6,078 articles
Pedophilia
Pedophilia (paedophilia), associated with Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), is persistent sexual attraction to prepubescent children; DSM-5 and ICD-11 diagnose pedophilic disorder only when urges are acted on or cause distress, distinct from child sexual abuse.
Peer group
Peer group: a social group whose members share interests, social position, and age, studied as an agent of socialization. Covers Harris's group socialization theory, meta-analytic peer influence effects (g = 0.47), conformity mechanisms, and peer learning.
Peer pressure
Peer pressure is influence by a peer group to conform to group norms. Also called peer-group pressure; distinguished from general conformity by its group-member setting, with normative and informational motives.
Pegging (sexual practice)
Pegging is anal penetration of a partner with a strap-on dildo, originally a woman penetrating a man. Term coined in Dan Savage's 2001 Savage Love reader vote; de Sade described the act in 1795; guidance covers lubricant, flared-base toys and condoms.
Peggy Caserta
Peggy Caserta (1940-2024), Haight-Ashbury boutique owner of Mnasidika, pioneer of Levi's bell-bottom jeans, and author of 'Going Down With Janis' (1973), the disavowed memoir of her relationship with Janis Joplin.
Pegida
Pegida (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes) is a right-wing populist, anti-immigration protest movement founded by Lutz Bachmann in Dresden in October 2014, known for Monday marches peaking at about 25,000 in January 2015 and close ties to the AfD.
Pelvic thrust
Pelvic thrust: forward rhythmic pelvic movement used in dance styles (Trobriand mweki/Tapioca Dance, bucking, twerking), stage dance (Time Warp, jerk), and the barbell hip-thrust exercise.
Pemon
The Pemon (Pemón) are a Carib-speaking indigenous people of southeastern Venezuela and adjacent Guyana and Brazil; their Gran Sabana heartland lies largely within Canaima National Park.
Pen pal
Pen pal (pen friend): a person with whom you exchange letters as a hobby, usually abroad and unmet. Covers origins in the international correspondence movement, Eisenhower's People-to-People program, classroom uses, and apps like Slowly.
Pencil test (breasts)
Pencil test (breasts): folk test placing a pencil under an unsupported breast; if it stays, a bra is advised. Attributed to Ann Landers, spread by mid-20th-century magazines, later recast as a sagging or breast-lift criterion and widely criticized as unreliable.
Pend d'Oreilles
Pend d'Oreilles (Ql̓ispé, Kalispel), Salish-speaking tribe of Flathead Lake, Clark Fork, and Pend Oreille rivers; French name from shell earrings; Hellgate Treaty 1855; now part of Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
Pengiran Raabi'atul Adawiyyah
Pengiran Raabi'atul Adawiyyah binti Pengiran Haji Bolkiah (born 1992) is a Bruneian former data analyst, wife of Prince 'Abdul Malik, whose title Yang Amat Mulia Pengiran Anak Isteri was revoked by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah on 8 August 2026; she has four daughters.
Penguin Revolution
The Penguin Revolution, or Revolución Pingüina, was the 2006 wave of protests by Chilean secondary school students that put education reform at the center of Chilean politics.
Penis envy
Penis envy (Penisneid) is Freud's psychoanalytic concept in which girls, on realizing they lack a penis, develop envy shaping femininity; criticized by Karen Horney (womb envy), empirically unsupported, and replaced by primary femininity.
Penn continuous performance task
The Penn continuous performance task (PCPT) is a computerized test of sustained visual attention, part of the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery developed at the University of Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch: German-speaking settlers in colonial Pennsylvania and their descendants, and their language, Pennsylvania German (pdc). Not Dutch; split into Plain sectarians (Amish, Mennonites) and church people, with 61,000 speakers in Pennsylvania.
People
People, or peoplehood, is the social-science concept for groups bound by shared descent, history, language, culture, or territory; also called ethnie, nation, or nationality. Distinguished from states and from mere populations by collective identity and claims such as self-determination.
People-first language
People-first language (person-first language) places the person before the disability, e.g. "person with epilepsy"; contrasted with identity-first language ("disabled person"), it is used by the CRPD and CDC, though surveys show mixed preferences among disabled people.
Peoria people
Peoria people, or Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, a confederated Algonquian tribe of Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankeshaw, and Wea (Illini peoples) united in 1854, removed through Missouri and Kansas to Miami, Oklahoma; terminated 1950, restored 1972; Miami-Illinois language revival program.
Pepe Julian Onziema
Pepe Julian Onziema (born 1980) is a Ugandan transgender human rights activist, Programs Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, and the activist from the viral 2012 "Why are you gay?" NBS interview.
Pepper LaBeija
Pepper LaBeija, born William Jackson, died 2003, was Mother of the House of LaBeija, the first ballroom house, for about 30 years and a featured figure of the documentary Paris Is Burning (1990).
Pepper Schwartz
Pepper Schwartz (born 1945) is an American sociologist and sexologist, University of Washington professor emerita, author of American Couples and Peer Marriage, AARP love expert, and Married at First Sight panelist.
Peranakan Chinese in Malacca
The Peranakan Chinese in Malacca, also called Straits Chinese, are a Sino-Malay community in Malaysia, descended from Fujian migrants and regarded as Malacca's founding Straits community.
Perceived Stress Scale
The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) is a self-report questionnaire measuring how stressful, unpredictable, and uncontrollable a person found their life in the past month, introduced by Sheldon Cohen and colleagues in 1983.
Periyar
Periyar, born Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy, was an Indian social reformer and rationalist from Tamil Nadu who founded the Self-Respect Movement in 1925 and led the Dravidar Kazhagam.
PERMA model
PERMA model: Martin Seligman's 2011 positive psychology theory of well-being with five pillars, Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment, measured by the PERMA-Profiler and extended to PERMA+4.
Permanent residency
Permanent residency is an indefinite immigration status allowing noncitizens to live and work in a country without citizenship, known as the green card in the US, PR status in Canada, and indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
Perpetual foreigner
The perpetual foreigner (forever foreigner) stereotype casts Asian Americans as inherently foreign regardless of citizenship or generations in the U.S.; a component of Kim's 1999 racial triangulation, distinct from the model minority stereotype.
Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany
The persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany was the regime's 1935 to 1945 campaign against men under Paragraph 175; about 100,000 were arrested and 5,000 to 15,000 sent to concentration camps.
Persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman decline
Persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman decline: displacement, violence, and dispossession of Balkan, Crimean, and Caucasian Muslims as Ottoman rule retreated (1875–1923); the muhacir refugee migrations, Ottoman resettlement policies, and post-1878 'abandoned land' confiscations.