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health risk appraisal

1. information collected to assess an individual’s risk for various medical conditions. It may be limited to information from a health activities questionnaire or may include measurements such as cholesterol levels and triglycerides as well as other physical data.

2. the perception by individuals of the extent to which they believe that they are susceptible to a health threat. See also perceived susceptibility; risk perception.

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Psychology term of the day

May 2nd 2024

recurrent dream

recurrent dream

a dream that occurs repeatedly. Sigmund Freud saw recurrent dreams as punishment dreams—rather than wish fulfillment dreams—and linked them to a masochistic need for self-criticism arising from fantasies of excessive ambition. Carl Jung regarded recurrent dreams as more revealing of the unconscious than single dreams, and he believed that in a dream series the later dreams often throw light on the earlier ones (see serial interpretation). Other psychologists see recurrent dreams as an attempt to come to terms with disturbing experiences.