Mind, Brain and Behaviour 2: Personality, Social, Developmental, and Clinical Psychology

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering Clinical, Personality, Social, and Developmental Psychology from Mind, Brain and Behaviour 2.

How does the World Health Organization (WHO) define mental health?

• State of well-being that enables individuals to cope with stress, realize abilities, learn and work effectively, and contribute to community life

• Operates on a complex continuum rather than merely the absence of illness

How does the DSM-5-TR define a mental disorder?

• Syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbances in cognition, emotion regulation, or behaviour

• Reflects underlying psychological, biological, or developmental dysfunction

• Typically associated with significant distress or impairment across personal, social, or occupational functioning

According to the DSM-5-TR, what experiences or behaviours are specifically excluded from being classified as mental disorders?

• Expectable or culturally approved reactions to common stressors or loss (e.g., bereavement)

• Socially deviant behaviour and conflicts primarily between the individual and society (unless stemming from internal dysfunction)

What two criteria define a mental disorder under Jerome Wakefield's Harmful Dysfunction Analysis (HDA)?

• Dysfunction: Failure of an internal neurobiological or mental mechanism to perform its naturally evolved function

• Harm: Negative consequences produced by this failure as judged by cultural and societal standards

What is 'concept creep' as defined by Haslam and Jackson (2022)?

• Progressive expansion of clinical concepts to describe milder, ordinary experiences

• Examples: expanding 'depression' to normal sadness and 'trauma' to general emotional upset

What are the relative clinical advantages of categorical versus dimensional models of psychopathology?

• Categorical: Provides administrative utility for dichotomous decisions and simplifies communication

• Dimensional: Accurately reflects continuous boundaries with normality, detects incremental change, and targets specific symptoms

What is a 'clinical picture' in clinical psychology, and what three vital functions does it serve?

• Clinical picture: Dynamic synthesis of a client's symptoms, behaviours, history, environment, and thinking

• Three functions:

  • Differential diagnosis: rules out look-alike disorders

  • Case formulation: explains underlying causal mechanisms ('why')

  • Treatment planning: guides tailored intervention strategies

What are the components of the '4P' model of case formulation?

• Predisposing: Lifetime vulnerabilities increasing susceptibility

• Precipitating: Immediate triggers initiating the current problem

• Perpetuating: Ongoing factors maintaining symptoms

• Protective: Client strengths and supports aiding recovery

In the Australian First Nations Model of Social and Emotional Wellbeing, what seven domains of connection surround the self?

• Body

• Mind and emotions

• Family and kinship

• Community

• Culture

• Country

• Spirit, spirituality, and ancestors

What central critiques did anti-psychiatry theorists such as Thomas Szasz and R. D. Laing advance?

• Thomas Szasz: Mental illness is a myth because no biological disease entity has been identified

• R. D. Laing: Psychiatry pathologizes understandable human distress caused by adversity

• Foucault & Goffman: Psychiatry operates as an instrument of social control enforcing conformity

What is the Mad Pride movement?

• Social and political movement challenging psychiatric human rights abuses, discrimination, and stigma

• Reclaims pejorative terms and celebrates madness as a legitimate personal identity (paralleling LGBTIQA+ Pride)

What humoral theory did Hippocrates propose to explain mental and physical pathology, and how did he conceptualise 'hysteria'?

• Humoral theory: Disease stems from an imbalance of four humours (blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile)

• Hysteria: A female condition attributed to a 'wandering womb,' treated with marriage, pregnancy, and scent therapy

What key empirical evidence contributed to the American Psychiatric Association removing homosexuality from the DSM on December 15, 1973?

• Kinsey Reports: Showed high prevalence of homosexual behaviour ($37\%$ of men had homosexual encounters to orgasm)

• Evelyn Hooker: Found no difference in psychological adjustment between homosexual and heterosexual individuals via objective testing

What is a culture-bound syndrome, and what is an example described among Aboriginal Australian populations?

• Culture-bound syndrome: Invariant symptom cluster recognized as an illness within a specific cultural group

• Example: 'Longing for country' (Tracy Westerman), featuring physical illness, spiritual distress, dissociative fugue, and identity confusion due to separation from land

What are the four primary domains of mental health stigma identified by the Lancet Commission (Thornicroft et al., 2022), plus the fifth intersecting domain?

