Abnormal Psychology Exam 2

"How can we reduce suicide risk for our kids?" asks the high school counselor, the day after one of the school's star athletes commits suicide. Your best answer, based on research, is:

"Postvension often helps."

Months after last taking a drug, a former drug abuser still produces very little serotonin. The person is depressed and anxious, and has great difficulty remembering new material. Most likely, the abused drug—if it were a single drug—was:

Ecstasy

Barbiturates primarily affect the neurotransmitter:

GABA

A person who took a drug an hour or two ago sits alone, quietly and intensely listening—so the person says—to the sap running in a tree, the leaves of which appear a brilliant purple to the drug user. Most likely, the person has recently used:

LSD

What is the most likely explanation for the different explanations of eating disorders in men and women?

Male eating disorders are more likely to be tied to work or sports.

Which is true about alcohol use and suicide?

Most people who attempt suicide drink alcohol just before the act.

An example of a disturbed cognition that might be present in one being treated for anorexia is:

My weight and shape determine my value

Which of the following statements regarding suicide is true?

Native Americans have the highest suicide rate of any racial group in the United States.

How successful are compensatory behaviors in controlling weight?

Repeated vomiting affects one's ability to feel satiated.

An 85-year-old individual is threatening to commit suicide. How seriously should a clinical psychologist take this threat?

Very seriously: older individuals are more likely than younger individuals to succeed in a suicide attempt, and have a higher suicide rate than do younger individuals.

Seligman has developed a theory based on the idea that depression results from:

a belief that one has no control over the events in one's life.

Based on recent research, we would expect to find which of the following in a person who had recovered from serious depression?

a decrease in activity in Brodmann area 25

The most common cognitive disturbance in anorexia nervosa is:

a distorted body image.

Jenny simply cannot get up in the morning without her uppers, those little amphetamine pills her friend gave her. She feels she must take them every day. She has:

a substance dependence.

Barry drank quite a lot at the biggest party of the year. Later, he had trouble falling asleep, so he took a barbiturate. If he dies from respiratory failure during the night, it is probably because the alcohol and barbiturate had:

a synergistic effect.

If you were to receive effective therapy for depression, your chances of recovery would be:

about 60%.

Which professionals are most at risk for an eating disorder?

actors and athletes

Lasting improvement for one with anorexia nervosa depends on:

addressing underlying psychological problems.

A society that honors those who kill themselves to defend their families or country, or because of a value they hold dear, would have a higher rate of what Durkheim calls:

altruistic suicide.

If a biochemical imbalance were the cause of a person's depression, the latest research would lead us to expect that person to have:

an abnormality in the activity of certain neurotransmitters, especially serotonin and norepinephrine.

A manager who feels anxious about speaking in front of large groups frequently has a couple of glasses of wine to "relax" before beginning to speak. This "medicinal" use of alcohol can be explained most easily:

as a rewarding effect.

A man displaying muscle dysmorphobia would be especially fearful of:

becoming scrawny

"Drug dependence may develop because one finds drug use rewarding when it reduces tension." Which view of substance abuse would applaud this statement most enthusiastically?

behavioral

The use of a food diary to keep track of eating behavior in the treatment of bulimic patients is most likely to be used by a therapist from the:

behavioral perspective

If your therapist tried to reintroduce you to pleasurable activities, reinforced nondepressive actions, and improved your social skills, your therapist would be using:

behavioral therapy

People who are often overweight and regularly binge eat without compensatory behaviors are experiencing:

binge-eating disorder.

Family pedigree and twin studies have been used to look for a predisposition for unipolar depression within families. Which theoretical framework encompasses these studies?

biological

MAO inhibitors work by:

blocking MAO from breaking down norepinephrine.

Studies reporting abnormalities in the basal ganglia of people with bipolar disorder provide the strongest support for which of the following causes of bipolar disorder?

brain structure

The disorder that is characterized by eating binges followed by forced vomiting is called:

bulimia nervosa.

The drug with the lowest risks for drug dependency and long-term behavioral change is:

cannabis

Abraham Lincoln wrote about his own depression. If he blamed himself for the losses during the Civil War, he would be describing the ______ symptoms of depression.

cognitive

If you are going to do an in-class presentation based on current research about the best psychological treatment for those who have attempted suicide, you should focus most of your presentation on:

cognitive and cognitive-behavioral therapies.

The type of clinician who would be most likely to ask, "Do you believe you will always feel like this and in all situations?" is a:

cognitive clinician.

If a therapist were trying to help a bulimic patient recognize and change her maladaptive attitudes toward food, weight, eating, and body shape, the therapist would most likely be practicing:

cognitive therapy

A man plays chicken by aiming his car at a bridge abutment, then veering off at the last second. This is an example of what Shneidman refers to as a ______.

death darer

A woman shot herself by placing the gun barrel in her mouth, in the middle of a dense woods, where she knew she wouldn't be heard or found. Sylvia is an example of what Shneidman refers to as a ______.

death seeker

A person's hands and eyelids are shaking, and that person is experiencing visual and tactile hallucinations. Of the following, that person is most likely experiencing:

delirium tremens

Interpersonal psychotherapists believe that therapy must address:

developing social skills to elicit reinforcement from others

Research indicates that the most important neurotransmitter in the "pleasure pathway" of the brain is probably:

dopamine

At a suicide prevention center, you hear the following from the counselor: "Hello. I am interested in you as a person and am going to stay on the phone with you as long as you want—all night, maybe." Which one of the goals and techniques does it best represent?

establishing a positive relationship

Which of the following would be an emotional symptom of depression?

experiences of sadness and anger

A behavioral therapist who exposes bulimic patients to situations that usually cause binge episodes and then prevents them from binge eating, is using a technique called:

exposure and response prevention.

