Glossary ❮ 347Social skills training—cognitive behavioral therapy
where the therapist can model the behavior for the
client and then place the client in a simulated situ-
ation 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 stimulate skeletal (vol-
untary) muscle.
Somatic symptom disorder (SSD)—characterized
by physical symptoms including pain, and high
anxiety in these individuals about having a disease.
Patients need to have complained about, taken
medicine for, changed lifestyle because of, or seen
a physician about the symptoms and experienced
anxiety that has interfered with carrying on normal
activities for 6 months.
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 you
determine the location of a sound.
Source trait—Cattell’s underlying 16 traits that
guide your behavior.
Speed test—measures how fast you can answer ques-
tions in a specified time period.
Spinal cord—portion of the central nervous system
below the medulla oblongata.
Split-half reliability—a method where the score on
one half of the test questions is compared with the
score on the other half of the questions to see if
they are consistent.
Spontaneous recovery—the reappearance of a previ-
ously 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 versus 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 proce-
dure that first establishes test norms by giving the
test to a large representative sample of those for
whom the test is designed, and then ensures 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 infor-
mation better if you are in the same internal state
as when the information was encoded.
Statistical significance (p)—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 belief about the charac-
teristics 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 moti-
vational centers and reduce activity in inhibitory
centers of the central nervous system by increasing
activity of serotonin, dopamine, and norepineph-
rine 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 at 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 ten-
dency is a result of a need to compensate for our
feelings of inferiority.BM.indd 347 27-05-2018 15:32:48