Lesson 5.1.2

5.1.2 Schizophrenia: symptoms and explanations Quiz: Pearson Edexcel Psychology, Unit 5

20 questions

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Lesson 5.1.2, Schizophrenia: symptoms and explanations: 20 multiple choice questions for the Pearson Edexcel Psychology (9PS0), Unit 5: Clinical psychology, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. Which of these is a positive symptom of schizophrenia?

    • Alogia, which is a reduction in the amount of speech produced by a person in their everyday conversations
    • Flat affect, which is a reduced range of emotional expression shown through the face and voice of the person
    • Avolition, which is a lack of motivation to start or continue goal-directed activity in everyday life
    • Hallucinations, which are perceptions such as hearing voices that occur in the absence of an external stimulus

  2. What is thought insertion, as a symptom of schizophrenia?

    • The belief that the person's thoughts are being broadcast to a radio station, which they then hear through the speakers
    • The belief that thoughts are being placed into the mind by an outside agency, so the thoughts do not feel one's own
    • The belief that thoughts are being removed from the mind by a clinician, leaving the person with no memory of events
    • The belief that the person can read the minds of others, which is an accurate perception of other people's intentions

  3. Which symptom is a delusion, rather than a hallucination?

    • Seeing a figure in the corner of the room that others cannot see when they look in the same direction at the time
    • Hearing a voice that speaks to the person when no one else is in the room and the person is alone in the house
    • A fixed false belief, such as believing that one is being followed by agents, despite clear evidence against it
    • Feeling an unusual taste in the mouth when no food or drink has been consumed by the person at that point

  4. Which symptom refers to disorganised speech or thinking?

    • Anhedonia, in which the person is unable to experience pleasure from activities that they would usually enjoy
    • Hypomania, in which the person has periods of elevated mood with increased energy and reduced need for sleep
    • Flat affect, in which emotional expression is reduced so that the person appears emotionally unresponsive to others
    • Disordered thinking, in which thoughts and speech become disjointed, illogical or hard to follow for listeners

  5. What is the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia?

    • The idea that excess dopamine activity in certain brain pathways is linked to positive symptoms such as hallucinations
    • The idea that dopamine is a hormone produced by the thyroid, which causes the thinking disturbances seen in patients
    • The idea that dopamine is produced only in the spinal cord, so brain activity has no effect on schizophrenic symptoms
    • The idea that a lack of serotonin in the frontal lobes is the only cause of hallucinations, with no role for dopamine at all

  6. Which evidence supports the dopamine hypothesis?

    • Drugs that reduce dopamine always make hallucinations worse, which proves that dopamine is needed to prevent psychosis
    • Drugs that block serotonin have no effect on any symptom, which shows that dopamine must be the only neurotransmitter involved
    • Drugs that increase thyroid hormone reduce all symptoms completely, which shows dopamine has no role in schizophrenia at all
    • Drugs that increase dopamine activity can produce psychotic-like symptoms, and drugs that block dopamine can reduce them

  7. Which is a biological explanation of schizophrenia other than the dopamine hypothesis?

    • Learned helplessness, since patients learn to expect failure and so withdraw from social activity in their daily life
    • Social class, since people in lower social classes are the only group who develop schizophrenia in any society
    • Genetic inheritance, since the risk of schizophrenia is higher in people with a close relative who has the disorder
    • Parental discipline, since strict parents are the only cause of schizophrenia, with no biological factors involved at all

  8. Which non-biological explanation of schizophrenia is most associated with family factors?

    • The structural brain theory, which proposes that enlarged ventricles are the only cause of hallucinations in the patient
    • The double-bind theory, in which contradictory messages from a parent may contribute to confusion and disordered thinking
    • The genetic theory, which proposes that a single gene directly produces the thinking disturbance seen in the disorder
    • The dopamine hypothesis, which proposes that the brain's dopamine system is the sole cause of schizophrenia in every case

  9. What is the main idea of the stress-vulnerability model in schizophrenia?

    • Schizophrenia is caused only by the id, which is triggered by a rest period that allows the unconscious mind to express itself
    • Schizophrenia is caused only by stress, with no role for any biological vulnerability or inherited predisposition at all
    • A person may have a biological vulnerability, and stress from the environment may trigger the onset of symptoms
    • Schizophrenia is caused only by vulnerability, with stress having no role in triggering the onset of any symptoms

  10. Which brain change is linked to schizophrenia in some research?

    • Increased grey matter in every region of the brain, which is found in all patients and healthy people alike
    • Enlarged ventricles, which are fluid-filled spaces in the brain that are larger on average in some patients
    • Increased size of the spinal cord, which has been shown to predict hallucinations in every patient in research studies
    • Reduced blood flow to the feet, which is the main structural change found in patients with the disorder in research

