Deck 2: Causes of Abnormal Behavior

Question 1

DSM-5 uses the descriptive approach to classify abnormal behavior because experts do not know what causes mental disorders and because it

A)helps diagnose the underlying cause of a mental disorder.
B)is easier to understand.
C)helps professionals to agree about the presence or absence of an emotional problem.
D)categorizes behavior with a known mental disorder.

Answer 1

helps professionals to agree about the presence or absence of an emotional problem.

Question 2

In 1910,what German microbiologist developed an arsenic-containing chemical that destroyed bacteria that caused syphilis and prevented paresis?

A)Sigmund Freud
B)Paul Ehrlich
C)John Haslam
D)Jean Fournier

Answer 2

Paul Ehrlich

Question 3

The correct biological explanation for general paresis

A)was discovered very quickly.
B)is still a mystery to scientists.
C)will never be discovered.
D)was only discovered after more than 100 years of study.

Answer 3

was only discovered after more than 100 years of study.

Question 4

Which term is used for a set of shared assumptions that includes both the substance of a theory and beliefs about how scientists should collect data and test a theory?

A)etiology
B)paradigm
C)diagnosis
D)prognosis

Question 5

Both Jean Charcot and Sigmund Freud focused on a disorder called hysteria.Which of the following patients is most likely to have received this diagnosis from these two well-known clinicians?

A)Hazel,who experiences delusions
B)Amy,who screams during bouts of "night terrors"
C)Laura,whose "blindness" has no organic explanation
D)Zelda,who cannot sit still for more than 5 seconds

Question 6

General paresis was virtually eliminated because

A)the patients died before they could have children.
B)antibiotics were developed to treat syphilis.
C)most older patients now develop Alzheimer's disease.
D)psychiatrists developed the tools to diagnose it.

Question 7

The search for explanations of the etiology of abnormal behavior dates to ancient times.It was not until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that three major advances occurred: the work of Sigmund Freud,the discovery of general paresis,and the

A)blank slate theory.
B)stationary universe model.
C)development of the germ theory.
D)development of academic psychology.

Question 8

The etiology of a problem behavior is its

A)cause.
B)paradigm.
C)treatment.
D)classification.

Question 9

A physician at a hospital in the late 1800s has read about the disease called general paresis.Which of the following patients is most likely to receive such a diagnosis?

A)Alice,whose symptoms include restlessness and agitation
B)Brenda,whose symptoms include insomnia and obsession
C)Bob,whose symptoms include lack of appetite and suicidal thoughts
D)Al,whose symptoms include delusions of grandeur and progressive paralysis

Question 10

The case of Meghan B.in your text illustrates

A)many plausible alternative causes.
B)that disorders can often have a single cause.
C)the importance of genetic factors.
D)how objective tools can be used to pinpoint causation.

Question 11

Most forms of abnormal behavior are thought to be caused by

A)genetics.
B)learning.
C)a single cause.
D)multiple factors.

Question 12

What is the assertion of the psychodynamic paradigm?

A)Feelings,thoughts,and behaviors are shaped by the unconscious.
B)Behavior is a function of environment.
C)Behavior is a function of biology.
D)Normal behavior is caused by unconscious mental conflicts that have roots in early childhood experience.

Question 13

A distinguished researcher reviewed the current findings on the etiology of mental disorders.Which of the following is the best summary of the consensus of opinion?

A)Most mental disorders are the result of genetic abnormalities.
B)We do not currently know all of the specific causes of most mental disorders.
C)Unconscious factors have been overlooked as the root cause of mental disorders.
D)Environmental factors have been overlooked in the wake of recent findings on biological etiologies.

Question 14

What approach do the authors use when considering the etiology of various mental disorders?

A)systems
B)confluence
C)reductionism
D)biopsychosocial

Question 15

What type of bacteria was discovered to cause syphilis?

A)Chloroflexi
B)Dictyoglomi
C)Spirochete
D)Thermotogae

Question 16

You are reading a biography of Sigmund Freud and find that he was trained as a

A)neurologist.
B)psychiatrist.
C)clinical psychologist.
D)counseling psychologist.

Question 17

How did Jean Charcot treat patients with hysteria?

A)Medication
B)Hypnosis
C)Electric shock therapy
D)Therapy sessions

Question 18

The discovery of the etiology of which disorder was an important scientific advance for the biological paradigm?

A)general paresis
B)Alzheimer's disease
C)bipolar mood disorder
D)dissociative identity disorder

Question 19

A researcher described her approach to understanding mental disorders as biopsychosocial.When you ask her to explain what she means,what is she likely to say?

