Ch. 3: Diagnosis and Assessment Flashcards
____________ refers to consistency of measurement.
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.
_________________ refers to the degree to which two independent observers agree on what they have observed.
Inter-rater reliability
To take an example from baseball, two umpires may or may not agree as to whether the ball is fair or foul.
inter-rater reliability
____________________ measures the extent to which people being observed twice or taking the same test twice, perhaps several weeks or months apart, receive similar scores.
Test–retest reliability
_____________ is an essential property of all assessment procedures.
Reliability
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.
alternate-form reliability
______________________ assesses whether the items on a test are related to one another.
internal consistency reliability
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.
internal consistency reliability
unreliable measures will not have good __________.
validity
Reliability (consistency), however, does not guarantee ____________
validity (accuracy)
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.
criterion validity
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.
criterion validity
__________________ refers to whether a measure adequately samples the domain of interest.
Content validity
Construct validity
The extent to which scores or ratings on an assessment instrument relate to other variables or behaviors in accordance with theory.
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…
construct validity
A self-rated measure of depression is developed, and researchers then test whether it predicts other interview-based and self-rated measures of depression.
criterion validity
Diagnosis
The determination that the set of symptoms or problems of a patient indicates a particular disorder.
________ is the current diagnostic system of the American Psychiatric Association. It was published in ______.
DSM-5, 2013
The DSM-5 appendix includes nine _______________________ used to describe syndromes that are observed within specific regions of the world or cultural groups
cultural concepts of distress
The core symptoms of ______________ appear to be similar cross-culturally.
depression
Comorbidity
The co-occurrence of two disorders, as when a person has depression and social phobia.
The ________________ (short for Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology) focuses on how symptoms and syndromes co-occur, using data available from studies with thousands of patients.
HiTOP model
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 _____________________.
externalizing disorders
Similarly, anxiety disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depressive disorders, which often co-occur, could be considered to be ___________________________.
internalizing disorders
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.
Research Domain Criteria
There is often ________ research support for the DSM diagnostic threshold
little
In DSM-5, clinical diagnoses are based on __________________________.
categorical classification
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)
dimensional diagnostic system
What are three broad types of characteristics that a valid diagnosis should help predict?
any three of the following: etiology, course, social functioning, treatment
What are the chief ways in which the HiTOP model and the RDoC system differ from each other?
HiTOP focuses on overlap in symptoms and syndromes, whereas RDoC focuses on risk variables
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 ___________________.
standardization
The ____________________ is called multiphasic because it was designed to detect several psychological problems through their true or false replies to groups of statements.
MMPI-2-RF
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
Two measures commonly used to assess the big 5 are the ________________________ and the ___________________________.
NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI), Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2)
An ______________________, often referred to as an IQ test, is a way of assessing a person’s current cognitive ability.
intelligence test
_____________________ tests are often used to help pinpoint specific areas of cognitive functioning impairment.
Neuropsychological
____________________________ often involves direct observation of behavior, as in this case, where the observer is behind a one-way mirror.
Behavioral assessment
Experience sampling is also called _____________________________.
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.
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.
self-report questionnaires
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.
semistructured
Intelligence tests are highly __________.
reliable
Another brain-imaging technique, called _____________________, allows researchers to measure both brain structure and brain function.
functional MRI (fMRI)
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.
BOLD (blood oxygenation level dependent)
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.
fMRI
____________- 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
Positron, PET scan
In ____________________ assessment, physical changes in the body are measured. Skin _______________ can be measured with sensors on two fingers.
psychophysiological, conductance
What is the main limitation of correlational research?
It cannot determine cause and effect
Why might the placebo effect be getting stronger?
Beliefs that medications are getting more effective
Which type of test relies most heavily on ambiguous stimuli?
Projective tests
