All terms

79 terms, A to Z.

A

Acceptance and commitment therapy 接纳承诺疗法: A behavior therapy that builds psychological flexibility through acceptance, mindfulness and values-based action. Therapy and counseling
Active listening 积极倾听: A way of listening that tracks both content and feeling and checks understanding by reflecting it back. Communication
Active-constructive responding 主动建设性回应: Responding to someone’s good news with genuine enthusiasm and interested questions. Positive psychology
Adult attachment styles 成人依恋类型: How adults handle closeness in relationships, usually described by attachment anxiety and avoidance. Attachment and relationships
Ambivalence 矛盾心态: Wanting and not wanting the same change at once; competing motives for and against change. Motivation and change
Amnesia 遗忘症: Partial or total loss of memory for past experiences, or of the ability to store new memories. Learning and memory
Attachment theory 依恋理论: A theory of how infants form emotional bonds with caregivers and draw security from them. Attachment and relationships
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

B

Big Five personality traits 大五人格: A leading trait model that describes personality differences along five continuous dimensions. Personality
Broaden-and-build theory 拓展-建构理论: Positive emotions broaden the thoughts and actions that come to mind and build lasting resources over time. Positive psychology

C

Change talk 改变语句: Anything a person says that favors moving toward a particular change. Motivation and change
Classical conditioning 经典条件反射: Learning that a neutral signal predicts a meaningful event, so the signal alone comes to trigger a response. Learning and memory
Codependency 共依存: A relationship pattern of over-focusing on, caring for or controlling another person at one’s own expense. Attachment and relationships
Cognitive behavioral therapy 认知行为治疗: A structured talking therapy that eases emotional distress by changing patterns of thinking and behavior. Therapy and counseling
Cognitive distortions 认知扭曲: Habitual thinking errors, like all-or-nothing thinking or mind reading, that distort how a situation looks. Thinking and cognition
Concurrent disorders 精神障碍与物质使用障碍共病: Having both a mental health problem and a substance use problem at the same time. Mental health conditions
Conformity 从众: Changing your opinions or behavior to match those of a group. Social psychology

D

Demand–withdraw pattern 要求-退缩模式: A conflict cycle in which one partner presses for change and the other avoids or withdraws. Attachment and relationships
Dialectical behavior therapy 辩证行为治疗: A cognitive behavioral treatment with a strong skills-training component, first designed for people with chronic suicidal behavior. Therapy and counseling
Drama triangle 戏剧三角: A model of conflict in which people take and swap the roles of persecutor, rescuer and victim. Attachment and relationships
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

E

Eisenhower matrix 艾森豪威尔矩阵: Sorting tasks into four boxes by urgency and importance to decide what to do first. Motivation and change
Emotional intelligence 情绪智力: The ability to perceive, use, understand and manage emotions; popularly called EQ. Emotion and stress
Empathy 共情: Sensing and understanding what another person feels while keeping clear that the feeling is theirs. Communication
Enneagram 九型人格: A popular typology that describes personality as nine types linked by lines on a circle. Personality
Erikson’s psychosocial stages 埃里克森心理社会发展阶段: A theory of personality development that divides life into eight stages, each with a psychosocial crisis. Developmental psychology
Explanatory style 归因方式: The habitual way a person explains why good and bad things happen to them. Positive psychology
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing 眼动脱敏与再加工: A trauma therapy pairing recall of a traumatic memory with side-to-side stimulation such as eye movements. Therapy and counseling

F

Fight-or-flight response 战斗-逃跑反应: The body’s rapid stress reaction that prepares a person or animal to fight or flee a threat. Emotion and stress
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
Flow 心流: Being so absorbed in a challenging activity that you lose track of time and yourself. Positive psychology
Forgetting curve 遗忘曲线: Retention drops quickly at first and then ever more slowly, as Ebbinghaus showed in 1885. Learning and memory
Fundamental attribution error 基本归因错误: Explaining others’ behavior by their character while underestimating the situation. Social psychology

G

Gaslighting 煤气灯效应: Psychological manipulation that makes someone doubt their own memory, perception or judgment. Attachment and relationships
Growing around grief 围绕哀伤成长: The idea that grief does not shrink over time; instead, a person’s life grows larger around it. Emotion and stress

H

Happiness pie (50-10-40) 幸福饼图（50-10-40）: A popular, contested model splitting differences in happiness into 50% genes, 10% circumstances, 40% activity. Positive psychology
Hedonic adaptation 享乐适应: Emotional reactions to good and bad events fade, and happiness drifts back toward its usual level. Positive psychology
Highly sensitive person (HSP) 高敏感者: A temperament trait marked by deeper processing of, and stronger reactions to, the environment. Personality

I

Id, ego and superego 本我、自我与超我: Freud’s 1923 structural model dividing the mind into id, ego and superego. Consciousness, sleep and dreams
Inner child 内在小孩: A popular-psychology term for the part of a person that carries childhood experiences and feelings. Therapy and counseling
Intersectionality 交叉性: How overlapping identities such as race and gender combine to shape a person’s experience. Social psychology
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation 内部动机与外部动机: The difference between doing something because it is interesting and doing it for an outside outcome. Motivation and change

