Psychology Test - 24

Hypervigilance involves constantly scanning the environment for dangers.

Panic attacks typically occur in an unpredictable manner, often without an obvious trigger.

Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms vary widely but may include recurrent dreams, flashbacks, impaired concentration, and emotional numbing.

Schizophrenia is debilitating as it causes significant decline in personal, social, and occupational aspects of life due to symptoms like disturbed thinking and perception.

Gordon Willard Allport was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personality psychology.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a psychological test that assesses personality traits and psychopathology. It is primarily intended to test people who are suspected of having mental health or other clinical issues.

Comorbidity refers to the occurrence of 2 or more disorders at the same time.

All of the answers given above refer to factors associated with mental illness according to the biological models of mental disorders.

It is likely that mental illness results only when particular combinations of factors are present. This notion is at the heart of the diathesis–stress model of mental illness. The diathesis–stress model suggests that some people possess an enduring vulnerability factor (a diathesis) which, when coupled with a proximal (recent) stressor, results in psychological disorder.

Neither the diathesis nor the stressor alone is enough to lead to symptoms – both must be present. Diatheses and stressors can be defined broadly. For example, a genetic or biological predisposition to mental illness might be the diathesis, and a troubled parent–child relationship could be the stressor; or a dysfunctional pattern of thinking about the world can be the diathesis, and a major life event the stressor.

Causes of schizophrenia are likely to be genetic and biological factors – these account for our initial vulnerability to schizophrenia. It is clear that schizophrenia tends to be inherited. Moreover, several biological problems may cause schizophrenia, as various forms of brain dysfunction occur among sufferers, including enlarged ventricles, reduced blood flow to frontal brain regions and an excess of dopamine (Andreasen et al., 1992; Davis et al., 1991; Flaum et al., 1995). But we don’t know for sure whether these problems are a cause or a consequence of the disorder.

An early hypothesis of the ‘schizophrenogenic mother’ suggested that inadequate parenting causes schizophrenia (e.g. Arieti, 1955). There is absolutely no evidence of this, nor that any psychosocial factors (factors incorporating psychological, environmental and social factors that may play a role in psychopathology) cause schizophrenia. The evidence overwhelmingly points to genetic and biological factors as providing the initial vulnerability to schizophrenia; there is evidence, consistent with a diathesis–stress model, that psychological and social factors influence the course of schizophrenia, such as the timing of onset and the likelihood of relapse.