Psych 220: Abnormal Psychology

Spring 2006

 

Essays for Exam 1

 

There will be a total of 8 essay questions for this exam.

 

Remember, four of these questions will be chosen for the exam.  You will have one hour and 15 minutes to complete all four essays.  You may use any materials you bring with you (your textbook, DSM, notes, etc.); no phone calls or text messages! 

 

When writing your answers, I am not your audience.  Imagine that you are writing for someone, like a friend, who is not familiar with any of this information. 

 

You may write out answers to some or all questions in advance.   If so, write (or, preferably, type) each one on a separate sheet (or separate sheets) of paper. 

 

Chapter 1:

 

1.      Joe drinks alcohol.  Construct a scenario in which his behavior meets the criteria for abnormality, and a scenario in which it doesn’t.  Be explicit in how his behavior meets/does not meet each of the criteria.

 

2.      Joe has depression.  Discuss how he may have been treated in prehistoric times through the major time periods as discussed in your text, ending with the present.  In your essay, imagine that Joe was treated by the major figures of those time periods (Hippocrates, Mesmer, Rush, Dix, etc.).
 

Chapter 2:

3. Choose a diagnosis from the DSM (you may use any diagnosis except OCD). Use the info from that diagnosis to illustrate your understanding of differential diagnoses, comorbid diagnoses, base rate, incidence, prevalence (including lifetime prevalence), age of onset, and course. Be sure to explain all of these concepts even if the diagnosis you choose does not address them all.  [NOTE: To answer this question, you will need to visit the library and view the large version of the DSM.]
    
4. Pick a psychological disorder. Create a 5-item questionnaire that would assess that disorder. Use your questionnaire to explain reliability and validity. How would you determine interrater, test-retest, and internal consistency reliability? How would you determine concurrent, predictive, content, and face validity? Be explicit in how you would do this for the psychological disorder you have chosen to assess. [NOTE: Five items is not enough to assess anything of this nature.  The items you create are not important; they exist only as a tool for you to explain reliability and validity.]

Chapter 3:

5. John and Candy have been married for a few years. Since Candy has recently begun attending college, John has been jealous of Candy's friendships with men in her classes. Explain how a therapist would view this problem from a Freudian psychoanalytic perspective. Then from Eriksson's psychosocial theory. From the behavioral perspective. And, finally, from the humanistic perspective.
    
6. Summarize the major pros and cons for each of the perspectives (psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic/existential). In your opinion, which one or ones have the most value for today's psychology? Explain your answer.

Chapter 4:

7. For each of the current perspectives (physiological, cognitive-behavioral, cognitive neuroscience, sociocultural, and evolutionary), describe how they view people (what "lens" do they look through), then describe how they approach treatment. [For this one, it might help to choose a particular disorder and think about those perspectives in terms of that disorder.]
    
8. Compare and contrast the traditional behavioral perspective with today’s cognitive-behavioral perspective. What are the similarities? Differences? Using depression as an example, how might Skinner have approached the treatment of depression? What treatments would Beck and Ellis suggest?