Lesson 5.1.6

5.1.6 Individual and developmental differences in mental health Quiz: Pearson Edexcel Psychology, Unit 5

20 questions

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Lesson 5.1.6, Individual and developmental differences in mental health: 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. According to the specification, which kind of explanation for schizophrenia can affect development?

    • An explanation that ignores all biological factors
    • A purely social explanation based on classroom behaviour
    • A genetic or biochemical explanation
    • An explanation based only on personal values of the clinician

  2. Which statement best describes how culture can affect mental health diagnosis?

    • Culture has no measurable effect on how disorders are recognised
    • The same pattern of symptoms may be diagnosed differently in different cultures
    • Diagnosis is based only on brain scans in every culture
    • Every mental disorder has identical symptoms in all societies

  3. What is meant by individual differences in mental health?

    • Consistent differences between the two main diagnostic manuals in how they name disorders and their subtypes
    • Identical symptoms shown by all patients who share a diagnosis, regardless of age, culture or history
    • Variation between people in their vulnerability to, and experience of, mental disorders
    • The fixed order of developmental stages that children pass through, which is the same for every child

  4. What does the reliability of a diagnosis describe?

    • The time taken for a clinician to reach a diagnosis
    • The extent to which a diagnosis measures the disorder it claims to measure
    • The number of symptoms a patient reports in an interview
    • The consistency with which different clinicians or occasions give the same diagnosis

  5. What does the validity of a diagnosis describe?

    • The length of time a patient is kept under observation before a formal diagnosis is recorded in notes
    • The percentage of patients who recover fully after a course of treatment within the first year
    • The extent to which a diagnosis actually measures the disorder it claims to measure
    • The consistency with which two clinicians give the same diagnosis to the same patient on the same day

  6. Which classification systems for mental disorders are named in the specification?

    • Bowlby's monotropy theory and the PHQ-8
    • Strange Situation categories and the DSM-II
    • HCPC guidelines and the BPS Code of Ethics
    • DSM (IV-TR or V) and ICD

  7. Why do classification systems such as DSM and ICD need periodic revision?

    • Only to keep pace with changes in printing technology and the cost of producing the manual each year
    • To remove all biological explanations from the diagnostic criteria so that the manual is purely social
    • Because most mental disorders have been shown by recent research not to exist as separate conditions
    • Scientific understanding and social views of disorders change over time, so categories are updated

  8. A clinician uses a diagnosis that is applied differently by each assessor. Which property is most clearly lacking?

    • Reliability
    • Ecological validity
    • Validity
    • Generalisability

  9. A diagnostic test identifies 80% of people who truly have a disorder. Of 200 people with the disorder, how many would the test correctly identify?

    • 120
    • 40
    • 180
    • 160

  10. A clinician and a colleague diagnose 100 patients and agree on 70 of them. What is the percentage agreement?

    • 85 per cent
    • 70 per cent
    • 30 per cent
    • 50 per cent

  11. A study finds 12 cases of a disorder in a sample of 400 people. What is the prevalence?

    • 3 per cent
    • 0.3 per cent
    • 12 per cent
    • 33 per cent

  12. A researcher wants to see how a developmental difference in mental health emerges within the same people over ten years. Which design is most suitable?

    • A laboratory experiment with random allocation
    • A meta-analysis of published studies
    • A cross-sectional design
    • A longitudinal design

  13. A researcher compares teenagers with and without an early genetic risk at a single point in time. What is the main weakness of this design for claims about development?

    • The sample of teenagers is always too large to analyse with the statistical tests available in a study
    • Genetic risk cannot be measured reliably in adolescents, so no comparison of the two groups is possible
    • Different age cohorts may differ for reasons other than development, so the comparison cannot show change over time
    • Participants cannot be asked about their symptoms in a single session, so the data are always incomplete

  14. A study reports that a disorder is diagnosed more often in one gender. Which factor most threatens the conclusion that the disorder is genuinely more common in that gender?

    • The use of a two-tailed significance level rather than a one-tailed level when testing the difference
    • A sample size of more than one hundred people, which makes the diagnostic rates unreliable overall
    • The use of a questionnaire rather than a structured interview to collect the diagnostic information
    • Differences in help-seeking or diagnostic practice that make one group more likely to be diagnosed

  15. A clinician labels a child's behaviour as a disorder early on. Which risk does the specification's emphasis on labelling most directly raise?

    • The label will always be reversed by the next assessment, so no lasting effect on the child occurs
    • The child will automatically receive a higher number of diagnoses from every other clinician they meet
    • The clinician will be legally required to change the diagnosis once a parent has objected in writing
    • The label may create stigma and expectations that shape how the child is treated and how they behave

  16. Why might a standardised structured interview be used when comparing diagnosis across cultures?

    • To guarantee that all participants receive the same diagnosis at the end of the assessment process
    • To reduce interviewer variation so that differences found reflect real cultural differences rather than inconsistency
    • To make participants feel more comfortable and relaxed with the clinician who is conducting the session
    • To allow the clinician to add new symptoms to the interview as the conversation develops naturally

  17. Which evaluation of culture-specific diagnostic criteria is the most balanced?

    • They always make diagnosis perfectly accurate for every society, whatever its history or language
    • They may improve validity for a culture but can reduce comparability across studies and clinicians
    • They have no effect on comparability because the symptoms of disorders are universal across cultures
    • They should be abandoned because all disorders are universal and identical across every society

  18. Explaining schizophrenia purely through genes is open to criticism as reductionist. What would a holistic account add?

    • A replacement of the diagnostic manual with a single symptom checklist used by every clinician
    • The social, cultural and developmental factors that interact with genetic vulnerability
    • Only a larger number of genetic markers measured in the same sample of patients and controls
    • A purely neurological account with no environmental factors, focused on brain structure alone

  19. A test has sensitivity of 80% and specificity of 90%. In a population of 1000 where the prevalence is 10%, what proportion of positive results are true positives?

    • About 47 per cent
    • About 90 per cent
    • About 53 per cent
    • About 80 per cent

  20. A study applies one diagnostic criterion to 500 patients and finds 40 positives. The true prevalence is 5 per cent. Which statement is correct?

    • The true prevalence must be 40 per cent because there were 40 positives in the sample of 500 people
    • The observed rate of 8 per cent matches the true prevalence exactly, so the criterion is accurate here
    • The observed positive rate of 8 per cent exceeds the true prevalence, so the test may over-identify cases
    • The result shows the criterion has perfect validity because it identified every positive case found

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