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oppositional defiant disorder

in DSM–IV–TR, a behavior disorder of childhood characterized by recurrent disobedient, negativistic, or hostile behavior toward authority figures that is more pronounced than usually seen in children of similar age and lasts for at least 6 months. It is manifest as temper tantrums, active defiance of rules, dawdling, argumentativeness, stubbornness, or being easily annoyed. The defiant behaviors typically do not involve aggression, destruction, theft, or deceit, which distinguishes this disorder from conduct disorder. Oppositional defiant disorder should be distinguished from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, with which it often co-occurs. In DSM–5, the symptom characteristics have largely been retained but are divided into subgroups of mood (e.g., angry, irritable), behavior (e.g., argumentative, defiant), or vindictiveness.

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Psychology term of the day

February 22nd 2025

emergent feature

emergent feature

an entity produced by the interaction of small or simple elements (e.g., short line segments) in the visual system, such an entity (e.g., a polygon) being more salient to human perception than are the elements themselves. In ergonomics, object displays are usually designed to make use of emergent features; the display configurations yield an overall image (e.g., a rectangle or pentagon) that can be perceived holistically by the operator of a machine system and therefore rapidly analyzed to assess the state of the system. When a component of the system is not in the appropriate or normal state, the image will be distorted, alerting the operator to potential problems.