Famous Experiments
In this 1961 experiment, Albert Bandura used an inflatable doll to show that children mimic aggressive behavior.
Bobo Doll Experiment
In the movie Inside Out, this character represents an emotion that Joy eventually realizes is essential for healing.
Sadness
This part of the brain is often compared to a computer’s hard drive. If it’s damaged you can still remember your childhood, but you’ll forget the person you just met five minutes ago.
Hippocampus
According to Jean Piaget, a baby who realizes a toy still exists even when it's hidden under a blanket has mastered this concept.
Object Permanence
Often called the "Father of Psychoanalysis," he had his patients on a couch and asked them to talk about their dreams and their mothers.
Sigmund Freud
Ivan Pavlov famously used a bell as a "conditioned stimulus" to make dogs do this
Salivate
The movie Rain Man brought international attention to this neurodevelopmental condition, specifically focusing on "savant" abilities.
Autism Spectrum Disorder
This structure is the reason why smell is the only sense that can instantly trigger powerful, emotional memories. It’s located right next to the emotion-processing center and bypasses the brain's usual sensory relay station.
Olfactory Bulb
This "Identity vs. Role Confusion" stage is the primary conflict for people in this age group, according to Erik Erikson.
Adolescence
In 1879, he opened the very first formal psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, officially making psychology a science.
Wilhelm Wundt
This 1971 study had to be shut down after only six days because "guards" began psychologically abusing "prisoners.
Stanford Prison Experiment
A Beautiful Mind depicts the life of Nobel Laureate John Nash as he manages the symptoms of this disorder, including auditory and visual hallucinations.
Schizophrenia
This brain region became famous thanks to Phineas Gage, who had a metal rod blown through it. He survived, but his friends said he was "no longer Gage" because his impulse control and personality were gone.
Prefrontal Cortex / Frontal Lobe
In Mary Ainsworth’s "Strange Situation" study, infants who are distressed when mom leaves but easily comforted when she returns show this type of attachment.
Secure Attachment
He is considered the "Father of American Psychology" and wrote the first comprehensive textbook on the subject, The Principles of Psychology.
William James
Stanley Milgram’s controversial study tested how far people would go in obeying an authority figure who ordered them to do this
Administer electric shocks
In the movie Split, the protagonist is diagnosed with this controversial condition, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder.
Dissociative Identity Disorder
If you were to accidentally "see stars" after hitting the back of your head, it’s because you’ve jarred this specific lobe, which is dedicated entirely to vision.
Occipital Lobe
In Piaget's Conservation tasks, a child in the Preoperational Stage will often focus on only one feature of an object (like the height of the water) while ignoring others; this "tunnel vision" is known as what?
Centration
This behaviorist is famous for his "Box," where he used "operant conditioning" to train pigeons and rats to press levers for food.
B.F. Skinner
Harry Harlow used "surrogate mothers" made of wire and cloth to prove that infant monkeys value "contact comfort" over this
Food/Nourishment
The film Silver Linings Playbook centers on the relationship between two people, one of whom is explicitly managing this disorder characterized by alternating episodes of mania and depression.
Bipolar Disorder
Damage to this specific area in the left frontal lobe results in the ability to understand speech but an inability to produce it fluently.
Broca’s Area
Lev Vygotsky coined this three-word term to describe the "sweet spot" of learning—the gap between what a learner can do without help and what they can do with guidance.
Zone of Proximal Development
Breaking away from darker theories, this man founded "Humanistic" psychology, emphasizing that every person has a drive toward "Self-Actualization.
Abraham Maslow