Lesson 4.3.5.4

4.3.5.4 The interactionist approach and the diathesis-stress model Quiz: AQA Psychology, Unit 3

20 questions

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Lesson 4.3.5.4, The interactionist approach and the diathesis-stress model: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA Psychology (7182), Unit 3: Issues and options in Psychology, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. In the diathesis-stress model, what does the diathesis refer to?

    • A stressful life event that directly causes the first hallucinations in adulthood
    • An inherited or biological predisposition that makes a person vulnerable to schizophrenia
    • A learned pattern of avoidance behaviour acquired during childhood
    • The drug dose needed to suppress positive symptoms in adult patients

  2. What does the stress component of the diathesis-stress model refer to?

    • The side effects produced by atypical antipsychotic medication in patients
    • The genetic code passed from parent to child without any modification over generations
    • Raised dopamine levels in the striatum when a person is at rest
    • Environmental triggers, such as life events or family pressures, that bring out the symptoms

  3. Which term describes an approach that sees nature and nurture interacting to cause schizophrenia?

    • The psychodynamic approach
    • The behaviourist approach
    • The interactionist approach
    • The biological reductionist approach

  4. Why is the diathesis-stress model described as interactionist?

    • It proposes that social learning alone explains why schizophrenia develops in adults
    • It proposes that a predisposition and environmental stress together determine whether schizophrenia develops
    • It proposes that a dopamine imbalance alone causes schizophrenia to develop at any age
    • It proposes that genes alone fully determine whether schizophrenia develops in a person

  5. According to the diathesis-stress model, when is a person most likely to develop schizophrenia?

    • When they take typical antipsychotic drugs for a long period of time
    • When a strong predisposition meets enough environmental stress to pass their vulnerability threshold
    • When they have no genetic relatives who have ever been diagnosed with the disorder
    • When their dopamine levels are at their lowest point in the course of a day

  6. Which statement best describes a limitation of the diathesis-stress model?

    • It ignores any role for inherited vulnerability in the development of schizophrenia altogether
    • It claims that stress alone is always sufficient to cause schizophrenia in adults
    • It has shown that stress reduction alone cures schizophrenia in most patients who are treated
    • It does not specify precisely how much stress is needed to trigger schizophrenia in a particular person

  7. Which treatment is consistent with an interactionist view of schizophrenia?

    • Removing all environmental stressors and withholding all medication from the patient
    • Using aversion therapy to suppress hallucinations and delusions directly in patients
    • Relying only on surgical reduction of neural activity in the brain of the patient
    • Combining antipsychotic drugs with cognitive behaviour therapy or family therapy

  8. Ravi has a strong family history of schizophrenia but lives in a low-stress environment and has shown no symptoms. Which interpretation best fits the diathesis-stress model?

    • Low stress proves that he has no predisposition whatsoever to the disorder
    • Without enough stress to exceed his threshold, the predisposition may never produce symptoms
    • The model predicts he will definitely develop symptoms before the age of eighteen
    • His genes have been shown to be irrelevant to his risk of developing schizophrenia

  9. A patient's symptoms worsened after a bereavement, although she had no earlier diagnosis. Which explanation fits the diathesis-stress model?

    • Bereavement reduces dopamine activity and so always produces delusions in adults
    • Her symptoms prove the disorder is entirely learned through observing others
    • The bereavement must have caused a permanent genetic mutation in her neurons
    • The bereavement may have acted as a stressor that triggered an existing vulnerability

  10. Identical twins share their genes, but only one develops schizophrenia. Which feature of the interactionist approach best explains this?

    • The twin who develops the disorder must have a dopamine receptor the other does not
    • The genes must have differed at conception even though the twins are identical
    • Identical twins always develop the same mental disorder, so the difference must be measurement error
    • Differences in environmental stress and experiences can lead to different outcomes despite shared genes

  11. A clinician wants a treatment that addresses both biological vulnerability and life stress in schizophrenia. Which combination is most consistent with the interactionist approach?

    • Medication alone, since environmental stress has no role in the course of the disorder
    • Aversion therapy alone to unlearn any link between stress and the symptoms
    • Family therapy alone, since biology has no role in the course of the disorder
    • Antipsychotic medication alongside family therapy to reduce stress within the household

  12. Concordance for schizophrenia is higher in MZ twins than in DZ twins but well below 100% in MZ twins. Which conclusion is best supported?

