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• 3-3-3 Rule: is a grounding technique used to manage anxiety, where individuals focus on naming three things they see, three sounds they hear, and moving three parts of their body, helping to bring attention back to the present moment.

• Acceptance and Commitment Theory (ACT): theory focuses on accepting negative thoughts and feelings rather than fighting them, and committing to actions aligned with one's values to achieve psychological flexibility and well-being.

• Acclimatization: refers to the gradual adjustment and adaptation to new psychological or social environments, helping individuals cope with new conditions or stressors over time.

• Adam’s Equity Theory: posits that individuals are motivated by fairness and will adjust their input (effort) and output (rewards) in work situations to maintain equity with others, seeking balance between their contributions and what they receive in return compared to others

• Adaptation Effect: the process by which repeated exposure to a stimulus disrupts homeostasis, triggering a signaling pathway that, when sufficiently activated, leads to a genetic response—ultimately rewiring the system for greater efficiency, resilience, and performance.

• Adaptive Theory: the process by which individuals adjust their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors to cope with changes or challenges. The core concept of this theory is that psychological adaptation involves cognitive and emotional adjustments that enable individuals to function effectively and achieve well-being despite facing challenging situations.

• Advantage Mindset: the belief that change, challenge, and pressure can be harnessed, transformed, and directed into opportunity, growth, and competitive edge.

• Arousal Theory: posits that individuals seek to maintain an optimal level of arousal, which influences their motivation and behavior; too little arousal leads to boredom, while too much causes stress, with performance peaking at moderate arousal levels.

• Audience Effect: refers to changes in an individual's performance caused by the presence of spectators, which can enhance or impair performance depending on the task's complexity and the individual's experience.

• Bannister Effect: refers to the phenomenon where breaking a perceived barrier, like Roger Bannister's four-minute mile, inspires others to surpass it, demonstrating the power of belief and psychological limits in human performance.

• Behavior Synchrony: refers to the coordination and matching of behaviors between individuals in social interactions, often leading to enhanced communication, bonding, and mutual understanding.

• Behavior Change Wheel: is a framework for designing interventions that drive behavior change, combining the COM-B model with intervention functions and policy categories to systematically address factors influencing behavior.

• Bottom-Up / Top-Down Perception: explains two approaches to processing information: Bottom-Up Perception is driven by sensory input building up to higher cognitive processing, while Top-Down Perception uses prior knowledge and expectations to interpret sensory information.

• Bulletin Boarding: refers to the influence that public displays of individual behaviors or achievements have on others' behavior, often used to encourage participation, compliance, or performance in group settings.

• Ceiling Effect: The "ceiling effect" is one type of scale attenuation effect; the other scale attenuation effect is the "floor effect". The ceiling effect is observed when an independent variable no longer has an effect on a dependent variable, or the level above which variance in an independent variable is no longer measurable.

• Chaos Theory: explains events that seem unforeseeable and erratic on their surface but are controlled by deterministic explanations. The chaos theory definition is applied to non-linear systems that are significantly impacted by the circumstances of their starting point. The theory explains that extremely small changes in the initial circumstances of a situation can result in extreme differences later.

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory: explains the mental discomfort individuals experience when holding conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors, motivating them to reduce the dissonance by changing their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors to achieve consistency.

• Cognitive Model: explains how thinking patterns influence emotions and behaviors, emphasizing that individuals' perceptions and interpretations of experiences shape their responses and actions in both everyday situations and psychological contexts.

• COM-B Model: explains behavior change through three components: Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation, which must interact for the desired behavior to occur.

• Competition Effect: refers to the phenomenon where the presence of competitors influences individuals' performance, often leading to improved outcomes due to increased motivation and effort.

• Confirmation Bias: refers to the tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information that confirms one's preexisting beliefs, while disregarding or minimizing contradictory evidence. ​

• Default mode network (DMN) / Task Positive Network (TPN): two brain networks that function inversely: the DMN is active during rest and self-referential thoughts, while the TPN is engaged during goal-directed, focused tasks. Their balance and interaction are crucial for cognitive flexibility and efficient mental functioning.

• Disruptive Change: refers to a sudden, unanticipated shift—often external in origin—that significantly alters the status quo, compels rapid adaptation, and challenges existing strategies, structures, or capabilities.

