Behavioural science glossary — 65 terms explained

A

Ability emotional intelligence Συναισθηματική νοημοσύνη ως ικανότητα Emotional intelligence understood as mental abilities that can be scored against better and worse answers, kept separate from
Active listening Ενεργητική ακρόαση Listening whose purpose is to check your understanding rather than to prepare your answer.
Allostatic load Αλλοστατικό φορτίο The accumulated cost of a response that keeps being switched on and is never fully switched off.
Amygdala hijack Κατάληψη από την αμυγδαλή A popular name for the moment a reaction is produced faster than the judgement about whether to have it.
Analysis paralysis Παράλυση από ανάλυση The point at which another pass over the same question stops producing new information while still costing effort.
Anchoring Αγκίστρωση The way a first value or a first version keeps its hold on a later judgement: you adjust away from it and you stop too early
Antecedent focused regulation Ρύθμιση πριν από την απόκριση Acting at one of the four points that come before a reaction is fully formed: choosing the situation, changing it, moving your
Appraisal Γνωστική αποτίμηση The reading you make of a situation, together with the options you believe you have for handling it.
Autonomy Αυτονομία One of the three needs this research says separate the kinds of motivation, alongside competence and relatedness, and it means
Availability heuristic Ευρετικός κανόνας της διαθεσιμότητας Judging how common or how likely something is by how easily examples come to mind.

B

Backup behaviour Συμπεριφορά υποστήριξης Stepping into part of the work that belongs to somebody else, because you can see it is not going to arrive.

C

Caring fatigue Κόπωση από τη φροντίδα The ordinary, reversible state in which the attention you have for other people has run down, usually because the fourth
Choosing the audience Επιλογή ακροατηρίου Deciding not whether a true thing gets said, but in front of whom, because the same sentence does different work in front of a
Cognitive appraisal Γνωστική αποτίμηση The evaluation you make of what a situation means for you and of what you have to meet it with, which is what produces the
Cognitive control Γνωστικός έλεγχος The active holding of a pattern that carries both a goal and the means of reaching it, which then biases what you notice and
Conclusion first Το συμπέρασμα πρώτο Putting the one sentence you want decided at the front, before any background, so the room has somewhere to put everything that
Confirmation bias Μεροληψία επιβεβαίωσης Searching, checking and weighing in a way that favours the answer you already prefer, usually with no dishonesty anywhere in
Conformity Συμμόρφωση Moving your stated position toward the people around you rather than toward the argument.
Constructive activity Εποικοδομητική δουλειά Work that produces something the source did not contain: an explanation in your own words, an example, a question.
Contingent reward Εξαρτημένη ανταμοιβή Making clear what is expected and then delivering exactly what was agreed in return, which is the core of what the field calls
Controlled perspective taking Ελεγχόμενη λήψη προοπτικής Working out what another person is protecting when the automatic route has stopped delivering it, which is what happens with
Creative climate Δημιουργικό κλίμα The set of conditions around a group that decides whether an unfinished idea gets said out loud at all.
Creative constraint Δημιουργικός περιορισμός A limit written on purpose so that ideas have something to be measured against.

D

Decision first Η απόφαση πρώτη Saying what has been decided in the opening sentence and the reasons after it, instead of building up to it.
Decision versus outcome Απόφαση και έκβαση Two things that get scored together and should not be.
Default option Προεπιλογή The outcome that occurs if nobody makes an active choice.
Deferred judgment Αναβολή της κρίσης The rule that producing ideas and judging them are two different operations and should not run at the same time.
Deficit model Μοντέλο του ελλείμματος The assumption that people disagree because they lack information, and that handing them the information settles it.
Dual process Διπλή επεξεργασία The account in which reasoning runs on two kinds of processing: one fast, automatic and built out of what you have already

E

Emergent role Αναδυόμενος ρόλος The job a group gives you because of what you did first, without anyone assigning it and usually without anyone noticing that
Emotion differentiation Συναισθηματική διαφοροποίηση How many separate states your naming can tell apart, from one wide bucket labelled bad to a sentence that carries a cause and
Emotional contagion Συναισθηματική μετάδοση The tendency of a state to travel from one person to the people watching them, faster than the content of what is being said.
Empathic accuracy Ενσυναισθητική ακρίβεια How close your reading of what another person feels comes to what they actually feel.
Empathic concern and personal distress Ενσυναισθητικό ενδιαφέρον και προσωπική δυσφορία Two responses that both feel like empathy and send you to different places.
Explicit standard of quality Ρητό πρότυπο ποιότητας A description of what a good version looks like, written before you start, in words another person could check you against.

