MCAT Psych/Sociology exam questions with
answers
Biopsychosocial approach to health and illness - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Illness
is determined by a variety of influences, rather than a single cause. The causes and effects of
illness can be examined at multiple levels in the life of an individual, and no single level
provides the whole picture. Collecting info about psychosocial context is key to the
understanding of physical health and illness.
Biomedical approach to health and illness - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Disease is
studied by examining only the biological factors of illness, neglecting contributing factors of
psychological life and sociological context.
Models - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Provide an approximation (physical/conceptual
representation) of a scientific phenomenon that cannot be observed directly
Theories - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Provides the conceptual framework for
understanding objects of study
Social constructionism - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Human actors actively
construct their "reality", rather than discovering a reality that has inherent validity, through
their social interactions. The beliefs and shared understandings of individuals create social
realities.
In the context of illness, there is a gap b/t the biological reality of a medical condition and
the societally created meaning of the condition. (ex. changing conceptualizations of mental
illness results in changes to the DSM). It is a dynamic, ongoing process.
Brute facts vs Institutional Facts - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔-Part of WEAK social
constructionism
-Brute facts are physical realities that exist outside of human input
-Institutional facts only exist as a function of society's structures and beliefs
,Symbolic interactionism - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Micro social perspective.
Focuses on the smaller scale interactions between individuals in small groups. Through
social interactions, individuals develop shared meanings and labels for various symbols.
Allows for human agency in creating and changing meaning in society, rather than society
acting upon the individual. Meaning can change with a single interaction, so addresses
subjective meanings. Humans ascribe meaning to things, act based on those meanings, use
language to generate meaning through social interaction, and modify meanings through
thought processes. However, ignores larger societal forces that shape people's lives.
Symbols - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Terms, concepts, or items that represent
specific meanings by accepted convention. Meanings ascribed to symbols are determined by
social norms and cultural values.
Functionalism - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Founder: Emile Durkheim
Macrosocial perspective
-Factions of society work together to maintain stability. Society is a system that consists of
different components working together, with distinct institutions that contribute to
functioning. Seeks to understand what different structures in society contribute to society at
large. When disruptions occur, the interacting systems respond to get back to a stable state.
Explains societal stability but NOT societal change (assumes stability is the ideal)
Conflict Theory - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Founder: Karl Marx
Macrosocial perspective
Views society in terms of competing groups that act according to their own self-interests,
rather than according to the need for societal equilibrium. Society is a competition for
limited resources. Explains societal changes but NOT societal societal stability (assumes
stability is undesirable to societal groups that are oppressed) Views human actions in terms
of larger forces of inequality, but leaves motivations choices of individuals unexamined.
Ignores the non-forceful ways in which people reach agreement, and approaches society
more from those who lack power. Tends to be too economically focused.
,Culture - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔All of the beliefs, assumptions, objects,
behaviors, and processes that make up a shared way of life. Has a pervasive effect on
worldview.
Culture shock - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔The discomfort and ensuring
reevaluation of personal cultural assumptions when an individual experiences a culture
different from her own
Material culture - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Objects involved in a certain way of
life
Nonmaterial culture - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Encompasses the elements of
cultures that are not physical. Includes shared ideas, knowledge, assumptions, values, and
beliefs that unify a group of people.
Social norms - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Expectations that govern what behavior is
acceptable within a group. Social interactions help define a culture by establishing these
Social group - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔A subset of a population that maintains
social interactions. Alternatively, includes a collection of shared experiences that create a
group identity among a set of individuals
Symbolic culture - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Non-material culture that consists of
the elements of culture that only have meaning in the mind. Based on a shared system of
collective beliefs in the form of symbols. Includes the meanings ascribed to rituals, gestures,
and objects.
Language - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔The use of symbols to represent ideas
Society - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Two or more individuals living together in a
definable area and/or sharing elements of a culture. A society can encompass multiple
cultures.
, Social institutions - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Stable hierarchical systems that
bring order to interpersonal interactions, structuring society. Examples are
government/economy, education, religion, family, and health/medicine. Provide
predictability and organization for individuals within a society, and mediate social behavior
between people.
Government/economy as a social institution - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Provides
order to a society through the services it provides and the making and enforcement of law
Education as a social institution - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Provides a formal
structure during childhood and the transition to adulthood, and an opportunity to instruct
youth on social norms, expectations for behavior, knowledge, and skills needed to operate
within society. Its manifest function is to systematically pass down knowledge and give
status to those who have been educated. Its latent function is socialization, serving as agents
of change, and maintaining social control. Serves to reinforce and perpetuate social
inequalities. Experience educational segregation because of differential funding of schools
based on residential segregation.
Religion as a social institution - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Acts as an organized
structure of behaviors and social interactions that addresses the spiritual needs of society.
From a functionalist standpoint, can create social cohesion/dissent, social change/control,
and provide believers with meaning and purpose.
