Categories of Psychological Disorders (College Board AP® Psychology): Flashcards

Environmental risk factors for ADHD include prenatal exposure to tobacco smoke or alcohol, low birth weight, and premature birth.

Positive symptoms of schizophrenia are excesses or distortions in behavior, thought, or perception, such as delusions and hallucinations.

Negative symptoms of schizophrenia are deficits or reductions in behavior, thought, or emotion, such as flat affect and avolition.

A delusion of persecution is the false belief that one is being watched, followed, plotted against, or persecuted by others.

True.

Auditory hallucinations, particularly hearing voices that others cannot hear, are the most common type experienced.

Incoherent speech that strings together grammatically connected but meaningless words is called word salad.

Avolition is a negative symptom involving reduced motivation and an inability to initiate goal-directed activities.

True.

Negative symptoms are often more disabling long term, as they significantly impair daily functioning and respond less well to treatment.

The dopamine hypothesis proposes that schizophrenia involves dysregulation of dopamine, particularly excess activity linked to positive symptoms.

Antipsychotic drugs that block dopamine receptors reduce positive symptoms, and drugs that raise dopamine, such as L-Dopa or amphetamines, can trigger psychotic symptoms.

Children whose mothers contracted a viral infection during the second trimester of pregnancy show higher rates of schizophrenia.

False.

Below-100% concordance shows environmental factors also contribute, but higher concordance in identical than fraternal twins still supports a genetic component.

People with schizophrenia tend to show enlarged ventricles, suggesting reduced brain tissue, along with altered connectivity in cognitive and emotional regions.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) involves one or more major depressive episodes lasting at least two weeks, with at least five symptoms present.

False.

MDD is one of the most common mood disorders, not the most common psychological disorder overall.

Diagnosis of MDD requires at least five symptoms present during the same two-week period.

Anhedonia is the loss of interest or pleasure in almost all activities that were previously enjoyable.

Persistent depressive disorder (PDD) is a chronic form of depression with symptoms similar to, but less intense than, MDD, persisting for at least two years.

False.

Periods of normal mood last no more than two months during the two-year period for a PDD diagnosis.

The cognitive triad involves negative thoughts about the self, the world, and the future.

Repeated experience of uncontrollable negative events can lead to learned helplessness, a generalized expectation that effort is futile.

Depression is linked to low levels of serotonin and norepinephrine, supported by the effectiveness of SSRIs and SNRIs.

True.

Avoidance behavior is maintained because withdrawing from activities removes opportunities for positive reinforcement, deepening the depressive cycle.

Cultural norms shape how depression is expressed and whether it is recognized and treated, contributing to higher prevalence in the United States.

Mania is a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood and increased energy, with symptoms such as grandiosity and risky behavior.

Hypomania is a less severe form of mania that does not cause marked impairment, require hospitalization, or include psychotic features.

True.

Bipolar I is diagnosed from at least one full manic episode lasting at least one week, or one severe enough to require hospitalization.

Bipolar II disorder requires at least one hypomanic episode and at least one major depressive episode, but no full manic episodes.

Bipolar II is often misdiagnosed as MDD because its hypomanic episodes are less severe and may go unnoticed by the person or clinician.

True.

Flight of ideas describes thoughts that race rapidly between topics with little logical connection during mania.

Dopamine activity is elevated during manic phases of bipolar disorder, and reduced during depressive phases.

Bipolar disorder is among the most genetically influenced of all psychological disorders, with higher concordance in identical than fraternal twins.

True.

Antidepressants alone can trigger manic episodes in people with bipolar disorder, so they are generally avoided without a mood stabilizer.

Bipolar disorder is typically treated with mood-stabilizing medications, such as lithium, often combined with psychotherapy.

The diathesis-stress model explains bipolar disorder as strong genetic heritability (diathesis) interacting with stressful life events to trigger episodes in vulnerable individuals.

Agoraphobia is intense fear of situations where escape may be difficult or help unavailable, such as crowds or public transportation.

False.

Agoraphobia is fear of situations where escape may be difficult, such as crowds or public transit; fear of judgment defines social anxiety disorder.

Generalized anxiety disorder is prolonged, excessive, and uncontrollable anxiety about a wide range of everyday events and activities.

A panic attack is an abrupt surge of intense fear that reaches a peak within minutes.

Ataque de nervios is a culture-bound variant of panic disorder, experienced mainly by people of Caribbean or Iberian descent, involving uncontrollable shouting and crying.

Taijin kyofusho centers on fear that one's body or behavior will embarrass or discomfort others, rather than fear of embarrassing oneself.

True.

Avoiding the feared stimulus brings temporary relief, which negatively reinforces the avoidance and maintains the disorder.

Self-focused attentional bias is a cognitive pattern in social anxiety where a person focuses on their own performance and assumes others are judging them negatively.

Low levels of GABA, an inhibitory neurotransmitter that normally produces calm, are associated with anxiety disorders.

Biological preparedness is the predisposition to fear evolutionarily relevant threats, such as snakes or heights, explaining why some phobias are more common than others.

True.

