Keith E Rice - Glossary

S-So

Schema: the term was probably first used by the great German philosopher, Emmanuel Kant (1729). Drawing upon the pioneering work of Jean Piaget (1929), its use in modern Psychology comes from Frederic Bartlett (1932). Schema means any cognitive structure or encoded packet of information in the mind-brain. That cognitive structure, according to Susan Fiske & Shelley Taylor (1991), "contains knowledge about a thing, including its attributes and the relations among its attributes." Michael W Eysenck & Cara Flanagan (2001) identify different types of schema such as:-

Script Schemas which guide us when performing commonplace activities - eg: how to order a meal in a restaurant
Role Schemas - eg: lover, parent, friend, postman, scientist, refuse collector, police officer, etc - this ventures into Robert Dilts et als' (1991) neurological level of Identity
Self-Schemas which embody our self-concept

Eysenck & Flanagan also say schemas - the plural is sometimes referenced as schemata - are socially determined, learned and refined through social exchanges. When schemas are shared culturally in this way, they effectively function as memes.

Schizophrenia: a severe mental illness where contact with reality is impaired (psychosis) and the sufferer finds that thoughts and feelings often don't fit together. Symptoms commonly associated with this illness include bizarre delusions and auditory hallucinations (hearing voices); although neurocognitive defecits in memory, organisation and planning and language impairments (speech peculiarities) are also frequent.
There are considered to be 5 classifications of Schizophrenia:-

Disorganised - characterised by delusions, hallucinations, incoherent speech and large mood swings
Catatonic - where the 'patient' has periods of peculiar or very limited activity and mobility - to the point of being totally immobile and staring blankly for hours at a time
Paranoid - characterised by various types of delusions, often related to suspicion and a sense of persecution
Undifferentiated - the term is used when the patient can be considered 'schizophrenic' without the symptoms readily fitting into the other categories
Residual - where the patient is only experiencing mild symptoms

Some psychiatrists and clinical psychologists consider that the classifications of Schizophrenia are really different illnesses.

Scientific Method: a series of steps used by scientists to construct and test theories.

There are 6 key sequential steps in the Scientific Method:-

Observe a phenomenon
Develop a theory to explain the phenomenon
Hypotheses are generated from the theory
A form of research - ideally an experiment - is designed to test the hypothesis
Data is collected and analysed
The theory is confirmed, amended or rejected on the basis of the results

Selective Placement: as applied to adoption, this is when the child is placed with a family as close as possible to him/her in terms of race/ethnicity, general level of intelligence, social background/demographics, etc, etc.

Selective Pressure: in Evolutionary Psychology, the pressure of competition to survive and reproduce successfully when faced with limited resources. The most successful adaptive behaviours and the characteristics which result will then be passed on by the winners of the 'competition'.

Selfplex: the term coined by Susan Blackmore (1999) for the confluence of schemas which comprise an individual's sense of self. The very concept of 'self' is a memeplex which is transmitted culturally (memetically) - usually initiated by parents with infants.

The selfplex is essentially a cognitive concept - ie: how I see myself - and, as such, stands above raw tempermental dispositions. However, most people have schematic representations of their temperament within their selfplex. Their selfplex may also include the schema that they have a 'spiritual self'.

Selfplex Defence Mechanisms: Sigmund Freud’s ego defence mechanisms, as documented by daughter Anna Freud (1936), were viewed as unconscious means of protecting the ego from the destructive effects of its conflicts with the id and the superego and conflicts between the id and the superego. In Integrated SocioPsychology ’selfplex’ is preferred to ‘ego’ as a more precise concept of ‘self’. Thus, ‘ego defence mechanisms’ become ‘selfplex defence mechanisms’ and the id-ego-superego conflicts are portrayed as conflicts between an individual’s vMEMES

Self-Actualisation: the idea was first used (under the term ‘self-realisation’) by Carl Gustav Jung (1923). Kurt Goldstein (1934) was the first to use the term ‘self-actualisation’ but it was Abraham Maslow (1943) who really developed it as a concept. For many years Maslow put Self-Actualisation at the peak of the Hierarchy of Needs, as the ultimate fulfilment of an individual's potential - though he eventually acknowledged a state beyond which he dubbed 'Transcendence'. As he refined the concept over the years, Maslow (1956, 1971) saw Self-Actualisers as rational, fear-free, self-analysing people able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. Carl Rogers (1961) sometimes used the term 'Full Function' for Self-Actualisation.

Clare W Graves (1971/2002, 1978/2005) equated it to his G-T level (YELLOW in Spiral Dynamics). Jane Loevinger (1976) termed this level 'Autonomous'.