    • Schizophrenia is caused entirely by the environment, with genes playing no role at all
    • Schizophrenia is determined entirely by genes, so the environment has no effect whatsoever
    • Genetic factors contribute to risk, but environmental factors must also contribute to whether the disorder develops
    • The concordance difference shows that MZ twins are always exposed to more stress than DZ twins

  13. In a study, people with high vulnerability scores reported schizophrenia-like experiences only when they also reported high recent life stress. What does this pattern most directly support?

    • A conclusion that the measures are unreliable because both factors were involved
    • A main effect of predisposition alone, with stress making no difference to outcomes
    • A main effect of stress alone, with the predisposition making no difference to outcomes
    • An interaction between predisposition and stress, as the diathesis-stress model predicts

  14. A family therapy programme reduces hostile criticism in the home for a patient who also takes antipsychotics. Which model predicts a lower risk of relapse?

    • The diathesis-stress model, since reducing a stressor can lower the chance of symptoms breaking through
    • The ethological model, since family conflict only affects non-human animals in the wild
    • The biological reductionist model alone, since stress is not linked to symptoms at all
    • The dopamine hypothesis alone, since family environment has no effect on dopamine activity

  15. A patient has a high diathesis. Which change would the diathesis-stress model predict to reduce the likelihood of symptoms?

    • Lowering the level of environmental stress the patient experiences in daily life
    • Increasing the hours spent in unstructured and unsupervised activity each day
    • Ensuring the patient has no contact with any family members whatsoever
    • Increasing the dose of stimulant drugs that raise dopamine activity in the brain

  16. Which argument best evaluates the diathesis-stress model against a purely biological explanation of schizophrenia?

    • It removes the need for biological evidence, since environment is the only real cause
    • It accounts for why not everyone with a genetic risk develops the disorder, which genetics alone cannot explain
    • It shows schizophrenia can be cured by reducing life stress without any medication at all
    • It proves genetic explanations are wrong, since stress is always more important than genes

  17. Why is the diathesis-stress model difficult to test?

    • Predisposition and stress are both hard to measure precisely, so the threshold at which they interact is hard to specify
    • The model makes only one prediction, and every study has always confirmed it in full, with no exceptions across any population tested
    • The model is based on a single controlled experiment with a very large sample, which means its findings can be applied without any reservation
    • The model relies only on case studies of people with no family history of the disorder, so its claims cannot be generalised to anyone else

  18. A patient is more likely to relapse in a home with high expressed emotion. Which argument best supports adding family therapy to medication under the diathesis-stress model?

    • Family therapy has no effect on symptoms, so medication is the only useful intervention available and the home environment can be ignored safely
    • Family therapy changes the patient's genes so that medication is no longer needed at all, and the vulnerability is removed permanently for life
    • Family therapy lowers a stressor that could push a predisposed patient over their threshold, and medication treats the vulnerability
    • Family therapy only works for patients who have no biological vulnerability to the disorder, so it is rarely useful in any clinical setting at all

  19. Why might a given amount of stress be more powerful for someone with a high diathesis than for someone with a low diathesis?

    • A person with a high diathesis has a lower threshold, so a smaller amount of stress can be enough to produce symptoms
    • A person with a low diathesis is more sensitive to stress than someone with a high diathesis, because their threshold is always lower in general
    • A person with a high diathesis has no threshold at all, so stress always has the same effect on them whatever their genetic predisposition is
    • Stress has no effect on people with genetic predispositions, so their threshold is irrelevant to whether symptoms appear over time in practice

  20. A study finds that a predisposition measure predicts schizophrenia onset only in adults who experienced childhood adversity. Which conclusion best reflects the interactionist basis of the diathesis-stress model?

    • Childhood adversity alone is sufficient, so the predisposition measure must be invalid
    • Adversity causes the predisposition, so only adversity needs to be targeted in treatment
    • The predisposition measure is the sole cause, and adversity has no effect on onset
    • Predisposition and adversity jointly increase risk, so neither factor alone fully accounts for onset

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