zombie

1. in West African and Haitian folk belief, a corpse that is reanimated by witchcraft and used as a slave. Zombie legends in Haitian voodoo were long surmised to have been based on a real practice of keeping living persons in a trancelike state by means of certain powerful drugs; this notion is now regarded as discredited. Zombies continue to captivate the imagination, however, particularly as menacing, living-dead stalkers in horror movies and other pop-culture genres.

2. in philosophy of mind, the hypothetical being at the heart of the zombie argument. Also called philosophical zombie (p-zombie). See also zimbo.

3. a colloquial term for the drug PCP.

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Psychology term of the day

May 8th 2024

valence–instrumentality–expectancy theory

a theory of work motivation holding that the level of effort exerted by employees will depend on a combination of three variables: (a) the expectancy of employees that effort will lead to success in the job, (b) the belief of employees that success will lead to particular outcomes (see instrumentality theory), and (c) the value of these outcomes (see valence). A numerical value can be obtained for variable (a) using the subjective probability estimates of employees, for variable (b) by measuring the correlation of performance to rewards, and for variable (c) by asking employees to rate the desirability of the rewards. The motivational force, or the amount of effort employees will exert, can then be calculated. See also path–goal theory of leadership; Porter–Lawler model of motivation. [proposed in 1964 by Canadian organizational psychologist Victor H. Vroom (1932– )]