11. Emotional Behaviors

Question 1

How do the functions of the sympathetic nervous system differ from those of the parasympathetic nervous system?

a. The sympathetic system controls the left side of the body, and the parasympathetic system controls the right side.
b. The parasympathetic system controls the left side of the body, and the sympathetic system controls the right side.
c. The sympathetic system readies the body for emergency activities, and the parasympathetic activates digestive and other less urgent responses.
d. The parasympathetic system readies the body for emergency activities, and the sympathetic activates digestive and other less urgent responses.

Answer 1

c.The sympathetic system readies the body for emergency activities, and the parasympathetic activates digestive and other less urgent responses.

Question 2

What is the contribution of the sympathetic nervous system to emotions?

a. Sympathetic nervous system arousal is necessary and sufficient for an emotional experience.
b. Sympathetic nervous system arousal is necessary but not sufficient for an emotional experience.
c. Sympathetic nervous system arousal is sufficient but not necessary for an emotional experience.
d. Sympathetic nervous system arousal is neither necessary nor sufficient for an emotional experience but it contributes to the feeling aspect of an emotion.

Answer 2

d.Sympathetic nervous system arousal is neither necessary nor sufficient for an emotional experience but it contributes to the feeling aspect of an emotion.

Question 3

Which of the following causes a panic attack?

a. Lack of feedback to the brain from heartbeat and other autonomic responses.
b. Decreased heart rate in a situation that should call for heightened arousal.
c. Equal, simultaneous arousal of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
d. Intense, unexplained arousal of the sympathetic nervous system.

Answer 3

d.Intense, unexplained arousal of the sympathetic nervous system

Question 4

When researchers looked for brain areas associated with particular emotions, what did they find?

a. Each emotion is centered in a different brain area.
b. Anger is easy to localize in one brain area, but other emotions are not.
c. Happiness and sadness each depends on one brain area, but other emotions do not.
d. No brain area is responsible for one and only one

Answer 4

d.No brain area is responsible for one and only one

Question 5

What brain area is associated with the behavioral activation system and a tendency to approach?

a. The right hemisphere
b. The left hemisphere
c. The amygdale
d. The hippocampus

Answer 5

b.The left hemisphere

Question 6

When people consider a moral dilemma such as whether to push someone off a bridge to save five other people, which of the following correlates with a stronger tendency to agree to push the person?

a. Weaker autonomic arousal
b. Stronger autonomic arousal emotion.
c. Lower intelligence
d. Greater intelligence

Answer 6

a.Weaker autonomic arousal

Question 7

.Aggressive behavior correlates with high levels of testosterone and low levels of what?

a. Acetylcholine
b. Epinephrine
c. Cortisol
d. Potassium

Answer 7

c.Cortisol

Question 8

What does the level of 5-HIAA in the cerebrospinal fluid indicate?

a. The amount of serotonin in the neurons
b. The amount of turnover of serotonin in the brain
c. The ratio of serotonin to dopamine
d. The number of serotonin receptors

Answer 8

b.The amount of turnover of serotonin in the brain

Question 9

The less active form of the enzyme MAOA correlates with an increased probability of antisocial behavior for what type of people, if any?

a. Those with a history of childhood maltreatment
b. Those who do not have a history of childhood maltreatment
c. Women
d. None

Answer 9

a.Those with a history of childhood maltreatment

Question 10

Why do we know more about the brain mechanisms of fear and anxiety than we do about other emotions?

a. Clinical psychologists have greater interest in anxiety than in other emotions.
b. Anxiety depends on brain areas that are easier to reach surgically.
c. Unlike other emotions, anxiety depends on only a single neurotransmitter.
d. Researchers can more satisfactorily measure anxiety than other emotions in laboratory animals.

Answer 10

d.Researchers can more satisfactorily measure anxiety than other emotions in laboratory animals.

Question 11

.After damage to the amygdala, what happens to the startle reflex?

a. It becomes stronger than before.
b. It becomes weaker than before.
c. It disappears altogether.
d. It becomes more consistent from one time or situation to another.

Answer 11

d.It becomes more consistent from one time or situation to another.

Question 12

Suppose a researcher wants to determine whether someone is afraid of cats. Which of the following would be the most reasonable approach?

a. Present a photo of a cat and see whether it elicits a startle reflex.
b. Present a photo of a cat and then a loud sound. See whether the photo enhances the usual startle reflex.
c. Present a loud sound and then show a photo of a cat. See whether the photo calms the person after the startle reflex.
d. Present a loud sound to both a person and a cat and see which one shows the greater startle reflex.

Answer 12

b.Present a photo of a cat and then a loud sound. See whether the photo enhances the usual startle reflex.