• Public: Stereotypes, prejudice, and social avoidance

• Internalised: Applying negative societal attitudes to oneself

• Stigma by association: Negative attitudes transferred to family and carers

• Structural: Institutional discrimination in laws, policies, and practices

• Intersectional: Compounding interaction of mental health stigma with other marginalisations (e.g., racism)

What is the theorised social cognitive pathway through which public stigma produces discriminatory behaviour?

• Cognitive cue: Diagnostic signal triggers a stereotype (e.g., 'dangerous')

• Affective response: Stereotype produces prejudice (e.g., fear)

• Behavioural intention: Emotional reaction drives discrimination (e.g., social distance)

What is 'Corrigan's Paradox' regarding internalised stigma?

• Individuals react to stigma in divergent ways: damaged self-esteem, righteous anger/protest, or indifference

• Moderated by stereotype awareness, personal agreement, and group identification

What is the basic premise of the diathesis-stress model of mental disorders?

• Disorders arise from the joint effect of underlying vulnerability (diathesis) and environmental stress

• No disorder appears without a diathesis; higher diathesis lowers the stress threshold required to trigger illness

What are the four core dimensions of schizotypy that act as a personality vulnerability to schizophrenia?

• Social anhedonia

• Physical anhedonia

• Perceptual aberration

• Magical thinking

What specific personality diatheses correspond to anorexia nervosa, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and panic disorder?

• Anorexia nervosa: Perfectionism

• Bipolar disorder: Hypomanic temperament

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder: Thought-action fusion

• Panic disorder: Anxiety sensitivity

What are the three clusters of DSM-5 personality disorders and their defining descriptors?

• Cluster A (Odd/eccentric): Paranoid, Schizoid, Schizotypal

• Cluster B (Dramatic/emotional/erratic): Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, Narcissistic

• Cluster C (Anxious/fearful): Avoidant, Dependent, Obsessive-Compulsive

What are the core DSM-5-TR diagnostic criteria for Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)?

• Criterion A: $\ge 2$ distinct personality states with marked disruption in sense of self and agency

• Criterion B: Recurrent memory gaps inconsistent with normal forgetting

• Criterion C: Clinically significant distress or functional impairment

• Criteria D & E: Not culturally sanctioned, and not caused by substances or medical conditions

How do Traumatic Developmental Theory and Sociocognitive Theory differ in explaining Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)?

• Traumatic Developmental: Defensive coping adaptation to severe early childhood trauma that compartmentalizes unintegrated memories into distinct identities

• Sociocognitive: Socially created artifact shaped by therapist suggestion, media portrayals, and cultural role expectations

What distinguishes positive symptoms from negative symptoms in schizophrenia?

• Positive symptoms: Excesses or distortions of normal functioning (e.g., hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech)
• Negative symptoms: Deficits or absences of normal functioning (e.g., avolition, alogia, anhedonia, affective flattening)

Define tangentiality and loose associations in formal thought disorder.

• Tangentiality: Wandering onto related topics without ever directly answering the initial question
• Loose associations: Abrupt shifts between thoughts linked only by tenuous, superficial, or unrelated connections

What are the Criterion A symptom requirements for a DSM-5-TR diagnosis of Schizophrenia?

• At least $2$ of the following present for $1$ month (must include at least one of 1, 2, or 3):
  1. Delusions
  2. Hallucinations
  3. Disorganised speech
  4. Grossly disorganised or catatonic behaviour
  5. Negative symptoms

What were Eugen Bleuler's 'Four As' representing the primary symptoms of schizophrenia?

• Association: Disorganized, broken logical links in thinking
• Affect: Blunted, flattened, or inappropriate emotional expression
• Ambivalence: Simultaneous presence of contradictory emotions or desires
• Autism: Withdrawal into an inner fantasy world detached from reality

What are the established environmental and social risk factors for schizophrenia?