A)Biological abnormalities give rise to psychological disturbances that have social consequences.
B)Biological,psychological,and social factors are just as likely to be the cause of these disorders.
C)The integration of biological,psychological,and social factors provides the most fruitful avenue for discovering the cause of most mental disorders.
D)The search for etiologies is best accomplished by viewing the evidence through the lens provided by one of the major paradigms.

Question 20

Confirming a specific biological cause of general paresis was greatly aided by eventually discovering that

A)all such patients had a history of syphilis.
B)most such patients developed syphilis later in life.
C)very few such patients had ever been treated with penicillin.
D)most such patients had lied about their sexual history.

Question 21

According to Sigmund Freud,what are the three parts of the mind?

A)id,ego,superego
B)oral,anal,phallic
C)reality,pleasure,spiritual
D)conscious,preconscious,unconscious

Question 22

Beth received a painful shock while turning on her television.Now she reacts with fear whenever she sees a television.What is the television in this example?

A)neutral stimulus
B)reinforced stimulus
C)conditioned stimulus
D)unconditioned stimulus

Question 23

According to Ivan Pavlov's ideas on classical conditioning,extinction occurs when a conditioned stimulus is no longer presented with

A)a negative reinforcer.
B)a conditioned response.
C)an unconditioned response.
D)an unconditioned stimulus.

Question 24

Ivan Pavlov rang a bell every time he fed meat powder to dogs.After repeated trials,the dogs began to salivate when they heard the bell,even if there was no food in sight.According to Pavlov,the dogs' salivation in the absence of food,following the ringing of the bell,is called the

A)conditioned stimulus.
B)conditioned response.
C)unconditioned stimulus.
D)unconditioned response.

Question 25

What is the primary concept in operant conditioning?

A)a conditioned stimulus is neutral
B)conditioned response leads to extinction
C)behavior is determined by its consequences
D)negative reinforcement is the same as punishment

Question 26

You get a paper back and briefly feel angry at the low grade you received,but this feeling is upsetting because you like the professor so much.You quickly turn your attention to other matters.Later that day you pick a fight with your roommate because of the unfair manner in which the week's chores were divided.This fight could be an example of a defense mechanism called

A)projection.
B)sublimation.
C)displacement.
D)rationalization.

Question 27

Mary and Jim took their two-year-old to the supermarket this past week.For more than an hour all Little Jimmy did was yell and scream because in the past this would have obtained him an ice cream cone.Jim managed to ignore him.Finally,Little Jimmy stopped yelling and screaming.What operant conditioning concept is illustrated by this story?

A)shaping
B)extinction
C)punishment
D)token economy

Question 28

According to the principles of operant conditioning,what happens when negative reinforcement is applied?

A)behavior increases
B)behavior decreases
C)behavior is punished
D)behavior remains at the same level

Question 29

The cognitive-behavioral paradigm views _______as the product of learning.

A)maladaptive behavior
B)excessive behavior
C)unconscious processes
D)abnormal behavior

Question 30

When we are around someone we dislike intensely we often "bend over backward" to be nice to this individual.Which defense mechanism is illustrated here?

A)denial
B)projection
C)sublimation
D)reaction formation

Question 31

Who is credited with beginning the modern science of psychology at the University of Leipzig?

A)Ivan Pavlov
B)Wilhelm Wundt
C)B.F.Skinner
D)Sigmund Freud

Question 32

Your neighbors are playing loud music late at night and it annoys you.You ask them to turn down the music and they do.The next time they play loud music,you call them even sooner.B.F.Skinner would say this happens because

A)your assertiveness is like a punishment.
B)the noise was an unconditioned stimulus.
C)the decreased noise negatively reinforced your assertiveness.
D)the decreased noise positively reinforced your assertiveness.

Question 33

The authors of your text view Freud's ideas as

A)scientifically valid.
B)metaphors.
C)worthless.
D)dangerous.

Question 34

According to Sigmund Freud,what is the purpose of defense mechanisms?

A)to reduce anxiety
B)to establish reality contact
C)to develop self?actualization
D)to reduce reliance on social support

Question 35

According to Sigmund Freud,how does a boy resolve forbidden sexual desire for his mother?

A)by becoming attracted to girls
B)by identifying with his father
C)by developing an Electra complex
D)by developing aggressive urges toward his mother

Question 36

According to Freudian theory,the reality principle is the framework of operation for the

A)id.
B)ego.
C)superego.
D)conscience.

Question 37

John B.Watson was best known for

A)founding humanism.
B)promoting behaviorism.
C)developing the theory of modeling.
D)developing the theory of operant conditioning.

Question 38

In psychoanalytic theory,sexual and aggressive drives are part of the

A)id.
B)ego.
C)superego.
D)conscience.

Question 39

Though easily confused,negative reinforcement and punishment are quite different.With negative reinforcement,behavior __________ when the aversive stimulus is ____________,and with punishment,behavior __________ when the aversive stimulus is ____________.

A)increases; removed; increases; introduced
B)increases; removed; decreases; introduced
C)decreases; removed; increases; introduced
D)decreases; introduced; increases; removed

Question 40

According to Freudian theory,what part of the mind is roughly equivalent to the conscience?

A)id
B)ego
C)libido
D)superego

Question 41

Humanistic psychologists objected to the biological,psychoanalytic,and behavioral theories of abnormal behavior because these other approaches assume that

A)free will exists.
B)behavior is a paradigm.
C)human nature is inherently good.
D)behavior is predictably determined.

Question 42

What is the purpose of the enigma written by Lord Byron that was included in the text?

A)to show how writing can reveal one's unconscious memories
B)to provide an example of the integration of different etiologies
C)to reveal how paradigms can either help or hinder our search for answers
D)to demonstrate that a psychotic process can often be uncovered in the words of even greater writers

Question 43

Which of the following best illustrates reciprocal causality?

A)Parents influence their children and are also influenced by their own parents.
B)Parents influence their children both through heredity and through socialization.
C)Parents influence their children and children influence their parents.
D)Children are influenced both by their parents and by their peers.

Question 44

A newspaper headline heralds a finding that an excess of a particular brain chemical is the cause of a certain mental disorder.The article is not convincing to you.What potential flaw do you note in the report?

A)The chemical change could be due to other variables.
B)Chemical changes cannot bring about changes in behavior.
C)The genetic code associated with the chemical has not been identified.
D)Such findings are very difficult to generalize to the entire population.

Question 45

Which paradigm views human nature as basically good,attributes abnormal behavior to frustrations of society,and uses nondirective therapy to treat abnormal behavior?

A)biomedical
B)humanistic
C)psychoanalytic
D)cognitive behavioral

Question 46

Systems theory acknowledges that multiple contributions are important to causality and that they also

A)focus on childhood experiences.
B)are unconscious conflicts.
C)focus on physical illnesses.
D)are interdependent.

Question 47

Holism is the idea that

A)humans have free will.
B)behavior is determined.
C)human nature is basically good.
D)the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Question 48

Which of the following correlation coefficients indicates the strongest association between two variables?

A)-0.74
B)-0.15
C)+0.26
D)+0.62

Question 49

The principle of equifinality,or the concept of multiple pathways,means that

A)many risk factors might be involved in a disorder's etiology.
B)disorders must always be explained in terms of many different risk factors.
C)a diathesis must always be combined with some form of stress.
D)the same risk factors can produce many different disorders.

Question 50

Watson made the very important assumption that all behavior is

A)under the control of free will.
B)inborn rather than learned.
C)the result of hidden desires and unconscious conflicts.
D)a result of learning.

Question 51

Assume that variables X and Y are significantly correlated; the concept of reverse causality tells us that

A)X causes Y but not the reverse.
B)Y causes X but not the reverse.
C)X might cause Y or Y might cause X.
D)X causes Y and Y causes X.

Question 52

The idea that ultimate explanations for abnormal behavior are found when problems are analyzed in terms of their smallest components is known as

A)deduction.
B)paradigms.
C)determinism.
D)reductionism.

Question 53

The correlation between scores on a measure of hostility and age at death is -.64.We could conclude from this correlation coefficient that people who have

A)high hostility scores tend to live longer.
B)low hostility scores tend to die younger.
C)high hostility scores tend to die younger.
D)low hostility scores die 64 percent sooner than those with high hostility scores.

Question 54

A study has found a positive correlation between smoking cigarettes and schizophrenia.What is a possible explanation for this finding?

A)Emotional problems experienced during childhood cause schizophrenia.
B)Some property of nicotine could be part of the cause of schizophrenia.
C)The gene that carries schizophrenia also increases the potential for smoking.
D)A fourth variable could be causing both.

Question 55

When trying to understand the cause of abnormal behavior,thinking of the different academic disciplines as representing different levels of analysis will illustrate systems theory's assertion that

A)no single academic discipline has a corner on the truth.
B)the molar level is more helpful than the molecular level.
C)the molecular level is more helpful than the molar level.
D)only the molar level lends itself to rigorous research.

Question 56

Assume that variables X and Y are significantly correlated; the third variable problem means that

A)the correlation could be explained by their joint relation with some other factor.
B)another variable must correlate with X but not Y.
C)another variable must correlate with Y but not X.
D)X causes Y and Y causes X.

Question 57

The paradigms presented in your text make assumptions about the causes of abnormal behavior that can be too

A)broad.
B)narrow.
C)untestable.
D)vague.

Question 58

Who is the historian and philosopher who has written about the nature of paradigms?

A)Sigmund Freud
B)Karl Byron
C)Thomas Kuhn
D)John Watson

Question 59

Some researchers view alcoholism as the result of having a genetic predisposition to alcohol addiction while also having to cope with difficult life circumstances.This type of analysis is an example of

A)circular thinking.
B)biological etiology.
C)the diathesis-stress model.
D)the nature-nurture controversy.

Question 60

What is a diathesis?

A)a form of stress
B)a predisposition
C)a biological cause of mental illness
D)an observable symptom of mental illness

Question 61

Chemicals that may be released from neurons or from endocrine glands and that affect the functioning of neurotransmitters are known as

A)adrenotransmitters.
B)neuromodulators.
C)reuptake inhibitors.
D)reuptake facilitators.

Question 62

What two chemical compounds are known to be particularly important neurotransmitters in the brain?

A)Glutamate and acetylcholine
B)Gamma-aminobutyric acid and dopamine
C)Norepinephrine and serotonin
D)Serotonin and dopamine

Question 63

A police officer pulls over a driver suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol.The driver is asked to exit the car and walk a straight line.This test is designed to detect the effects of alcohol on the

A)cerebellum.
B)hypothalamus.
C)temporal lobe.
D)limbic system.

Question 64

How is information transmitted between nerve cells?

A)by release of neurotransmitters at the synapse
B)by release of neurotransmitters along the axon
C)by changes in electrical potential along the axon
D)by changes in electrical potential in the synapse

Question 65

Basic bodily functions such as heart rate,blood pressure,and respiration are regulated by which region of the brain?

A)pons
B)medulla
C)midbrain
D)corpus callosum

Question 66

A synapse is a

A)cell body.
B)nerve cell.
C)chemical substance in the brain.
D)fluid-filled gap between neurons.

Question 67

What term is used to describe the pattern of behavior that is apparent before a disorder develops?

A)premorbid history
B)prognosis
C)homeostasis
D)developmental history

Question 68

Which of the following neurotransmitters was first implicated in the development of schizophrenia?

A)GABA
B)dopamine
C)serotonin
D)norepinephrine

Question 69

What is the process by which some neurotransmitters in the synapse return to the axon terminals of the neuron that released them?

A)reuptake
B)regeneration
C)neuromodulation
D)neuroregeneration

Question 70

Most of a neuron's metabolism and maintenance control and performance originate from the

A)soma.
B)dendrites.
C)axiom terminal.
D)vesicles.

Question 71

You are watching a movie about a mental hospital.In one scene two mental health professionals are talking about a patient.One of them asks about the patient's prognosis.The response to this question will deal with the patient's

A)diagnosis.
B)predicted course.
C)premorbid history.
D)developmental norm.

Question 72

The study of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology is the domain of a multidisciplinary field of what research?

A)Anatomy
B)Zoology
C)Neurology
D)Neuroscience

Question 73

Developmental psychopathology is a new approach to abnormal psychology that emphasizes the importance of analyzing behavior in terms of

A)cybernetics.
B)early childhood trauma.
C)learned patterns that are ingrained over time.
D)comparisons of individual behavior to age-based norms.

Question 74

What are the four major anatomic components of a neuron?

A)dendrite,nerve,axon,and soma
B)soma,dendrite,axon,and axon terminal
C)nerve,nerve ending,synapse,and transmitter
D)soma,receptor,transmitter,nerve

Question 75

What has been suggested as a way that neurotransmitters could play a role in abnormal behavior?

A)an oversupply of a certain neurotransmitter
B)an absence of neuromodulators
C)faulty genes that misfold the proteins that make up a given neurotransmitter
D)there is no relationship

Question 76

A correlation may result from causation,but there are two alternatives: reverse causality and

A)positive correlation.
B)third variables.
C)negative correlation.
D)levels of neurotransmitters.

Question 77

A report of research on physiological psychology contains a description of a substance that can influence communication among neurons and can act some distance from where the substance was released.What is the topic of this report?

A)axons
B)humors
C)neuromodulators
D)neurotransmitters

Question 78

Neuroanatomy focuses on brain _________ while neurophysiology focuses on brain __________.

A)functions; structures
B)structures; functions
C)dendrites; axons
D)axons; dendrites

Question 79

Once information within a neuron has been transmitted to the dendrites and cell body,what is next in its path?

A)Axon terminal
B)Synapse
C)Axon
D)Vesicles

Question 80

Dualism refers to the out-of-date idea that

A)mind and body are separate.
B)the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
C)the brain is made up of structures and functions.
D)behavior is influenced by free will and determinism.