Dave Cornell (PhD), Author at Helpful Professor

Pseudo-Psychology: Definition and 12 Examples

Pseudo-psychology refers to theories or practices that claim to be scientific and based on psychological principles, but lack empirical evidence or theoretical basis accepted by the mainstream psychology community. A pseudo-psychology paradigm often contains statements and beliefs, or advocates certain practices, while claiming to have a scientific basis. However, those statements do not have a […]

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Convergence (Psychology): Definition and Examples

Convergence refers to how data from different sensory modalities are combined to form a perception. Many perceptual processes actually require input from one or more senses. Different areas of the brain receive the data and then synthesize the information that eventually results in a perceptual phenomenon. This process is sometimes referred to as multisensory integration

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Context Cues: Definition and Examples (Psychology)

Context cues are aspects of the environment that facilitate accessing and retrieving information in memory. Social psychology research has demonstrated that recalling episodic or semantic information improves when there is a match between contextual cues at encoding and retrieval. That is, if the contextual cues when learning something are the same as when trying to

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22 Autocratic Leadership Examples and Traits

The autocratic leadership style is when all decisions are made by a single individual. That individual has complete authority over all aspects of the organization. The autocratic leader rarely seeks the opinion of those around them, has a high social dominance orientation, and will often insulate themselves with people they know will agree with their

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23 Placebo Effect Examples

The placebo effect is when a person has a response to a fake intervention, such as when someone is given a sugar pill and they report that it helped with their headaches. This effect is often discussed in the context of medical research. Although the patient is given a substance which contains no active medical

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Neutral Stimulus: 10 Examples and Definition

Neutral Stimulus Examples 1. Pavlov’s Bell Before Conditioning: No meaning (neutral)After Conditioning: Association with food. A bell ringing typically doesn’t cause any specific response. However, in the famous Pavlov dog experiment, the dog came to associate the bell with food. Before conditioning, the bell is a neutral stimulus. 2. Coffee Beans Before Conditioning: No meaning

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Introspection in Psychology: Definition and Examples

Introspection refers to observing one’s inner thoughts and feelings. The process of engaging in introspection is often associated with self-reflection and discovery. Schwitzgebel (2019), writes for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, that introspection is: “…a process that generates, or is aimed at generating, knowledge, judgments, or beliefs about mental events, states, or processes, and not

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Positive Consequences (Psychology): 10 Examples & Definition

Positive consequences are the rewarding results of a behavior deemed desirable. When an individual’s behavior is followed by a positive consequence, then the person is more likely to exhibit that behavior again. Of course, this is the opposite of negative consequences, in which the result of a specific behavior is unpleasant or aversive. Behavior that

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15 Cross-Sectional Study Examples

A cross-sectional study is a research methodology that involves collecting data on a sample of individuals at one specific point in time. The researcher(s) will collect data on various factors, all at the one time, and observe how those variables are related to other factors. In this type of study, researchers do not manipulate any

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10 Cross-Sectional Study Advantages and Disadvantages

A cross-sectional study is a research study that collects data at one specific point in time. It enables researchers to compare and study sub-cohorts within the cohort of people studied, but cannot identify changes in variables over time. The biggest advantage of a cross-sectional study is that it can develop descriptive statistics about sampling groups,

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