• Distress: the negative stress response, often involving negative affect and physiological reactivity: a type of stress that results from being overwhelmed by demands, losses, or perceived threats. It has a detrimental effect by generating physical and psychological maladaptation and posing serious health risks for individuals. This generally is the intended meaning of the word stress.

• Dormitory Syndrome: in psychology, refers to the tendency for individuals living in close communal settings to conform to group behaviors and norms, often resulting in synchronized routines, habits, and social behaviors due to peer influence and shared environments.

• Dunning-Kruger Effect: a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their own knowledge or abilities. It's named after Cornell psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, who coined the term in 1999.

• Dynamic Skill Theory: describes how skills develop progressively through interactions between individual capabilities and environmental contexts, moving through increasingly complex and integrated levels of performance.

• Emotional Contagion: refers to the phenomenon where individuals unconsciously mimic and adopt the emotions and behaviors of those around them, leading to a shared emotional experience within a group.

• Eustress: the positive stress response, involving optimal levels of stimulation: a type of stress that results from challenging but attainable and enjoyable or worthwhile tasks (e.g., participating in an athletic event, giving a speech). It has a beneficial effect by generating a sense of fulfillment or achievement and facilitating growth, development, mastery, and high levels of performance.

• Executive Function: refers to cognitive processes that manage and regulate thoughts and behaviors, enabling planning, focus, memory, decision-making, problem-solving, and self-control.

• Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale: measures curiosity across five dimensions: joyous exploration, deprivation sensitivity, stress tolerance, social curiosity, and thrill-seeking, providing a comprehensive assessment of an individual's curiosity traits.

• Fixed Mindset: the belief that your fundamental qualities, like intelligence and talents, are static and unchangeable.

• Flow Channel: the neurological and psychological window in which cognitive load is maximized for engagement without triggering stress or disengagement. (Feldman Barrett et al. (2018) – Neuroscientific Model of Flow)

• Floor Effect: The "floor effect" is one type of scale attenuation effect; the other scale attenuation effect is the "ceiling effect". In research a floor effect (aka, Basement Effect) is when measurements of the dependent variable (the variable exposed to the independent variable and then measured) result in very low scores on the measurement scale. This could be hiding a possible effect of the independent variable (the variable being manipulated).

• Flow Theory: A state of complete focus and total immersion in an activity, where one's abilities are not only actively challenged and developed but are executed with superfluid cognitive and physical command. The brain uniquely activates and allocates resources to areas directly involved in task performance, like the motor cortex for physical activities or certain areas of the PFC for complex problem-solving. This state is highly predictable, repeatable, and transferable, ultimately leading to peak performance and experiences characterized by exceptional cognitive and physical functioning.

• Fogg Behavior Model (FBM): explains that behavior occurs when motivation, ability, and a prompt converge at the same moment, emphasizing that successful behavior change requires all three elements to be present.

• Gratitude Effect: refers to the positive psychological and physiological benefits experienced when individuals regularly practice gratitude, such as improved mood, increased well-being, and stronger social connections.

• GameFlow Model: (Sweetser & Wyeth, 2005) is a model of player enjoyment, comprised of a set of criteria derived from games user experience literature and structured into eight elements that can be mapped to Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) concept of flow.

• Growth Mindset: the belief that your intelligence and abilities can be developed through dedication, hard work, and learning.

• Habituation: refers to the process where repeated exposure to a stimulus results in a decreased response to that stimulus over time. It is a form of non-associative learning where an individual becomes less reactive to a stimulus due to its repeated presentation.

• Hawthorne Effect: refers to the phenomenon where individuals modify their behavior in response to being observed or receiving attention, often resulting in temporary improvements in performance or productivity.

• Herzberg’s 2-Factor Focus Theory: posits that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction arise from two different sets of factors: motivators (intrinsic factors such as achievement and recognition) that lead to satisfaction, and hygiene factors (extrinsic factors such as salary and work conditions) that can cause dissatisfaction if absent but do not necessarily motivate if present.

• High Agency: refers to an individual's empowered sense of control and influence over their actions and decisions, marked by confidence, proactivity, and the ability to shape their environment and achieve desired outcomes.

• Honesty Box Experiment: is a behavioral study in which individuals are asked to make voluntary payments for items (like coffee or snacks) placed in an unattended location, with no enforcement—only an “honesty box.” It is used to measure how social cues or environmental factors (like images of eyes) influence honesty and ethical behavior in the absence of surveillance.

