Psychology glossary
Useful definitions of concepts that appear in your profile. No fluff, and with the paper cited whenever there is one.
Agreeableness (A)
Interpersonal orientation toward cooperation and empathy. Not the same as "being good"; it measures how much you weigh the other’s needs against yours when deciding.
Anxious attachment
Relational style marked by fear of abandonment, hypervigilance to rejection cues and intense need for emotional proximity. Measured by ECR-R on the "anxiety" dimension.
Avoidant attachment
Relational style marked by discomfort with emotional intimacy, defensive self-reliance and deactivation of the attachment system under stress. Measured by ECR-R on the "avoidance" dimension.
Conscientiousness (C)
Tendency toward self-control, planning and persistence. The most reliable personality predictor of longevity and conventional professional success.
Extraversion (E)
Disposition to seek social stimulation, activity and positive emotion. Not "being sociable" in the casual sense; it is how much energy external stimuli give you compared with internal ones.
Locus of control
Generalized belief about who or what determines what happens to you. Internal locus: me. External locus: others, luck, the system, the stars. Rotter’s construct (1966).
Neuroticism (N)
Stable tendency to experience negative emotions (anxiety, hostility, sadness, social embarrassment, impulsivity, vulnerability to stress). It is not weakness. It is an alarm system calibrated more sensitively in some people.
Openness to experience (O)
Intellectual and aesthetic curiosity; preference for novelty over repetition. Measures how broad and permeable your mental life is.
Sycophancy (AI sycophancy)
Documented tendency of language models to agree with the user even when the user is wrong, or to soften criticism to avoid discomfort. Not an isolated bug: an emergent property of human-preference training.
Theory of mind
Ability to attribute mental states (beliefs, desires, intentions, knowledge) to oneself and others, and to understand that others’ mental states may differ from one’s own. It is what lets you not crash into everyone in society.