Question 13

Research on the amygdala supports which of these psychological conclusions?

a. People who experience great fear also tend to experience a great amount of anger.
b. Anxiety disorders are more common in women than in men, and more common in young people than in older people.
c. What we call fear is a combination of several components, not an indivisible entity.

Answer 13

c.What we call fear is a combination of several components, not an indivisible entity.

Question 14

The amygdala responds more strongly to a fearful face looking toward you than a similar face looking to the side. What is the likely interpretation?

a. The stronger the viewer’s emotional response, the stronger the amygdala response.
b. The amygdala response is equally strong in the person making a fearful face and in the person viewing it.
c. Amygdala response indicates the effort needed to interpret emotional information.
d. The amygdala responds more strongly to familiar than to unfamiliar scenes.

Answer 14

c.Amygdala response indicates the effort needed to interpret emotional information.

Question 15

.Which brain area most strongly inhibits or modifies the response of the amygdala to a potentially threatening stimulus?

a. The prefrontal cortex
b. The cerebellum
c. The basal ganglia
d. The locus coeruleus

Answer 15

a.The prefrontal cortex

Question 16

People with amygdala damage have trouble recognizing expressions of fear. If you wanted to help such people recognize fear, which of the following should you ask them to change?

a. The direction they focus their eyes
b. The amount of protein in their diet
c. Their time of waking and sleeping
d. Their ratio of talking to listening

Answer 16

a.The direction they focus their eyes

Question 17

Of the people who endure traumatic experiences, which of the following are the most likely to develop PTSD?

a. The people who suffered the most severe traumas
b. The people who reacted most intensely to the trauma at the time and shortly after it
c. People with a smaller than average hippocampus
d. People with a larger than average hippocampus

Answer 17

c.People with a smaller than average hippocampus

Question 18

How does alcohol decrease anxiety?

a. By shifting blood flow from the left hemisphere to the right hemisphere
b. By increasing glutamate activity in the prefrontal cortex
c. By facilitating the effects of GABA on certain receptors
d. By inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin

Answer 18

c.By facilitating the effects of GABA on certain receptors

Question 19

Extinction of a learned response is most effective under which of these conditions?

a. If extinction occurs at a different time of day from the original learning
b. If extinction occurs a few minutes after a brief reminder of the original experience
c. If extinction occurs under the influence of a drug that increases protein synthesis
d. If extinction occurs in the presence of soft, soothing music

Answer 19

b.If extinction occurs a few minutes after a brief reminder of the original experience

Question 20

How does cortisol help the body deal with a stressful event?

a. It maintains the salt in the blood and therefore maintains blood volume.
b. It lowers body temperature.
c. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system.
d. It increases blood sugar, providing more energy.

Answer 20

d.It increases blood sugar, providing more energy.

Question 21

How do the functions of the HPA axis compare to those of the sympathetic nervous system?

a. The sympathetic nervous system readies the body for brief, vigorous action, and the HPA axis controls digestion and other vegetative activities.
b. The sympathetic nervous system activates the brain, and the HPA axis activates the rest of the body.
c. The sympathetic nervous system readies the body for brief, vigorous action, and the HPA axis prepares the body for prolonged coping with a persistent stressor.
d. The sympathetic nervous system is active during a stressful situation, and the HPA axis becomes active at the end of the stressful situation.

Answer 21

c.The sympathetic nervous system readies the body for brief, vigorous action, and the HPA axis prepares the body for prolonged coping with a persistent stressor.

Question 22

Why do nearly all infections produce similar symptoms, such as fever, sleepiness, and loss of energy?

a. Every infection damages the body’s ability to maintain body temperature and overall activity.
b. “Sickness behaviors” are an effective way for a sick person to gain sympathy and help.
c. Infectious particles clog the arteries, making it difficult for other chemicals to reach their targets.
d. The immune system sends prostaglandins to the brain, where they stimulate the hypothalamus to produce these effects.

Answer 22

d.The immune system sends prostaglandins to the brain, where they stimulate the hypothalamus to produce these effects

Question 23

What are the effects of stress on the immune system?

a. All stressful experiences impair the immune system.
b. Brief stress activates the immune system, but prolonged stress weakens it.
c. Brief stress weakens the immune system, but prolonged stress strengthens it.
d. All stressful experiences strengthen the immune system.

Answer 23

b.Brief stress activates the immune system, but prolonged stress weakens it.

Question 24

Prolonged stress is known to damage which brain area?

a. The visual cortex
b. The hippocampus
c. The cerebellum
d. The corpus callosum

Answer 24

b.The hippocampus

Question 25

What is the relevance of pure autonomic failure to the study of emotions?

Answer 25

People with pure autonomic failure do not react to events with changes in heart rate or other autonomic functions. They report still having emotional experiences but they do not feel them as strongly.

Question 26

How did researchers get people to smile or frown without using those words?

