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Levels of Adaptation: terminology I have developed to describe adaptation to changing circumstances.

• Nominal Level - concerns alignment of the Identity to the Environment running right through the neurological levels
• Deeper Level - is to do with how vMEMES shape Values & Beliefs and influence Identity in relation to changes in the Life Conditions in the  Environment

Levels of Processing Theory: the concept developed by Fergus Craik & Robert Lockhart that it is the depth of processing which determines how much a stimulus is remembered. At the shallowest level, processing involves only physical characteristics - eg: whether a word is in capitals or lower case - and does not create much memory. Phonemic processing - eg: comparing whether two words rhyme - is an intermediate level and creates more memory trace. Semantic processing - extracting meaning - produces the deepest levels of processing and creates stronger memories.
Meaning will inevitably be related to whatever vMEME or vMEME stack is dominating at the time of the stimulus.
Craik & Lockhart drew no distinction between long-term memory and short-term memory.

Liberation Theology: a school of theology within Christianity, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church.

It emphasizes the Christian mission to bring justice to the poor and oppressed, particularly through political activism. Its theologians consider sin the root source of poverty, viewing sin as exploitative Capitalism and class war by the rich against the poor.

Life Script:  as used in Transactional Analysis (TA), this is the pre-conscious life plan that governs the way life is lived out. Our life script causes us to selectively redefine some events and discount others as we attempt to make reality fit our story. Changing the life script is the aim of TA (and most other forms of psychotherapy), leading the client to become aware of the decisions we made in childhood and to change the bits that don't work so well, and so realise our full potential. We become more autonomous by moving out of script.

In Integrated SocioPsychology terms, the life script - what we believe about ourselves and our relationships to the world around us - clearly encompasses most, if not all, the schemas in the selfplex.

Limbic System: a set of mainly subcortical structures which are represented in both cerebral hemispheres and grouped around the brainstem. The main structures of the limbic system are:-

• Olfactory Bulb - receives sensory data direct from the olfactory epithelium of each nasal cavity
• Thalamus - one area relays sensory information to the cerebral cortex; it is a second area associated with sleep which is usually considered to be part of the limbic system
• Hypothalamus - regulates homeostasis in eating and drinking and integrates the activity of the autonomic nervous system, affecting the stress (fight-or-flight) response, emotion and motivation
• Hippocampus - associated with memory and involved in motivation, emotion and learning
• Amygdala - associated with memory, emotion, sleep, arousal and the stress response
• Cingulate Gyrus - associated with strong emotions such as aggression; it also involved in signalling between the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex and the caudate nucleus

Locus Coeruleus: a small area of cells in the pons related to the sleep-wake cycle and memory.

Locus of Control: this refers to a person’s perception of personal control over their own behaviour. See Attribution Theory. According to Julian B Rotter (1966), it can be measured along a dimension or scale from ‘high internal’ to ‘low external’.

• High Internal Locus - will attribute their behaviour primarily to their own decisions and efforts
• High External Locus - will attribute their behaviour as being caused primarily by fate, luck, other people or circumstances

Rotter found that the direction in which people attributed - ie: which way they directed causality - tended to be consistent, suggesting a possible innate element in the tendency. However, Rotter was also at pains to point out that the strength of the attribution was likely to vary considerably from situation to situation, thus affirming the importance of environmental factors in the attribution process.

The concept of locus of control had actually been put forward slightly earlier by Carl Rogers (1961), initially referring to it as ‘locus of evaluation’. Rogers hypothesised the concept from case studies whereas Rotter’s research was based on extensive sample groups. After Rotter published, Humanistic psychologists tended to used the ‘locus of control’ term.)

Logical Levels of Learning: see Bateson Learning Levels.

Long-term Memory: memory for well-processed information integrated into an individual's general knowledge store. Such storage is thought to be relatively permanent and of unlimited capacity.

Longitudinal Study: a study that is conducted over a long period of time, thus enabling comparisons of the same group of individuals at different points in chronological time.

A major problem with longitudinal studies often is a high rate of attrition - ie: people dropping out - which reduces reliability at the investigation check points. Another problem with longitudinal studies is that participants are more likely to become aware of the researcher’s aims - with this most likely leading to demand characterisitcs.

Looking Glass Self: a sociological concept that a person's self grows out of society's interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others. The looking-glass self begins at an early age and continues throughout the entirety of a person’s life as one will never stop modifying their self unless all social interactions are ceased.

Charles Cooley (1902) first coined the term but several leading sociologists since have worked with the concept - most notably  King-To Yeung & John Levi Martin (2003) who identified the looking glass self has 3 components:-

1. We imagine how we must appear to others
2. We imagine the judgment of that appearance
3. We develop our self through the judgments of others

'Love Quiz': the 1987 questionnaire study carried out by Cindy Hazan & Phil Shaver to test the link between styles of adult romantic/sexual relationships and infant Attachment Types. They found a significant correlation between Mary Ainsworth's Secure, Anxious-Resistant and Anxious-Avoidant types and the respondents' approach to relationships. Hazan & Shaver carried out a second study a few years later and found similar if slightly weaker evidence for the link.
Hazan & Shaver's methodologies have come in for some strong criticisms. However, their studies do show support for assertions from Sigmund Freud to John Bowlby and Ainsworth herself that the earliest relationships in life form templates for those in later life. They also emphasise the importance of the health of the PURPLE vMEME in Graves' Spiral and how damage in early life can blight later life.