Unit 2 Psychology in Daily Life

1. Unit 2 Psychology in Daily Life

2. New words and expressions for Reading One: • foster: to help a skill, feeling, idea etc develop over a period of time [= encourage, promote] • The bishop helped foster the sense of a community embracing all classes. • commandment: one of the ten rules given by God in the Bible that tell people how they must behave • The club’s aim is to foster better relations within the community.

3. conduct: to carry out a particular activity or process, especially in order to get information or prove facts • conduct a survey/investigation/review etc • We are conducting a survey of consumer attitudes towards organic food. • conduct an experiment/a test • Is it really necessary to conduct experiments on animals? • conduct a campaign • They conducted a campaign of bombings and assassinations.

4. conduct an interview • The interview was conducted in English. • The memorial service was conducted by the Rev. David Prior. • It was the first time that I had conducted business in Brazil.

5. overall: considering or including everything: • The overall cost of the exhibition was £400,000. • The overall result is an increase in population. • An overall winner and a runner-up were chosen. • We don’t want all the details now, just the overall picture.

6. catastrophe: a sudden event that causes many people to suffer  SYN  disaster • The Black Sea is facing ecological catastrophe as a result of pollution. • From all points of view, war would be a catastrophe...

7. overwhelm: If someone is overwhelmed by an emotion, they feel it so strongly that they cannot think clearly. • be overwhelmed by something • Harriet was overwhelmed by a feeling of homesickness. • be overwhelmed with something • The children were overwhelmed with excitement. • Grief overwhelmed me.

8. supervise:to be in charge of sb/sth and make sure that everything is done correctly, safely, etc. • to supervise building work • She supervised the children playing near the pool. • University teachers have refused to supervise students’ examinations...

9. clinical: relating to a hospital or clinic • The program gives the students experience in a clinical setting. • internship: a job that someone who has nearly finished training as a doctor does in a hospital • By the end of our meeting we had decided that I would do an internship with him.

10. arena: an area of activity that concerns the public, especially one where there is a lot of opposition between different groups or countries 竞争场所，活动场所; 舞台 • Women are entering the political arena in larger numbers. • He made it clear he had no intention of withdrawing from the political arena...

11. priority: something that you think is more important than other things and should be dealt with first, e.g., first/top/main priority • The children are our first priority. • After several burglaries in the area, security is now a high priority. • With so little money available, repairs must remain a low priority. • The customer is high on our list of priorities. • List your tasks in order of priority (= most important first). • The government’s priority is to build more power plants...

12. tendency: If someone or something has a tendency to do or become a particular thing, they are likely to do or become it. A tendency is a part of your character that makes you behave in an unpleasant or worrying way. • He is spoiled, arrogant and has a tendency towards snobbery... • a tendency to do something • Greg’s tendency to be critical made him unpopular with his co-workers.

13. The drug is effective but has a tendency to cause headaches. • tendency to/towards • Some people may inherit a tendency to alcoholism. • tendency for • Researchers believe that the tendency for diabetes is present at birth.

14. haunt: to cause problems for someone over a long period of time: • an error that would come back to haunt them for years to come • That decision came back to haunt him. • The stigma of being a bankrupt is likely to haunt him for the rest of his life.

15. Check Your Comprehension • Answer the following questions with the information from the text. • 1. What training does a psychologist need to receive before he/she can practice independently in any health care arena? The training that a psychologist needs to undergo includes an average of seven years of graduate study for a doctoral degree, a supervised clinical internship and at least one year of post-doctoral supervised experience.

16. Check Your Comprehension • 2. Why is good psychological health important according to this text? Because when one has good emotional health, he is able to experience feelings, share them appropriately and not be overwhelmed by them.

17. Check Your Comprehension • 3. What is the disturbing news revealed in the survey conducted by the American Psychological Association? In some cases, women don’t take care of themselves as they think everyone else in the family deserve priority attention.

18. Check Your Comprehension • 4. What does Dr. Cantor suggest people should do to maintain good mental health? According to Dr. Cantor, learning to talk about one’s problems and concerns is an important part of taking good care of oneself and maintaining good psychological health.