• Urban upbringing: Approximately $2\text{-fold}$ increased risk
• Migration: Elevated risk, especially in second-generation migrants facing discrimination
• Expressed Emotion (EE): High family hostility, criticism, and over-involvement predicting relapse
• Adolescent cannabis use: Significantly elevates risk in genetically vulnerable individuals

What structural brain alterations are consistently observed in neuroimaging studies of schizophrenia?

• Enlarged fluid-filled cerebral ventricles
• Reduced grey matter volume (prefrontal cortex, temporal lobes, hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus)
• Disrupted white matter structural connectivity

What does Anthony Morrison's cognitive model propose regarding the maintenance of auditory hallucinations and delusions in psychosis?

• Intrusive thoughts or perceptions are misinterpreted as dangerous or externally generated
• Threatening appraisals trigger anxiety and safety behaviours that maintain and intensify psychotic symptoms

What are the three core structural levels of cognition identified in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)?

• Automatic thoughts: Rapid, situation-specific thoughts or images near awareness
• Intermediate beliefs: Conditional rules, assumptions, and attitudes
• Core beliefs: Deep, rigid views regarding the self, others, and the world

What are the three sequential phases in CBT for depression?

• Phase 1: Psychoeducation and behavioural activation (activity scheduling, sleep hygiene)
• Phase 2: Cognitive restructuring and problem-solving (identifying automatic thoughts, Socratic questioning)
• Phase 3: Relapse prevention (identifying warning signs, creating crisis plans)

How did Theophrastus (319 BC) characterize human personality?

• Outlined distinct moral character types (e.g., the Flatterer, Boor, Obnoxious Man)
• Questioned why individuals sharing identical climate and education display widely differing characters

What criteria define 'personality' in modern psychology?

• Enduring, broad psychological differences across time and situations
• Characteristic dispositions in thinking, feeling, and behaving
• Excludes cognitive abilities and temporary states

What emotional reactions correspond to the four quadrants of Fiske's Stereotype Content Model?

• High Warmth, Low Competence: Pity
• High Warmth, High Competence: Admiration
• Low Warmth, Low Competence: Disgust
• Low Warmth, High Competence: Envy

What is the lexical approach to personality, and what were the stages of its development from Allport & Odbert to the Big Five?

• Lexical premise: Fundamental differences are encoded in natural language
• Allport & Odbert: Extracted $17{,}953$ terms, reduced to $4{,}504$ traits
• Cattell: Grouped into $171$ clusters, reduced via factor analysis to $16$ factors
• Fiske: Demonstrated the $16$ factors condense into $5$ core dimensions

What are the Big Five personality factors and the six lower-level facets of Neuroticism?

• Big Five: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism (OCEAN)
• Neuroticism facets: Anxiety, Depression, Hostility, Self-consciousness, Impulsiveness, Vulnerability

What was Walter Mischel's (1968) 'situationist' critique of trait psychology, and what evidence did it cite?

• Critique: Cross-situational trait consistency is weak; trait-behaviour correlations rarely exceed $r = 0.30$
• Evidence: Hartshorne & May (1928) observed children's honesty correlated at only $r = 0.26$ across settings
• Conclusion: Situations dictate behaviour rather than global traits

How does trait psychology resolve Mischel's critique of behavioural inconsistency?

• Interactionism: Behaviour reflects the interaction of personal traits and situations
• Density distributions: Traits represent distributions of behavioural states over time
• Aggregation: Single acts correlate weakly ($r < 0.30$), but aggregate behaviours over time correlate strongly ($r > 0.50$)

What are McAdams' three levels of personality?

• Level 1 (Dispositional traits): Broad, decontextualized traits (e.g., Big Five)
• Level 2 (Characteristic adaptations): Context-specific goals, values, and coping mechanisms
• Level 3 (Life stories / narratives): Integrative self-narratives providing purpose and identity

What is the typical range of heritability estimates ($h^2$) for Big Five personality traits in adult twin and adoption studies?

• Range: $0.30$ to $0.50$
• Meaning: $30\%$ to $50\%$ of population variance in traits is attributable to genetic differences

What has behavioural genetics revealed about the relative contributions of shared versus non-shared environmental influences on adult personality?

