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everyday racism

differential treatment of individuals on the basis of their racial group that occurs in common, routine social situations. For example, consider two college students who are pictured in the newspaper for participating as volunteers at an event to clean up a local neighborhood. Everyday racism would be evident if the picture caption identifies the White student as a volunteer and misidentifies the African American student as a community resident.

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Psychology term of the day

January 21st 2025

latent trait theory

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.