Answer 26

They got people to smile by telling them to hold a pen between their teeth. They got people to frown by attaching golf tees to their eyebrows and then telling them to keep the two tees touching each other.

Question 27

According to Lisa Barrett Feldman, why is it difficult to develop a scientific consensus about any theory of emotion?

Answer 27

Emotion is a socially constructed category that people find useful, but it does not correspond to any category that exists in nature.

Question 28

What evidence challenges the idea that we identify people’s emotions by their facial expressions?

Answer 28

Given a photo of a spontaneous facial expression, people usually see more than one emotion and often don’t see the emotion described by the person whose face was shown. Also, in everyday life we identify someone’s emotion by a combination of cues, including posture, context, gestures, and tone of voice.

Question 29

If brain damage impairs someone’s emotions, what happens to the person’s decision making?

Answer 29

After brain damage that impairs emotion, people make impulsive decisions, evidently because they do not quickly imagine how bad a poor decision might make them feel.

Question 30

What is one reason why testosterone levels correlate only weakly with human aggression levels?

Answer 30

Aggression depends on the ratio of testosterone to cortisol, not to testosterone alone.

Question 31

If we want to know how much serotonin the brain has been releasing, what should we measure?

Answer 31

We can measure the concentration of 5-HIAA, a serotonin metabolite, in the cerebrospinal fluid or other body fluids. The more 5-HIAA, the more serotonin has been released and presumably resynthesized.

Question 32

Given that monkeys with low serotonin turnover pick many fights and in most cases die young, what keeps natural selection from eliminating the genes for low serotonin turnover?

Answer 32

Although most monkeys with low serotonin turnover die young, many of the survivors achieve a dominant status that enables them to get more of the food and to reproduce more frequently. Monkeys with high serotonin turnover survive, but at the cost of accepting a low status.

Question 33

What relationship did Caspi et al. (2002) report between the enzyme MAOA and antisocial behavior?

Answer 33

Overall, people with genes for high or low production of MAOA do not differ significantly in their probability of antisocial behavior. However, among those who suffered serious maltreatment during childhood, people with lower levels of the enzyme showed higher rates of antisocial behavior.

Question 34

What brain mechanism enables the startle reflex to be so fast?

Answer 34

Loud noises activate a path from the cochlea to cells in the pons that trigger a tensing of neck muscles.

Question 35

How could a researcher use the startle reflex to determine whether some stimulus causes fear?

Answer 35

Present the stimulus before giving a loud noise. If the stimulus increases the startle reflex beyond its usual level, then the stimulus produced fear.

Question 36

What evidence indicates that amygdala activity corresponds to the effort needed for interpreting emotional information?

Answer 36

The amygdala responds more strongly to a fearful face directed at the viewer, rather than a similar face looking to the side. People usually find it easier to understand a fearful face looking to the side.

Question 37

What can we predict about someone if we know the strength of that person’s amygdala responses to upsetting pictures or loud noises?

Answer 37

People with a highly reactive amygdala are likely to report many negative emotional experiences during a day, to show strong responses to stressful experiences, and to favor strong reliance on military and police power.

Question 38

Why do people with amygdala damage have trouble recognizing expressions of fear?

Answer 38

They focus their vision on the nose and mouth. Expressions of fear depend almost entirely on the eyes.

Question 39

What evidence indicates that a smaller than average hippocampus makes people more vulnerable to PTSD?

Answer 39

On the average, PTSD victims have a smaller than average hippocampus. For those who have a monozygotic twin, the twin also has a smaller than average hippocampus, even if he or she does not have PTSD.

Question 40

What would be the effect of benzodiazepines on someone who had no GABA?

Answer 40

Benzodiazepines facilitate the effects of GABA, so a person without GABA would have no response to benzodiazepines

Question 41

Why is extinction more effective a few minutes after a brief reminder of the original learning?

Answer 41

The reminder brings the representation of the learning into a labile state from which it can be reconsolidated or extinguished.

Question 42

What kind of cell releases cytokines?

Answer 42

Leukocytes, which are part of the immune system, release cytokines.

Question 43

What changes do prostaglandins stimulate?

Answer 43

Prostaglandins stimulate the hypothalamus to produce fever, decreased hunger, decreased sex drive, and increased sleepiness.

Question 44

How do the effects of stress mimic the effects of illness?

Answer 44

Stress increases release of cytokines, which communicate with the hypothalamus via the vagus nerve and prostaglandins. The hypothalamus reacts with the same responses it uses to combat illness, such as inactivity and loss of appetite.

Question 45

How does prolonged stress damage the hippocampus?

Answer 45

Stress increases the release of cortisol, which enhances metabolic activity throughout the body. When neurons in the hippocampus have high metabolic activity, they become more vulnerable to damage by toxins or overstimulation.