MCAT Psych/Soc key terms

The smallest amount of a stimulus-light, sound, pressure, or an odor-that a person can detect about half of the time under quiet, ideal conditions.

The smallest change in a stimulus that a person can reliably notice, such as the faintest added weight or the slightest shift in pitch. Also called the just noticeable difference.

The principle that the size of a just noticeable difference grows in proportion to the size of the original stimulus, so strong signals need bigger changes before a change is detected.

A model holding that detecting a faint stimulus depends on both the strength of the signal and the observer's decision standards, including expectations, motivation, and the cost of errors.

The gradual decline in sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus, such as no longer feeling a watch on your wrist or noticing a constant background hum.

Interpreting incoming sensory information using prior knowledge, expectations, and context, so what a person already knows shapes how an ambiguous pattern or sentence is read.

Rules describing how people automatically group separate sensory elements into whole patterns, relying on cues such as proximity, similarity, continuity, closure, and common fate.

The ability to focus attention on one conversation while still catching personally relevant information, such as one's own name, in an unattended background stream.

The idea that pain signals in the spinal cord can be blocked or amplified by competing signals and by psychological factors, which is why distraction or worry changes how much pain is felt.

The theory that color vision works through paired opposing channels, such as red versus green, so staring at one color produces an afterimage in its opposite.

A learning process in which a neutral cue comes to trigger a reflex-like response after being repeatedly paired with a stimulus that already produces that response.

Learning in which the likelihood of a voluntary behavior changes because of the consequences that follow it, such as rewards increasing a behavior and punishments decreasing it.

Acquiring new behaviors by watching others and noting the consequences they receive, without needing to perform the behavior or be reinforced oneself.

A reinforcement rule that delivers a reward after an unpredictable number of responses, producing high, steady response rates that resist extinction, as in slot machines.

A pattern in which repeated exposure to uncontrollable negative events leads a person or animal to stop trying, even when escape later becomes possible.

A person's belief about whether they can successfully carry out the actions needed to reach a goal, which strongly predicts effort, persistence, and choice of challenges.

A stage model of behavior change-precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance-that treats change as gradual and calls for different strategies at each stage.

The body's three-stage response to prolonged stress: an alarm reaction, a resistance phase of sustained arousal, and exhaustion when resources are depleted.

The finding that performance is best at moderate arousal; too little arousal leaves people sluggish, while too much, especially on difficult tasks, hurts performance.

A person's general belief about whether outcomes depend mainly on their own actions (internal) or on outside forces such as luck and powerful others (external).

The tendency to overestimate someone's personality or character and underestimate situational factors when explaining other people's behavior, while explaining one's own behavior in situational terms.

The tendency to credit one's own successes to ability and effort while blaming failures on circumstances, which protects self-esteem and appears in many cultures.

The uncomfortable tension felt when a person holds conflicting beliefs or acts against their values, which often drives them to change an attitude rather than a behavior.

Changing one's behavior or stated opinion to match the majority of a group, often because of a desire to fit in or a belief that the group is better informed.

Following a direct order from an authority figure, even when the requested action conflicts with one's own judgment, as studied in Milgram's shock experiments.

The finding that people are less likely to help in an emergency when others are present, partly because responsibility is spread across the group and people look to one another.

A flawed decision-making pattern in highly cohesive groups where members suppress doubts and press for agreement, leading to poor choices and failure to weigh alternatives.

The view that people partly define themselves through group memberships and are motivated to favor their own groups in order to maintain a positive self-image.

The tendency to like a person, idea, or object more simply because one has encountered it repeatedly, even without any rewarding interaction.

A belief or expectation that, by changing how a person acts toward someone, brings about the very behavior that was expected, as when teacher expectations shape student performance.

The ranking of people into unequal layers based on factors such as income, occupation, education, and status, which shapes their access to valued resources and life chances.

A combined measure of income, wealth, education, and occupational prestige that positions a person or group within the social hierarchy and predicts many health and life outcomes.

The extent to which people move up or down the social hierarchy relative to their parents' position, often measured by comparing a child's adult status with the family of origin.

Non-material resources such as education, tastes, manners, and styles of speech that are valued in a society and can be exchanged for advantages in schools and workplaces.

The conditions of birth, growth, living, working, and aging-such as income, housing, and neighborhood safety-that shape health outcomes more than medical care alone does.

The idea that overlapping social identities such as race, gender, and class combine to create distinct experiences of advantage and disadvantage that cannot be understood by looking at each one alone.

Unequal treatment built into the policies, practices, and norms of organizations and institutions, which can persist even when individuals within them hold no explicit prejudice.

The worry that one's performance may confirm a negative stereotype about one's group, which consumes attention and can lower test performance for members of that group.