Abnormal Psychology Quiz Questions Part 1

An intense, persistent, and irrational fear that is accompanied by a compelling desire to avoid the object of the fear to the point of interfering with the life of the person is called:

phobic disorder

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

policy of deinstitutionalization.

If a university had a program designed to help students achieve their full potential, physically, educationally, and spiritually, that program would have elements MOST similar to:

positive psychology programs

The age group MOST likely to commit suicide in the United States is:

the elderly.

Which statement is TRUE regarding the reliability of DSM-5?

Some research studies have reported better reliability with DSM-5 over earlier versions, but other studies have not

Every once in a while, Ona feels nervous to the point of terror. This feeling seems to come on suddenly and randomly. Her experience is an example of a(n):

panic disorder.

A person with _____ experiences wide-ranging and persistent feelings of worry and anxiety.

generalized anxiety disorder

A friend tells you she has been diagnosed with depression and has started interpersonal therapy. However, she thinks cognitive-behavioral therapy or couple therapy may be more helpful. Based on research, which response is MOST accurate?

"All three treatments can be effective. If you have significant marital issues, then couple therapy might have added value."

A person wonders, "How likely am I to qualify for a DSM diagnosis in my lifetime?" Assuming this person is "typical," the MOST accurate answer (based on survey results) would be:

"Likely; almost half of all people will at some point qualify for a DSM diagnosis."

A person says, "I've been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, and my therapist wants me to use drug therapy, not psychological therapy. I don't know which to choose." Based on current research, the BEST answer would be:

"Some therapists think psychological therapy should always be used, even with drug therapy; there's less chance of relapse."

Which phrase would one be MOST likely to hear in a self-help group?

"Try this. It worked for me."

Who is MOST at risk for misinterpreting a cultural response as pathology?

A dominant-culture assessor

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

A natural experiment

Which statement BEST describes someone with illness anxiety disorder?

A person misinterprets normal bodily functions and changes as signs of a serious health condition.

Which statement is the BEST example of the biopsychosocial perspective?

Abnormality results from the interaction of genetic, biological, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, social, cultural, and societal influences.

Which statement regarding suicide is TRUE?

American Indians have the highest suicide rate of any racial group in the United States.

If people with unipolar depression were found to have lower levels of norepinephrine, such a finding would support which perspective?

Biological

Oliver is receiving therapy for unipolar depression. His therapist tells him that many—even most—of the negative thoughts that an individual experiences and records have no basis in fact. Which element of cognitive therapy does this represent?

Challenging automatic thoughts

A therapist describes a patient who believes her personal worth is tied to each task she performs. She draws negative conclusions from very little evidence, amplifies minor mistakes into major character flaws, and suffers from repetitive thoughts that remind her of her flaws. You conclude that the therapist holds which theoretical orientation?

Cognitive-behavioral

A person who is having suicidal thoughts and can see no reason for living BEST fits which definition of abnormality?

Danger

Why is interpersonal psychotherapy considered a sociocultural approach?

Depression is thought to result from disrupted social interactions and role expectations

An obsessive-compulsive person with a cleaning compulsion who was told that everyone was required to wear shoes at all times in the house and not to vacuum for a week would be receiving which type of therapy?

Exposure and response prevention

The major ethical concern with research on Facebook users is:

Facebook users don't always know they are being studied.

Which BEST describes someone with depersonalization?

Feels detached from his or her own body

"When we try to establish how abnormality develops, we need to consider how individuals deal with the meaning of life and with the value they find in living." A psychologist from which background would agree MOST strongly with this statement?

Humanistic-existential

Which is MOST likely to elevate the mood in a person with depression?

Increase in the levels of norepinephrine

Isaac had finally had enough of his inability to walk. He went to therapy and eventually addressed a traumatic car crash from his past. Over time, he began to walk again. According to his psychodynamic therapist, why did these positive changes occur?

Isaac became conscious of and resolved his underlying fears, thereby eliminating the need to convert anxiety into physical symptoms.

Which statement is MOST accurate?

Low GABA levels can increase activity in the fear circuit, leading to increased anxiety.

According to the text, why are so many treatment approaches effective in the treatment of unipolar depression?

Multiple, interacting factors contribute to unipolar depression, and correcting dysfunction in one area helps improve functioning in other areas as well.

Which action would a clinician who is using naturalistic observation be MOST likely to take?

Observe parent-child interactions in the family's home

Imagine that you just had a "close call" while driving, but now you feel your body returning to normal. Which part of your nervous system is controlling this return to normalcy?

Parasympathetic nervous system

Which finding would support behavioral activation as an effective treatment for depression?

People display fewer symptoms of depression when they are encouraged to participate in pleasureable activities.

What is the biggest difference between those individuals with body dysmorphic disorder and those individuals who are unhappy with their appearance?

People with body dysmorphic disorder may severely limit their contact with other people.

Darla thinks she has bad luck. She repeatedly says, "Bad things just happen to me. It doesn't matter what I do. If it can go wrong, it will. And it always does." How does this thinking relate to the development of stress disorders?

She is more susceptible to a stress disorder.

A clinician who looks at the influence of race, living conditions, marital status, and roles on the development of depression would MOST likely subscribe to which theoretical orientation?

Sociocultural

How can publication bias affect people's perceptions about the effectiveness of antidepressant drug therapy for unipolar depression?

Studies that have positive findings are more likely to be published, which could result in an overstated effectiveness.

DSM-5 added premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) as a diagnosis for certain women who repeatedly experience clinically significant depressive and related symptoms during the week before menstruation. Why has this been an ongoing controversy?

The diagnosis pathologizes severe cases of premenstrual syndrome.

A person with bipolar disorder is taking a commonly used drug to stabilize mood in the manic episodes. What else might also happen as a result of taking this drug?

The person might experience at least partial relief from depressive episodes.

Why do some researchers believe mass psychogenic illnesses will increase and become more severe in the future?

The power of social media will increase.

Despite having clear economic disadvantages, the health of Hispanic Americans is, on average, at least as good as, and often better than, that of both non-Hispanic white Americans and African Americans. What is one theory that explains this paradox?

The strong family support common in Hispanic American culture increases health resilience among members of this culture.

What do acute and posttraumatic stress disorder have in common with dissociative disorders?

They are triggered by traumatic events.

Which statement is NOT true regarding gender and suicide?

Women succeed at committing suicide more often than men do.

The use of various technologies to deliver mental health services without the therapist being physically present is called:

telemental health

A person who witnessed a horrible car accident and then became unusually anxious and depressed for three weeks is probably experiencing:

acute stress disorder.

A researcher is interested in the effects of a new drug for treating anxiety. The researcher decides to study this phenomenon in rats by conditioning in them the fear of a high-pitched noise and then testing the rats' reactions with and without the drug. This is an example of a(n):

analogue experiment

A friend who has unipolar depression says, "I can't do anything right. Nobody will ever love me again." This statement reflects a(n):

cognitive symptom.

A psychologist does a study of an individual involving a history, tests, and interviews of associates. A clear picture is constructed of this individual so her behavior is better understood. This study is a(n):

case study

Kanaye has an erratic sleep cycle each month, regardless of which actions he takes. A typical cycle follows: Week 1: falls asleep around 6:00 P.M. and wakes around 2:00 A.M. Week 2: goes to sleep around 10:00 P.M. and wakes around 6:00 A.M. Week 3: cannot fall asleep until around 2:00 A.M., and then wakes around 10:00 A.M. Week 4: unable to fall asleep until 6:00 A.M. and wakes around 3:00 P.M. The appropriate diagnosis in this case is:

circadian rhythm disorder.

If a person's bodily symptoms affect his or her voluntary motor and sensory functions, but the symptoms are inconsistent with known medical diseases, this condition is referred to as:

conversion disorder.

The MOST legitimate criticism of intelligence tests concerns their:

cultural fairness.

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

danger

Ambivalent about dying, Brody repeatedly played a dangerous game involving gas and a cigarette lighter. Brody is an example of what Shneidman refers to as a:

death darer.

When a person feels that the external world is removed, mechanical, distorted, or even dead, he or she is experiencing:

derealization.

Carla sees life in "right or wrong," "all or none" terms. She is engaging in:

dichotomous thinking.

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.

College students who drink so much that it interferes with their lives, health, and academic careers are often not diagnosed as engaging in abnormal behavior because:

drinking is considered part of college culture.

An individual has a 9-to-5 job. However, this person seldom gets up early enough to be at work on time and expresses great distress over this behavior. This individual's behavior would be considered abnormal because it is:

dysfunctional

Adjunctive therapy to treat bipolar disorder commonly focuses on:

emphasizing the importance of taking the medication, even though they miss the creative and productive bursts they used to have.

A clinical psychologist says, "I select the best treatment for a client based on the current recommendations outlined in research studies." This clinical psychologist believes in using:

evidence-based treatment.

The goal of scientific research is BEST described as seeking to:

explain relationships between variables.

The ability to generalize results from a study of certain individuals to other individuals not studied is called:

external validity

The BEST example of malingering is a person who:

feigns an illness to achieve some external gain, such as financial compensation.

During a therapy session, a client is told to pretend the therapist is her spouse and to tell her "spouse" why she is angry. This therapist is MOST likely a(n) _____ therapist.

gestalt

Tomas killed himself in a way that is being described as an altruistic suicide. He is MOST likely to have lived in a country that:

honors those who kill themselves for a higher good.

The moral treatment movement rapidly declined in the late nineteenth century because:

hospitals became underfunded and overcrowded.

"When we try to establish how abnormality develops, we need to consider how individuals deal with the meaning of life and with the value they find in living." A psychologist from which background would agree MOST strongly with this statement?

humanistic-existential

A person experiencing multiple personalities would MOST accurately be diagnosed with dissociative:

identity disorder.

Critical incident stress debriefing is intended to take place:

immediately after a trauma and continue short term.

A developing body of research shows that antidepressant use in children and adolescents:

increases suicide risk for some individuals but decreases the overall suicide risk.

For people to decide about participating in psychological research, they must be given full knowledge of the nature of the study and their rights. This principle is called:

informed consent

A panel of psychologists and psychiatrists evaluates the test results and clinical interviews of a client in a sanity hearing. They all arrive at the same diagnosis. The panel has high:

interrater reliability

Retrospective analysis of suicide typically would include:

interviews with people who knew the person who committed suicide.

Which statement describes a limitation of the case study?

it does not result in high external validity

A primary prevention approach is expected to be MOST beneficial for mental health issues with:

known risk and protective factors.

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

lower

Bartrop and colleagues compared the immune systems of 26 people whose spouses had died 8 weeks earlier with those of 26 matched control-group participants whose spouses had not died. The blood samples revealed that _____ was much lower in the bereaved people than in the controls.

lymphocyte functioning

With _____, a person pays attention to the feelings, thoughts, and sensations that are flowing through his or her mind but does so with detachment and objectivity and, most important, without judgment.

mindfulness meditation

The cognitive explanation for panic disorders is that people who have them:

misinterpret bodily sensations.

The assessment instrument MOST likely to be used to detect subtle brain abnormalities is the:

neuropsychological test.

The stated and unstated rules for proper conduct that a society establishes are referred to as:

norms

One problem with animal studies of depression is that:

one cannot be sure that depression-like symptoms in laboratory animals reflect human depression

When a child yells and threatens others, he or she is placed in a time-out, away from the group. During the time-out, no one interacts with the child. The child learns to interact with others without yelling. This is an example of behavior modification using:

operant conditioning

When a child yells and threatens others, he or she is placed in a time-out, away from the group. During the time-out, no one interacts with the child. The child learns to interact with others without yelling. This is an example of behavior modification using:

operant conditioning.

What is one of society's most negative social conditions that may set the stage for psychophysiological disorders?

poverty

The clinician who would be MOST likely to say, "Tell me about any early losses you experienced," is a:

psychodynamic clinician.

A patient participates in weekly therapy for several years, gradually becoming aware of the impact of early life events on present functioning. The form of psychotherapy that this patient is receiving is called:

psychodynamic therapy

A theorist who believes that psychological factors are the primary causes of abnormal functioning adheres to the _____ perspective.

psychogenic

The general score derived from intelligence tests is termed a(n) intelligence:

quotient

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

rationalization

The biological understanding of generalized anxiety is supported by the finding that:

relatives of people with generalized anxiety are more likely to have it than non-relatives are.

The controversy regarding research with animals centers on the:

rights of animals versus their usefulness in understanding human problems.

Interpersonal psychotherapists believe that therapy must address:

role transitions in relationships.

Researchers have found that young adults who browse and post on social media most frequently are more likely to feel:

sad

The mood and thoughts of suicidal people are MOST often characterized as:

sad and hopeless.

A client diagnosed with schizophrenia has begun to exhibit new symptoms, often saying, "They tell me I'm crazy, so I must be crazy." This MOST likely is an example of:

self-fulfilling prophecy.

An important difference between mood disorders and normal mood fluctuation is the:

severity and duration of the problem.

Multicultural theorists would explain the higher levels of mental illness among poor people as MOST likely due to:

social factors leading to stress.

The fact that some people in the advanced stages of AIDS experience neurological damage that results in psychological abnormality supports which type of perspective about abnormal psychological functioning?

somatogenic

An important factor to consider when prescribing drugs for the treatment of abnormality would be that:

some people do not benefit from drug treatments.

Kevin studies his history notes and textbook while he is drinking green tea. According to some theorists, Kevin would later do better on his history exam if he also had green tea in his system while taking the exam. These theorists would be basing their claim on:

state-dependent learning.

Researchers have found that when an identical twin has unipolar depression, there is a 38 percent chance that the other twin has already had or will eventually have the same disorder. A fraternal twin is only 20 percent likely to have the same disorder. This finding:

supports the idea that people may inherit a predisposition for developing unipolar depression.

Dylan is suffering from arachnophobia. His therapist first has him go through relaxation training, and then has him construct a fear hierarchy. Finally, the therapist has Dylan go through a phase of graded pairings of spiders and relaxation responses. This approach is called:

systematic desensitization.

Suicide rates in the weeks after Kurt Cobain's suicide held steady, contrary to the modeling effect seen with other celebrity suicides. The text notes that a possible reason for this was:

the media coverage, which included a "Don't do it!" message.

The incidence of HIV-positive cases on campus tells you:

the number of new HIV-positive cases measured in a time period.

Researchers using a longitudinal study design observe:

the same group of individuals on many occasions over a long period of time.

A friend asks you, "What's the name of that Tom Hanks' movie where a pirate takes over his ship and says, 'I'm the captain now'?" You remember the movie and know you know the title, but you can't think of it in the moment. This is an example of:

the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.

The prevalence of sexual dysfunction in older men seen at a clinic tells you the:

total number of older men with sexual dysfunction at the clinic.

The brain stimulation technique that uses an electromagnetic coil placed on or above a person's head to send electrical current into certain areas of the brain is called:

transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

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

transference