Psychology terms, made clear
One page per term: a definition, a figure and sources you can check. Every entry is in English and Chinese, so you can find the original literature.
Browse by topic
See all 79 terms- 6
Personality
Stable differences in how people think, feel and act, and the models and tests used to describe them.
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Motivation and change
Why people act, and how change happens step by step.
- 8
Emotion and stress
How emotions arise, how stress affects body and mind, and how both can be regulated.
- 2
Thinking and cognition
How we attend to, judge and interpret events, and the predictable ways thinking goes wrong.
- 5
Learning and memory
How experience changes behavior, and how information is remembered and forgotten.
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Consciousness, sleep and dreams
Waking awareness, the parts of mental life outside it, and sleep and dreaming.
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Developmental psychology
How thinking, feeling and relationships change from infancy to old age.
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Attachment and relationships
How people form bonds with those close to them, and the patterns that repeat in relationships.
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Communication
How to understand others, how to make yourself understood, and how to handle disagreement.
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Social psychology
How other people and groups shape what we think, judge and do.
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Positive psychology
The branch of psychology that studies wellbeing, strengths and positive emotion.
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Therapy and counseling
Major approaches to psychotherapy and techniques widely used in counseling.
- 2
Mental health conditions
What clinical diagnostic terms mean and where their criteria come from. Not a tool for self-diagnosis.
Start with these
Terms that come up often in everyday conversation, and are often used loosely.
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) 注意缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）
- A neurodevelopmental disorder involving persistent inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that disrupts daily life. Mental health conditions
- Enneagram 九型人格
- A popular typology that describes personality as nine types linked by lines on a circle. Personality
- Gaslighting 煤气灯效应
- Psychological manipulation that makes someone doubt their own memory, perception or judgment. Attachment and relationships
- Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) MBTI 人格类型量表
- A questionnaire that sorts people into 16 types based on four pairs of preferences. Personality
- Mehrabian’s 7-38-55 rule 梅拉宾法则
- The popular claim that words carry only 7% of meaning, drawn from a narrow set of experiments. Communication
- Dunning–Kruger effect 邓宁-克鲁格效应
- Poor performers tend to overestimate themselves, while top performers tend to underestimate themselves. Thinking and cognition
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 马斯洛需要层次理论
- A theory of motivation in which basic human needs are ranked by priority. Motivation and change
- Five stages of grief 哀伤五阶段
- Kübler-Ross’s five stages, first described in dying patients, often misapplied as a fixed sequence for all grief. Emotion and stress