One of the behavioral therapy methods commonly used to treat bulimia nervosa is:

exposure and response prevention.

What is a likely long-term consequence of anorexia?

failure to gain weight

People who binge:

feel great tension before the binge.

Research indicates that suicides by people with schizophrenia are in response to:

feelings of demoralization

A pattern of mental retardation, head and facial deformities, heart defects, and slow growth characterizes one with:

fetal alcohol syndrome

Consequences of anorexia nervosa include all of the following except:

fever and high blood pressure

People who diet to lose weight usually:

gain the weight back.

Compared to white American teenagers, African American teenagers today:

have almost the same level of eating disorders.

The first step in treating anorexia nervosa is to:

help the person to start to regain the lost weight.

The drug which would produce effects similar to what the neurotransmitters called endorphins produce—pleasurable, calming feelings—is:

heroin

The part of the brain most closely associated with the control of eating and body weight is the:

hypothalamus

Clients who tend to see everything that occurs as either all right or all wrong, with nothing in between, need to focus on which phase of Beck's treatment for depression?

identifying negative thinking and biases

One longitudinal study found that men who become alcoholics were initially more:

impulsive in adolescence

What is the critical way in which the death seeker differs from the death darer, according to Shneidman? Death seekers:

intend to end their lives with their action

Which of the following men are at greatest risk for an eating disorder?

jockeys

Which of the following is a diagnostic criterion for bulimia nervosa?

lack of control over eating during binging

Ellen stopped taking her regular amount of cocaine after using it for months. She will probably experience:

letdown, depressed feelings, and fatigue

Two people of the same gender and weight consume the same amount of alcohol in the same amount of time. Nevertheless, one of them sobers up substantially sooner than the other. Most likely, this difference is due to:

liver function: some people's livers metabolize alcohol faster than those of others.

According to a recent study by Henry Wechsler and his colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health, the best predictor of college binge drinking is:

living in a fraternity or sorority house

Drugs that bind to GABA receptor sites:

make people feel calmer and less excited.

One of the side effects of ECT is:

memory loss.

Our local fire department was called to a remote location where a trailer was on fire, due to an explosion that occurred in the kitchen. The inhabitants were most likely making:

methamphetamine

What is the risk of tolerance and physical addiction to hallucinogens as compared to other addictive drugs?

minimal

In behavioral self-control training, patients are taught to:

monitor their own drug intake.

The currently accepted view of anorexia is that its cause is:

multidimensional

Cognitive theorists explain depression in terms of a person's:

negative interpretation of events.

Anorexic individuals most often show which of the following personality factors?

obsessions

A person who recently injected cocaine reports reaching the peak of subjective euphoria. Usually, that euphoria:

occurs at about the same time as the peak of dopamine-using neuron activity.

A heroin overdose is likely to occur when:

one has been without heroin for a period of time and takes one's usual dose.

Which of the following is a depressant?

opioids

People suffering from anorexia nervosa tend to:

overestimate their body size.

Which individual has the worst prognosis for recovering from an eating disorder?

people who enter therapy late in their disorder

Having frequent headaches is a(n) ______ symptom of depression.

physical

Amphetamine users run an unusually high risk of becoming dependent because amphetamines:

produce drug tolerance very quickly.

The explanation of suicide as due to loss of loved ones and self-directed aggression is consistent with which theoretical perspective?

psychodynamic

Free association, interpretation of associations, and dream interpretation are all techniques used primarily by:

psychodynamic therapists

Which of the following occupations has a particularly high rate of suicide?

psychologists

Jason, a recovering heavy drinker, has been trained to identify the situations that might cause him to drink and to be aware of when he should stop drinking. This approach is known as:

relapse prevention training.

The preoccupation with food characteristic of anorexia nervosa is thought to:

result from starvation.

In the "permission theory" of mood disorders, low ______ activity opens the door to a mood disorder and permits other neurotransmitters to define the form of the disorder.

serotonin

Initially Ecstasy causes euphoria, then depression and anxiety. This is primarily due to the effects of the drug on:

serotonin

If one found that the average weight and size of cheerleaders had declined significantly over the years, and that those who aspired to be cheerleaders had a high level of eating disorders, one would have evidence for ______ causes of eating disorders.

societal

Which of the following people would be at greatest risk of suicide?

someone who had been in poor health for years and is now terminal

The long-term pattern of maladaptive behavior caused by the regular use of some chemical or drug is called:

substance abuse.

Bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa have in common:

that they are likely to begin after a period of successful dieting.

Biologically speaking, drug tolerance is most related to:

the decrease in naturally occurring neurotransmitters that have been replaced by the drug.

If you took up smoking cigarettes in high school and continued into college, you should expect all of the following except:

the negative effects of smoking to continue even after you quit.

The action of SSRIs is based on the observation that in people who are depressed:

the reuptake process for serotonin and norepinephrine is too active.

Why might the suicide rate among elderly Native Americans be low?

the value the culture places on the elderly

A person's "weight set point" is:

their body's natural weight.

Mendon began by taking one amphetamine a day to control his appetite. After a month or so it did not work as well but two pills did. This is an example of:

tolerance

One medical problem linked to bulimia nervosa is:

tooth loss

People experiencing mania:

want excitement and companionship.