• Imposter Syndrome: a behavioral health phenomenon described as self-doubt of intellect, skills, or accomplishments among high-achieving individuals. These individuals cannot internalize their success and subsequently experience pervasive feelings of self-doubt, anxiety, depression, and/or apprehension of being exposed as a fraud in their work, despite verifiable and objective evidence of their successfulness.

• Inhibitory Effect: refers to the phenomenon where observing a model's behavior that is punished or receives negative consequences decreases the likelihood of the observer engaging in similar behavior.

• Intentional Change Theory: Intentional change involves envisioning the ideal self (who you wish to be and what you want to do in your work and life); exploring the real self (the gaps you need to fill and the strengths that will help you do so); developing a learning agenda (a road map for turning aspirations into reality); and then experimenting and practicing (with new behaviors and roles).

• Kahneman's System 1 vs System 2: describes two modes of thinking: System 1 is fast, automatic, and intuitive, while System 2 is slow, deliberate, and analytical, highlighting how humans process information and make decisions.

• Lazarus Transactional Model of Stress: explains stress as a result of the interaction between an individual and their environment, where stress arises from a perceived imbalance between demands and the resources available to cope, involving processes of primary and secondary appraisal.

• Learning Theories: explain how individuals acquire, process, and retain knowledge and skills, encompassing various approaches such as behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and social learning to understand the mechanisms of learning.

• Looking-Glass Self: a social psychological concept that describes how people develop their sense of self based on how they think others perceive them. The term was coined by American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley in 1902 and is based on the idea that people use social interactions as a mirror to evaluate their own values, worth, and behavior.

• Mammalian Dive Response: a physiological response triggered by submerging the face in cold water, causing a reduction in heart rate, constriction of peripheral blood vessels, and a shift in blood flow to vital organs to conserve oxygen.

• Metacognition: the process by which learners use knowledge of the task at hand, knowledge of learning strategies, and knowledge of themselves to plan their learning, monitor their progress towards a learning goal, and then evaluate the outcome. 

• Mindset Theory: explains how individuals' beliefs about their abilities—whether fixed or growth-oriented—influence their motivation, behavior, and success.

• Neuroplasticity: refers to the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life, allowing for adaptation, learning, and recovery from injury.

• Path-goal Theory:  A leadership theory that states that a leader's behavior and style can affect their subordinates' motivation, satisfaction, and performance. The theory was developed by Robert House in 1971 and revised in 1996. https://sites.psu.edu/leadership/2016/06/29/what-is-path-goal-theory/

• Perception-Action Cycle: describes the continuous loop where sensory perceptions guide actions, and those actions, in turn, influence future perceptions, forming the basis of adaptive behavior and decision-making. (theoretical cornerstone of most modern theories of learning)

• Perceptual learning: is experience-dependent enhancement of our ability to make sense of what we see, hear, feel, taste or smell. These changes are permanent or semi-permanent, as distinct from shorter-term mechanisms like sensory adaptation or habituation. Moreover, these changes are not merely incidental but rather adaptive and therefore confer benefits, like improved sensitivity to weak or ambiguous stimuli.

• Performance Optimization: the process of improving the efficiency and speed of a system, application, or process. The goal of performance optimization is to make the system run faster, use fewer resources, and provide a better user experience.

• Priming: refers to the psychological phenomenon where exposure to one stimulus influences the response to a subsequent stimulus, often without conscious awareness, affecting perceptions, memory, and behavior.

• Principles of Movement: the foundational biomechanical, neuromuscular, and physiological laws that govern how the human body initiates, controls, and refines motion.

• Problem-Solving Theory: explains the cognitive processes for identifying, analyzing, and resolving issues using strategies to find effective solutions.

• Prospect Theory: introduced by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979, explores decision-making under risk and uncertainty. It is a psychology theory that suggests that individuals prioritize avoiding losses over seeking gains, exhibiting characteristics like certainty preference, discounting small probabilities, relative positioning, and loss aversion.

• Psychobiological Model: explains behavior as the result of interactions between biological, psychological, and social factors, emphasizing the integrated and dynamic nature of human development and functioning.

• Quantum Mechanics: the branch of physics that describes the behavior of matter and energy at atomic and subatomic scales, where particles exist in probabilistic states, exhibit wave-particle duality, and interactions that extract information—such as measurement—can alter those states.

