6,078 articles
Foreplay
Foreplay is sexual activity such as kissing, touching, and caressing before or as preparation for intercourse; it increases arousal and lubrication, raises consent and communication considerations, and is debated in sexual-script research.
Forgetting curve
The forgetting curve, charted by Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885 using nonsense syllables and the savings method, plots retention declining steeply then slowly after learning; replicated by Murre and Dros in 2015 and applied in spaced repetition and AI memory evaluation.
Forms of address in the United Kingdom
Forms of address in the United Kingdom: titles and honorifics from Mr, Mrs, Ms and Mx to peerage (Duke to Baron, 'Your Grace'), judiciary ('My Lord') and royals, as enforced in passports and codified by Debrett's and Bloomsbury guides.
Fornication
Fornication, also called premarital sex, is sexual intercourse between unmarried people. Distinguished from adultery; rooted in Latin fornix and Greek porneia; unenforceable in US law after Lawrence v. Texas (2003).
Forward caste
Forward caste: Indian caste communities outside the SC, ST, OBC, and EWS schedules; "forward" and "upper" are not legally recognized terms but common scholarly labels for the unreserved, historically privileged groups competing as general category.
Foster care
Foster care is the temporary placement of children with trained foster families when parents cannot care for them, aiming at reunification, adoption, or guardianship. Rooted in 19th-century placing-out systems, it is studied as outperforming institutional care and faces carer shortages in England and reforms in the US and Australia.
Foundation (nonprofit)
Foundation (nonprofit): a nonprofit corporation or charitable trust making grants for charitable purposes; in US tax law usually a private foundation under 501(c)(3), subject to a 5% payout, 1.39% investment excise tax, and public Form 990-PF filings, distinct from donor-advised funds.
Foundational Black Americans
Foundational Black Americans (FBA), a term coined by Tariq Nasheed, describes Black Americans descended from people enslaved in the United States, related to ADOS, and central to lineage-based reparations eligibility debates.
Four stages of competence
Four stages of competence, also called the conscious competence model or ladder, is a 1970s skill-learning model from Noel Burch of Gordon Training International: unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, unconscious competence, with contested origins and optional fifth reflective stage.
Four temperaments
Four temperaments: ancient Greek proto-psychological theory of sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic personality types, derived from Hippocratic-Galenic humoral medicine and later echoed by Eysenck.
Foursome (group sex)
Foursome: a four-person group sex encounter, positioned between a threesome and larger group sex or orgy; commonly two couples in swinging (soft swap or full swap), with US lifetime prevalence of about 11.5% of men and 6.3% of women.
Fourteen Words
Fourteen Words (14, 14/88) is the white supremacist slogan "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children," coined by The Order member David Lane; the number 14 and the combined code 1488 serve as movement shorthand.
Fourth Way
Fourth Way, also called the Work, is G. I. Gurdjieff's spiritual teaching, systematized by P. D. Ouspensky, contrasting with the fakir, monk, and yogi paths and practiced within ordinary life.
Fourth-wave feminism
Fourth-wave feminism: proposed current feminist phase from the early 2010s, defined by digital and hashtag activism (#MeToo, #EverydaySexism), intersectionality, and backlash from the online manosphere; distinct from third-wave feminism by its online character.
Foxconn suicides
Foxconn suicides: 2010 cluster of suicides and attempts, 13 completed and 5 attempted, among young migrant workers at Foxconn's (富士康) Shenzhen electronics factories, triggering government investigation, anti-suicide nets, wage rises, and Werther-effect research.
Fragile masculinity
Fragile masculinity, also called precarious manhood or masculinity threat, is the theory that manhood is an earned, easily lost status defended when challenged; meta-analysis shows small-to-medium effects (d=.45) on emotions and self-perception, though political-attitude findings failed replication.
Frame analysis (social science)
Frame analysis is a social science approach, qualitative or quantitative, for identifying the interpretive frames through which people and media construct meaning, named for Erving Goffman's 1974 book Frame Analysis.
Framing (social sciences)
Framing (social sciences): selection and salience in constructing meaning, from Goffman's Frame Analysis to social movement framing (diagnostic, prognostic, motivational tasks; Snow and Benford) and media framing effects research.
Framing analysis
Framing analysis is a research method in communication and the social sciences that studies how selecting and highlighting aspects of an issue in media shapes how audiences interpret it.
Framing effect (psychology)
Framing effect (psychology): a cognitive bias where equivalent information presented as gains versus losses reverses preferences. Known from Tversky and Kahneman's 1981 Asian Disease Problem, explained by Prospect Theory and loss aversion, reduced by visual aids in health communication.
Frances Shand Kydd
Frances Shand Kydd, born Frances Ruth Burke Roche (1936-2004), mother of Diana, Princess of Wales; married the 8th Earl Spencer then Peter Shand Kydd, converted to Catholicism, and died on Seil Island, Scotland.
Franco-Mauritian
Franco-Mauritians are the French-speaking descendants of French settlers who colonized Mauritius from 1715, a white minority of roughly 2% of the population that has historically dominated the island's sugar industry and economic life.
Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt
Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt (1839–1885), Mobile-born second wife of Cornelius Vanderbilt, married him in 1869 and is credited with inspiring his $1 million 1873 founding gift to Vanderbilt University.
Frank Kameny
Frank Kameny (Franklin Edward Kameny, 1925–2011), American astronomer and gay rights pioneer. Fired in 1957 from the Army Map Service during the Lavender Scare, he brought the first sexual-orientation civil rights claim to the Supreme Court (Kameny v. Brucker, denied 1961), co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, led the first White House gay rights picket in 1965, coined "Gay is Good," and helped win the 1973 APA delisting of homosexuality and the 1975 end of the federal employment ban.
Frank Stallone Sr.
Frank Stallone Sr. (Francesco Stallone, 1919–2011) was an Italian-American barber, beauty-salon owner, and polo player from Gioia del Colle, Puglia, father of Sylvester and Frank Jr., and timekeeper in Rocky (1976).
Fraternal Order of Eagles
Fraternal Order of Eagles (F.O.E.), fraternal order founded 1898 in Seattle as the Order of Good Things; bald-eagle emblem, motto Liberty, Truth, Justice and Equality; social-legislation campaigns and charities such as its Diabetes Research Center distinguish it from the NFL team and other Eagles groups.
Fraternity
Fraternity: a fraternal organization bound by ritual and mutual aid, covering American college Greek-letter fraternities (Phi Beta Kappa 1776, Kappa Alpha 1825), sororities, and fraternal benefit societies.
Fred Crisman
Fred Lee Crisman (1919–1975), Tacoma harbor-patrol supervisor, co-claimant of the 1947 Maury Island UFO hoax, later named by Jim Garrison as a JFK 'tramp' suspect.
Fred Hampton Jr.
Fred Hampton Jr. (born 1969) is a Chicago activist, son of slain Illinois Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton and Akua Njeri. He leads the Black Panther Party Cubs, founded the Prisoners of Conscience Committee, served nine years in prison, and consulted on Judas and the Black Messiah.
Fred Phelps
Fred Waldron Phelps (1929–2014), American pastor and disbarred lawyer, founded Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church, led anti-gay "God Hates Fags" funeral picketing, filed some 400 suits, and won Snyder v. Phelps (2011, 8–1).