Diagnosis requires cultural sensitivity, as applying Western criteria without cultural awareness can lead to misdiagnosis.

Obsessions are intrusive, unwanted, and persistent thoughts or images that cause marked anxiety.

Compulsions are repetitive behaviors or mental acts performed to reduce the anxiety caused by obsessions.

To meet the diagnostic criteria for OCD, obsessions or compulsions must be time-consuming, taking up more than one hour per day.

Intrusive fears of germs, dirt, or illness are a common OCD obsession known as contamination obsessions.

True.

Thought-action fusion is a cognitive distortion in OCD where a person believes that merely thinking about an act makes it equivalent to doing it, or more likely to occur.

Hoarding disorder is distinguished from OCD by being driven by difficulty with attachment to possessions and decision-making, rather than by obsessions and compulsions.

Hoarding disorder is characterized by persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their value, leading to cluttered, unusable spaces.

Dysregulation of serotonin is linked to OCD, supported by the effectiveness of SSRIs as a treatment.

True.

OCD is associated with overactivity in the orbitofrontal cortex-striatum circuit, which normalizes with successful treatment.

Compulsions are maintained through operant conditioning because they are negatively reinforced, as they temporarily reduce anxiety.

The OCD cycle runs obsession, anxiety, compulsion, temporary relief, and then the obsession returns.

Dissociation is a disconnection from one's thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity.

The four symptom clusters of PTSD are re-experiencing, avoidance, negative alterations in cognition and mood, and alterations in arousal and reactivity.

Dissociative amnesia is an inability to recall important autobiographical information, usually traumatic or stressful, with no neurological cause.

False.

A fugue state involves the person losing memory and leaving their normal life, often traveling away and establishing a new identity.

In dissociative identity disorder, the two or more distinct personality states that take control of behavior are called alters.

A case of DID described as iatrogenic means the disorder was created by therapy rather than representing a genuine underlying dissociation.

Hypervigilance is being constantly on alert for danger, a symptom within the arousal and reactivity cluster of PTSD.

The psychodynamic explanation holds that the mind responds by splitting consciousness entirely, so separate identity states develop to manage different traumatic experiences.

False.

Avoidance is maintained because not accessing the traumatic memory reduces anxiety, negatively reinforcing the pattern of memory avoidance.

High cortisol levels disrupt the functioning of the hippocampus, impairing the encoding and retrieval of traumatic memories.

Lack of social support after trauma is one of the strongest predictors of PTSD development.

A flashback is a vivid, involuntary reliving of the traumatic event as though it is happening again in the present.

A personality disorder is an enduring, pervasive, and inflexible pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving that deviates from cultural expectations and causes clinically significant distress or impairment.

Personality disorders are organized into Cluster A (odd or eccentric), Cluster B (dramatic, emotional, or erratic), and Cluster C (anxious or fearful).

Paranoid personality disorder involves an unjustified distrust and suspicion of others, such as believing without sufficient basis that others are exploiting or deceiving them.

Borderline personality disorder involves instability in relationships, identity, and mood, along with an intense fear of abandonment.

A person with narcissistic personality disorder shows grandiosity, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy.

False.

People with antisocial personality disorder are aware of others' feelings; they often use this awareness manipulatively.

The key feature of histrionic personality disorder is excessive emotionality and attention-seeking.

Unlike OCD, where obsessions and compulsions are ego-dystonic, a person with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder sees their need for order and control as desirable.

Avoidant personality disorder involves social inhibition and feelings of inadequacy, where the person desires close relationships but avoids them for fear of rejection.

Reduced levels of serotonin are linked to impulsivity and aggression in antisocial and borderline personality disorders.

True.

Adverse childhood experiences shape emotional regulation and interpersonal patterns, and are particularly linked to borderline and antisocial personality disorders.

The diathesis-stress model explains borderline personality disorder through genetic vulnerability to emotional dysregulation combined with childhood trauma or invalidating environments.

Anorexia nervosa is characterized by restriction of energy intake leading to significantly low body weight, an intense fear of gaining weight, and a distorted body image.

The two subtypes of anorexia nervosa are the restricting type and the binge-eating/purging type.

True.

Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychological disorder, driven by severe medical consequences such as malnutrition and cardiac arrhythmias.

Bulimia nervosa is characterized by recurrent binge eating with a sense of loss of control, followed by compensatory behaviors to prevent weight gain.

Compensatory behaviors in bulimia nervosa include self-induced vomiting, misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas, fasting, and excessive exercise.

Bulimia nervosa is distinguished from anorexia nervosa because people with bulimia are often within the normal weight range, making the disorder less visible.

Overevaluation of body weight and shape is a pattern in bulimia nervosa where a person's self-worth is strongly tied to their appearance.

False.

Avoidance of feared foods is negatively reinforced because it reduces anxiety, maintaining restrictive eating patterns.

Dysregulation of serotonin affects mood, appetite, and impulse control in both anorexia and bulimia nervosa.

Purging helps maintain the binge-purge cycle because it temporarily relieves the guilt and physical discomfort of the binge.

Eating disorders are significantly more prevalent in cultures with strong sociocultural pressure to be thin.