Religion - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔A system of beliefs that affects how people
make sense of their experiences and provides a framework for questions about life, death,
and the purpose of existence
Family as a social institution - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Creates a social group in
which to procreate, rear children, pass on cultural knowledge, and cooperate to better meet
life's challenge
answers
Biopsychosocial approach to health and illness - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Illness
is determined by a variety of influences, rather than a single cause. The causes and effects of
illness can be examined at multiple levels in the life of an individual, and no single level
provides the whole picture. Collecting info about psychosocial context is key to the
understanding of physical health and illness.
Biomedical approach to health and illness - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Disease is
studied by examining only the biological factors of illness, neglecting contributing factors of
psychological life and sociological context.
Models - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Provide an approximation (physical/conceptual
representation) of a scientific phenomenon that cannot be observed directly
Theories - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Provides the conceptual framework for
understanding objects of study
Social constructionism - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Human actors actively
construct their "reality", rather than discovering a reality that has inherent validity, through
their social interactions. The beliefs and shared understandings of individuals create social
realities.
In the context of illness, there is a gap b/t the biological reality of a medical condition and
the societally created meaning of the condition. (ex. changing conceptualizations of mental
illness results in changes to the DSM). It is a dynamic, ongoing process.
Brute facts vs Institutional Facts - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔-Part of WEAK social
constructionism
-Brute facts are physical realities that exist outside of human input
-Institutional facts only exist as a function of society's structures and beliefs
,Symbolic interactionism - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Micro social perspective.
Focuses on the smaller scale interactions between individuals in small groups. Through
social interactions, individuals develop shared meanings and labels for various symbols.
Allows for human agency in creating and changing meaning in society, rather than society
acting upon the individual. Meaning can change with a single interaction, so addresses
subjective meanings. Humans ascribe meaning to things, act based on those meanings, use
language to generate meaning through social interaction, and modify meanings through
thought processes. However, ignores larger societal forces that shape people's lives.
Symbols - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Terms, concepts, or items that represent
specific meanings by accepted convention. Meanings ascribed to symbols are determined by
social norms and cultural values.
Functionalism - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Founder: Emile Durkheim
Macrosocial perspective
-Factions of society work together to maintain stability. Society is a system that consists of
different components working together, with distinct institutions that contribute to
functioning. Seeks to understand what different structures in society contribute to society at
large. When disruptions occur, the interacting systems respond to get back to a stable state.
Explains societal stability but NOT societal change (assumes stability is the ideal)
Conflict Theory - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Founder: Karl Marx
Macrosocial perspective
Views society in terms of competing groups that act according to their own self-interests,
rather than according to the need for societal equilibrium. Society is a competition for
limited resources. Explains societal changes but NOT societal societal stability (assumes
stability is undesirable to societal groups that are oppressed) Views human actions in terms
of larger forces of inequality, but leaves motivations choices of individuals unexamined.
Ignores the non-forceful ways in which people reach agreement, and approaches society
more from those who lack power. Tends to be too economically focused.
,Culture - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔All of the beliefs, assumptions, objects,
behaviors, and processes that make up a shared way of life. Has a pervasive effect on
worldview.
Culture shock - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔The discomfort and ensuring
reevaluation of personal cultural assumptions when an individual experiences a culture
different from her own
Material culture - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Objects involved in a certain way of
life
Nonmaterial culture - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Encompasses the elements of
cultures that are not physical. Includes shared ideas, knowledge, assumptions, values, and
beliefs that unify a group of people.
Social norms - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Expectations that govern what behavior is
acceptable within a group. Social interactions help define a culture by establishing these
Social group - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔A subset of a population that maintains
social interactions. Alternatively, includes a collection of shared experiences that create a
group identity among a set of individuals
Symbolic culture - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Non-material culture that consists of
the elements of culture that only have meaning in the mind. Based on a shared system of
collective beliefs in the form of symbols. Includes the meanings ascribed to rituals, gestures,
and objects.
Language - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔The use of symbols to represent ideas
Society - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Two or more individuals living together in a
definable area and/or sharing elements of a culture. A society can encompass multiple
cultures.
, Social institutions - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Stable hierarchical systems that
bring order to interpersonal interactions, structuring society. Examples are
government/economy, education, religion, family, and health/medicine. Provide
predictability and organization for individuals within a society, and mediate social behavior
between people.
Government/economy as a social institution - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Provides
order to a society through the services it provides and the making and enforcement of law
Education as a social institution - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Provides a formal
structure during childhood and the transition to adulthood, and an opportunity to instruct
youth on social norms, expectations for behavior, knowledge, and skills needed to operate
within society. Its manifest function is to systematically pass down knowledge and give
status to those who have been educated. Its latent function is socialization, serving as agents
of change, and maintaining social control. Serves to reinforce and perpetuate social
inequalities. Experience educational segregation because of differential funding of schools
based on residential segregation.
Religion as a social institution - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Acts as an organized
structure of behaviors and social interactions that addresses the spiritual needs of society.
From a functionalist standpoint, can create social cohesion/dissent, social change/control,
and provide believers with meaning and purpose.
Religion - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔A system of beliefs that affects how people
make sense of their experiences and provides a framework for questions about life, death,
and the purpose of existence
Family as a social institution - **🔰 VERIFIED ANSWERS🔰 ✔✔Creates a social group in
which to procreate, rear children, pass on cultural knowledge, and cooperate to better meet
life's challenge
