
32.	executive function	Mental skills for planning and control.
33.	extinction	Weakening of a learned response.
34.	extraversion	Outgoing, socially energized personality tendency.
35.	flashback	Vivid reexperiencing of past trauma.
36.	flow	Deep absorption in an activity.
37.	framing	Presentation that shapes interpretation.
38.	fundamental attribution error	Overemphasizing personality when explaining others.
39.	gaslighting	Manipulation making someone doubt reality.
40.	generalization	Applying learning to similar situations.
41.	groupthink	Poor decisions from pressure for agreement.
42.	habituation	Reduced response after repeated exposure.
43.	hallucination	Perception without an external stimulus.
44.	heuristic	Mental shortcut for quick judgment.
45.	hypervigilance	Excessive alertness to possible danger.
46.	identity	Sense of who one is.
47.	impulsivity	Acting quickly without enough thought.
48.	inhibition	Restraining impulses or responses.
49.	insight	Clear understanding of oneself or situation.
50.	introspection	Examining one’s own thoughts and feelings.
51.	introversion	Inward-focused, solitude-preferring tendency.
52.	irritability	Tendency to become easily annoyed.
53.	learned helplessness	Giving up after repeated uncontrollable failure.
54.	learning	Lasting change from experience.
55.	locus of control	Belief about what controls outcomes.
56.	mania	Abnormally elevated, energized mood state.
57.	memory	Storing and recalling information.
58.	metacognition	Thinking about one’s own thinking.
59.	mindfulness	Present-focused, nonjudgmental awareness.
60.	mood	Sustained emotional state.
61.	motivation	Forces that energize and direct behavior.
62.	narcissism	Excessive self-focus and need for admiration.
63.	neuroticism	Tendency toward emotional instability and worry.
64.	obedience	Following orders from an authority.
65.	obsession	Intrusive, unwanted recurring thought.
66.	openness	Tendency toward curiosity and imagination.
67.	overgeneralization	Drawing broad conclusions from limited evidence.
68.	panic	Sudden intense fear with bodily symptoms.
69.	paranoia	Unfounded suspicion or mistrust.
70.	perception	Interpreting information from the senses.
71.	personality	Enduring patterns of thinking and behaving.
72.	phobia	Intense irrational fear of something.
73.	priming	Earlier exposure influencing later response.
74.	projection	Attributing one’s feelings to others.
75.	psychosis	Loss of contact with reality.
76.	punishment	Consequence that decreases a behavior.
77.	rationalization	Creating acceptable reasons for behavior.
78.	regression	Returning to earlier behavior patterns.
79.	reinforcement	Consequence that increases a behavior.
80.	repression	Unconsciously blocking distressing thoughts.
81.	resilience	Ability to recover from adversity.
82.	rumination	Repeatedly dwelling on distressing thoughts.
83.	schema	Mental framework for organizing information.
84.	self-concept	Beliefs about who you are.
85.	self-efficacy	Belief in one’s ability to succeed.
86.	self-esteem	Overall sense of personal worth.
87.	self-regulation	Managing emotions, thoughts, and behavior.
88.	stress	Pressure that strains coping abilities.
89.	sublimation	Channeling impulses into acceptable activities.
90.	suppression	Deliberately pushing thoughts away.
91.	temperament	Inborn emotional and behavioral style.
92.	trait	Stable personal characteristic.
93.	transference	Redirecting feelings onto another person.
94.	trauma	Psychological injury from overwhelming experiences.
95.	unconditional positive regard	Acceptance without judgment or conditions.
96.	unconscious	Mental processes outside awareness.
97.	validation	Acknowledging another’s feelings as understandable.
98.	vicarious learning	Learning by observing others.
99.	well-being	Overall mental and emotional health.
100.	working memory	Temporary holding and using of information.