Categories

Academic Motivation

Research on the beliefs, goals, and emotions that drive students' engagement, effort, and persistence in school.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

A third-wave therapy using mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based action to build psychological flexibility rather than control thoughts.

Acetylcholine and Attentional Networks

Studies cholinergic projections supporting sustained attention, arousal, and memory encoding.

Achievement Motivation

Study of the disposition to strive for success and mastery, including the need for achievement and its effects on goal pursuit and performance.

Action Potentials and Neural Excitability

Studies the biophysics of the action potential, ion channels, and refractory dynamics that shape spike timing.

Acute Stress Disorder

Intense stress reactions, including re-experiencing, avoidance, and arousal, occurring within one month of a traumatic event. Research investigates early …

Addiction Psychology

Study of substance use and behavioral addictions, their neurobiological basis, and evidence-based treatment and recovery approaches.

Adjustment Disorder

A stress response syndrome involving emotional or behavioral symptoms disproportionate to an identifiable stressor, emerging within three months and remitting …

Adolescent Development

Study of biological, cognitive, and psychosocial change during the teenage years, including pubertal transitions, abstract reasoning, and identity formation.

Adolescent Risk Taking

Examines why adolescents engage in risky behavior, drawing on neurodevelopmental, social, and cognitive explanations along with research on prevention and …

Adult Attachment

Research on how early attachment working models shape emotional bonds, caregiving, and relationship functioning in adulthood.

Adult Neurogenesis

Examines the generation of new neurons in the adult hippocampus and its role in learning and mood.

Aggression

Study of intentional behavior aimed at harming others, including its biological, environmental, and social-cognitive determinants.

Alcohol Use Disorder

A pattern of problematic alcohol consumption involving impaired control, tolerance, withdrawal, and continued use despite harm. Research addresses …

Altruism

Study of selfless concern for the welfare of others and whether genuinely self-sacrificial helping exists apart from egoistic motives.

Amnesia and Memory Disorders

Memory loss following brain damage or disease, including anterograde and retrograde amnesia. Also covers dementia-related impairment and memory rehabilitation.

Amygdala and Fear Conditioning

Examines amygdala function in threat detection, fear learning, and emotional memory consolidation.

Animal Cognition and Problem Solving

How nonhuman animals perceive, learn, remember, reason, and solve problems, and what these abilities reveal about the evolution of intelligence.

Animal Communication Systems

How animals exchange information through sound, scent, color, touch, and movement, and how these systems illuminate the evolution of communication, social …

Animal Social Behavior

Explores how animals form groups, communicate, compete, and cooperate, from insect colonies and bird flocks to primate troops and dolphin pods.

Anorexia Nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by severe dietary restriction, intense fear of weight gain, and distorted body image leading to dangerously low body weight. …

Antidepressant Therapy

Pharmacotherapy using SSRIs, SNRIs, and related agents to treat major depression, anxiety disorders, and related conditions.

Antipsychotic Therapy

Pharmacotherapy using first- and second-generation antipsychotics for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and severe mood symptoms.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

A personality disorder of persistent disregard for and violation of others' rights, including deceitfulness, impulsivity, and lack of remorse. Research …

Anxiolytic and Sedative-Hypnotic Therapy

Medications such as benzodiazepines used short-term for acute anxiety, insomnia, and agitation with careful attention to dependence risk.

Aphasia

Acquired language impairments following brain damage. Covers fluent and non-fluent syndromes, comprehension and production deficits, and recovery patterns.

Appraisal Theory

Study of how the cognitive evaluation of events and their meaning for personal goals determines which emotion is experienced.

Art Therapy

Uses visual art-making within a therapeutic relationship to express, explore, and integrate emotional experience.

Attachment Across the Lifespan

Study of enduring emotional bonds formed in infancy and their continuity, transformation, and consequences for close relationships in later life.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The clinical study of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. Research covers diagnosis, executive function deficits, and pharmacological and behavioral …

Attention Disorders

Deficits of attention beyond ADHD, including hemispatial neglect, extinction, and attentional consequences of brain injury. Covers assessment and …

Attitude Formation and Change

Research on how attitudes are acquired, structured, and modified, including the roles of direct experience, learning, and informational influence.

Attribution Theory

Examination of how people explain the causes of their own and others' behavior, including internal versus external attributions and their accompanying biases.

Auditory Perception

The perception of sound, including pitch, loudness, timbre, and localization. Covers auditory scene analysis and the neural pathways of hearing.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

A neurodevelopmental disorder of persistent social communication differences and restricted, repetitive behaviors and interests, with a wide range of …

Autobiographical Memory

The reconstruction of personal life events and their integration into a life narrative. Research covers childhood amnesia, the reminiscence bump, and identity.

Autonomic Nervous System and Emotion

Explores sympathetic and parasympathetic control of bodily state and their role in emotional responding.

Awe and Elevation

The study of awe and elevation, self-transcendent emotions elicited by vastness and moral beauty, and their effects on the self, prosociality, and well-being.

Basal Ganglia and Motor Control

Explores the role of basal ganglia loops in action selection, movement initiation, and procedural learning.

Basic Emotions

Research on discrete, universal emotions such as happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust and their cross-cultural expression.

Behavioral Activation

A depression treatment that re-engages clients with rewarding activities and life values to reverse avoidance and withdrawal cycles.

Behavioral Economics

Integrates psychological insights into economic models of choice and judgment. Studies heuristics, biases, framing, and nudges that shape real-world economic …

Behavioral Genetics of Personality

Studies genetic influences on individual differences in personality and temperament.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism held that psychology should study observable behavior rather than inner consciousness, and its methods of classical and operant conditioning …

Big Five

Research on the five-factor model of personality and its cross-situational consistency, heritability, and predictive validity.

Bilingualism and Second Language Learning

The cognitive representation and processing of more than one language. Covers code-switching, age of acquisition effects, and bilingual advantages and costs.

Binge-Eating Disorder

An eating disorder involving recurrent episodes of loss-of-control overeating without compensatory behaviors, associated with distress, shame, and obesity. …

Biological Psychology

Study of the biological basis of behavior and mental processes.

Bipolar Disorder

A mood disorder marked by alternating episodes of mania or hypomania and major depression, with subtypes including bipolar I and bipolar II. Research addresses …

Blood-Brain Barrier and Neuroprotection

Explores how the blood-brain barrier regulates molecular traffic and shields neural tissue from toxins and pathogens.