5 Steps to a 5 AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition (92 page)

Social interactivist perspective
—
babies are biologically equipped for learning language which may be activated or constrained by experience.

Social learning theory
—
Bandura’s idea that we can learn behavior from others by first observing it and then imitating it.

Social loafing
—
the tendency of individuals to put less effort into group projects than when individually accountable.

Social motives—
learned needs that energize behavior; acquired as part of growing up in a particular society or culture.

Social psychologists
—
psychologists who focus on how a person’s mental life and behavior are shaped by interactions with other people.

Social psychology
—
the study of how groups influence the attitudes and behavior of the individual.

Social referencing
—
observing the behavior of others in social situations to obtain information or guidance.

Social skills training
—
cognitive behavioral therapy where the therapist can model the behavior for the client and then place the client in a simulated situation for practice.

Sociobiology
—
study of the biological basis of social behavior.

Sociocultural approach
—
psychological perspective concerned with how cultural differences affect behavior.

Somatic nervous system
—
subdivision of PNS that includes motor nerves that innervate skeletal (voluntary) muscle.

Somatization disorder
—
somatoform disorder characterized by recurrent complaints about usually vague and unverifiable medical conditions such as dizziness, heart palpitations, and nausea which do not apparently result from any physical cause.

Somatoform disorder
—
a mental disorder involving a bodily or physical problem for which there is no physiological basis.

Somatosensation
—
the skin sensations: touch/pressure, warmth, cold, and pain.

Somatotype theory
—
William Sheldon’s theory that body types determine personality.

Somnambulism
—
sleepwalking.

Sound localization
—
the process by which one determines the location of a sound.

Source trait
—
Cattell’s underlying 16 traits that guide one’s behavior.

Speed test
—
measures how fast you can answer easy questions in a specified time period.

Spinal cord
—
portion of the central nervous system below the medulla oblongata.

Split-half reliability
—
is a method where the score on one half of the test questions is compared with the other half of the questions to see if they are consistent.

Spontaneous recovery
—
the reappearance of a previously extinguished CR after a rest period.

Sports psychologists
—
psychologists who help athletes refine their focus on competition goals, increase motivation, and deal with anxiety or fear of failure.

Stability vs. change
—
deals with the issue of whether or not personality traits present during infancy persist throughout the lifespan.

Stage 1 sleep
—
sleep stage lasting a few minutes in which we gradually lose responsiveness to outside stimuli and experience drifting thoughts and images. EEGs of stage 1 sleep show theta waves which are lower in amplitude and frequency than alpha waves.

Stage 2 sleep
—
sleep stage whose EEGs show high frequency bursts of brain activity called sleep spindles, and K complexes.

Stage 3 sleep
—
deep sleep stage whose EEGs show some very high amplitude and very low frequency delta waves.

Stage 4 sleep
—
deepest sleep stage whose EEGs show mostly very high amplitude and very low frequency delta waves. Heart rate, respiration, temperature, and blood flow to the brain are reduced. Growth hormone involved in maintaining physiological functions is secreted.

Standard deviation
(SD)—a measure of the average difference between each score and the mean of the data set; the square root of the variance.

Standardization
—
two-part test development procedure that first establishes test norms by giving the test to a large representative sample of those for whom the test is designed, then assures that the test is both administered and scored uniformly for all test takers.

Standardized tests
—
set of tasks administered under standard conditions to assess an individual’s knowledge, skill, or personality characteristics.

Stanford-Binet intelligence test
—
Terman’s revision of Binet’s original individual IQ test.

State-dependent memory
—
tendency to recall information better if you are in the same internal state as when the information was encoded.

Statistical significance
(
p
)—the condition that exists when the probability that the observed findings are due to chance is less than 1 in 20 (
p
<.05) according to some psychologists or less than 1 in 100 (
p
<.01) according to those with more stringent standards.

Statistics
—
field that involves the analysis of numerical data about representative samples of populations.

Stereotype
—
overgeneralized and false belief about the characteristics of members of a particular group; schema used to quickly judge others.

Stereotype threat
—
anxiety that influences members of a group concerned that their performance will confirm a negative stereotype.

Stimulants
—
psychoactive drugs that activate motivational centers and reduce activity in inhibitory centers of the central nervous system by increasing activity of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine neurotransmitter systems; include caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, and cocaine.

