6,078 articles
Association of Writers & Writing Programs
The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) is an American nonprofit, founded in 1967, supporting writers and university creative writing programs through its large annual conference.
Assyrian people
Assyrians, also known as Assyrian Christians or Chaldo-Assyrians, are an Indigenous people of Mesopotamia, largely Christian and speaking Aramaic dialects, with homelands in Iraq, Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran.
Astral projection
Astral projection, also called astral travel, is the esoteric practice of deliberately leaving one's body, which mainstream psychology classifies as an out-of-body experience linked to the brain's temporo-parietal junction.
Astroworld Festival crowd crush
Astroworld Festival crowd crush: November 5, 2021 crowd surge at Travis Scott's festival at NRG Park, Houston, killing 10 by compression asphyxia; grand jury no-billed all defendants in 2023.
Asylum claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity
Asylum claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity are refugee claims by people fearing persecution at home, resting on the 1951 Refugee Convention's particular social group ground.
Asylum in the United States
Asylum in the United States is protection for refugees already in or arriving at the country, under INA Section 208 since the 1980 Refugee Act; covers five persecution grounds, one-year filing deadline, affirmative and defensive processes, and 2025-2026 restrictions.
Asylum seeker
Asylum seeker: a person who has applied for international protection and whose refugee claim, under the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol, is not yet finally decided; 9 million were pending worldwide at end-2025.
Atomic Habits
Atomic Habits is a 2018 self-help book by American author James Clear that builds good habits and breaks bad ones through small changes in behavior, environment, and identity.
Attachment in adults
Attachment in adults: stable patterns of security or insecurity in close relationships, measured dimensionally (attachment anxiety and avoidance) or as categories (secure, anxious/preoccupied, dismissing, fearful) via the AAI and ECR.
Attachment theory
Attachment theory, founded by John Bowlby and expanded by Mary Ainsworth's Strange Situation Procedure, explains how infant-caregiver bonds form, classify as secure, avoidant, resistant, or disorganized, and shape later relationships; contested for Western cultural bias.
Attack on Reginald Denny
Attack on Reginald Denny: the April 29, 1992 beating of white truck driver Reginald Denny at Florence and Normandie during the LA riots, televised live, and the 1993 trial of Damian Williams and Henry Watson.
Attack! (periodical)
Attack! (ATTACK!) was an American white supremacist tabloid, later magazine, official publication of Willis Carto's National Youth Alliance from fall 1969, edited by William Pierce, renamed National Vanguard in April 1978, and serialized The Turner Diaries.
Attention
Attention: selective direction of mental resources, studied in psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, economics, and machine learning. Key facts: James 1890, Posner's alerting-orienting-executive networks, ANT, capacity limits, and the debate over whether 'attention' is one construct.
Attention network task
The attention network task (ANT) is a computerized reaction-time task measuring the efficiency of the alerting, orienting, and executive control attention networks, reported by Jin Fan and colleagues in 2002.
Attention network test
The Attention Network Test (ANT) is a computerized behavioral task measuring the alerting, orienting, and executive control attention networks from reaction times, introduced by Jin Fan and colleagues in 2002.
Attention seeking
Attention seeking: behavior designed to attract notice and admiration, per DSM-5; a personality trait or symptom of histrionic and narcissistic disorders, reframed in child welfare as attachment-needing and now studied as attention capital on social media.
Attention span
Attention span, studied as sustained attention or vigilance, is how long focus holds on one task. Covers the debunked 8-second Microsoft claim, Gloria Mark's 47-second screen figure, and mixed media multitasking research.
Attitude (psychology)
In psychology, an attitude, or mental attitude, is a stable evaluation of a person, group, issue, or idea, learned rather than innate and ranging from negative to positive.
Attitude scale
An attitude scale is a psychometric instrument that measures a person's attitude by having them rate agreement with statements, most commonly in the Likert format.
Attraction to transgender people
Attraction to transgender people: romantic and sexual interest toward trans individuals and its social context. Key findings: cis men respond more negatively than cis women, mediated by transphobia; perceived deception, non-disclosure, fetishization, and relationship survival after transition are central research themes.
Attribution (psychology)
Attribution (psychology): the process of assigning causes to behavior, from Heider's 1958 theory through Kelley's covariation model, Weiner's dimensions, and attribution biases such as the fundamental attribution error and self-serving bias.
Au pair
Au pair: a young foreigner living with a host family, providing childcare and light housework for room, board, and stipend under cultural-exchange rules; US J-1 program caps work at 45 hours weekly; Norway abolished its scheme in 2024.
August Spies
August Vincent Theodore Spies (1855–1887), German-born Chicago anarchist, editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, Haymarket affair defendant hanged November 11, 1887 after the 1886 bombing trial.
Auma Obama
Auma Obama (born 1960), Kenyan sociologist and half-sister of Barack Obama, founder of the Sauti Kuu Foundation for disadvantaged youth in Kenya and author of the memoir And Then Life Happens.
Aussiedler and Spätaussiedler
Aussiedler and Spätaussiedler are legal terms for ethnic Germans who migrated to Germany after 1950. They received immediate citizenship and are defined by a special admission procedure.
Australian Aboriginal avoidance practices
Australian Aboriginal avoidance practices are customary rules restricting interaction between certain kin, strictest between a man and his mother-in-law, using special speech registers, sign language, and bodily distancing.
Australian Aboriginal culture
Australian Aboriginal culture: the languages, Dreaming law, Country, kinship, songlines and art of Australia's Aboriginal peoples, occupying the continent for at least 65,000 years, comprising over 500 nations, distinct from Torres Strait Islander cultures, and maintained today through revitalisation and contemporary art.
Australian Aboriginal flag
The Australian Aboriginal Flag, designed by Luritja artist Harold Thomas and first flown in Adelaide in July 1971, has black, red and yellow symbolism, was proclaimed a Flag of Australia in 1995, and its copyright passed to the Commonwealth in 2022.
Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey
Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey (AMLPS): voluntary, non-binding ABS survey of electors, September–November 2017, on same-sex marriage; 61.6% yes, 79.5% participation, upheld by the High Court, led to December 2017 legalization.
Australians
Australians, known as Aussies, are the citizens and residents of Australia, a multicultural society of 27.9 million people, 32 percent of whom were born overseas.