L

Learned helplessness 习得性无助: Giving up on coping after uncontrollable setbacks, even once change becomes possible. Positive psychology
Levels of consciousness 意识层次理论: Freud’s early model sorting the mind into conscious, preconscious and unconscious systems. Consciousness, sleep and dreams

M

Maladaptive daydreaming 适应不良性白日梦: Excessive, absorbing fantasy that causes distress or disrupts daily life; not yet an official diagnosis. Consciousness, sleep and dreams
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
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
Mind-wandering 心智游移: When attention drifts from the task at hand to self-generated thoughts. Consciousness, sleep and dreams
Miracle question 奇迹问句: A question asking clients to imagine their problem solved overnight and describe the next morning. Therapy and counseling
Motivational interviewing 动机式访谈: A collaborative way of talking that draws out and strengthens a person’s own motivation to change. Therapy and counseling
Multi-store memory model 记忆多重存储模型: A classic 1968 model in which information passes through sensory, short-term and long-term memory stores. Learning and memory
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

N

Nonviolent Communication 非暴力沟通: Marshall Rosenberg’s four-step way of speaking: observations, feelings, needs and requests. Communication

O

OARS OARS 技巧: Four basic MI skills: open questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries. Communication
Operant conditioning 操作性条件反射: Learning from consequences: what follows a behavior changes how likely it is to happen again. Learning and memory

P

Parenting styles 父母教养方式: Four broad ways of raising children, set by how demanding and how responsive parents are. Developmental psychology
PERMA model PERMA 模型: Seligman’s five building blocks of well-being: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment. Positive psychology
Personal boundaries 心理边界: The personal limits people set around their body, time, feelings and belongings. Attachment and relationships
Personality Dimensions® 四色气质测评: A Canadian four-color temperament self-assessment that draws on the temperament work of Keirsey and others. Personality
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development 皮亚杰认知发展理论: Holds that children build knowledge by adjusting mental schemas and that thinking passes through four stages. Developmental psychology
Plutchik’s wheel of emotions 普拉切克情绪轮: Plutchik’s circular model arranging eight basic emotions by similarity, opposition and intensity, with blends between neighbors. Emotion and stress
Positions and interests 立场与利益: A position is what a party demands; interests are the needs and reasons behind that demand. Communication
Positive psychology 积极心理学: The scientific study of strengths, virtues and what makes life go well. Positive psychology
Procrastination 拖延: Voluntarily putting off something you intended to do, even though you expect to be worse off. Motivation and change

R

Rorschach inkblot test 罗夏墨迹测验: A projective test that asks what people see in inkblots to assess personality and thinking. Personality

S

Satir communication stances 萨提亚沟通姿态: Satir’s four incongruent ways people cope under stress, plus the congruent alternative. Communication
Satir iceberg 萨提亚冰山: A metaphor picturing visible behavior as the tip of an iceberg above layers of inner experience. Therapy and counseling
Sensitive periods 敏感期: A window in development when experience shapes a brain circuit unusually strongly; critical periods are a special case. Developmental psychology
Sleep stages 睡眠阶段: Sleep cycles through three non-REM stages and REM sleep several times a night. Consciousness, sleep and dreams
Sleepwalking 睡行症: Getting up and moving around while partly aroused from deep non-REM sleep; most common in children. Consciousness, sleep and dreams
Solution-focused brief therapy 焦点解决短期治疗: A brief, goal-directed therapy that builds on the client’s preferred future and existing strengths rather than analyzing problems. Therapy and counseling
Stages of change 改变阶段模型: Describes behavior change as a series of stages, from not yet planning to change to keeping it up. Motivation and change
Stereotype, prejudice and discrimination 刻板印象、偏见与歧视: Beliefs about a group, negative feelings toward it, and unfair treatment of its members. Social psychology

T

Thomas–Kilmann conflict modes 托马斯-基尔曼冲突模式: Five ways of handling conflict, sorted by how much you pursue your own concerns versus the other’s. Communication
Thought record 思维记录表: A CBT worksheet for writing down the thoughts behind a strong mood and testing them against evidence. Therapy and counseling

V

VIA classification of character strengths VIA 品格优势: A classification of 24 character strengths grouped under six virtues. Positive psychology

W

Window of tolerance 情绪容纳之窗: The range of arousal in which a person can handle emotions and stress, between hyperarousal and hypoarousal. Emotion and stress
Wise mind 智慧心: In DBT, the state of mind that integrates reason and emotion, drawing on a person’s inner wisdom. Emotion and stress

Y

Yerkes–Dodson law 耶克斯-多德森定律: A 1908 finding that the best stimulus strength depends on task difficulty, later generalized into an inverted-U curve. Emotion and stress