MCAT Psych/Soc flashcards
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32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Absolute threshold
- The minimum intensity of a stimulus that a person can detect 50 percent of the time under specified conditions; it indexes sensory sensitivity.
- Difference threshold
- The smallest change in stimulus intensity that a person can reliably detect; also called the just noticeable difference, it grows with the original stimulus intensity.
- Weber's law
- The just noticeable difference for a stimulus is a constant proportion of the original stimulus intensity, so stronger background stimuli require larger changes to be noticed.
- Signal detection theory
- Perception depends on both sensory sensitivity and a decision criterion; expectations, motivation, and payoffs shift the criterion and change hit and false-alarm rates.
- Sensory adaptation
- Reduced responsiveness to an unchanging stimulus after prolonged exposure; it allows attention to shift toward novel or changing environmental events.
- Gestalt grouping principles
- Perceptual rules such as proximity, similarity, continuity, closure, and figure-ground organization that describe how people group visual elements into coherent objects.
- Top-down processing
- Perception guided by prior knowledge, expectations, and context rather than solely by incoming sensory features; it helps resolve ambiguous input.
- Gate control theory
- Pain perception is modulated in the spinal cord by competing sensory input and by top-down signals from the brain, so attention and emotion can alter pain.
- Classical conditioning
- A learning procedure in which a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus until it alone elicits a conditioned response.
- Operant conditioning
- Learning in which the consequences of a behavior change its future probability; reinforcement increases behavior and punishment decreases it.
- Negative reinforcement
- An operant procedure in which removing or avoiding an aversive stimulus after a behavior increases the likelihood that the behavior will recur.
- Variable ratio schedule
- A reinforcement schedule that delivers reward after an unpredictable number of responses; it typically produces high, steady response rates and strong resistance to extinction.
- Observational learning
- Learning by watching others and their consequences; Bandura proposed attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation as necessary components.
- Self-efficacy
- An individual's belief that he or she can successfully perform a specific task or cope with a particular situation; it predicts effort and persistence.
- Transtheoretical model
- A stage model of behavior change with precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance stages; relapse can move a person back to earlier stages.
- Learned helplessness
- After repeated exposure to uncontrollable aversive events, an organism may stop trying to escape even when escape becomes possible, showing reduced motivation and learning.
- Self-concept
- A person's overall set of beliefs and knowledge about who he or she is, including roles, attributes, and group memberships.
- Self-esteem
- The evaluative component of the self; it refers to how positively or negatively a person appraises his or her own worth.
- Fundamental attribution error
- The tendency to overattribute other people's behavior to dispositional traits and to underestimate the influence of situational factors.
- Self-serving bias
- The tendency to attribute one's successes to internal qualities and one's failures to external circumstances, protecting self-esteem.
- Cognitive dissonance
- Psychological discomfort caused by holding inconsistent beliefs or by acting contrary to one's attitudes; people reduce it by changing attitudes or justifying behavior.
- Central route persuasion
- Persuasion that occurs when a person carefully evaluates argument quality; it is more likely when motivation and ability to process the message are high.
- Bystander effect
- The finding that individuals are less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present, partly because responsibility is diffused across the group.
- Groupthink
- A mode of group decision making in which pressure for consensus suppresses dissent and critical evaluation, often leading to poor or risky decisions.
- Social stratification
- The hierarchical arrangement of social groups by differential access to valued resources such as wealth, power, prestige, and opportunity.
- Socioeconomic status
- A composite measure of social position based on income, education, and occupational prestige; it strongly predicts health, educational, and material outcomes.
- Intergenerational mobility
- Change in social class or status between parents and their children; it measures whether advantage or disadvantage is transmitted across generations.
- Intragenerational mobility
- Change in a person's social class or status over his or her own lifetime, independent of comparison with the previous generation.
- Absolute poverty
- A condition in which income or resources fall below a fixed minimum needed for basic survival, such as food, shelter, and clothing.
- Relative poverty
- A condition in which a person's resources are far below those of others in the same society, preventing participation in customary activities and norms.
- Intersectionality
- The idea that overlapping social identities such as race, class, and gender create distinct patterns of advantage and disadvantage that cannot be understood separately.
- Social determinants of health
- Conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, including income, education, housing, and neighborhood safety, that shape health outcomes.