Psych-exam 4

In a famous study, what was the level of income beyond which happiness did not seem to increase?

$75,000

In abnormal psychology a "positive" symptom is

A behavior that is usually absent, but is present in the patient.

Agoraphobia is:

A fear of open spaces.

Which type of practitioner holds a medical degree, but then went on to do a specialty in psychology?

A psychiatrist

What tends to coincide with the start of a dissociative disorder?

A traumatic event.

We tend to be relatively bad at _________________, which is predicting how we'll feel in the future after some event.

Affective Forecasting

Which of the following is TRUE regarding personality?

All of the big five traits can be measured, and are universal across cultures.

Prenatal exposure to what substance has been shown to lead to greater aggression as an adult?

Androgens

Someone at your work is very afraid of dogs. To help him get over it, a trained practitioner gradually exposes him to dogs, while also having him chat with his favorite person (his best friend) and eat some of his favorite snacks. What type of therapy is this?

Applied behavior analysis

Of the following professions, which group would you expect to see a greater proportion of people with bipolar disorder

Artists

An individual with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) could

Be very high functioning with almost normal language Be unable to speak Be extremely talented and intelligent All of the above

Why is temperament important in development?

Because children with different temperaments tend to expose themselves to different environments, which then affects the children's further development.

What happened in a study that looked at happiness in lottery winners and people who became paralyzed?

Both categories of people returned to their previous levels of happiness after a few months.

Which type of psychotherapy uses just a few sessions to try to quickly find a solution to problems?

Brief therapy

Which type of therapy uses conditioning to change behavior, while also helping people to recognize thought patterns that need to be changed?

Cognitive behavioral therapy

__________________ is the term used when individuals have more than one disorder.

Comorbidity

The other day, you saw a student minding his own business, walking to class, when another student asked him to help her get her Frisbee out of a nearby tree. He did what she asked. This is an example of:

Compliance

The Asch study, where people were asked to make simple judgments about the length of a line, was ultimately a study about:

Conformity

People that tend to score high on the ____________________ scale of the big five tend to have more brain volume in the ______________________.

Conscientiousness, prefrontal cortex

Which of the following describes the "tit for tat" strategy for dealing with social situations?

Cooperate on the first move, then mirror what your opponent did on the last move.

Which hormone is released in response to stress?

Cortisol

Which of the following statements about cortisol is FALSE?

Cortisol is released from the pineal gland.

Which therapy is also known as being a "brain pacemaker"?

Deep brain stimulation

Sometimes on talent shows, a person will show up to audition that is completely awful, but yet he or she thinks she's performing quite well. What is this an example of?

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Heritability of the big five personality traits has been shown to be about 0.5. This means that:

Fifty percent of the differences we see with regard to personality in a population are due to differences in genes in that population.

You were minding your own business while eating outside, and you overhear some people sitting nearby talking about a friend of theirs. Their friend had recently cheated on her boyfriend, and the people seemed to be blaming this bad behavior on the fact that their friend is an immoral and flawed person. What might be responsible for that opinion?

Fundamental Attribution Error

Devon prefers routine, and doesn't like to do things that are out of his comfort zone. The other day, his friends went to an Indian restaurant, which he'd never been to before. Rather than going to the restaurant to try something new, Devon decided to stay home and play with his cats. Based on what you just heard about him, which of the following from the "big five" best describes Devon?

He's low on openness

Which of the following is FALSE regarding anxiety disorders?

Heightened anxiety usually appears when people are in their 20s.

Which of the following is NOT one of the factors that made subjects less likely to "shock" another person in the Milgram experiments?

If they had eaten a meal recently.

What is the average age of onset for many mental disorders?

In the late teens and early twenties

Major depressive disorder is associated with what type of brain activity?

Increased right frontal lobe, and decreased left frontal lobe activity

Which of the following describes malingering?

Inventing or exaggerating the symptoms of a psychological disorder for personal gain (e.g. to get out of work, collect disability payments etc.).

What does "evidence-based practice" mean with regard to psychological treatments?

It means that practitioners are using treatments that have been demonstrated to be successful through scientific experiments.

You were recently reading about a person who was prone to aggression and criminal behavior. If you were able to see inside the brain of this person, what would you expect to see?

Lower activity compared with controls in the frontal lobes.

What's the name of the white blood cells that are involved with the immune system?

Lymphocyte

Which disorder is considered the leading cause of disability in people from their mid teens to mid 40s?

Major depressive disorder

Which disorder is transcranial magnetic stimulation been shown to be useful for?

Major depressive disorder

What causes mental disorders?

Mental disorders are due to many complex factors, including genes, social environment, and learning history (among others).

Phillipe has gone to school with the same kids for a long time, but he still finds himself feeling really self-conscious around them, even the kids he's friends with. He sometimes lashes out at other students and teachers, and he tends to be not very happy in general, and feels nervous when he thinks about school. Phillipe scores high on the big five measure of:

Neuroticism

Which of the following is FALSE regarding obsessive compulsive disorder?

OCD is not heritable, since it's entirely dependent on environmental factors.

Who is qualified to diagnose mental disorders?

Only qualified professionals with a psychology background.

What happened when people were excluded from an online game of "cyberball"?

People showed activation in the same brain areas responsible for physical pain.

Which of the following statements about major depressive disorder is FALSE?

People with major depressive disorder spend less time in REM sleep compared to people without the disorder.

Which of the following statements about schizophrenia is FALSE?

People with schizophrenia tend to have smaller ventricles in their brains.

What is psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy is when a patient discusses their problem with some sort of trained professional in order to deal with a psychological disorder.

Genetics are shown to play a role in which disorders?

Schizophrenia Bipolar disorder Major depressive disorder Autism All of the above

Which type of bias are elite athletes less likely to exhibit, which allows them to learn from their mistakes?

Self-Serving Bias

Scientists have discovered that asymmetry in a person's lower face, in particular a person's bite or how their teeth fit together, is indicative of:

Severe stress during a person's early development.

A person shows up at a doctor's office complaining of severe abdominal pain, with no other unusual symptoms. Numerous tests are run, and an underlying medical cause can't be discovered. What psychological disorder might the person have?

Somatic symptom disorder

Which of the following statements about stress is FALSE?

Stress is always a bad thing, and should therefore be avoided as much as possible.

Which of the following is NOT true of suicide?

Suicide has its own separate category in the DSM-5.

We tend to work hard for something we want, but after we get it, it only makes us happy for a little while, so we need to work some more to get something else we want. This cycle is referring to:

The Hedonic Treadmill

When passing a homeless person on the street, a man decides not to give her money because he feels that she must have done something that makes her responsible for her own homelessness. What is this an example of?

The Just-World Belief

Which of the following is FALSE regarding psychological disorders?

The boundaries between "normal" behavior and behavior typical of a disorder are very clear.

What has research on bystander intervention uncovered?

The more bystanders there are, the less likely a person in distress is to get help.

What happened in the Stanford Prison Experiment?

The study had to be terminated early due to the outrageous and poor treatment of randomly assigned "guards" toward randomly assigned "prisoners."

If you scanned peoples' brains and found that some of them had smaller hippocampal volumes compared with others, what would you expect to see in those people with smaller hippocampal volumes after a traumatic event?

They would be more susceptible to developing post-traumatic stress disorder.

In a study, people tended to feel happier if they used money to buy ______________ rather than to purchase material goods.

Time-saving services

If you had unlimited time and resources, what is the best way (i.e. the most reliable) to measure personality?

Using direct observation of a subject.

What does "impact bias" mean with regard to thinking about our potential future emotions?

We tend to overestimate how intensely we will feel future emotions, as well as how long we'll feel the emotions after a good or bad event.