Psych 260 Ch 11 & 12 MU Quiz
This is a take-home, open book, essay quiz. You are to answer each of the following with adequate detail. In
most cases your answers will be one or more paragraphs in length. Short, overly concise answers will receive
little or no credit. Please submit your answers printed on separate paper.
1. Distinguish between cataclysmic events, personal stressors, and background stressors. Discuss the various
effects on stress and well-being associated with these different types of events. Illustrate your answer with
references to specific events you have experienced.
2. Define and describe PTSD. What are its symptoms? Review the prevalence of PTSD among veterans of the
Iraq wars and among New York City residents experiencing the 9/11 attacks.
3. Final exams: a stressor. Apply Selye's general adaptation syndrome to your experience in coping with finals
week or a similar set of exams. Be sure to name and describe all three stages of the syndrome.
4. Stress has many direct and indirect consequences resulting in potential declines. Identify two such effects.
Select one of these effects and describe in as much detail as you can how you would investigate it empirically
using correlational or experimental research techniques.
5. Define emotion-focused, problem-focused, avoidant, and proactive coping. Briefly describe your responses to
two stressors this past year; classify your responses as one of the coping types mentioned.
6. In one or two sentences each, describe hypothetical individuals displaying Type A, Type B, and Type D
behavior patterns. Discuss the association of Type A and Type D behavior patterns with negative health
consequences.
7. Does a positive attitude help one cope with cancer? Review the empirical evidence.
8. Quitting smoking: Review some of the approaches described in your text to help smokers quit cigarettes.
How successful are these methods overall? Which is the most successful? The least successful?
9. Distinguish between positively and negatively framed health messages. Illustrate with hypothetical health
messages as examples. When is each type of message most appropriate?
10. What makes behavior or thought abnormal? Review several of the criteria used to judge whether behavior is
abnormal. Using examples, indicate why any one of these criteria is by itself an insufficient definition of
abnormality.
11. Where does abnormality originate? Deep within? In our conscious thought or voluntary behavior? In the
environment or in society? Respond making explicit reference to at least two of the six major perspectives on
abnormality described in your text.
12. In several sentences, briefly describe the DSM-IV-TR. Identify several of its advantages, as well as some of
its potential shortcomings.
13. Describe two of the following anxiety disorders: phobic disorder, panic disorder, generalized anxiety
disorder, or obsessive compulsive disorder. Describe the potential origin and the treatment of anxiety disorders
from two of the following perspectives: medical, behavioral, or cognitive perspectives.
14. Psychologists representing virtually every perspective on abnormality have contributed to our understanding
of depression. Discuss major depression from three of the following perspectives with particular focus on its
origin and treatment: medical, evolutionary, behavioral, cognitive, or psychodynamic perspectives.
15. Schizophrenia: Nature and Nurture. Review the evidence for the contributions of nature on the one hand
and nurture on the other to schizophrenia. Outline psychology's current stance on the interaction between the
nature and nurture in the development of schizophrenia.
16. Describe what is meant by a personality disorder. Review the nature and potential bases of both antisocial
personality disorder and borderline personality disorder.
17. Select and briefly outline two of the perspectives on abnormality described in your text. Compare and
contrast the perspectives with respect to at least two of the major disorders described in your text.