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Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised
The Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) is a standardized caregiver interview for assessing autism, introduced by Catherine Lord, Michael Rutter, and Ann Le Couteur in 1994.
Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule
The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) is a semi-structured standardized assessment for autism spectrum disorder, introduced in 1989; its current edition, the ADOS-2, has five modules.
Autism Speaks
Autism Speaks, founded February 2005 by Bob and Suzanne Wright with $25 million from Bernie Marcus, is the largest US autism advocacy organization; known for Light It Up Blue, the puzzle piece logo, the 2009 I Am Autism video controversy, and its 2016 removal of 'cure' from its mission.
Autism spectrum quotient
The Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) is a 50-item self-report questionnaire measuring autistic traits in adults of normal intelligence, introduced in 2001 and used in research and clinical screening.
Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist
The Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC) is a free, one-page parent-report questionnaire measuring change in autism spectrum disorder symptom severity, with lower scores indicating better status.
Autistic supremacism
Autistic supremacism, often called Aspie supremacism, is a belief within the autistic community that "Aspie" or "high-functioning" autistic people are superior to other autistic and non-autistic people.
Autobiographical memory task
An autobiographical memory task, best known as the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), presents cue words and scores personal memories as specific or overgeneral, a measure linked to depression and rumination.
Autoeroticism
Autoeroticism, self-directed sexual arousal and gratification through masturbation, nongenital stimulation, or fantasy; term coined by Havelock Ellis (1898) and adopted by Freud in 1905; distinct from autosexuality, an orientation.
Automatic writing
Automatic writing: text produced with reported loss of conscious control or authorship. Practiced by Surrealist poets from 1924, used in Victorian spirit mediumship, and studied via hypnosis, dissociation, and ideomotor mechanisms.
Autostereogram
Autostereogram, or single-image random-dot stereogram (SIRDS, Magic Eye): a single flat image hiding a 3-D scene, invented by Christopher Tyler and Maureen Clarke in 1979 from Julesz's 1959 random-dot stereograms, viewed by diverging the eyes.
Ava Lowle Willing
Ava Lowle Willing (1868-1958), later Baroness Ribblesdale, American socialite, first wife of John Jacob Astor IV, mother of Vincent Astor; divorced 1910, remarried Thomas Lister 1919.
Avaaz
Avaaz is a global online campaigning organization founded in January 2007, co-founded by Res Publica and MoveOn.org with Ricken Patel as founding president, member-funded, working in many languages on climate, human rights, corruption, and misinformation.
Availability heuristic
Availability heuristic: judging event frequency or probability by how easily instances come to mind, introduced by Tversky and Kahneman in 1973; related to representativeness, risk perception, and systematic biases like illusory correlation.
Avars (Caucasus)
Avars (Caucasus), self-name ma'arulal, largest indigenous people of Dagestan, Russia, speaking the Northeast Caucasian Avar language (~700,000 speakers), historically centered on the Khunzakh khanate; distinct from the Pannonian Avars.
Aversion to happiness
Aversion to happiness, or fear of happiness (cherophobia), is avoidance of positive emotions from beliefs that happiness brings misfortune; measured by Gilbert and Joshanloo scales, strongly linked to depression, anxiety, and anhedonia.
Aviva Chomsky
Aviva Chomsky (born 1957), daughter of Noam Chomsky, is an American historian at Salem State University and author of Undocumented, They Take Our Jobs!, Central America's Forgotten History, and Is Science Enough?, active in Latin American solidarity and immigrants' rights movements since the 1980s.
Avoidance task
An avoidance task is a behavioral paradigm in which an animal or person learns a response that prevents or terminates an aversive stimulus, typically electric shock.
Avunculate marriage
Avunculate marriage, also called avuncular or uncle-niece marriage, is marriage between a man and his sister's daughter. Documented among the Caribs, Kanarese, Nama, and Tupinamba; rare, and often traced through kinship terminology.
Awori people
The Awori are a Yoruba subgroup of southwestern Nigeria, concentrated in Lagos and Ogun states and widely credited as the first settlers of the area that became Lagos city.
AX-CPT task
The AX-CPT (AX-Continuous Performance Test) is a cognitive task measuring context processing, in which a target response is required only when an A cue is followed by an X probe.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Somali-born Dutch-American activist, former Dutch MP (2003–2006), author of Infidel and Heretic, AHA Foundation founder, Hoover Institution fellow, converted to Christianity in 2023.
Aymara people
The Aymara are an Andean Indigenous people of about 3 million around Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, Peru, and Chile, tied to Tiwanaku, speaking the Aymara language, organized in ayllus, and centered demographically in El Alto, Bolivia.
Azerbaijanis
Azerbaijanis, or Azeris, are a Turkic-speaking people and Shiite Muslims. They are the majority in the Republic of Azerbaijan, with 20 to 30 million in Iran.
Baba Amte
Baba Amte (Murlidhar Devidas Amte, 1914–2008), Indian Gandhian lawyer and social activist, founded the leprosy rehabilitation community Anandwan in Maharashtra, led the Knit India marches and Narmada anti-dam campaigns, and won the Magsaysay, Templeton, and Gandhi Peace awards.
Baba Nyonya
Baba Nyonya (峇峇娘惹) refers to the Peranakan Chinese, descendants of Chinese immigrants who married local women in the Malay Archipelago and developed a blended culture.
Baby boom
Baby boom: the sustained post-World War II surge in births, roughly 1946–1964 in the US (about 76 million births, peak fertility 3.7 in 1957), also used for later national booms in Canada, Japan, and Spain; distinguishes the demographic event from the baby boomer generation.
Baby boomers
Baby boomers are the U.S. cohort born 1946-1964, about 76 million people, named for the post-World War II fertility boom; distinguished by its demographic definition, contested causes, and outsized aging and economic impact.
Bacha bazi (بچهبازی)
Bacha bazi (بچهبازی, "boy play") is the Afghan practice of exploiting boys as dancers and for sexual gratification. Criminalized under the pre-2021 government and banned by the Taliban's 2024 morality law, it persists, with victims fearing punishment and stigma.
Bachelor
Bachelor: a never-married man; also a holder of a first university degree (BA, BSc) and a small one-person apartment. From Old French bacheler, originally a young knight; primary sense shifted to unmarried status in the eighteenth century.
Bachelor pad
Bachelor pad: a mid-1950s American housing type for the single professional man, defined by Playboy and films; apartment for entertaining, pleasure, and stylish consumption, coined in print by the Chicago Tribune.