primal father

the head of a hypothetical primitive tribe who is slain and devoured by his sons (or other younger men) and later revered as a god, as described by Sigmund Freud in Totem and Taboo (1912–1913). The crime has a tragic effect on the sons and becomes enshrined in the culture of the tribe as a totem.

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Psychology term of the day

November 18th 2024

critical region

a range of values that may be obtained from a statistical procedure that would lead to rejecting a specific claim about a population. More specifically, it is the portion of a probability distribution containing the values for a test statistic that would result in rejection of a null hypothesis in favor of its corresponding alternative hypothesis. Also called rejection region. Compare acceptance region.