Abnormal Psych Chapter 1 Questions

Which pair of words best describes the current emphasis in mental health?

Prevention and positive psychology

A student says, "The problem with single-subject experiments is that there is no control group, so you don't know if the treatment is effective." The best reply is:

"If you use a reversal design, the participants serve as their own controls"

"Isn't the ABAB design pretty much a case study?" asks a student. The best answer would be:

"They're similar, but the ABAB design has greater internal validity"

Researchers have shown that in a typical year in the United States, approximately ______ percent of people with psychological disorders receive clinical treatment:

15

Which of these individuals would be most likely to be classified as exhibiting abnormal behavior?

A person who engages in multiple checking rituals each day and consequently is unable to hold down a job

The biological treatments known as psychosurgery would most likely be used in the treatment of a patient with:

A severe disorder and who has not responded to any other therapies over years of treatment

Just a few decades ago, women's love for racecar driving would have been considered abnormal. This statement illustrates that:

Abnormality can be situational

If researchers using matched control subjects find that abused children are sadder than non-abused children, those researchers know that:

Abuse is probably what is causing the difference in sadness between these groups

If a person's primary symptom was excessive worry, the psychotropic drug MOST likely to be prescribed for that:

Antianxiety medicaton

Drugs designed to decrease extremely confused and distorted thinking are termed:

Antipsychotics

A researcher is considering whether to gather online data from Facebook users without informing the users that their data are being used. In terms of research ethics, which question is the most relevant?

Are facebook posting considered "public behavior"?

Carter's mother is taking cookies out of the oven. Which statement would suggest most strongly that the id is firmly in control of Carters behavior?

Carter grabs some of the cookies and runs

One group of patients is treated with medication in a hospital. Another group is treated with the same medication on an outpatient basis. The diagnosis of the two groups of patients are equally serious. The best example of a confound in the study is the:

Characteristics of the hospital

The best way to select a random sample of 10 students came from a class would be to:

Choose the first 10 who enter the classroom

Parity laws for insurance coverage of mental health treatment mandate that:

Coverage for mental and physical problems must be reimbursed equally

Aggressive behavior would NOT be viewed as abnormal in a:

Culture that emphasizes competitiveness

Commonly accepted features of abnormality include deviance, distress, dysfunction, and:

Danger

Despite popular misconceptions, most people with psychological problems are not:

Dangerous

A patient's initial reaction to being told she has an STI is to insist that the nurse made a mistake with the test. The defense mechanism that best explains this behavior is:

Denial

In an ABAB design study, a researcher is measuring the level of depression with and without addition of an exercise program. What is the first "A" in the study?

Depression

Which event in the 1950s led to improvements in biological treatments for mental disorders?

Discovery of psychotropic medications

Morgan hears voices that others do not but is not distressed by them. This illustrates that:

Distress does not have to be present for a person's behavior to be considered abnormal

The MOST accurate summary of the field of abnormal psychology at the present time is that clinical psychologists generally:

Do not accept one definition of abnormality and practice more than one form of treatment

A therapist believes so strongly in her approach that she finds improvement even when none exists. Which type of study design would prevent this problem?

Double masked

Shemar has obsessive-compulsive disorder and repeatedly checks to ensure the doors are locked. According to determinists, which is the most likely reason for this behavior?

During his childhood, Shemars parents told him to always keep the doors locked

If a person experienced anxiety or depression following a significant natural disaster, we would say that the person was:

Exhibiting a typical reaction

A researcher randomly assigns young women with anorexia to one of two groups. Participants in group A receive psychotherapy and drug treatments; participants in group B receive attention and a sugar pill. The researcher then compares participants in the two groups on relief of anorexia symptoms. This is an example of

Experimental study

Hospitalized patients with mental illness who show symptoms improvement while taking medications are likely to be discharged. Studies have shown that many of these patients:

Fail to make lasting recoveries

Critics of managed programs for mental health service state that these programs:

Favor treatments whose results are typically shorter lasting

One hundred psychiatric patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Group 1 received a new drug in pill form. Group 2 was given identical-looking placebo pills. A panel of psychiatrists, who did not know which pill each participant received, evaluated all participants for level of agitation. What could be a potential confound in this study?

Having the drug group be inpatients and the placebo group be outpatients

People with severe mental illnesses are less likely to be _____ than they were 50 years ago.

Hospitalized in mental institutions

A person says, :I think the Red Sox win more games on Tuesdays than on any other day of the week." Although this statement is not very scientific, it is a(n):

Hypothesis

Ten new cases of schizophrenia were diagnosed in a small town in the Midwest this week. This observation refers to the _______ of schizophrenia in this small population.

Incidence

Research suggests that one negative effect of adolescents using social media sites is that these sites may:

Increase peer pressure

Your friend and roommate moves out without giving you any notice. You immediately focus all of your energy on the financial implication of your friend's departure and ways to save money. The defense mechanism that best explains your behavior is:

Intellectualization

If a particular study of alcoholism failed to control for cultural patterns in drinking among participants, the study would have low:

Internal validity

Using the 4 Ds to define abnormal behavior:

Is still often vague and subjective

A focus of many community mental health programs is:

Isolation

Compared with physical disorders, insurance reimbursement for treatment of mental disorders prior to enactment if the Affordable Care Act was generally

Lower

Luna is taking a psychotropic medication, which condition does she most likely have

Mood disorder

Research shows that danger to self or others in found in:

Most but not all cases of abnormal functioning

Immigration trends and differences in birth rates among minority groups in the United States have causes psychological treatment to become more:

Multicultural

Which would be the best design to study the effects of disasters on survivors?

Natural experiment

Which statement is the most accurate conclusion about the current understanding of abnormal psychology?

No single definition of abnormality has won total acceptance

Students were given a sensation seeking test and the divided into two groups based on their scores. A researcher observed how many times students in each group got out of their seats over the course of 2 hours. The dependent variable is:

Number of times getting out of ones seat

A therapist has created a new psychotherapy approach and initiates this treatment with a client. The therapist conducts a case study and publishes the results. Which factor is most likely to be present in this study?

Observer bias

In the United States today, one is MOST likely to find a severely ill mental patient:

On the street or in jail

A student says, "Quick! I have to take a test in two minutes. I need help remembering which kind of correlation coefficient shows a weak relationship between two variable." Which answer will help this student?

One that is close to zero

Which feature is NOT common in managed care programs?

Patient choice in number of therapy sessions

One cause of the increase in individuals experiencing homelessness in recent decades has been the:

Policy of deinstitutionalization

To study some gender differences, a researcher selected a group of 10 men and 10 women and treated all participants exactly the same. each participant was given a test of psychological function. this study is an example of a:

Quasi-experimental study

A man has cheated on his partner and he feels very guilty, but soon begins to make excuses, saying that his partner has nagged him for years. The defense mechanism that best explains his behavior is:

Rationalization

You didn't study for a test and you blame your poor performance on all the other work you had to do. The defense mechanism that best explains your behavior is:

Rationalization

Brayden is asked to free associate about his mother's new husband, and he responds by changing the subject. A psychodynamic therapist would consider this an example of:

Resistance

According to Jerome Frank, all forms of therapy have three essential features: a sufferer who seeks relief, a trained and socially accepted healer, an a(n): `

Series of contacts between the sufferer and the healer

Compared with the number of patients hospitalized in US mental hospitals in the 1950s, the number of hospitalized patients today is

Significantly less

Which item is an analogue study?

Studying the effects of stress on nonhumans

Shaun wants to be a good participant. He knows that his professor is an environmentalist, so his answers on the survey reflect a pro-environment position. This is an example of

Subject bias

Which phenomenon would most appropriately be studied using a quasi-experimental design?

The effects of parents with schizophrenia on children's adjustments

A researcher designed an experiment to study the cause of aggression in children. Half the children ate a sugared cereal; the other half ate cornflakes. The researchers then recorded the number of aggressive acts displayed by the children in a one-hour play period after breakfast. In this experiment, ________ is the dependent variable and ________ is the independent variable.

The number of aggressive responses; cornflakes

One hundred psychiatric patients were randomly assignment to one of two groups. One group received a new drug in pill form. The other group was given identical-looking placebo pills. A panel of psychiatrists, who did not know which pill each participant received, evaluated all participants for level of agitation. What is the control group? T

The participants who got the placebo

Which potential ethical concern exists regarding placebo drug studies?

The placebo group receives no treatment at all

Dr. Huang required half of a group of healthy volunteers to study a reading passage for 1 hour. The other half of the participants studied for 15 minutes. Dr. Huang then administered a test of participants memory of details from the passage. What was the dependent variable?

The results of the memory test

A patient with a controlling mother is undergoing therapy. Soon, the patient begins seeking the therapists approval for all types of decisions, other than just making the decision herself. This is an example of:

Transference

In what way did the experiments performed by Bernheim and Liebault provide support for the psychogenic perspective of abnormality?

Using hypnosis, they could produce artificial symptoms such as blindness in healthy subjects

Which statement about the various viewpoints of clinical psychology is true?

Various perspectives coexist, and they often conflict and compete with one another

One major difference between psychiatrists and clinical psychologists is that psychiatrists:

Went to medical schoolv