Ch. 3: Diagnosis and Assessment

Question 1

____________ refers to consistency of measurement.

Answer 1

Reliability
An example of a reliable measure would be a wooden ruler, which produces the same value every time it is used to measure an object. In contrast, an unreliable measure would be a flexible, elastic-like ruler whose length changes every time it is used.

Question 2

_________________ refers to the degree to which two independent observers agree on what they have observed.

Answer 2

Inter-rater reliability

Question 3

To take an example from baseball, two umpires may or may not agree as to whether the ball is fair or foul.

Answer 3

inter-rater reliability

Question 4

____________________ measures the extent to which people being observed twice or taking the same test twice, perhaps several weeks or months apart, receive similar scores.

Answer 4

Test–retest reliability

Question 5

_____________ is an essential property of all assessment procedures.

Answer 5

Reliability

Question 6

Sometimes psychologists use two forms of a test rather than giving the same test twice, particularly when they are concerned that test takers might remember their answers from the first round of taking the test and aim merely to be consistent. This approach enables the tester to determine ___________________, the extent to which scores on the two forms of the test are consistent.

Answer 6

alternate-form reliability

Question 7

______________________ assesses whether the items on a test are related to one another.

Answer 7

internal consistency reliability

Question 8

For example, one would expect the items on an anxiety questionnaire to correlate with one another if they truly tap anxiety. A person who reports a dry mouth in a threatening situation would be expected to report increases in muscle tension as well, since both are common characteristics of anxiety.

Answer 8

internal consistency reliability

Question 9

unreliable measures will not have good __________.

Answer 9

validity

Question 10

Reliability (consistency), however, does not guarantee ____________

Answer 10

validity (accuracy)

Question 11

Perhaps the most common form of validity in developing tests is ___________________, which assesses whether test scores are correlated with scores on other tests designed to assess the same dimension.

Answer 11

criterion validity

Question 12

For example, scores on a new test designed to assess social anxiety ought to correlate with scores on other tests designed to measure social anxiety.

Answer 12

criterion validity

Question 13

__________________ refers to whether a measure adequately samples the domain of interest.

Answer 13

Content validity

Question 14

Construct validity

Answer 14

The extent to which scores or ratings on an assessment instrument relate to other variables or behaviors in accordance with theory.

Question 15

A measure of the tendency to blame oneself is developed, and researchers then test whether it predicts depression, whether it is related to childhood abuse, and whether it is related to less assertiveness in the workplace. Example of…

Answer 15

construct validity

Question 16

A self-rated measure of depression is developed, and researchers then test whether it predicts other interview-based and self-rated measures of depression.

Answer 16

criterion validity

Question 17

Diagnosis

Answer 17

The determination that the set of symptoms or problems of a patient indicates a particular disorder.

Question 18

________ is the current diagnostic system of the American Psychiatric Association. It was published in ______.

Answer 18

DSM-5, 2013

Question 19

The DSM-5 appendix includes nine _______________________ used to describe syndromes that are observed within specific regions of the world or cultural groups

Answer 19

cultural concepts of distress

Question 20

The core symptoms of ______________ appear to be similar cross-culturally.

Answer 20

depression

Question 21

Comorbidity

Answer 21

The co-occurrence of two disorders, as when a person has depression and social phobia.

Question 22

The ________________ (short for Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology) focuses on how symptoms and syndromes co-occur, using data available from studies with thousands of patients.

Answer 22

HiTOP model

Question 23

For example, adult antisocial personality disorder, alcohol use disorder, and substance use disorder co-occur so often that they could be considered different manifestations of one underlying vulnerability and jointly labeled as disinhibited _____________________.

Answer 23

externalizing disorders

Question 24

Similarly, anxiety disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depressive disorders, which often co-occur, could be considered to be ___________________________.

Answer 24

internalizing disorders

Question 25

the National Institute of Mental Health has developed the ___________________________. To develop new ways of classifying psychological disorders based on behavioral and neurobiological dimensions related to risk for psychopathology.

