A term with a rather rich variety of meanings in psychology. Note, however, that in spite of the seeming diversity in usage, all derive from the Latin processus meaning a going forward , and the underlying connotation is always that of a series of steps or a progression toward some aim or some goal. Very generally, any change or modification in a thing in which directionality or focus can be discerned. The usual sense here is that the form or structure of an organism or object is relatively static or stable and that any systematic modification in it over time represents some underlying, meaningful process that leads to a different form or structure.
Process here is regarded as active , the structure itself as passive .
This general meaning is applicable in almost any domain of the social sciences and, as many have argued, psychology is basically a study of processes. The manner in which some change is brought about. The usual reference here is to some set of operations that produces a particular result, e.g., the learning process , the extinction process . In cognitive psychology, any operation that is a component of the organizing, coding and interpreting of information. See here information processing and related terms.