19. Check Your Comprehension • 5. What are the connections between psychological health and physical health? If one has good emotional health, he is more likely to maintain both the level of physical health and emotional health he needs.

20. Check Your Comprehension • 6. What are the problems for men and women respectively regarding their maintenance of psychological health? Women are more concerned with taking care of other family members and may forget about themselves while men are likely to ignore the signals of their mental problems and seldom talk about their sufferings.

21. Check Your Vocabulary • When you want to ask about your emotional health, psychologists are the right people to be consulted. • It means developing emotional stability to avoid going to extremes, and relieving tension and anxiety by bringing repressed feelings and fears to consciousness in an appropriate way.

22. Check Your Vocabulary 3. In some cases, women don’t take care of themselves as they think everyone else in the family deserve priority attention. 4. Since long ago, we have been frequently reminded to have physical examinations. However, keeping emotional health has been entirely ignored.

23. Check Your Vocabulary • If we only take care of our physical health and pay no attention to our emotional health, we will in time frequently suffer from painful psychological ups and downs.

24. New words and expressions for Reading Two: • officiate: When someone officiates at a ceremony or formal occasion, they are in charge and perform the official part of it. • Bishop Silvester officiated at the funeral... • officiate as best man • 做男傧相 • officiate as host • 作东道主, 当东 • officiate at a marriage • 主持婚礼

25. successive: [only before noun] coming or following one after the other SYN  consecutive • The team has had five successive victories. • Successive governments have tried to deal with this issue. • The school team won five successive games. (five successive games= five games in succession, five games running)（连续的五场比赛） • 校队连续获得五场比赛的胜利。

26. succumb to: to stop opposing someone or something that is stronger than you, and allow them to take control Succumbing to pressure from the chemical industry, Governor Blakely amended the regulations. • Gina succumbed to temptation and had a second serving of cake. • He finally succumbed to Lucy’s charms and agreed to her request. • = give in

27. condolence: sympathy for someone who has had something bad happen to them, especially when someone has died • A letter of condolence 吊唁信 • send/offer your condolences (= formally express your sympathy when someone has died) 向......表示吊唁 • Please accept my condolences on your mother’s death. • 令堂仙逝谨致吊慰之意。

28. the deceased: someone who has died, especially recently • The deceased left a large sum of money to his children. • The identities of the deceased have now been determined. • tempting: Something that is tempting seems very good and you would like to have it or do it. • In the end, I turned down his tempting offer of the trip to the beach...

29. clergyman: a man who is a member of the clergy 牧师：神职人员中的男性成员。 • When I returned to the drawing room, a clergyman was talking about the hardships being suffered by children in Berlin. • defer: to delay something until a later date • defer something until/to something • Further discussion on the proposal will be deferred until April. • The committee deferred their decision. • Customers often defer payment for as long as possible... • = put back, postpone, delay

30. strenuous: active and determined • Sherry’s been making a strenuous effort to lose weight. • ship went down although strenuous efforts were made to save it. • She is a strenuous supporter of women’s rights. • 她是妇女权利的积极支持者。

31. contagious: of disease that spreads by people touching each other • Scarlet fever（猩红热）is highly contagious. • odd number: a number that cannot be divided exactly by two, for example 1, 3, 5, 7 etc • even number: a number that can be divided exactly by two, for example 2, 4, 6, 8 etc

32. superstition: [U, C] (often disapproving) the belief that particular events happen in a way that cannot be explained by reason or science; the belief that particular events bring good or bad luck • According to superstition, breaking a mirror brings bad luck. • A common superstition considered it bad luck to sleep in a room numbered 13. • （西方）一种普遍的迷信认为在13号房间睡觉是不吉利的。

33. infantile: infantile behaviour seems silly in an adult because it is typical of a child [= childish] • infantile jokes 幼稚的笑话 • infantile behavior • 幼稚的行为 • an infantile remark • 幼稚的评论

34. omnipotence: the state of having total authority or power (FORMAL) • the omnipotence of God • outgrow: If you outgrow a particular way of behaving or thinking, you change and become more mature, so that you no longer behave or think in that way. • The girl may or may not outgrow her interest in fashion.