Self-Disclosure: the revealing of personal and sensitive information about yourself to another as a key element in developing and maintaining intimacy in a relationship.

Self-Esteem: the thoughts and feelings someone has about themselves.

Carl Rogers (1961) proposed that self-esteem is largely determined by the distance between the ‘perceived self’ and the ‘ideal self’ - see The Selfplex. If the gap is large, then self-esteem will be low. Rogers also proposed that low self-esteem is linked to the love of significant others being conditional.

Low self-esteem is associated with someone having lowered expectations of themselves and performing poorly as a consequence.

Self-Efficacy: Albert Bandura (1977) coined this term to describe someone's belief in their abilities - as opposed to the abilities themselves. This influences critically their assessment of their ability to cope with a given situation.

Sensitivity Hypothesis: this (aka: Caregiver Sensitivity Hypothesis) is the idea put forward by Mary Ainsworth (1974) that the quality of infant attachment is primarily determined by the mother's/primary caregiver’s responsiveness to her child's cries, gestures, body language, etc.

Sensitive Period: a biologically-determined period of time during which an animal is most likely to acquire certain behaviours.

The term is used quite specifically in John Bowlby’s (1953) theories around attachment to mean the period of approximately 6 months to 3.5 years when a child needs to form an attachment to their mother/primary caregiver for the PURPLE vMEME to find safety-in-belonging. Failure to form a solid attachment is likely to lead to the effects of Privation. A previously-formed bond being disrupted to the point of serious dysfunction in that period is considered by Bowlby to be Maternal Deprivation (1951, 1953) - though Bowlby postulated that some children could be vulnerable to the effects of bond disruption right upto 5 years of age.

Separation: bond disruption between the child and their mother/primary caregive

Separation Protest:

Serotonin: a neurotransmitter of the monoamine group, the functions of which are only partly understood. High levels are associated with anxiety and high levels of activity. Lower levels are associated with Depression and aggression.

Short-term Memory: memory for information that has received minimal processing or interpretation. According to George Miller, only 7+/-2 'chunks' of information can be held in this storage at any one time. The memory trace of each chunk will last between 10 and 30 seconds - depending on whose study you take into account! - unless rehearsed again. NLPers tend to think of short-term memory as ‘conscious mind’.

Sleep-Wake Cycle:

Social Constructionism: the view that reality is socially constructed - ie: that attitudes and behaviour are the results of cultural imperatives and need to be evaluated on that basis. In other words, there are no universal behaviours against which to measure objectively. For example, social constructionists would argue that what it means to be a 'woman', beyond the basic biological characteristics, is a product of social constructionism, varying from culture to culture and, indeed, from sub-culture to sub-culture.

Social Deprivation:

Social Desirability Bias: the tendency of people responding in interviews or to questionnaires to give answers they think will be socially acceptable and thus portray them in a 'better light'.

Social Class:

Social Exchange Theory: an explanation of relationships in terms of perceived/anticipated costs and rewards, comparisons with those of the partner(s) (dubbed 'Comparison Level') and possible alternatives ('Comparison Level Alternative'). Developed by John Thibaut & Harold Kelley, it is an approach to relationships more likely to be favoured by those whose thinking is dominated by self-expressive vMEMES. Equity Theory, as applied to personal relationships, is an extension of the Social Exchange idea.

Socialism:

Social Learning Theory: developed by Albert Bandura in the 1960s, working on the notion put forward by Edward C Tolman that, in many instances, there is a cognitive mediator between stimulus and response (which the Behaviourists generally ignored).
From studying how young children model adults, Bandura introduced the concept of Vicarious (Indirect) Reinforcement whereby seeing others rewarded for behaviours leads to imitation. Seeing others punished for behaviours deters imitation. This identification with the person being rewarded or punished clearly involves cognitive processes and so enables the linking of the concepts of Behaviourism to developments in Cognitive Psychology and Spiral Dynamics. Indeed, Bandura tried retitling his concept 'Social Cognitive Theory' in the 1980s - though this largely failed to catch on. Social Learning Theory is sometimes treated as a psychological paradigm in its own right but more often is seen as a (critical) modification of Behaviourism.

Social Psychology: the study of social behaviour - ie: how people interact and influence each other.

Social Releasers:

Social Role:

Social Representation:

Socialisation: the process by which individuals learn the social behaviours of their culture - incorporating morals, socials skills, norms, language, etc.

Sociobiology: an approach to explaining social behaviour in terms of biological processes. To a considerable extent it has become tied in with Evolutionary Psychology to focus on the imperative to reproduce one's genes.