• Rapid Transformational Therapy: a hybrid therapy combining hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), and psychotherapy to quickly uncover and reprogram deep-seated beliefs, creating lasting behavioral and mindset shifts. Developed by Marisa Peer, RTT aims to resolve issues like anxiety, confidence blocks, and performance barriers by accessing the subconscious mind through guided hypnosis and rewiring limiting thought patterns.

• Rating of Perceived Exertion: is a scale used to measure an individual's subjective assessment of exercise intensity, reflecting how hard they feel their body is working during physical activity.

• Ripple Effect: refers to the spreading impact of an action or event, where a single occurrence influences others in a chain reaction, often extending far beyond the initial point of impact.

• Science of Change: a multidisciplinary framework that draws from neuroscience, behavioral psychology, systems thinking, and learning science to understand and influence how people adapt, grow, and perform. It reveals not only why change happens, but how it can be strategically engineered—to survive disruption and design transformation.

• Self Determination Theory: explains human motivation by focusing on individuals' innate psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which drive personal growth and well-being. (The Leading Theory in Human Motivation)

• Self Efficacy Theory: posits that an individual's belief in their ability to successfully execute a specific task influences their motivation, effort, and persistence, ultimately impacting their performance and outcomes.

• Social Cognitive Theory: Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory proposes that human behavior is the product of the interaction between personal factors, environmental influences, and behavioral patterns. He emphasized the role of observational learning, social experience, and reciprocal determinism in human behavior, suggesting that people are both influenced by and actively influence their environments.

• Systems Theory: a theory of interacting processes and the way they influence each other over time to permit the continuity of some larger whole.

• TEE Model: a practical performance framework that evaluates and enhances productivity by examining how time is spent, how effort is applied, and how effectively resources are utilized. The TEE Model provides a repeatable, transferable lens through which individuals and organizations can identify inefficiencies, improve decision-making, and maximize performance. It avoids binary thinking (e.g., work harder vs. work smarter) by introducing a multidimensional perspective that captures quality, intensity, and strategy.

• Transition Theory: focuses on the process individuals undergo when experiencing significant life changes, emphasizing the phases of transition, the individual's perception of the change, and the support systems that facilitate successful adaptation.

• Transtheoretical Model (TTM): explains behavior change as a process through stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance, emphasizing the gradual progression and readiness for change.

• TTM’s Stages of Change: specifically outline the sequential phases people experience in behavior change: precontemplation (not ready), contemplation (getting ready), preparation (ready), action (making changes), and maintenance (sustaining changes), focusing on the cyclical and iterative nature of these stages.

• Unconscious Automaticity: are defined as automatic processes that do not require any willful initiation and operate independent of conscious control. This is exemplified with a priming that biases further processing of an event without the person necessarily even consciously aware of the connection.

• Urge Surfing: refers to a mindfulness technique where individuals observe and experience their cravings or urges without acting on them, allowing the urges to rise and fall like waves, ultimately reducing their power and influence.

• Vagus Nerve Breathing Technique: involves slow, deep breathing exercises designed to stimulate the vagus nerve, promoting relaxation and reducing stress by activating the parasympathetic nervous system.

• Visualization: refers to the cognitive process of creating mental images to represent information, ideas, or scenarios, often used to enhance understanding, memory, and performance.

• Wandering Mind: in the context of the Default Mode Network (DMN), refers to the brain's tendency to drift into spontaneous, self-referential thoughts and daydreams when not focused on external tasks.

• Workaround Effect: refers to the phenomenon where individuals find alternative methods to achieve a goal or complete a task when faced with obstacles or inefficiencies in the standard process, often leading to innovative or unconventional solutions.

• Yerkes-Dodson Law: states that too little arousal (stress) causes you to become bored and decreases motivation. As arousal increases, so does your motivation, causing you to perform better at certain tasks. At a certain point, though, you reach an optimal level of arousal and performance; after that, stress causes your performance to decrease

• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): is a concept introduced by psychologist Lev Vygotsky. It refers to the difference between what a learner can do independently and what they can do with guidance or collaboration with a more knowledgeable individual, such as a teacher, mentor, or peer. In other words, the ZPD represents the skills or tasks that are just beyond a learner’s current abilities but within reach with appropriate support. This zone is crucial for effective learning because it is where the most growth can occur—challenges are neither too easy nor too hard, but just right for development with assistance.