• Shared environment: Accounts for nearly $0\%$ of adult trait variance (e.g., family SES, parenting style)
• Non-shared environment: Accounts for substantial variance ($\approx 50\%$; e.g., peer groups, illness, unique life events)

What are the neurobiological mechanisms underlying Extraversion and Neuroticism in Jeffrey Gray's reinforcement sensitivity theory?

• Extraversion: Behavioural Activation System (BAS); dopamine-driven reward sensitivity and approach behaviour
• Neuroticism: Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS); norepinephrine/threat-driven punishment sensitivity and avoidance

What does a low second-to-fourth digit (2D:4D) ratio reflect, and what behavioral traits does it correlate with?

• Biological marker: Higher prenatal testosterone exposure (longer ring finger relative to index finger)
• Men: Higher physical aggression and stereotypically masculine interests
• Women: Higher reactive and indirect aggression

What are personal constructs according to George Kelly (1955)?

• Bipolar cognitive dimensions (e.g., warm vs. cold) actively created to perceive, interpret, and anticipate events
• The idiosyncratic organization of these constructs constitutes personality

Which combination of attributional dimensions for negative events defines a 'pessimistic attributional style'?

• Internal: Attributing adverse outcomes to personal flaws
• Stable: Expecting the cause to persist indefinitely
• Global: Believing the cause undermines all areas of life

What are the four branches of Emotional Intelligence (EI)?

• Perceiving emotion: Accurately detecting emotions in self and others
• Using emotion: Directing emotions to facilitate thinking
• Understanding emotion: Comprehending emotional transitions and relationships
• Managing emotion: Regulating emotions in self and interpersonal interactions

What is the key psychometric limitation of the Implicit Association Test (IAT)?

• Weak single-session re-test reliability relative to explicit self-reports
• High susceptibility to transient situational shifts rather than capturing stable traits

What did Walter Mischel's marshmallow delay of gratification study at age 4 predict in follow-ups across the lifespan?

• 11–14 years: Higher planfulness, stress tolerance, and SAT scores
• 30 years: Lower Body Mass Index (BMI)
• 40 years: Greater regulatory capacity and neural self-control

What is the difference between rank-order stability and mean-level change in personality development?

• Rank-order stability: Consistency of an individual's relative standing compared to peers over time
• Mean-level change: Population-wide shifts in average trait scores across developmental stages

How do mean levels of the Big Five personality traits change over the adult lifespan according to longitudinal meta-analyses (Graham et al., 2020)?

• Declines: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness decrease in older age
• Stability: Agreeableness remains relatively constant across adulthood

How does self-construal differ between independent and interdependent cultures (Markus & Kitayama, 1991)?

• Independent (Individualist): Autonomous entity motivated by internal traits, personal goals, and uniqueness
• Interdependent (Collectivist): Connected entity embedded in relationships, prioritizing social harmony and duties

What did Ma & Schoeneman (1997) discover when administering the 'Who Am I?' test to Kenyan undergraduates versus traditional Maasai herders?

• Kenyan undergraduates: Predominantly used personal traits and preferences ($\approx 60\%$)
• Maasai herders: Overwhelmingly referenced social roles, kinship, and community duties ($\approx 80\%$)

What is the Sociometer Hypothesis proposed by Mark Leary (1995)?

• Self-esteem functions as an internal psychological gauge tracking social acceptance and belonging
• Drops in self-esteem alert individuals to social exclusion, motivating them to restore bonds

In Abraham Tesser's Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model, what dictates whether another's success results in 'reflection' (BIRG-ing) or 'comparison'?

• Self-relevance of the domain:
  • Low relevance: Leads to reflection / BIRG-ing (basking in reflected glory)
  • High relevance: Triggers upward social comparison, lowering self-evaluation

What did the Alameda County study (Berkman & Syme, 1979) reveal regarding social integration and mortality?

• 9-year prospective study of $6{,}928$ adults
• Individuals with the fewest social ties had significantly higher mortality rates from all causes, across all ages and genders

What were the findings of Willis and Todorov (2006) regarding snap judgements of faces?

• Exposure times as brief as $100\,\text{ms}$ yielded trait ratings (e.g., trustworthiness, competence)
• Ratings correlated strongly ($r = 0.50$ to $0.75$) with unconstrained time judgments

How is an overall impression calculated using the Weighted Average Model?

