3.2.4.7.1 Biological explanation: hereditary factors and Kaij's twin study of alcohol abuse Quiz: AQA Psychology, Unit 8

The 20 questions

1. What is the biological explanation of addiction in the specification?

   • Learned behaviour from friends and peers in a social group only
   • Random exposure to advertising for drinks and other products in the media
   • Negative thinking patterns about the self that are formed in childhood
   • Hereditary factors or genetic vulnerability that may be passed on through families

2. What is genetic vulnerability?

   • A guarantee that a person will develop addiction at some point in their life
   • An inherited tendency that may make addiction more likely
   • A learned habit that can be unlearned completely within a single day
   • A protection that makes a person immune to all substances at any dose

3. What did Kaij's twin study examine?

   • The sleep patterns of twins during their teenage years at school
   • The effect of diet on the adult height of twins across generations
   • The number of neurons in the frontal lobes of twins in adulthood
   • The concordance of alcohol abuse in pairs of twins

4. Why are identical (monozygotic) twins useful in a study of hereditary factors?

   • They are always the same sex, which controls for differences in diet between the twins
   • They always live apart from birth, which removes all environmental influence from the study
   • They share no genes at all, so any similarity between them must come from learned behaviour
   • They share all of their genes, so higher concordance than non-identical twins suggests a genetic influence

5. Kaij's study found that identical twins were more likely than non-identical twins to share alcohol abuse. What conclusion is supported?

   • Genetic factors may contribute to alcohol abuse, though other factors may also play a part
   • Non-identical twins are always more alike than identical twins in every case
   • Alcohol abuse is never influenced by genes in any person or any family
   • Alcohol abuse is entirely caused by genetics with no other influence at all

6. What is a limitation of the twin study for explaining addiction?

   • Identical twins may also share similar environments, so environment cannot be fully ruled out
   • Twin studies only examine people who have never used a substance, so they cannot explain addiction
   • Twin studies cannot be used in psychology research because twins are too rare to recruit
   • Identical twins never share any environment at any point in their lives together

7. Which is a nature explanation of addiction?

   • Social rewards for drinking with friends at the local pub at night
   • Hereditary factors that make some people more vulnerable to developing addiction
   • Peer pressure encouraging use in a group setting over the weekend
   • Learning to use a substance from family members at home in childhood

8. A researcher finds that addiction runs in families but cannot separate genes from environment. Which concept is most relevant?

   • The difficulty of separating nature and nurture influences
   • The number of hours of sleep taken by adolescents during the school week
   • The thickness of the skull in adult participants of the study group
   • The strength of the magnetic field used in an fMRI scanner in the lab

9. Which statement best describes hereditary factors in addiction?

   • They are fixed events that occur after birth in the hospital ward
   • They are environmental factors that only affect the skin and the hair
   • They are inherited differences that can increase the risk of developing addiction
   • They are learned behaviours that children copy from their parents over time

10. Which design feature makes Kaij's study a comparison of genetic similarity?

    • Comparing the diets of two different countries across the same period
    • Comparing reaction times of siblings who were raised in separate homes
    • Comparing how often alcohol abuse occurs in identical and non-identical twin pairs
    • Comparing the brain scans of unrelated adults who have never met each other

11. Which evidence would most strongly support a hereditary explanation of alcohol abuse?

    • Concordance found only in people who never drink alcohol at all
    • Higher concordance in identical twins than in non-identical twins
    • Equal concordance among unrelated people who live in the same town
    • Higher concordance in non-identical twins than in identical twins

12. A biological explanation says addiction is caused by genetics. Which criticism is most appropriate?

    • It proves that addiction is caused by peer influence alone in every case
    • It may underestimate the role of learning and social influences
    • It has no evidence from any study to support it at all
    • It applies only to people who have never used a substance in their life

13. What is the nature/nurture debate in addiction?

    • Whether addiction is a physical injury or a skin condition of the body
    • Whether addiction develops only in cities or only in rural areas of the country
    • Whether addiction should be measured in hours or in minutes of use
    • Whether addiction is mainly due to inherited biology or learned experience

14. Which of the following is a hereditary factor that could influence addiction?

    • A holiday in a different country that the family took last summer
    • A broken arm from a sports injury that happened during a school match
    • A genetic vulnerability inherited from a parent
    • A new job that changes the person's daily routines over several weeks

15. Why might a researcher be cautious about concluding that genes cause alcohol abuse from twin data?

    • Twin data prove causation beyond any doubt in every family studied
    • Twin data are always identical to the results from brain scan studies
    • Twin data show an association and cannot fully rule out a shared environment
    • Twin data never involve any human participants at all in the research

16. What does 'concordance' mean in the context of Kaij's study?

    • The difference in height between the two twins at the same age
    • The extent to which both twins in a pair share the same trait or behaviour
    • The number of times the twins met each year for family events
    • The distance between the homes of the two twins in the study

17. Which statement about hereditary explanations is most accurate?

    • Inherited factors fully determine addiction in every case that is observed
    • Inherited factors have no influence on any behaviour in any person at all
    • Inherited factors only affect physical height and not behaviour or mood
    • Inherited factors can increase risk but do not determine addiction

18. A critic says twin studies assume identical twins share environments equally. What is the critic pointing to?

    • The sample size is always too large for the researchers to analyse fully
    • The equal environment assumption may not hold, so the results could be affected
    • The studies use only questionnaires about food and exercise habits
    • The participants are always too old to be tested in the study

19. Which best describes genetic vulnerability in addiction?

    • A total immunity that prevents any addiction from developing in the person
    • A learned response that changes completely after one week of practice
    • A guaranteed route to addiction for every person who uses any substance
    • A tendency that is inherited, making a person more susceptible under certain conditions

20. Why is it useful to combine biological and psychological explanations of addiction?

    • Each explanation covers different influences, so a fuller picture can be developed
    • Each explanation makes the other one unnecessary and should be dropped
    • Combining them removes the need for any evidence from research studies
    • Each explanation covers exactly the same single factor in the same way

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