Question 1

What is the most common childhood disorder in North America?

Accepted Answer

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common childhood disorder in North America, affecting an estimated 6.1 million children aged 2-17 years old as of 2016.

Question 2

Competency pertains to a legal defendant's ability to understand the nature of the legal proceedings,while insanity pertains to the defendant's state of mind at the time of the crime.

Accepted Answer

Competency and insanity are two different legal concepts. Competency refers to a defendant's current mental state and ability to understand and participate in legal proceedings, while insanity refers to a defendant's mental state at the time of the crime and their ability to understand the wrongfulness of their actions.

Question 3

Johnny is a 10 year old boy who has problems interacting and relating to others.In fact,Johnny doesn't respond to others the way you would expect and seems to have difficulty interpreting others' body language.He also gets very upset if his routine is disrupted.Johnny's behaviour is most consistent with which disorder?

Accepted Answer

Johnny's difficulty with social interaction, interpreting body language, and intolerance of routine disruption are all symptoms of autistic disorder. ADHD (A) is characterized by impulsivity, hyperactivity, and inattention. ODD (C) is characterized by disobedient and argumentative behavior towards authority figures. CD (D) involves violation of others' rights and aggressive behavior.

Question 4

The gradual loss of cognitive abilities that accompanies brain deterioration is called:

Accepted Answer

Dementia is the gradual loss of cognitive abilities that accompanies brain deterioration. Amnesia refers to memory loss, schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disconnection from reality, and mania is an episode of elevated or irritable mood.

Question 5

Research suggests that the development of this area of the brain is abnormal in autistic children.

Accepted Answer

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functions such as planning, decision-making, and working memory. These functions are often impaired in autistic children.

Question 6

Researchers have suggested that autistic individuals may suffer from:

Accepted Answer

Numerous studies have identified deficits in the ability of autistic individuals to recognize, understand, and respond to the mental states of others, often referred to as theory of mind (ToM) or mentalizing. This suggests that individuals with autism may have difficulty in inferring what others are thinking or feeling.

Question 7

Insanity is both a psychological diagnostic category and a legal term that refers to a defendant's presumed state of mind at the time a crime was committed.

Accepted Answer

Insanity is a legal term referring to a defendant's inability to understand right from wrong or the nature of their actions at the time a crime was committed, not a specific psychological diagnostic category. Mental health professionals use various diagnoses to describe mental disorders.

Question 8

The reliability of a diagnostic system refers to how the diagnostic categories accurately capture the essential features of the various disorders.

Accepted Answer

The reliability of a diagnostic system refers to the consistency of the diagnostic categories across different observers or over time, not how accurately the categories capture the essential features of the disorders. Validity, not reliability, concerns how well the categories capture what they are supposed to measure.

Question 9

Which of the following is the leading cause of dementia in the elderly?

Accepted Answer

Alzheimer's disease is the leading cause of dementia in the elderly. While other factors such as stroke and high blood pressure can contribute to dementia, Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause. Parkinson's disease can lead to dementia in later stages, but it is not as common as Alzheimer's.

Question 10

Elizabeth is noticing that her eighty year-old grandfather has been very forgetful the last few weeks.When he took her to the park the other day,he forgot where the car was parked when it was time to leave.He also talks more and more about his time in the war when he was a young man.Elizabeth thinks it is quite remarkable that he can remember things from fifty years ago,while he can't even remember where he parked the car an hour earlier.What Elizabeth is detecting may be:

Accepted Answer

The symptoms described suggest a potential onset of senile dementia, which is a neurological disorder that can affect memory and cognitive function in older individuals. The forgetfulness and confusion regarding recent events, along with an increased focus on memories from the past, are common symptoms of dementia.

Question 11

Explanations of anti-social personality disorder that concentrate on the apparent inability of these individuals to learn a fear response when punished are drawing on the ideas of:

Accepted Answer

The idea that individuals with anti-social personality disorder have an inability to learn a fear response when punished suggests a deficit in classical conditioning theory, which involves learned associations between stimuli and responses. This deficit may contribute to the impulsive and reckless behavior commonly associated with the disorder.

Question 12

When Shirley visited her grandmother in her new retirement home,her grandmother spoke about the people she had played with as a child as though she had spoken with them yesterday.This behaviour is characteristic of:

Accepted Answer

This behavior is characteristic of senile dementia, as people with this condition may experience confusion about time and memory loss, making them think about past events as recent. Chronic depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and dissociative disorder do not typically cause this type of behavior.

Question 13

Specific phobias,such as the fear of dogs or heights,are considered to be one of the three major types of phobias.

Accepted Answer

Specific phobias are indeed considered to be one of the three major types of phobias, the other two being social phobias and agoraphobia.

Question 14

One adoption study focusing on behaviours related to anti-social personality disorder found the highest rates of criminal behaviour in sons when _______________ had criminal records.

Accepted Answer

The answer of One adoption study focusing on behaviours related...

Question 15

The fact that many people with anti-social personality disorder come from families that exhibit a good deal of aggression and tend to be quite inattentive to their children's needs,was discussed to demonstrate the possible role of ___________ in this disorder.

Accepted Answer

The discussion highlights the role of modeling, where individuals learn behaviors by observing and imitating others, especially significant in the context of family aggression and inattention, influencing the development of anti-social personality disorder.

Question 16

Abnormalities in which of the following brain areas have been found in people with anti-social personality disorder?

Accepted Answer

Abnormalities in the prefrontal lobe have been found in people with anti-social personality disorder. The prefrontal lobe is responsible for decision-making, impulse control, and empathy, which are all areas in which people with this disorder struggle.

Question 17

The belief that abnormal behaviour is the result of supernatural forces is known as trephination.

Accepted Answer

Trephination was a practice in which a hole was made in the skull to release evil spirits or demons. The idea that abnormal behaviour is caused by supernatural forces is known as supernaturalism.

Question 18

Antisocial personality disorder is a collection of symptoms characterized by serious instability in behaviour,emotion,identity,and interpersonal relationships.

Accepted Answer

Antisocial personality disorder is characterized by a long-term pattern of disregard for, or violation of, the rights of others. A lack of empathy and a pattern of criminality or impulsivity are also hallmarks, not the instability in behavior, emotion, identity, and interpersonal relationships, which more closely describes Borderline Personality Disorder.

Question 19

One of the factors that typically underlie people's judgments of abnormality is how distressing a given behaviour is.

Accepted Answer

This statement is true. Many people consider a behaviour abnormal if it causes significant distress to the individual engaging in it or to those around them.

Question 20

The discovery of the cause of the disease general paresis was significant because it represented the first time that a psychological disorder had an identifiable physical cause.

Accepted Answer

The discovery of the cause of general paresis, which was due to syphilis infection, was significant because it demonstrated that a psychological disorder could have a physical cause. Prior to this, many believed that mental illnesses were solely a result of personal weakness or moral failings.

Quiz 16: Psychological Disorders