F

False growth mindset Ψευδής νοοτροπία ανάπτυξης The version in which effort is treated as the whole answer and cut loose from method.
Feeling of knowing Αίσθηση ότι ξέρεις The sense that something is understood.

H

Heuristic Ευρετικός κανόνας A shortcut that answers a hard question by quietly swapping it for an easier one.

I

In group favouritism Ενδοομαδική μεροληψία The tendency to favour your own group over another in your judgements and your decisions, which appears even when the two

L

Learning goal and performance goal Στόχος μάθησης και στόχος επίδοσης Two aims that look identical until something gets hard.

M

Misregulation Εσφαλμένη ρύθμιση Effort that is real but aimed at the wrong target.
Moral disengagement Ηθική αποδέσμευση The selective switching off, in advance, of the reactions a person normally has to their own conduct, through a small set of
Moral motivation Ηθική πρόθεση The step where a judgement about what is right turns into an intention to act on it, in competition with everything else a
Moral residue Ηθικό υπόλοιπο What is left when two obligations were both genuine and only one of them could be met: the second one does not stop being an
Moral self regulation Ηθική αυτορρύθμιση The process by which you hold an internal standard, judge your own conduct against it, and feel relief or discomfort according
Moral sensitivity Ηθική ευαισθησία The step in which a situation registers as having an ethical side, before anything is judged.

O

Observational learning Παρατηρησιακή μάθηση Learning a behaviour by watching someone else perform it, through attention, retention and reproduction, rather than by being
Order of moves Σειρά κινήσεων Holding one fixed sequence across a long stretch where several things are live at once: the decision, then what it costs and

P

Pluralistic ignorance Πλουραλιστική άγνοια The state in which most people in a group privately doubt something and each of them believes they are the only one, because
Positions and interests Θέση και συμφέρον A position is the thing a person states they want.
Productive procrastination Παραγωγική αναβλητικότητα Real and useful work, done in the place where a different and less appealing piece of work was due.
Psychological safety Ψυχολογική ασφάλεια The shared belief inside a group that speaking up with a question, a doubt or a mistake will not be held against you.

R

Recovery time Χρόνος επαναφοράς How long a reaction takes to rise and, more usefully, how long it takes to come back down.
Relational transparency Σχεσιακή διαφάνεια Showing the people you work with the actual state of your own thinking, including its limits, rather than a finished version of
Reversible and irreversible decision Αναστρέψιμη και μη αναστρέψιμη απόφαση A reversible decision is one you could undo within about a month at a cost you can name.

S

Self and other distinction Διάκριση εαυτού και άλλου Experiencing something of another person's state while still keeping track of whose state it is.
Self efficacy Αυτοαποτελεσματικότητα Your belief that you can bring about one particular result.
Self level feedback Ανατροφοδότηση στο πρόσωπο Feedback aimed at the person rather than at the task, at the process, or at the way the work was steered.
Self monitoring Αυτοπαρακολούθηση Reading a signal from your own work while the work is still running, against a standard you wrote down before you began.
Shifting Εναλλαγή The executive function that moves you from one rule, task or method to another.
Situational self control Παρέμβαση στην κατάσταση Handling an impulse by changing something in the situation rather than by resisting it.
Specific feedback Συγκεκριμένη ανατροφοδότηση Feedback that names one observable thing, with a date on it, and what it cost the work, so the other person leaves holding
Standing disagreement Διαφωνία που μένει A difference both of you can see will not close, said out loud as exactly that, so the question moves from who wins it to what
Stop condition Συνθήκη τερματισμού The observation, named in advance, that would end a commitment you have just made.
Stopping rule Κανόνας σταματήματος A sentence written before you need it, naming what would have to be true, and by when, for you to change method while keeping