Free Abnormal Psychology MCQs with Answers

• A. generalized anxiety disorder
• B. sociopathy
• C. psychosis
• D. a nervous breakdown

Explanation: Generalized anxiety disorder involves excessive and difficult-to-control worry about several areas of life for a prolonged period, often…

• A. focused on a specific situation
• B. related to ordinary life stresses
• C. greatly out of proportion to the situation
• D. based on a physical cause

Explanation: Anxiety disorders involve fear or worry that is excessive relative to the actual threat, often producing significant distress or…

• A. adolescents
• B. young adults
• C. the middle aged
• D. the elderly

Explanation: Schizophrenia most often begins in late adolescence or early adulthood, with onset generally earlier in males than females.

• A. Will have a 46 percent chance of becoming schizophrenic
• B. Will be no more likely than anyone else to become schizophrenic
• C. is almost sure to become schizophrenic
• D. is also likely to have more than one personality

Explanation: An identical twin of a person with schizophrenia has a substantially elevated risk, historically estimated at about 40 to 50 percent…

• A. as a result of combat exhaustion
• B. in adulthood as a response to unremitting phobias
• C. as a consequence of post - traumatic stress disorders
• D. in childhood as a result of unbearable experiences

Explanation: Dissociative identity disorder is usually linked to severe, repeated trauma or unbearable experiences during childhood, when dissociation…

• A. functional psychosis
• B. paranoia
• C. general paresis
• D. senile dementia

Explanation: Alzheimer’s disease progressively destroys memory and other cognitive abilities, commonly leading to senile dementia.

• A. Cognitive behavioural therapy
• B. Computerized brain tomography
• C. Complete behavioural therapy
• D. Comprehensive brain therapy

Explanation: CBT means cognitive behavioural therapy, which helps patients identify and modify negative thoughts and behaviours that maintain…

• A. use counterconditioning to reverse maladaptive behaviors
• B. help you discover the underlying cause of your aggressive behavior
• C. help you recognize and change negative thoughts and maladaptive beliefs
• D. provide a supportive emotional environment while allowing you to determine the pace and direction of your therapy

Explanation: Aaron Beck developed cognitive therapy, in which clients learn to identify and change distorted negative thoughts and maladaptive beliefs.

• A. After one panic attack
• B. When one gets scared in a new situation
• C. When it scares you
• D. After numerous disabling panic attacks

Explanation: Panic disorder involves recurrent, unexpected panic attacks, usually followed by persistent worry or avoidance; therefore a pattern of…

• A. physical or psychological abuse
• B. being cut off in rush hour
• C. smoking drinking/drugs
• D. fever

Explanation: Dissociative identity disorder has been strongly associated with severe physical or psychological abuse, especially during childhood.

• A. In early childhood
• B. At puberty
• C. After a head injury
• D. During adolescence

Explanation: People with body integrity identity disorder commonly report that the feeling of being an amputee began in early childhood, often before…

• A. Hair pulling
• B. Excessive need to check
• C. Excessive swearing
• D. Grinding one's teeth

Explanation: Trichotillomania is a body-focused repetitive behaviour involving recurrent hair pulling, often accompanied by mounting tension and relief…

• A. Dysthymia
• B. Major depression
• C. Bipolar disorder
• D. Psychotic depression

Explanation: Impulsive spending is a classic symptom of mania or hypomania, which occurs in bipolar disorder, especially during an elevated mood…

• A. Psychotic depression
• B. Major depression
• C. Dysthymia
• D. Bipolar disorder

Explanation: Psychotic depression is a severe depressive episode in which psychotic features, such as hallucinations or delusions, occur.

• A. a phobia is an irrational fear of an object or a situation
• B. It is possible to fear something that poses no real threat to the individual
• C. Phobias are a world - wide phenomenon
• D. All phobias are untreatable

Explanation: Phobias are excessive fears that can occur even when the feared object or situation poses little real danger, and they occur across…

• A. Somatic
• B. Thought broadcasting
• C. Persecutory
• D. Sensory

Explanation: Persecutory, somatic, and thought-broadcasting experiences are recognized forms of delusion in schizophrenia.

• A. Impaired social skills
• B. Affective flattening (lack of expression or emotion)
• C. Alogia (loss of speech)
• D. Hallucinations

Explanation: Positive symptoms add unusual experiences or behaviours to normal functioning, including hallucinations and delusions.

• A. EMDR
• B. virtual reality exposure therapy
• C. meta - analysis
• D. transference

Explanation: Eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR, uses guided bilateral eye movements while the client recalls distressing…

• A. transference
• B. stress inoculation training
• C. systematic desensitization
• D. ECT

Explanation: Systematic desensitization applies classical conditioning by pairing gradual exposure to a feared stimulus with relaxation, replacing the…

• A. client - centered therapy
• B. psychoanalysis
• C. systematic desensitization
• D. cognitive - behavior therapy.

Explanation: Having spouses restate one another's comments is a communication and cognitive restructuring exercise used in cognitive-behavior therapy…