Savant syndrome

S

Savant syndrome

A condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.

Scapegoat theory

The theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.

Scatterplot

A graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables. The slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship between the two variables. The amount of scatter suggests the strength of the correlation (little scatter indicates high correlation). (Also called a scattergram or scatter diagram.)

Schema

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Schizophrenia

A group of severe disorders characterized by disorganized and delusional thinking, disturbed perceptions, and body hair.

Selective attention

The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus, as in the cocktail party effect.

Self-actualization

According to Maslow, the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one’s potential.

Self-concept

(1)  a sense of one’s identity and personal worth ; (2) all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, “who am I?”

Self-disclosure

Revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others.

 

Self-esteem

One’s feelings of high or low self-worth.

 

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Occurs when one person’s belief about others leads one to act in ways that induce the others to appear to confirm the belief.

Self-serving bias

A readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

Semantic encoding

The encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.

Semantics

The set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning. (p. 383)

Sensation

The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.

Sensorimotor stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.

Sensorineural hearing loss

Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea’s receptor cells or to the auditory nerves. (Also called nerve deafness)

Sensory adaptation

Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.

Sensory cortex

The area at the front of the parietal loves that registers and processes body sensations.

Sensory interaction

The principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste.

Sensory memory

The immediate, initial recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Sensory neurons

Neurons that carry incoming information from the sense receptors to the central nervous system.

Serial position effect

Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.

Set point

The point at which an individual’s “weight thermostat” is supposedly set. When the body falls below this weight, an increase in hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may act to restore the lost weight.

Sexual disorder

A problem that consistently impairs sexual arousal or functioning.

Sexual orientation

An enduring sexual attraction toward members of either one’s own gender (homosexual orientation) or the other gender (heterosexual orientation).

Sexual response cycle

The four stages of sexual responding described by Masters and Johnson – excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.

Shaping

An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of a desired goal.

Short-term memory

Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten.

Signal detection theory

Predicts how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (“signal”) amid background stimulation (“noise”). Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person’s experience, expectations, motivation, and level of fatigue.

Sleep

Periodic, natural, reversible loss of consciousness – as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation.

Sleep apnea

A sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and consequent momentary reawakenings.

Social clock

The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.

Social exchange theory

The theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs.

Social facilitation

Improved performance of tasks in the presence of others; occurs with simple or well-learned tasks but not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered.

Social leadership

Group-oriented leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support.

Social learning theory

The theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished.

Social loafing

The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable.

Social psychology

The scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Social trap

A situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.

Somatic nervous system

The division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body’s skeletal muscles. (Also called the skeletal nervous system.)

Source amnesia

Attributing to the wrong source an event that we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories. (Also called source misattribution.)

Spacing effect

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.

Split brain

A condition in which the two hemispheres of the brain are isolated by cutting the connecting fibers (mainly those of the corpus callosum) between them.

Spontaneous recovery

The reappearance, after a rest period, of an extinguished conditioned response.

Standard deviation

A computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score.

Standardization

Defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested “standardization group.”

Stanford-Binet

The widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet’s original intelligence test.

Statistical significance

A statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance.

Stereotype

A generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people.

Stimulants

Drugs (such as caffeine, nicotine, and the more powerful amphetamines and cocaine) that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.

Storage

The retention of encoded information over time.

Stranger anxiety

The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 month of age.

Stress

The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging.

Subjective well-being

Self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life. Used along with measures of objective well-being (for example, physical and economic indicators) to evaluate people’s quality of life.

Sublimation

In psychoanalytic theory, the defense mechanism by which people rechannel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities.

Subliminal

Below one’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Superego

The part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.

Superordinate goals

Shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation.

Survey

A technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people, usually by questioning  a representative, random sample of them.

Sympathetic nervous system

The division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations.

Synapse

The junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. The tiny gap at this junction is called the synaptic gap or cleft.

Syntax

The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.

Systematic desensitization

A type of counterconditioning that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias.