Test Answers on ABNORMAL PSYCH CH 1 – Flashcards
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Which of the following is an example of family aggregation?
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Karen, her mother, and her grandmother all have been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder.
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What makes defining abnormality difficult?
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There is no one behavior that serves to make someone abnormal
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The fact that body piercings are commonplace today while they would once have been viewed as abnormal illustrates that
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the values of a society may change over time.
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In the field of abnormal psychology, what does DSM stand for?
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Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
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Which of the following is included in the DSM?
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A means of identifying different mental disorders
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Which of the following statements is true concerning classification systems for mental disorders?
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Classification systems meet the needs of medical insurance companies who need diagnoses in order to authorize payment of claims.
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What is a culture-specific disorder?
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A disorder seen only in certain cultures
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Why is it important to know how many people have diagnosable mental illnesses?
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Such information is needed to plan for the provision of adequate services.
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___________ refers to the estimated proportion of actual, active cases of the disorder in a given population at a given point of time.
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Point prevalence
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What is epidemiology?
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The study of the distribution of a disorder in a population
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What type of prevalence estimate tends to be lowest?
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Point prevalence
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Which of the following is an example of point prevalence?
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1% of the population is currently experiencing depressive symptoms.
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The mayor of a city wants to know the number of new cases of a disorder over the past year. The mayor should ask an epidemiologist for the ________ of the disorder.
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incidence rate
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What type of prevalence estimate tends to be highest?
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Lifetime prevalence
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What is the most prevalent grouping of psychological disorder?
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Anxiety disorders
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What can be said about individuals who have a history of at least one serious psychological disorder?
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Over 50% have at least two or more other disorders.
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The trend toward deinstitutionalization in recent years means that
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people are hospitalized more briefly and then treated on an outpatient basis.
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Describing a disorder as acute means that
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it is a disorder that is short in duration
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One strength of case studies is
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they can generate new ideas to explore.
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Why is it dangerous to make conclusions based on case studies?
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Conclusions based on so little data are likely to be flawed.
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Which of the following typically involves having a patient or research participant fill out questionnaires?
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Self-report data collection
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Which of the following typically involves the use of trained observers?
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Direct observation
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Upon deciding to study individuals with a given disorder, what is the next step that should be taken?
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Select criteria for identifying individuals with the disorder.
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In Dr. Lu's study of eating disorders, she looked at the academic histories of girls with an eating disorder and girls who did not have such problems. In this example, the girls with eating disorders are the ________ group.
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criterion
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In what significant ways do correlational research designs differ from experimental research designs?
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There is no manipulation of variables in correlational research.
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What is a good control group for a research study on people with eating disorders?
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A group that is comparable to those with eating disorders except that they eat normally.
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Why are correlational research designs often used in abnormal psychology?
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It is often unethical or impossible to directly manipulate the variables involved in abnormal psychology.
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Which of the following may be safely inferred when a significant negative correlation is found between variables x and y?
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as x increases, y decreases
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Dr. Gordon finds that heroin-addicted adults almost always smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol when they were young adolescents. Knowing this strong association we can conclude that
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there is an association among the variables, but no causal inferences should be drawn.
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What does the notation p < .05 next to a correlation mean?
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The probability that a positive correlation will be found purely by chance
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Which variable is manipulated in an experiment?
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independent
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33 In a study of the effects of ice cream on mood, the ice cream can be described as what?
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The independent variable
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34 In a study of the effects of ice cream on mood, the mood after ice cream exposure can be described as what?
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The dependent variable