Answer 25

Research Domain Criteria

Question 26

There is often ________ research support for the DSM diagnostic threshold

Answer 26

little

Question 27

In DSM-5, clinical diagnoses are based on __________________________.

Answer 27

categorical classification

Question 28

a _________________________ describes the degree to which an entity is present (e.g., a 1-to-10 scale of anxiety, where 1 represents minimal and 10, extremely severe)

Answer 28

dimensional diagnostic system

Question 29

What are three broad types of characteristics that a valid diagnosis should help predict?

Answer 29

any three of the following: etiology, course, social functioning, treatment

Question 30

What are the chief ways in which the HiTOP model and the RDoC system differ from each other?

Answer 30

HiTOP focuses on overlap in symptoms and syndromes, whereas RDoC focuses on risk variables

Question 31

Personality tests are a type of self-report questionnaire that include statements to assess behavioral and emotional tendencies. When these tests are developed, they are typically administered to many people to analyze how certain kinds of people tend to respond. Statistical norms for the test can thereby be established. This process is called ___________________.

Answer 31

standardization

Question 32

The ____________________ is called multiphasic because it was designed to detect several psychological problems through their true or false replies to groups of statements.

Answer 32

MMPI-2-RF
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

Question 33

Two measures commonly used to assess the big 5 are the ________________________ and the ___________________________.

Answer 33

NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI), Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2)

Question 34

An ______________________, often referred to as an IQ test, is a way of assessing a person’s current cognitive ability.

Answer 34

intelligence test

Question 35

_____________________ tests are often used to help pinpoint specific areas of cognitive functioning impairment.

Answer 35

Neuropsychological

Question 36

____________________________ often involves direct observation of behavior, as in this case, where the observer is behind a one-way mirror.

Answer 36

Behavioral assessment

Question 37

Experience sampling is also called _____________________________.

Answer 37

ecological momentary assessment (EMA)
With EMA, a person is signaled (via text message or smartphone alert most typically) several times a day and asked to enter responses directly into the device.

Question 38

In addition to personality tests, mental health professionals use other _____________________ to assess a person’s internal experiences of emotion, thoughts about the self, past experiences, or symptoms.

Answer 38

self-report questionnaires

Question 39

Stress is best assessed via a _______________ interview that captures the importance of any given life event in the context of a person’s life circumstances, as is done with the LEDS.

Answer 39

semistructured

Question 40

Intelligence tests are highly __________.

Answer 40

reliable

Question 41

Another brain-imaging technique, called _____________________, allows researchers to measure both brain structure and brain function.

Answer 41

functional MRI (fMRI)

Question 42

fMRI measures blood flow in the brain, using what is called the ______________________ signal. As neurons fire, presumably blood flow increases to that area. Therefore, blood flow in a particular region of the brain is a reasonable proxy for neural activity in that brain region.

Answer 42

BOLD (blood oxygenation level dependent)

Question 43

With ________________, researchers can measure how brain activity changes when a person is doing different tasks, such as viewing an emotional film, completing a memory test, looking at a visual puzzle, or hearing and learning a list of words.

Answer 43

fMRI

Question 44

____________- emission tomography, which yields a _______________, is a more invasive procedure that also allows measurement of both brain structure and brain function, although the measurement of brain structure is not as precise as with MRI or fMRI

Answer 44

Positron, PET scan

Question 45

In ____________________ assessment, physical changes in the body are measured. Skin _______________ can be measured with sensors on two fingers.

Answer 45

psychophysiological, conductance

Question 46

What is the main limitation of correlational research?

Answer 46

It cannot determine cause and effect

Question 47

Why might the placebo effect be getting stronger?

Answer 47

Beliefs that medications are getting more effective

Question 48

Which type of test relies most heavily on ambiguous stimuli?

Answer 48

Projective tests