35. feed: to increase the strength of an emotion, desire etc • Her depression grew, fed by her bitter experiences. • vulnerable: someone who is vulnerable can be easily harmed or hurt • He took advantage of me when I was at my most vulnerable. • We work mainly with the elderly and other vulnerable groups. • Old people are particularly vulnerable members of our society. • = fragile

36. ego: the opinion that you have about yourself • big/enormous etc ego • Richard has the biggest ego (= thinks he is very clever and important) of anyone I’ve ever met. • That promotion really boosted her ego (= made her feel better about herself). • I need someone to massage my bruised ego (= when you feel less confident than before). • He had a massive ego. He would never admit he was wrong.

37. snap: say something angrily [intransitive and transitive] to say something quickly in an angry way • ‘What do you want?’ Mike snapped. • snap at • He snapped at Walter for no reason. • I’m sorry, Casey, I didn’t mean to snap at you like that.

38. frustrated: feeling annoyed, upset, and impatient, because you cannot control or change a situation, or achieve something • He gets frustrated when people don’t understand what he’s trying to say. • It’s very easy to get frustrated in this job. • frustrated with/at • She had become increasingly frustrated with her life. • They felt frustrated at the lack of progress.

39. bawl somebody ↔ out: to speak angrily to someone because they have done something wrong: • He was afraid Vic would bawl him out for being late. • instinctively: 出于本能 • He knew instinctively that something was wrong. • Jane instinctively knew her husband was having a love affair with another woman.

40. gratuitous: said or done without a good reason, in a way that offends someone • There’s too much crime and gratuitous violence on TV. • = unnecessary • incurable: impossible to cure • He is suffering from an incurable skin disease.

41. doom: to make someone or something certain to fail, die, be destroyed etc • That argument doomed their marriage to failure. • Many species are doomed to extinction. • The plan was doomed from the start.

42. irrational: not based on clear thought or reason • He’s becoming increasingly irrational.

43. Check Your Vocabulary B 1. Just as is stated in the Bible, both of these women died as they had reached the greatest extent of their longevity. As they were getting very old and had had every kind of experience in life, their bodies were functionally reduced to nothing. Therefore their deaths were no different than any other normal deaths.

44. 2. Death is the worst possible consequence. Nothing can be worse. 3. Every time I wear that particular sweater which I believe brings me luck, my favorite team, the Red Sox, wins. The boy I have a liking for talks to me on odd-numbered days instead of even-numbered days. The only exception to this rule is when a holiday comes and breaks the pattern.

45. 4. If we want to be able to revive from past unpleasant experiences and start again living normally, we have to find a way to deal with the unreasonable feeling that we must have done something wrong and should be responsible for every misfortune.

46. New words and expressions for Reading Three: • compulsive: Compulsive behaviour is very difficult to stop or control, and is often a result of or a sign of a mental problem. • Compulsive overspending in these days of credit cards has become more common. • He was a compulsive gambler heavily in debt. • Compulsive drinking is bad for one’s health. • 不加节制的饮酒有害健康。

47. hold on to: to keep something rather than losing it, selling it, or giving it to someone else • The soldiers held on to the bridge for three more days. • I think I’ll hold on to these old records for now.

48. bargain: something you buy cheaply or for less than its usual price: • There are no bargains in the clothes shops at the moment. • It’s an attractive little home, and I think it’s a bargain. • That second-hand table was a real bargain. • Good knives don’t come at bargain prices. • bargain hunters = people looking for things to buy at low prices

49. addicted: liking something so much that you do not want to stop doing it or having it • addicted to • kids addicted to surfing the Net • 上网上了瘾的孩子 • addicted to smoking • 吸烟上了瘾 • She had become addicted to golf. • He is addicted to computer games.

50. discount: a reduction in the usual price of something • a discount market; discount merchandise. • 打折商场；打折商品 • They were selling everything at a discount (= at reduced prices). • Employees can buy books at a discount.