avoidance behavior

any act or series of actions that enables an individual to avoid or anticipate unpleasant or painful situations, stimuli, or events, including conditioned aversive stimuli. See avoidance conditioning. Compare escape behavior.

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Psychology term of the day

January 21st 2025

latent trait theory

a general psychometric theory contending that observed traits, such as intelligence, are reflections of more basic unobservable traits (i.e., latent traits). Several quantitative models (e.g., item response theory, factor analysis) have been developed to allow for the identification and estimation of these latent traits from manifest observations.