A technique in contemporary anthropological fieldwork (as well as in ethnology and sociology) in which the fieldworkers live with the group they have chosen to study, and to participate in their daily activities as much as possible. It involves not only participation in the life and work of a group or sub-culture, but also a …
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Passive sentences
The grammatical construction of a sentence in which the subject does not do the acting, but rather the action is performed on it (e.g., the boy was bitten by the dog). While active sentences are preferred in that they make for clearer and more interesting writing (a fairly frequent comment from editors of journals!), there …
Parkinson’s disease
Herbert Ehringer and Oleh Hornykiewicz* found in 1960 that basal ganglia dopamine levels in Parkinson’s patients were about one-tenth of normal levels, a finding that dovetails with consistent degeneration of the substantia nigra. However, signs of the disease do not typically appear until dopamine levels have decreased by at least 80 to 90%. A standard …
Parenting
Can refer to procreation, but usually refers to the care provided for children by those acting as their parents. It does not necessarily refer to the biological parents of the child, but can range from grandparents to an older sibling as well as a legal guardian appointed by the state. As perhaps the defining component …
Parietal cortex
The region of cortex lying between primary visual and primary/ somatosensory cortex, and involved in complex aspects of navigation and visual recognition. Within this part of the cortex is the parietal lobe, an area comprising about a fifth of the cerebral cotex, which can be divided into three segments: the postcentral gyrus, the inferior parietal …
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)
A evidence-based treatment procedure used to improve the quality of theparent-child relationship by teaching parents specific skills to deal with their children (2-7 years) who have emotional and behavioral problems (e.g., conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder). The treatment combines behavioral and play forms of therapy. It is founded on a combination of attachment and social learning theories. …
Parental styles
Authoritarian Four basic styles of parentingaccording to the classification devised by Maccoby and Martin (1983) and basedon the original work by Baumrind (1966). See Differential parenting, Interaction, Intuitive parenting, Maternal responsiveness, Parenting, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), Self-esteem * Baumrind, D.(1966). Effects of authoritative parental control on child behavior, ChildDevelopment, 37, 887-907. ** Maccoby, E.E., & Martin, J.A.(1983). Socialization …
Parasympathetic nervous system (PNS)
One of the two major sub-divisions of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) that conserves and restores energy in opposition to physical responses from the sympathetic nervous system. Typically promotes, for example, lower heart rate, blood vessel dilation, increased digestive secretions, and sexual arousal. Thus, it is sometimes referred to as the ‘rest and digest’ system. As …
Parameter (linguistics)
Possible dimensions of language variation. For example, languages may chose to place the object either after the verb, as in English, or before the verb, as in Turkish. The notion of parameters formed a major building block in Noam Chomsky’stheory of grammar that first saw the light in his book Aspects of the theory of …
Parameter (statistics)
A characteristic (or numerical quantity) of the distribution of a population or a distribution of scores such as the mean or standard deviation (i.e., measures of central tendency) as distinct from the property of a sample drawn from a population. Within a population, it is a fixed value that does not vary. While it is …