6,078 articles
OneTaste
OneTaste: San Francisco sexual-wellness company (2004) founded by Nicole Daedone and Robert Kandell around trademarked orgasmic meditation, a 15-minute clitoral stroking practice; leaders convicted of forced labor conspiracy in 2025.
Online community
Online community: groups interacting regularly around shared purpose in online spaces. Known for BBS and Usenet origins (1978 onward), volunteer moderation, rules raising participation 70% in r/science.
Online shaming
Online shaming is public social policing of perceived transgressions via social media, also called cancel culture or call-out culture. Key facts: no accepted definition, viral pile-ons, documented job loss and depression, five ethical constraints, and platform regulation debates.
Only child
Only child: a person raised without siblings. Covers definitions and measurement, EU and UK prevalence, outcome research from Polit and Falbo onward, and China's one-child policy cohort.
Onogurs
The Onogurs, a tribal federation of the Pontic-Caspian steppe between the 5th and 7th centuries, gave Europe its name for the Hungarians, from On-Oğur, meaning "ten Oğurs (tribes)".
Onondaga Council Fire
The Onondaga Council Fire is the central council fire of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, kept by the Onondaga Nation near Syracuse, New York, where the Grand Council meets.
Open border
Open border: a border allowing free movement of people with little or no border control. Exists in practice via the Schengen area and similar zones; in philosophy, the position that states should not restrict immigration.
Open defecation
Open defecation is defecating in fields, bushes, water, or other open spaces instead of using a toilet. 354 million people practised it in 2024, down from 1.3 billion in 2000; ending it is SDG target 6.2.
Open field test
The open field test is a rodent behavioral assay in which locomotion, exploration, and anxiety-like behavior are measured in a walled arena, introduced in 1932.
Open marriage
Open marriage: a married couple's mutual agreement permitting sexual, sometimes emotional, relationships outside the marriage; a form of consensual non-monogamy popularized by the O'Neills' 1972 book, distinct from infidelity, swinging, and polyamory.
Open relationship
Open relationship: a committed relationship in which partners agree one or both may have sex (sometimes romance) with others; a form of consensual non-monogamy alongside polyamory and swinging, distinguished from infidelity by consent and affecting about 4-5% of partnered adults.
Openness to experience
Openness to experience, a Big Five and five-factor personality dimension, covers curiosity, aesthetics, and creativity; measured by BFI (reliability 0.77) and BFI-2 (0.83); predicts creative work, liberal attitudes, and study abroad.
OpenPsych
OpenPsych is an open-access online psychology journal founded in 2014 by Emil O. W. Kirkegaard and Davide Piffer, merged in 2020 from three journals (ODP, OBG, OQSPS), using forum-based open peer review, mandatory data sharing, and criticized as a pseudojournal platforming race science.
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is learning in which behavior is strengthened or weakened by its consequences, studied via Skinner boxes and reinforcement schedules (fixed/variable, interval/ratio), rooted in Thorndike's law of effect and applied in ABA, education, and animal training.
Operant conditioning task
An operant conditioning task is a behavioral paradigm in which an animal's voluntary response produces a consequence, such as food reward or punishment, measuring instrumental learning and motivation.
Operation Peter Pan
Operation Peter Pan (Operación Pedro Pan) airlifted 14,048 unaccompanied Cuban children to Miami from December 1960 to October 1962 via Catholic Welfare Bureau visa waivers, ending with the Missile Crisis.
Operation Raise the Colours
Operation Raise the Colours: 2025 UK campaign tying St George's Crosses and Union Jacks to lampposts, bridges and roundabouts, begun in Birmingham and east London, spread via social media, linked to far-right organisers and council removal disputes.
Operation Wetback
Operation Wetback: 1954 INS mass deportation drive under Eisenhower, run by General Joseph Swing with Attorney General Brownell's plans, deporting over a million Mexicans while the Bracero guest-worker program expanded.
Operationalization
Operationalization is the process of turning an abstract construct into a measurable variable via an operational definition. Rooted in Bridgman's 1927 operationalism, spread to psychology by Stevens and Boring, now standard in social science research methods.
Opium den
An opium den was an establishment where opium was prepared and smoked, arising in eighteenth-century China and spreading to North America, Britain, and Southeast Asia by the mid-nineteenth century.
Opium of the people
Opium of the people: Karl Marx's phrase from his 1844 Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (Die Religion ist das Opium des Volkes), describing religion as both consolation for and protest against real suffering.
Opposition to AI data centers
Opposition to AI data centers is the U.S. grassroots and political backlash against AI-serving facilities, over electricity bills, water use, noise, tax breaks, and few jobs, producing moratoria, bans, Gallup majorities, and state legislation.
Opposition to immigration
Opposition to immigration: attitudes, movements, and policies favoring reduced migration. Spans U.S. nativism (Know-Nothings, Chinese Exclusion Act 1882, 1924 quota act), eugenics-linked restrictionism, and modern UK, French, and U.S. public opinion and enforcement politics.
Oppression
Oppression: the systematic, unjust constraint or reduction of a group through social forces. Covers Young's five faces, Frye's enclosing structures, structural operation, and 2021 ILO count of 49.6 million in modern slavery.
Optical illusion
Optical illusion, also called visual illusion: a percept that systematically differs from physical reality. Includes literal, cognitive, and physiological types such as Müller-Lyer, Ebbinghaus, and Ponzo, used to probe visual mechanisms.
Optimism
Optimism is the psychological disposition of expecting good outcomes, studied as dispositional optimism (Life Orientation Test) and explanatory style; distinct from unrealistic optimism, and linked to lower mortality (RR 0.85) and cardiovascular risk.
Optimum HDTV viewing distance
Optimum HDTV viewing distance: the seat distance where display pixels subtend one arc-minute, matching 20/20 visual acuity; about 3.2 picture heights for 1080p, 1.6 H for 4K, 0.8 H for 8K, alongside SMPTE 30° and THX 36–40° viewing-angle standards.
Optional Practical Training
Optional Practical Training (OPT) is U.S. temporary work authorization for F-1 and M-1 foreign students, 12 months plus a 24-month STEM extension, regulated under 8 CFR 214.2 and upheld in Washington Alliance v. DHS.
Oral sex
Oral sex, mouth-to-genital stimulation (fellatio, cunnilingus, anilingus), is practiced by over 85% of US sexually active adults. It transmits many STIs including gonorrhea, syphilis, and HPV (linked to 60-70% of oropharyngeal cancers), while HIV risk is much lower than from anal or vaginal sex.
Oralman
An oralman (Kazakh: оралман, from "to return") was the official legal status of ethnic Kazakhs who immigrated to Kazakhstan for permanent residence after independence in 1991.