Stimulus
—
a change in the environment that can be detected by sensory receptors; elicits (brings about) a response.

Storage
—
the retention of encoded information over time.

Stranger anxiety
—
the fear of strangers that infants develop around 8 months of age.

Stress
—
the process by which we appraise and respond to environmental threats.

Stressors
—
stimuli such as heat, cold, pain, that are perceived as endangering our well-being.

Strive for superiority
—
according to Adler, this tendency is a result of a need to compensate for our feelings of inferiority.

Structuralism
—
early psychological perspective that emphasized units of consciousness and identification of elements of thought using introspection.

Sublimation
—
Freudian defense mechanism, expression of sexual or aggressive impulses redirected into more socially acceptable behaviors.

Subliminal stimulation
—
receiving messages below one’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Sucking
—
the automatic response of drawing in anything at the mouth.

Sulci
—
folding-in portions of convolutions of the cerebral cortex.

Superego
—
the third part of Freud’s personality systems which makes us feel proud when we obey its strict morality and feel guilt when we give in to the id’s more pleasure-seeking urges.

Superstitious behavior
—
idiosyncratic, unimportant behavior associated with anticipation of a reward as a result of unintended reinforcement.

Surface trait
—
Cattell’s cluster of personality traits which stem from deep source traits; the person we see on the outside.

Survey
—
research method that obtains large samples of abilities, beliefs, or behaviors at a specific time and place through questionnaire or interview.

Swallowing
—
automatic contraction of throat muscles that enables food to pass into the esophagus without choking.

Sympathetic nervous system
—
subdivision of PNS and ANS whose stimulation results in responses that help the body deal with stressful events.

Symptom substitution
—
the replacement of one behavior that has been eliminated with another.

Synapse
—
region of communication between the transmitting presynaptic neuron and receiving postsynaptic neuron or muscle or gland, consisting of the presynaptic terminal buttons, a tiny space and receptor sites typically on the postsynaptic dendrites.

Syntax
—
rules that are used to order words into grammatically sensible sentences.

Systematic desensitization
—
behavior treatment for phobias in which the client is trained to relax to increasingly fearful stimuli.

Tardive dyskinesia
—
serious side effects from antipsychotic drugs including problems walking, drooling, and involuntary muscle spasms.

Taste aversion
—
negative response to particular foods that may be inborn and/or acquired through classical conditioning.

Tay-Sachs syndrome
—
recessive trait that produces progressive loss of nervous function and death in a baby.

Telegraphic speech
—
meaningful two-word sentences, usually a noun and a verb, and usually in the correct order uttered by two-year-olds.

Temperament
—
an infant’s natural disposition to show a particular mood at a particular intensity for a specific period.

Temporal conditioning
—
in classical conditioning, the presentation of the UCS at specific time periods; time serves as the CS.

Temporal lobes
—
side regions of cerebral cortex that are primary area for hearing, understanding language (Wernicke’s area), understanding music/tonality, and processing smell.

Teratogen
—
harmful substance (drug or virus) with which contact during the prenatal period can cause birth defect(s).

Terminal button
s
(also called axon terminals, end bulbs, or synaptic knobs)—tips at the end of axons which secrete neurotransmitters when stimulated by the action potential.

Testes
—
gonads in males that produce hormones necessary for reproduction and development of secondary sex characteristics.

Thalamus
—
part of forebrain that relays visual, auditory, taste, somatosensory (skin sensation) information to and from appropriate areas of cerebral cortex; involved in encoding sensory memory into STM.

Thanatology
—
study of death and dying; Kubler-Ross’s five stages of facing death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT
)
—
a projective test composed of ambiguous pictures about which a person is asked to write a complete story.

Theories
—
organized sets of concepts that explain phenomena.

Thinking
—
involves mental images, symbols, concepts, and rules of language.

Thyroid gland
—
endocrine gland in neck that produces thyroxin which stimulates and maintains metabolic activities.

Timbre
—
the quality of a sound determined by the purity of a waveform; a note of the same pitch and loudness sounds differently on different musical instruments.

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
—
retrieval problem that involves known information that can only be retrieved incompletely.

Token economy
—
a program used in institutions in which a person’s acceptable behavior is reinforced with tokens that can be exchanged for special privileges or goods.