  11. Which evaluation point about the dopamine hypothesis is most accurate?

    • It applies only to animals, so it cannot be used to explain the symptoms seen in human patients in any clinical setting
    • It has been disproved by every study, so no researcher uses it when explaining schizophrenia in any current research
    • It fully explains all symptoms of schizophrenia, including negative symptoms such as flat affect, in every patient
    • It is supported by drug evidence, but it cannot fully explain negative symptoms or every case, so it is incomplete

  12. Which feature of schizophrenia is a negative symptom?

    • Avolition, which is a reduced drive to initiate activities, such as personal hygiene, work or social contact
    • Hallucinated voices, which speak to the person and comment on their behaviour when they are alone in a room
    • Thought insertion, which is the sense that thoughts are being placed into the mind by an external force or person
    • Delusions of persecution, which are fixed false beliefs that other people are plotting to harm the person in daily life

  13. Which statement best describes the difference between positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia?

    • Positive symptoms add experiences or behaviour not normally present, while negative symptoms reduce normal functions
    • Positive symptoms and negative symptoms are identical in their effect on the person, so the distinction has no clinical value
    • Positive symptoms are always physical, while negative symptoms are always mental, so the two types never occur together at all
    • Positive symptoms reduce normal functions, while negative symptoms add experiences that are not normally present in the person

  14. A researcher finds that family members who express high levels of criticism are linked to relapse in schizophrenic patients. What does this suggest?

    • That family criticism causes schizophrenia directly, so families are the only cause of the disorder in every patient studied
    • That family criticism proves the dopamine hypothesis is wrong, since no family factor can ever influence the brain at all
    • That family environment may contribute to relapse, although the finding is correlational and does not show that criticism causes relapse
    • That family criticism has no link to relapse, since schizophrenia is entirely determined by the patient's genes at birth

  15. Which genetic evidence is commonly cited for schizophrenia?

    • Concordance rates are the same in monozygotic and dizygotic twins, which shows that genes have no role in schizophrenia
    • Concordance rates are highest in unrelated people in the general population, which shows that the disorder is never inherited
    • Concordance rates are higher in monozygotic twins than in dizygotic twins, suggesting a genetic component to the disorder
    • Concordance rates are highest in adopted children raised in isolation from any family, which proves a purely social cause

  16. Which statement about the stress-vulnerability model is an evaluation point?

    • It rejects all biological explanations, which means it cannot explain why some people with stress never develop schizophrenia
    • It integrates biological and environmental explanations, but vulnerability and stress are hard to measure
    • It is an explanation based only on the id, so it cannot be tested with any scientific method in psychology at any time
    • It has no evidence to support it, since no research has ever studied the interaction between genes and stress in patients

  17. A patient with schizophrenia reports hearing voices commenting on their actions. Which symptom category is this?

    • A positive symptom, specifically a hallucination, because the patient perceives voices that are not produced by an external source
    • A negative symptom, specifically flat affect, because the patient is not showing emotion when reporting the voices to others
    • A cognitive symptom only, because voices are always produced by the patient's own unconscious mind, not by perception at all
    • A negative symptom, specifically avolition, because the patient has lost motivation to speak to others during the voice episodes

  18. A critic of the dopamine hypothesis argues that drugs that block dopamine do not work for all patients. What does this suggest?

    • That the patients who do not respond must have been given the wrong dose, which proves that dopamine is the only cause
    • That dopamine may not be the only factor, and other biological or psychological factors may contribute to symptoms
    • That the drugs must be placebos, since they cannot have any effect on dopamine activity in any patient in any setting
    • That dopamine is irrelevant to all of schizophrenia, so the hypothesis should be abandoned completely by researchers

  19. Which statement best describes the biological explanations of schizophrenia in relation to the non-biological ones?

    • Both explanations have been disproved, so schizophrenia has no accepted explanation at all in current psychology
    • Biological explanations have been proved and non-biological ones disproved, so only biological explanations are now used
    • Biological and non-biological explanations are both proposed, and each has evidence, but they are not mutually exclusive
    • Non-biological explanations have been proved and biological ones disproved, so the biological ones are never considered today

  20. Which evaluation point applies to the use of non-biological explanations such as the double-bind theory?

    • They may have limited research support, and it can be difficult to show that family communication causes the disorder
    • They are only relevant to animals, so they cannot be applied to human families or to the development of schizophrenia in any form
    • They are fully supported by brain scans, which show that double-bind communication directly changes the structure of the brain
    • They are based on the genes of the child, so they do not involve any family process or interaction in the home at all

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