EPPP Cognitive-Affective Behavior Bases 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: The concept of 'learned helplessness' introduced by Seligman is most directly related to which cognitive attribution pattern?
- External, unstable, specific attributions for failure
- Internal, stable, global attributions for failure (Correct answer)
- External, stable, specific attributions for success
- Internal, unstable, global attributions for success
Correct answer: Internal, stable, global attributions for failure
Learned helplessness is most likely when failures are attributed to internal (personal), stable (permanent), and global (affecting all areas) causes.
Question 2: Which brain structure is most critically implicated in the consolidation of fear memories and the conditioned fear response?
- Hippocampus
- Prefrontal cortex
- Amygdala (Correct answer)
- Anterior cingulate cortex
Correct answer: Amygdala
The amygdala plays a central role in acquiring, storing, and expressing conditioned fear responses.
Question 3: Cognitive load theory suggests that instruction is most effective when it minimizes:
- Germane cognitive load related to schema formation
- Intrinsic load inherent to the material's complexity
- Extraneous load caused by poor instructional design (Correct answer)
- The total absence of challenge in learning tasks
Correct answer: Extraneous load caused by poor instructional design
Extraneous (ineffective) cognitive load stems from poor instructional design and should be minimized to free working memory capacity for learning.
Question 4: According to Gross's process model of emotion regulation, cognitive reappraisal is classified as an antecedent-focused strategy because it:
- Occurs after the full emotional response has been generated
- Modifies the emotional meaning of a situation before the full response unfolds (Correct answer)
- Suppresses the behavioral expression of emotion at the response level
- Focuses on changing the situation rather than its appraisal
Correct answer: Modifies the emotional meaning of a situation before the full response unfolds
Cognitive reappraisal occurs early in the emotion-generative process, changing the appraisal of a situation before a full emotional response is elicited.
Question 5: Which phenomenon describes the tendency for mild emotional arousal from an irrelevant source to be misattributed to and intensify judgment about an unrelated target?
- Emotional contagion
- Excitation transfer (Correct answer)
- Affective forecasting error
- Mood-as-information effect
Correct answer: Excitation transfer
Excitation transfer (Zillmann) occurs when residual physiological arousal from one source is misattributed to a subsequent emotionally relevant event, amplifying the response.
Question 6: The dual-process model of cognition distinguishes between System 1 (fast, automatic) and System 2 (slow, deliberate) thinking. Which psychologist popularized this framework?
- Aaron Beck
- Richard Lazarus
- Daniel Kahneman (Correct answer)
- Albert Ellis
Correct answer: Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Kahneman popularized the System 1/System 2 dual-process model in his book 'Thinking, Fast and Slow.'
Question 7: A client reports feeling worthless because she received one critical comment in a meeting, ignoring dozens of positive comments. This exemplifies which cognitive distortion?
- Overgeneralization
- Selective abstraction (Correct answer)
- Personalization
- Magnification
Correct answer: Selective abstraction
Selective abstraction (mental filter) involves focusing exclusively on a negative detail while ignoring the broader positive context.
EPPP Cognitive-Affective Behavior Bases 4
The concept of 'learned helplessness' introduced by Seligman is most directly related to which cognitive attribution pattern?