• Multiply each trait value ($V$) by its weight ($W$), sum these products, and divide by the total number of traits or weights:   $\frac{\sum (V \times W)}{N}$

In Stanley Milgram's baseline obedience study, what percentage of naive participants delivered electric shocks up to the maximum 450-volt ('XXX') level?

• Actual compliance: $68\%$ of participants administered shocks up to the maximum $450\,\text{V}$ level
• Psychiatrists' prediction: Predicted fewer than $1\%$ would comply fully

What is the psychological mechanism underlying the Foot-in-the-Door technique versus the Door-in-the-Face technique?

• Foot-in-the-door: Commitment and consistency; agreeing to an initial small request alters self-image to encourage compliance with a larger request
• Door-in-the-face: Norm of reciprocity; scaling down an extreme refused request is viewed as a concession requiring reciprocation

What did Solomon Asch's (1956) line-judging study demonstrate regarding majority conformity?

• $75\%$ of participants conformed to the unanimous incorrect majority at least once
• Conformity occurred on approximately one-third ($33\%$) of all critical trials

What were the results of Batson et al.'s (1983) experiment testing genuine altruism versus personal distress?

• Personal distress motive: Participants avoided shocks when escape was easy (only $\approx 18\%$ helped)
• Empathic concern motive: Participants agreed to take shocks for the confederate even when escape was easy ($\approx 82\%$)

What three psychological processes explain the bystander effect (Latané & Darley)?

• Diffusion of responsibility: Presence of others dilutes individual moral accountability
• Pluralistic ignorance: Bystanders misinterpret other onlookers' passivity as a sign that the situation is safe
• Evaluation apprehension: Fear of social embarrassment inhibits taking action

What behaviour is demonstrated by participants choosing payoff pairs in a Tajfel matrix within the Minimal Group Paradigm?

• Prioritize relative ingroup gain over absolute ingroup profit
• Willingly forfeit larger payoffs to maximize the advantage gap over the outgroup

What is the difference between hostile sexism and benevolent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 2001)?

• Hostile sexism: Blatant, antagonistic beliefs viewing women as manipulative or seeking power over men
• Benevolent sexism: Subjectively positive, chivalrous attitudes framing women as pure and fragile, reinforcing traditional subordinate roles

What are Piaget's four stages of cognitive development?

• Sensorimotor stage ($0$ to $2$ years)

• Preoperational stage ($2$ to $7$ years)

• Concrete Operational stage ($7$ to $12$ years)

• Formal Operational stage ($12$ years and up)

How was the classical Intelligence Quotient (IQ) formula calculated?

• $\text{IQ} = \frac{\text{Mental Age}}{\text{Chronological Age}} \times 100$
• Mental Age: Average peer age scoring at that performance level
• Chronological Age: Actual age of the child

What did Judith Kearins (1981) discover regarding visual-spatial memory in Indigenous Australian desert children compared to European Australian children?

• Indigenous children scored significantly higher ($\approx 80\%$ vs. $56\text{--}61\%$ accuracy)
• Used silent, deliberate spatial scanning, whereas European children used hasty verbal-rehearsal strategies

What did Chen, Mo, & Honomichl (2004) find regarding cultural folklore analogues and insight problem solving?

• Chinese students solved the 'Statue Problem' via the Cao Chong elephant weighing analogue
• American students solved the 'Cave Problem' via the Hansel and Gretel pebble trail analogue
• Shows that familiar cultural folklore serves as cognitive source analogues for novel problem-solving

What was the critical gene-environment interaction identified by Caspi et al. (2002) regarding the MAOA gene?

• Low MAOA activity: Childhood maltreatment significantly elevated the risk of adult antisocial behaviour
• High MAOA activity: Buffered against maltreatment, conferring resilience against antisocial outcomes

What are the three forms of gene-environment correlation (rGE) described by Scarr and McCartney?

• Passive rGE: Parents provide both shared genes and compatible rearing environments
• Evocative rGE: A child's genetically influenced traits evoke distinct reactions from others
• Active rGE (niche-picking): A child actively selects environments congruent with genetic predispositions