Glossary D

Glossary D

DES is the abbreviation for Diethylstilbestrol, a powerful estrogen that has been linked to cancer in the reproductive organs of children of women who used the hormone when pregnant.

René Descartes (1596–1650) is a French scientist/philosopher who proposed a strict split or schism between mental processes and physical abilities.

Deutsch: Abstammung / Español: Descendencia / Português: Descendência / Français: Descendance / Italiano: Discendenza

Descent in the psychology context often refers to the concept of lineage or ancestry, encompassing the influence of familial, cultural, and genetic backgrounds on an individual’s identity, behaviours, and psychological development. It can relate to how one's heritage and the intergenerational transmission of values, beliefs, and traits impact psychological processes.

Descent with modification refers to the principle of evolution according to which current characteristics of species came into being through the gradual modification of earlier characteristics.

Description is a term in scientific research that refers to the process of naming and classifying.

Descriptive adequacy refers to the extent to which a grammar can provide a structural description of a sentence. Please see also Explanatory adequacy and Observational adequacy.

Descriptive behaviorism refers to Behaviorism that is positivistic in that it describes relationships between environmental events and behavior rather than attempting to explain those relationships. Skinner's approach to Psychology exemplified Descriptive behaviorism.

Descriptive models of thinking refer to models that depict the processes people actually use in making decisions or solving problems.