EPPP Cognitive-Affective Behavior Bases 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: The somatic marker hypothesis, proposed by Damasio, suggests that decision-making is guided by:
- Pure rational cost-benefit analysis in the prefrontal cortex
- Bodily emotional signals that tag choices with positive or negative valence (Correct answer)
- Declarative memory retrieval from the hippocampus
- Dopaminergic reward prediction error signals exclusively
Correct answer: Bodily emotional signals that tag choices with positive or negative valence
Damasio proposed that somatic markers — body-based emotional signals — bias decisions by flagging options as advantageous or dangerous before full rational analysis.
Question 2: Which defense mechanism involves attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts or impulses to another person?
- Reaction formation
- Displacement
- Projection (Correct answer)
- Rationalization
Correct answer: Projection
Projection is the defense mechanism of attributing one's own unacceptable impulses, feelings, or thoughts to someone else.
Question 3: Research on the affect heuristic indicates that people's judgments of risk and benefit are most strongly shaped by:
- Statistical base-rate information
- Their immediate emotional response to a stimulus (Correct answer)
- Deliberate analytical reasoning
- Prior behavioral reinforcement history
Correct answer: Their immediate emotional response to a stimulus
The affect heuristic shows that positive or negative feelings toward an object drive risk-benefit judgments more powerfully than objective data.
Question 4: According to the mood-congruent memory effect, individuals in a depressed mood are most likely to:
- Recall positive autobiographical memories to restore balance
- Recall negative autobiographical memories consistent with their mood (Correct answer)
- Show enhanced recall of neutral information only
- Demonstrate no systematic bias in memory retrieval
Correct answer: Recall negative autobiographical memories consistent with their mood
Mood-congruent memory refers to the tendency to more easily recall memories that match one's current emotional state.
Question 5: Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) was specifically developed to prevent relapse in:
- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Recurrent major depressive disorder (Correct answer)
- Borderline personality disorder
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Correct answer: Recurrent major depressive disorder
MBCT was designed by Segal, Williams, and Teasdale specifically to reduce relapse in patients with three or more prior episodes of major depression.
Question 6: In Piaget's theory, the ability to understand that a quantity remains the same despite changes in shape or arrangement emerges during which stage?
- Sensorimotor
- Preoperational
- Concrete operational (Correct answer)
- Formal operational
Correct answer: Concrete operational
Conservation — understanding that quantity is invariant across perceptual transformations — is a hallmark achievement of the concrete operational stage.
Question 7: The Yerkes-Dodson law describes the relationship between arousal and performance as:
- Linear and positive
- Linear and negative
- An inverted U-shaped curve (Correct answer)
- A U-shaped curve
Correct answer: An inverted U-shaped curve
The Yerkes-Dodson law states that performance peaks at moderate arousal levels, with both very low and very high arousal producing poorer performance.
EPPP Cognitive-Affective Behavior Bases 3
The somatic marker hypothesis, proposed by Damasio, suggests that decision-making is guided by: