D

Demand Characteristics:

Dependent variable: see variable.

Depenetration: the reduction - or even abandonment - of self-disclosure in a relationship.

Depression: see Clinical Depression.

Descriptive Validity:

Developmental Psychology: from conception and infancy to old age and death, the study of changes over people's lifespan.

Diathesis-Stress Model: the concept that someone has a predisposition (the 'Diathesis factor') to a psychiatric illness - such as Schizophrenia - which is triggered through environmental circumstances and/or certain behaviours (the 'Stress factor'). Such predispositions are usually innate and are often hereditary in that they are passed on through the genes in successive generations.
However, many people do develop psychological predispositions. For example, Aaron Beck has shown repeatedly that somebody who develops a habitual self-blaming/timeless/global attributional pattern in their execution of the Cognitive Triad will create a predisposition for Depression.
A key point of this model is that, while someone may have a biological or psychological predisposition to a psychiatric illness, that illness is unlikely to develop without the 'Stress factor'.

Diffusion of Time
Diffusion of Industry: see Identity Diffusion.

Diffusion of Responsibility:

Dimensions of Temperment: the 3 axes of biologically-based innate temperament identified in the work of Hans J Eysenck. (Eysenck called them ‘Dimensions of Personality’ - but they are renamed in Integrated Sociopsychololgy due to ongoing dispute among psychologists as to the meaning of the term ‘personality’.)The degrees of intersection of the Extraversion and Neuroticism axes will influence the formation of Choleric, Sanguine, Phlegmatic and Melancholic personality types. The third axis of Psychoticism considers the degree of impulsiveness and compulsiveness an individual is likely to exhibit in their behaviour.
As temperament is as, if not more, central to our core selves than our cognitive processes, it is vital to map our temperamental patterns and understand how they influence our thoughts and behaviours.

Dimorphism: two manifestations of the same species - eg: adult and juvenile; male and female.

DISC: the 4 types of behaviour mapped by William Moulton Marston, with qualities such as:-

• Dominance - impatient, assertive, forceful, egotistical, strong-willed, venturesome
• Inducement - charismatic, optimistic, creative, expressive, emotional, outgoing
• Submission - stable, predictable, loyal, dependable, traditional, resistant to change
• Compliance - conservative, procedural, orderly, deliberate, concerned, perfectionistic

Marston did not distinguish between temperamental and motivational factors; thus his types largely describe what, in Integrated Sociopsychology, are called centres of gravity.and provide the means of looking at how Dimensions of Temperament influence the play of vMEMES in the selfplex. However, there is considerable fluidity in the relationship between Marston's behavioural types in an individual's psyche and this takes his model beyond being a mere personality typing system.
In the 1970s John Geier developed the DiSC assessment tool from Marston's work, to become one of the most popular psychometric tools used in industry & commerce.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID): a condition wherein the individual's sense of self becomes fragmented as they seem to be different personalities in different contexts. Unable to reconcile having such different thoughts, feelings and behaviours in different situations, they start to think of themselves as different people in different contexts. (They may or may not give themselves unique names and thereby assume different identities for the different situations.)
There is much contention as to whether DID is different to Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). Ralph Allison, one of the leading experts in the field, contends that DID is qualitatively different to MPD. According to Allison, if a child's sense of self (the selfplex) is cohesive before the traumatic event(s) which act as trigger (sooner, but often later) for the process of dissociation to begin, then the fractured identity of DID is as far it will go. If the trauma takes place before the selfplex is cohesive, then the multiple identities of MPD are more likely to result. Allison gives the age of 7 as the line between whether DID or MPD is likely to be the result. The age of 7 is generally accepted in the Western world as when a child's sense of self is likely to be more or less established.
Don Beck & Chris Cowan have put forward the view that dissociation is the effect of very different vMEMES strongly dominating in different circumstances so that the playing out of the motivations does indeed seem to be that of different personalities at times.

Dopamine:

Dualism: a phiosophical debate about the relationship between mind and body. Parallel Dualism argues that mind and body are separate and not parts of the same organism. Interactive Dualism says that mind and body are separate but do interact.

Dyad: the presence of two entities and their relationship.

Dysfunctional Attitude Scale: