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Savant Syndrome: People with savant syndrome typically score poorly on intelligence tests, but have specific talent or skill for which they are exceptional. For example, someone who may be of limited intelligence may be a remarkable painter or musician. Another example may be someone who is barely able to speak correctly but is a mathematical genius. Scapegoat Theory: Scapegoat theory is a social psychological term that relates to prejudice. According to this theory, people may be prejudice toward a group in order to vent their anger. In essence, they use the group they dislike as their target for all of their anger…as a vent. One example that has been suggested is the holocaust. According to scapegoat theory, the Germans used the Jews as scapegoats for all of their countries problems (which included economic problems across the country), focused all of their anger on the Jews, allowed their anger and hatred to build, and focused all of their anger, frustration, and problems on the Jews. (This is not "the" explanation for the holocaust, but one component of it.) Schedule of Reinforcement: As you know, reinforcement is a process that increases the frequency of a targeted behavior by either using a negative stimulus or a positive stimulus. In addition, reinforcement is effective when it occurs on some schedule. Psychologist have identified several different schedules by which reinforcement works well, including variable ratio, variable interval, fixed ratio, and fixed interval. Each schedule provides reinforcement in different ways according to different criteria, and work better in different situations. But the goal is always the same--deliver reinforcement in a way that increases the chances of a target behavior occuring more frequently. Schema: A schema is a cognitive system which helps us organize and make sense of information. For example, you may have a conceptual framework or developed a schema that all homeless people are rude. Because of this schema, you organize your actions around it and more readily look for information that supports this view while discarding information that disagrees with this perspective. Schemas exert a great deal of influence over us and sometimes hinder us from remembering new information because it does not fit into our cognitive framework. Schizoid Personality Disorder: This is a classification used for people who are withdrawn and are not bothered by their lack of social relationships (and they really do lack social relationships). It is common for these people to have inappropriate or flat emotional responses which make them seem cold and/or withdrawn. Schizophrenia: Schizophrenia is a psychological disorder, thought to be caused by imbalances in brain chemistry, which involves delusions and faulty perceptions of the world. Schizophrenics often hear voices in their head and have delusions of grandeur. It's not uncommon for Schizophrenics to believe that they are Jesus or other prominent figures. In fact, one Schizophrenic claimed he was god's chauffeur! There are several types of schizophrenia including disorganized, catatonic, paranoid, undifferentiated, and residual. School Psychology: This branch of psychology deals with counseling and advising elementary and secondary level children to improve learning conditions in schools. The primary methodologies include research, testing, and guidance. Scientific Method: The scientific method is a systematic, step-by-step procedure psychologists use when conducting research. By following these specific steps, psychologists seek cause and effect relationships which means that they can be certain (at least have a high level of confidence) that one variable causes an effect on another variable and that the results of the study are caused by the variable being studied and not some other, outside (extraneous) variables. The steps to the scientific method include describing the topic of study, making predictions (hypotheses), select a method for the study, controlling external variables, collecting data (running the study), analyzing & explaining the findings, and reporting & sharing the findings (usually via publication or lecturing). There are variations but these are the basic steps in the scientific method. Secondary Reinforcer: Unlike primary reinforcers which are naturally reinforcing, secondary reinforcers are reinforcing only after the organism has been conditioned to find it reinforcing. Some stimulus that does not naturally provide reinforcement is paired with a primary reinforcer so that the organism begins to associate the secondary reinforcer with the primary reinforcer. For example. If you recall the Pavlov's dog case, the dog naturally salivated to the presence of meat powder. The meat powder serves as a primary reinforcer. But then pairing a sound with the meat powder over and over again, the sounds became reinforcing to the dog because it had been associated with the primary reinforcer (meat powder). Secondary Sex Characteristics: These are the physical features other than reproductive orgrans that distinguish men from women. Unlike primary sex characteristics which are the main sex-specific reproductive organs (i.e., ovaries and testes), secondary sex characteristics are nonreporductive sexual characteristics such as breasts (on females) and an adam's apple on men. Selective Attention: I've always been somewhat bothered by this term because it seems somewhat redundant to me…see what you think. Selective attention is purposely focusing your conscious awareness onto a specific stimulus. This means that if you are in a noisy place with lots of people and you purposely pay attention to the person you are speaking with, you are engaging in selective attention. Easy enough, right? So how is this different from "paying attention" or simply "attention"? I know there are subtle differences, but it seems redundant to me. Self Monitoring: There are people who are high self-monitors and people who are low self-monitors...A high self-monitor is someone who is concerned about how they are perceived by others and will actually change their behavior in order to fit different situations (e.g., if they believe they will be perceived negatively by others, they may change their behavior so that they are perceived more positively...rather than just acting in a consistent manner). On the other hand, a low self-monitor is someone who is less concerned with how other people perceive them and will be more likely to act consistently. For example, a low self-monitor who has certain religious beliefs will be more likely than a high self-monitor to express their actual beliefs across situations (a high self-monitor might say something other than their true beliefs if they believe the situation calls for it or if they believe others will perceive them in a negative manner). Self-Actualization: Maslow believed that there are five types of needs that motivate us in our every day lives. At the top of Maslow's hierarchy are self-actualization needs where people have reached their full potential and have become all that they can be. According to Maslow, few people in history are said to have self-actualized. Self-Awareness: Ever think of yourself as an object of attention or become aware of “being”? If so, you were self aware, which is often defined as a psychological state in which one takes oneself as an object of attention. Star Trek used to have shows that focused on “what is life” and one of the criterion for life seemed to be that the organism was self-aware…that it realized and was aware of its own existence. Self-Concept: We all have lots of ideas and feelings about ourselves as objects or beings. When you add all of these ideas and feelings together, you you’re your self-concept…the total of you thoughts and feelings that define your “self” as an object. Self-Consciousness: Who hasn’t been self conscious at some point in time? Although most people have experienced some feeling of being self-conscious at some time, the psychological term self-consciousness refers to a more habitual tendency to focus on your own self-awareness…almost to the point of fixation. Self-Disclosure: Self-disclosure refers to times when you share very private, intimate secrets about yourself with another person. Typically in a counseling setting, self-disclosure is necessary to make significant progress. Not only is this important in counseling settings, but it is crucial for successful, loving relationships. Self-Esteem: The extent to which and ways in which people view themselves. People who view themselves favorably have good self-esteems whereas people who view themselves negatively have poor self-esteems. Self-esteem affects a person's behavior dramatically. Semantic Encoding: As you know, encoding is the process of getting information into memory for storage. Semantic encoding is a specific type of encoding in which the meaning of something (a word, phrase, picture, event, whatever) is encoded as opposed to the sound or vision of it. Research suggests that we have better memory for things we associate meaning to and store using semantic encoding. Semantic Memory: Semantic memory is one of the three types of long-term memory (the others are episodic and procedural) in which we store general world knowledge like facts, ideas, words, problem solving, etc. Sensation: Technically, sensation can be defined as the neural synaptic firing of our receptors and our brain's interpretation of these firings. But how about an example to make this a little more clear….when you touch something, receptors send impulses that travel to the spinal cord and then into the brain for interpretation. Without both parts (the signal being sent or the interpretation), there is no sensation. The signals being sent and interpreted are what we call sensation. (Note: nothing is done with the "interpretation" at this stage, but once the interpretation is made use of and taken to the next stage, you have perception.) Sensitive Period: The term, Sensitive Period is a developmental term and refers to a time when a child is particularly receptive to certain kinds of environmental experiences. Given the high level of receptivity, this is an ideal time for learning. A related term is Critical Period. Sensorimotor Stage of Development: According to the legendary developmental psychologist, Jean Piaget, from birth to approximately age 2 learn to coordinate all their sensory experiences (sights, sounds, etc.) with their motor behaviors. At this stage of development children learn about and start to understand the world around them by doing things like sucking, grasping, crawling, etc. Sensory Adaptation: We get used to things. This goes for lots of things in life including smells, sounds, sights, games, people, situations…seems like after a while we get used to everything.One reason we get used to everything is because of sensory adaptation, which is reduced sensitivity to stimulation that results from repeated presentations of that stimulation. For example, my car was in for service recently and the dealer gave me a rental to use while the car was being serviced. As soon as I got into the car I was overwhelmed by the smell of smoke (even though I asked for a non-smoking car). It stunk! But after driving the car for 30 minutes or so, I didn't really notice the smell. I got used to it because I was emmersed in it. I experienced sensory adaptation. Sensory Memory: The part of the memory system which is the initial contact for stimuli. Sensory memory is only capable of retaining information for a very short period of time. This type of memory allows your eye to have a larger field of vision by remembering images that your eye has already focused on. In actuality, your eyes' field of vision is quite small but because of sensory memory you are able to remember stimulus your eye has already viewed. Sensory Neurons: You have a few different types of neurons in your body including interneurons, motor neurons, and sensory neurons. Sensory neurons are responsible for bringing information from sensory receptors (like the nerves in your hand) to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain). In other words, these neurons carry information about the senses, so they bring information from the eyes, ears, etc., as well as from within the body like the stomach. Serial Position Effect: This term is a memory-related term and refers to the tendency to recall information that is presented first and last (like in a list) better than information presented in the middle. Sometimes I experience this when I go to the store and don't write a list. My wife tells me the things we need and I try to remember them by rehearsing them (I say the list over and over). This keeps the information in short-term memory longer. But in the time it takes me to get to the store and then with all the distractions of getting items, looking at labels, etc., I tend to remember the items that were first on the list (probably because I rehearsed them so much) and the last items (probably because those were the ones I heard most recently) but always forget the ones in the middle. I guess I should write them down, huh? Sex Differences: Sex Differences refer to the differences in how males and females behave and think. Sex differences are driven by actual biological gender disparity, rather than by differing environmental factors (nurture), and affect our cognition and behavior. This is different than Sex Roles. Sex Roles: Sex Roles refer to behaviors viewed as acceptable for each sex according to societal norms. Sex roles play a large part in determining our development and how we act, and are affected by the environment (unlike Sex Differences). For example, it used to be that men and women had very specific roles such as, the man went to work to earn Money and the woman stayed home to keep the house and raise the children. These were roles that were sex-specific and were determined by the society and the time period. Sexual Dysfunction: Sexual dysfunction is any problem relating to sex that interfers with a person's ability to perform sexually. This is not something that happens once (like drinking to much alcohol and being unable to get an erection) but occurs repeatedly and/or consistently. I don't even like talking about this, so let's move on, shall we? Sexual Orientation: Do you like men or women? Your sexual orientation is your sexual preference for members of the same sex or opposite sex. If you like members of the same sex you would be classified as having a homosexual orientation. If you like members of the opposite sex you would be classified as having a heterosexual orientation. Sexual Response Cycle: As scientists I guess we need to study everything we can to make sense of it. Leave to us to make sex scientific. Anyway, the sexual response cycle, identified by Masters and Johnson in 1966, includes the stages humans go through during sexual interaction. There are four stages in the sexual response cycle, including the excitement phase, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. Shaping: This is a behavioral term that refers to gradually molding or training an organism to perform a specific response (behavior) by reinforcing any responses that are similar to the desired response. For example, a researcher can use shaping to train a rat to press a lever during an experiment (since rats are not born with the instinct to press a lever in a cage during an experiment). To start, the researcher may reward the rat when it makes any movement at all in the direction of the lever. Then, the rat has to actually take a step toward the lever to get rewarded. Then, it has to go over to the lever to get rewarded (remember, it will not receive any reward for doing the earlier behaviors now…it must make a more advanced move by going over to the lever), and so on until only pressing the lever will produce reward. The rat’s behavior was “shaped” to get it to press the lever. Short-Term Memory: Short Term Memory is the part of the memory system where information is stored for roughly 30 seconds. Information can be maintained longer with the use of such techniques as rehearsal. To retain the information for extended periods of time; it must be consolidated into long-term memory where it can then be retrieved. Short-term memory allows you to retain phone numbers from an operator before and while you are dialing the number of interest. The capacity of short-term memory is also limited. Most people can only store roughly 7 chunks of information plus or minus 2. Is it just a coincidence that phone numbers only have seven digits? :-) Signal Detection Theory: I often like to change a complex psychological definition into a precise and clear one that everyone understands, but the definition for Signal Detection Theory is pretty straight forward. Here is one that I found in one of my texts: "Signal Detection Theory holds that the detection of a stimulus depends on both the intensity of the stimulus and the physical and psychological state of the individual." And that's really all it is....Your ability or likelihood to detect some stimulus is affected by the intensity of the stimulus (e.g., how loud a noise is) and your physical and psychological state (e.g., how alert you are). For example, when you walk to your car that is parked in an empty parking lot late at night all by yourself, you might be much more aware of noises because the situation is somewhat threatening (you are primed and listening carefully to hear anything and everything). In this case, you may hear some slight noises that you might otherwise not hear if you were in a different situation that was not as threatening. Thus, your ability to detect signals or noises has been affected by these factors. See what I mean? Similarity: Similarity is one type of "grouping rule" that we, as humans, follow in an effort to make sense of our basic sensations and the world around us. We follow these very specific rules unconsciously, but they are very important for our everyday survivial. One grouping principle or rule is "similarity" which refers to the tendency for humans to group together objects or stimuli that seem similar to each other. For example, what do you see here: $$$$$ 88888 !!!!! Most people would say they see 5 dollar signs followed by 5 number 8's, and 5 exclamation points. But why not see this as 15 items that mean nothing together, or random symbols and numbers? The reason is that we group similar items together to try and make sense of them or find some pattern. Single-Blind Research Method: The Single-Blind research method is a specific research procedure in which the researchers (and those involved in the study) do not tell the participants if they are being given a test treatment or a control treatment. This is done in order to ensure that participants don't bias the results by acting in ways they "think" they should act. For example, if a participant believed they were in the group that received a sleeping drug, they may report that they are tired because they believe they "should be tired" since they're in the sleeping drug group. Skinner Box: The Skinner Box was created by Behaviorist B.F. Skinner who used it to study animals such as rats and pigeons. The chamber (in the shape of a box) contains either a lever or key that can be pressed in order to receive reinforcements such as food and water. There was also a mechanism that recorded all the behaviors of the animals, the schedules of reinforcement the animals were on, etc. It was a very controlled environment that Skinner used to meticulously study behavior. The Skinner Box created what is known as Free Operant Procedure - responses can be made and recorded continuously without the need to stop the experiment for the experimenter to record the responses made by the animal. Sleep Apnea: Sleep Apnea is a sleep disorder in which the person's muscles become so relaxed that the airways become blocked and the person has trouble breathing and actually stops breathing momentarily). These people tend to snore a lot. The big problem here is that the person is not getting enough oxygen. Each time they stop breathing their blood oxygen level drops until it gets so low it wakes them mometarily (usually not noticed by the sleeper). This cycle (stop breathing and then waking) can happen hundreds of times a night. In addition to dangerously low blood oxygen level, the person can't get enough slow-wave sleep so they usually feel tired and complain of poor sleep. Social Clock: Have you ever heard someone say (or said yourself) "my clock is ticking." This is an example of a social clock which is a cultural specific timetable for events to occur. Events include marriage, having children, etc. For example, in some cultures it is expected that people be married in their teens. This is an example of a social clock - in that cutlture they have an accepted timetable for when events are to occur. Social Cognition: This subarea of Social Psychology exams our ability to gather information about and understand the rules and concepts that govern our social interactions--the ways in which we understand social rules of etiquette, proximity, objectics, gestures, inferences, etc. At its essence, social cognition includes the processes we use to understand the world around us. Social Exchange Theory: There are many different theories about why we help each other. According to social exchange theory people help each other when there is a positive cost-benefit analysis; when the benefits outweigh the costs.The benefits can be tangible or intangible, physical or psychological. All that really matters is that the person perceives the benefits to be greater than the costs. Social Facilitation: Norman Triplett, way back in 1898, noticed that people in bicycle races went faster when they were competing against each other directly than when they were racing individually (e.g., an individual time trial). This observation was the basis for social facilitation, which states that people perform certain tasks better when they are in the presence of other people. This is true for simple tasks, tasks people are good at already, or already learned tasks, but not for difficult or novel tasks. Social Identity Theory: This theory addresses the ways in which people perceive and categorize themselves. According to social identity theory, individuals form self-conceptions that are based on two parts: 1) personal or self identity, and 2) collective identity. Personal or self identity refers to our unique, personal qualities such as our beliefs, our abilities and skills, etc. The collective self includes all the qualities that arise from being part of a society, culture, family, groups, clubs, etc. For example, you may identify yourself as a protestant, male, football player, who is very popular with people at school. Social Influence: When a person or group uses any type of social power to change the attitudes or behavior of others in a particular direction, they have used social influence. For example, a persuasive argument might be even more effective if your teacher (an authority figure with social power) is an expert on a topic as opposed to just having some knowledge about the topic. If the teacher is able to change your attitude in the direction of the argument, they have used a type of social influence. Social Leadership: In contrast to task leadership, people with social leadership skills are good at getting members of the team excited about their task, increasing energy, inspiring team spirit, and reducing conflict. Often being a democratic type of leadership, social leaders often produce high performing teams and may be popular with their subordinates…after all, don’t you want to follow a leader that makes you feel enrgized, good about yourself and your effort, and gets the team working effectively? Social Learning Theory: This theory, made famous by Albert Bandura, states that social behavior (any type of behavior that we display socially) is learned primarily by observing and imitating the actions of others. The social behavior is also influenced, according to this theory, by being rewarded and/or punished for these actions. For example, if a child sees his older brother bring home a good report card and he gets a great reward for it, the child may observe this, see the older brother get rewarded, and then learn that having a good report card will get rewarded so he should do it too. Social Loafing: When more people are involved in a task, the task is done faster, more easily, and better…right? Not necessarily! Social loafing is the tendency for people in a group to put less effort into the task when the effort is pooled (when they are all supposed to work on the task) compared to when they are all responsible for their own contributions. By having more people involved in the group task, each person can put in a little less effort, thinking that others will make up for their lack of effort. You may have seen this type of situation with, for example, road crews…sometimes there are 10 on the crew, 3 are working hard, 2 are sort of working, and the other 5 are sitting around talking. Are they all putting in as much effort as they would if each worked alone? Probably not. Social Norms: Social Norms are the rules for how people should act in a given group or society. Any behavior that is outside these norms is considered abnormal. For example, if you live in a society where it is common for people to wear plates in their lips, not wearing plates in your lips would be considered outside the social norm. Personality disorders as well as mental and psychological disorders are considered abnormal due to their variance from that which is socially acceptable from the social norms. Social Psychology: People do not live in isolation (at least most don't), but come in contact or interact with others on a regular basis. As a result, people are influenced by other people. As the PsychGuy's advisor states, "We humans are social species" (Forsyth, 1995, p.2), and as a social species, we are influenced by other people at a variety of levels. Social Psychology seeks to understand these interactions, and can thus be defined as the scientific investigation of how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of people are influenced by the presence of others. It is important to note that the presence of others does not have to be real; people only have to perceive that others are there. The underlying premise of Social Psychology is that people are not merely their personalities, not merely a product of their environments, but are who they are as a result of the interaction of the environment and personality. The following formula was presented by Kurt Lewin and expresses the interaction between personality and the environment: B=f(P, E): in this formula, B=behavior, P=person, E=environment, and f=the function of. Social Role Theory: This theory suggests most behavioral differences we know about between males and females is the result of cultural stereotypes about gender (how males and females are supposed to act) and the resulting social roles that are taught to young people. Social Roles: Expectations for the ways in which people are expected to behave in specific situations. These expectations are created and defined by the societies in which the people live, which means that different societies have different social roles (and therefore, different expectations for the ways people are "supposed to act"). Sociobiology: Now, don't get mad at me for explaining this term. It's not "my" term, I'm just explaining it. Sociobiology is a scientific approach or discipline that is concerned with identifying biological and genetic bases for social behavior in humans and other animals. What’s wrong with that, you ask? Well nothing…yet. One perspective of sociobiology is that, with respect to reproduction, males and females are driven toward the same goal of making sure they pass on their genes to the next generation. Their methods are a bit different though. According to this approach, ales are driven to produce as many offspring as possible, which means they are likely to reproduce with many different females as possible. Conversely, females increae the chances of passing on their genes to the next generation by trying to select a male that has good genes and, possibly, will help protect and raise the young. This helps ensure the survival of the offspring and, as a result, their genes. Remember, I didn't come up with this, I'm just giving you the information. Sociopath: This term is really synonymous for someone with a sociopathic personality, which is really another way of saying “antisocial personality”. So, let’s define antisocial personality—this is a type of personality disorder in which the person has impulsivity, an inability to live by the rules, customs, and laws of the society in which they live, and a lack of anxiety or guilt about their behavior. Somatic Nervous System: The part of the nervous system which connects the brain and spinal cord to the voluntary muscle system. The somatic nervous system is part of the peripheral nervous system. The peripheral nervous system is also made up of the autonomic nervous system, which connects the brain and spinal cord to involuntary muscles and glands. Somatoform Disorders: There are many different types and forms of psychological disorders. To make sense and organize them all, we place disorders into categories, such as anxiety disorders, dissociative disorders, somatoform disorders (among others). Somatoform disorders as those that have some type of bodily symptom (soma = body) but don’t appear to have any physical cause. This does not mean that the symptoms are not real, only that a physical cause for the real symptoms can't be found. This may be the result of anxiety, stress, among other causes. Somnambulism: Somnambulism (often also referred to as Nocturnal Somnambulism) describes a condition in which an individual repeatedly sleep-walks. In Psychology, it is classified as a dissociative disorder, which also includes amnesia, fugue, and multiple personality disorders. Somnambulism is now thought to be a relatively benign disorder, and is usually not treated. However, there is a risk that the person could be injured accidentally (walking into things, falling down stairs, etc.) during sleep walking. Speed Tests: Speed tests are designed to assess how quickly a test taker is able to complete the items within a set time period. The primary objective of speed tests is to measure the person's ability to process information quickly and accurately, while under duress. Speed tests contain more items than the vast majority of applicants will be able to answer in the time allotted, and the items are usually not high in difficulty. Scoring is based on how many questions are answered by the applicant within the time limit. Often these tests are used by human resource professionals and I/O Psychologists during the hiring process. Split Brain: As you may know, the human brain has two halves; a right half and a left half. Information is able to travel from one half to the other br crossing a bridge known as the corpus collosum. However, split brain refers to the situation in which the connections between the halves of the brain are severed…basically the bridge is cut. Although there are some abilities that are lost by severing the connection between the halves, people are able to function quite well. Split-Half Reliability: A measure of consistency where a test is split in two and the scores for each half of the test is compared with one another. If the test is consistent it leads the experimenter to believe that it is most likely measuring the same thing. This is not to be confused with validity where the experimenter is interested if the test measures what it is suppose to measure. A test that is consistent most likely is measuring something; the experimenter just does not know what that "something" is. This is why it is said that reliability sets the ceiling of validity. Spontaneous Recovery: Spontaneous recovery is a term associated with learning and conditioning. Specifically, spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of a response (a Conditioned Response; CR) that had been extinguished. The recovery can occur after a period of non-exposure to the Conditioned Stimulus (CS). It is called spontaneous because the response seems to reappear out of nowhere. Let's look at an example. Let's say I condition (teach/train) a rat to press a lever whenever I ring a bell. Then I teach the rat to press the lever when I flash a light and not when I ring the bell. Once I've accomplished this, we can say that the first conditioned response (pressing the lever when I ring the bell) has been extinguished. But then one day, the rat starts to press the lever when I ring the bell and not when I flash the light. In this situation, there was spontaneous recovery of the response that was previously extinguished. S-R Approach (Contiguity): The S-R Approach is the "stimulus-response" approach and is based on the premise of Contiguity, which states, for learning to occur, the response must occur in the presence of or very soon after a stimulus is presented, or an association will not occur. In essence, this is a behaviorist view based on the idea that learning will occur only if events occur relatively close together in time. Standard Deviation: Standard Deviation is a measure of variation (or variability) that indicates the typical distance between the scores of a distribution and the mean. Looking at an example will help us make sense of this. Assume a professor is interested in the satisfaction of students in her psychology class. She decides to survey the students by asking them to rate the class from one to five. From the surveys, she calculates the average score to be three. From this she can assume that people's satisfaction was average. Wanting to know more she decides to calculate the standard deviation and finds it to be equal to two--meaning, the amount of variability between the numbers was 2. This means that most scores were either a one or a five (thus producing the average of three), showing that students were either very satisfied with her class or very dissatisfied with her class (they gave ratings of 1 or 5 most frequently). By obtaining a measure of variability, she was able to understand more about how people felt with the class than she would of with just an average score. This is one of the reasons why standard deviation (and variability) is so important. Standardization: Consistency and objectivity of how tests are administered and scored. In order to compare one person to another on a test, it is important that they take the test under the same conditions and the same scoring procedure is applied to both. For example, suppose one person took a math test in a thunderstorm and the other in a silent proof room. Based on the test scores, could we really say who was better in math? Or is it fairer to say that the thunderstorm condition confounded that person's score? Let us further say that we applied different scoring criteria to each of the test takers. Could we still say who was better in math? This is way standardization is so important in testing. Stanford-Binet Test: Alfred Binet (in collaboration with Theodore Stanford) was instructed by the French government to design a test that would identify children who would have problems with school and or learning the material that was designed for children in their own age range. a widely used intelligence test. They then set out to create a test that measures a child's mental age (the average mental ability for a child of a specific chronological age). They could use this mental age as a guide, to see if, for example, a 5 year old has "normal" intelligence, which would be a mental age of 5, or a mental age that was above or below. The test does not identify why children perform above or below a specific age range, only at what mental age a child performs. The test does however, according to its creators, measure how well a child of a specific age will be able to handle school work designed for children of similar age. State-Dependent Retrieval: Recall from long-term memory that is dependent on certain cues from our physical states. Statistical Significance: This is a very important and common term in psychology, but one that many people have problems with. Technically, statistical significance is the probability of some result from a statistical test occurring by chance. The point of doing research and running statistical analyses on data is to find truth. In order to do this, you have to take lots of steps to make sure you set up good experiments, use good measures, measure the correct variables, etc…and you have to determine if the findings you get occurred because you ran a good study or by some fluke. Most often, psychologists look for a probability of 5% or less that the results are do to chance, which means a 95% chance the results are "not" due to chance. When you hear that the results of an experiment were stastically significant, it means that you can be 95% sure the results are not due to chance…this is a good thing. :>) Statistics: Statistics are mathematical procedures used to describe numbers and to draw inferences from those numbers. For example, if a 100 point test had a range score of 89. We could say that some people did well on the exam while others did not. Stereotype: We're all someone what familiar with this term and know it's not such a good thing, but do you know how to define it? Well, you will now…a stereotype is a "fixed" way of thinking about people in which you classify others into specific categories without much room for individualism or variation. For example, if you believe that Asian people are smarter than other people, you are making a blanket statement that does not allow for some individual variation - such as some Asian people who are not so smart. In this case, you categorize all Asians as having the same characteristic and don't leave open the possibility that some people don't have these characteristics. Stimulants: Stimulants are drugs that arouse or excite the nervous system and speed up bodily processes. Some types of stimulants include nicotene (cigarettes), caffeine (coffee, tea, etc.), and cocaine. As you can see, there are both legal and illegal types of stimulants, but both affect the body and nervous system. Storage: No, this does not refer to the amount of space on your hard drive or in your closet, but it is similar. Storage is a memory-related term that refers to the ability to retain information in the brain (in memory). Memory is a process of getting information into the brain (encoding), keeping information in the brain over time (storage), and then being able to get information out of the brain when needed (retreival). In modern theory of memory, we have different types of storage; short-term memory and long-term memory. Stranger Anxiety: Although many people might get anxious around strangers, this term refers to a developmental situation in which infants become anxious and fearful around strangers. This usually occurs around 8 months of age and includes outward, fearful behaviors by the child in the presence of stranges, including crying, recoiling, clinging, etc. This is not an unusual situation and occurs at the same time as object permanence. Stress: A psychological and physical response of the body that occurs whenever we must adapt to changing conditions, whether those conditions be real or perceived, positive or negative. Although everyone has stress in their lives, people respond to stress in different ways. Some people seem to be severely affected while others seem calm, cool, and collected all the time. Regardless, we all have it. It’s also important to note that there are two types of stress, Eustress (good stress) and Distress (not so good stress). Stressor: Anything (physical or psychological) that produces stress (negative or positive) is considered a stressor. For example, getting a promotion is a positive event, but may also produce a great deal of stress with all the new responsibilities, work load, etc. Structuralism: Structuralism was a school of thought that sought to identify the components (structure) of the mind (the mind was the key element to psychology at this point). Structuralists believed that the way to learn about the brain and its functions was to break the mind down into its most basic elements. They believed, the whole is equal to the sum of the parts. Wilhelm Wundt, who is considered the pioneer Structuralist, set up the very first psychological laboratory in 1879. Following Wundt was Titchner who popularized the field (he was one of Wundt’s students). TItchner was interested in the conscious mind. He used a technique called introspection to try to understand the conscious mind. Introspection is a process of having a person “look inward”, focus on, and try to understand the emotion or thought they are experiencing at that moment. Sublimation: Although many people criticize Freud and discount his ideas, he developed many landmark theories and concepts that persist today (I'm not a Freud groupie, just point this out). One of these concepts is a defense mechanism known as sublimation. According to Freud, sublimation is a way in which people can deal with socially unacceptable impulses, feelings, and ideas in social acceptable ways. For example, a person may have a longing to be a banker but has not been able to achieve this goal (Seinfield fans…are you listening?). The frustration with not being able to achieve this goal may be very difficult to deal with and lead to hostility and anger toward bankers, to the point where the person wants to physically hurt all bankers. Of course, hurting all bankers is not socially acceptable, so the person transforms this anger with bankers into building his own venture capital business and becoming incredibly successful. Subliminal: As humans, we have great abilities to perceive things (e.g., to see things happening far away, to hear sounds at a distance, etc.). However, we also have limitations. For example, eagles can see much, much better than humans. When we are presented with some information that is just below our conscious awareness but still reaches our brains, it is a subliminal message - meaning, the information is getting into our systems and to our brains without us truly being aware of it. You may be familiar with the idea of subliminal messages is advertising in which a message is flashed so quickly that we don't "think" we saw it (containing the message the advertiser wants us to get) but our brains actually processed it. The idea being that we will still respond to that message even though we didn't realize we saw it. Successive Approximations: Let’s use the definition of “shaping” to explain successive approximations. Our definition of “shaping” is: “a behavioral term that refers to gradually molding or training an organism to perform a specific response by reinforcing any responses that come close to the desired response. For example, a researcher can use shaping to train a rat to press a lever during an experiment (since rats are not born with the instinct to press a lever in a cage during an experiment). To start, the researcher may reward the rat when it makes any movement at all in the direction of the lever. Then, the rat has to actually take a step toward the lever to get rewarded. Then, it has to go over to the lever to get rewarded (remember, it will not receive any reward for doing the earlier behaviors now…it must make a more advanced move by going over to the lever), and so on until only pressing the lever will produce reward. The rat’s behavior was 'shaped' to get it to press the lever.” In this example, each time the rat is rewarded, it is being rewarded for a "successive approximation", or for acting in a way that gets closer and closer to the desired behavior. Superego: According to Freud, humans have three main components to their personality that cause us to behave the way we do and make us who we are; the id, ego, and superego. The superego (Latin for "over the I") acts as our moral guide and mediates between the id and the ego. The superego contains the conscience, which makes us feel guilty for doing or thinking something wrong and good when we do something right. Superordinate Goals: Superordinate goals are goals that get people from opposing sides to come together and work toward a common end result. For example, if you have two groups of people that seriously dislike each other you might set up a situation in which they simply have to work together in order to be successful (e.g., maybe the two groups get lost in the jungle together and the only way they survive is to work together - hey, it could happen  . This breaks down barriers, encourages people to see eachother as just people and not as part of "that other group that we dislike", and can help overcome differences between the groups.Suppression: Suppression is similar to repression, but there are some subtle differences. In repression the person “unconsciously” pushes painful or difficult memories, actions, etc. out of consciousness. However, suppression is a “conscious” exclusion (or "pushing" down) of these painful memories, thoughts, etc. In this way, we control impulses consciously as opposed to unconsciously. Survey: A survey is a method for collecting information or data as reported by individuals. This is a type of data collection known as self-report data, which means that individuals complete the survey (or provide the information) themselves. For example, if I wanted to collect information about what classes students enjoy the most, I might create a survey (has different types of questions on it pertaining to enjoyment of classes), pass it out to lots of students and ask them to complete it. The students respond to the questions themselves and then give the data back to me. Sympathetic Nervous System: Think about a time you've been in a really dangerous or frightening situation. In that situation your body responded by, for example, increasing your heart rate, raising your respiration, moving blood from one place (e.g., your digestive system) to another (your muscles), etc. These responses are all "arousal" responses which get you ready to fight or flee in times of danger. It is the sympathetic nervous system that is responsible for these responses that get your body aroused to respond. This system works with the parasympathetic nervous system which is responsible for then calming your body after the arousal (to get you back to normal). Both of these are actually part (subparts) of the autonomic nervous system. Synapse: The synapse is the entire junction between neurons, including the pre-synaptic neuron's axon terminal, the synaptic cleft, and the dendrite of the post-synaptic neuron, across which communications flow, usually in the form of neurotransmitter molecules secreted by the pre-synaptic neuron (on its axon terminal) that travel a short distance across the synaptic cleft (this is the actual space between the neurons - the space between the axon terminal of one neuron and the dendrite of the other) to the post-synaptic neuron. Once at the post-synaptic neuron, some of the neurotransmitters will attach themselves (bind) to some receptors. It is important to know that the neurotransmitters and receptors work like a lock and key; that is, they both have certain shapes and only specific neurotransmitters can fit into certain receptors. Synethesia: Synethesia means "to perceive together" and is a condition in which a two senses are sensed at the same time, where one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color. Syntax: How do you know what order words should be in when you speak or write sentences? You know how to order words because you learned syntax: the rules that specify how words should be ordered in a sentence to make the sentence meaningful. Of course, these rules vary according to language (English is different than Russian, for example). For example, if you want to tell someone that you ran to the store, you know to put the verb "ran" before the noun "store" to form the sentence "I ran to the store" as opposed to saying "I store ran". Systematic Desensitization: This is a form of treatment or therapy for phobias, fears, and aversions that people have. The premise is to reduce a person's anxiety responses through counterconditioning - a person who learned to be afraid of something is associating fear with that object or behavior, and the way to eliminate this is to teach the person to replace the feelings of anxiety with feelings of relaxation when the object or behavior is present. This approach is based on conditioning relaxation with the feared object or object of anxiety. For example: A) the fear - fear of dating women B) the client is asked to create a hierarchy of anxiety (what makes the client afraid, from least fear producing to most fear producing). 1) sitting next to a woman in class (least) 2) talking to a woman in class 3) walking with a woman on campus 4) calling a woman on the phone 5) eating a meal with a woman 6) going out on a date with a woman (most) C) the therapist then teaches the client some relaxation technique and then has the client use the relaxation technique when encountering (or just thinking about) the first level (sitting next to a woman in class). Once the client is comfortable with this, they move on to the next level, and so on until the client becomes relaxed and is able to go out on a date with a woman.
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