MCAT Psychology 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A researcher studying attachment finds that infants who explore freely when their caregiver is present but become distressed when left alone and are easily soothed upon reunion are classified as which attachment type?
- Avoidant attachment
- Secure attachment (Correct answer)
- Anxious-ambivalent attachment
- Disorganized attachment
Correct answer: Secure attachment
Secure attachment is characterized by using the caregiver as a safe base for exploration, distress upon separation, and quick comfort upon reunion.
Question 2: Which neurotransmitter is primarily implicated in the reward pathway and is significantly elevated during pleasurable activities, playing a central role in addiction?
- Serotonin
- GABA
- Dopamine (Correct answer)
- Norepinephrine
Correct answer: Dopamine
Dopamine is the primary neurotransmitter in the mesolimbic reward pathway, and its release during pleasurable activities underlies the reinforcing nature of addictive substances.
Question 3: A patient who cannot form new long-term memories but retains memories from before their brain injury most likely has damage to which structure?
- Amygdala
- Prefrontal cortex
- Hippocampus (Correct answer)
- Cerebellum
Correct answer: Hippocampus
The hippocampus is critical for encoding new declarative (explicit) memories; damage causes anterograde amnesia while leaving older memories intact.
Question 4: According to Erikson's psychosocial stages, the central conflict for adolescents (ages 12–18) is best described as:
- Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
- Industry vs. Inferiority
- Identity vs. Role Confusion (Correct answer)
- Intimacy vs. Isolation
Correct answer: Identity vs. Role Confusion
Erikson's fifth stage, Identity vs. Role Confusion, occurs during adolescence and involves developing a coherent sense of self.
Question 5: A person who attributes their failure on an exam to being 'bad at tests' (a stable, internal, global cause) is demonstrating which explanatory style?
- Optimistic explanatory style
- Self-serving bias
- Pessimistic explanatory style (Correct answer)
- Fundamental attribution error
Correct answer: Pessimistic explanatory style
Pessimistic explanatory style involves attributing negative events to stable, internal, and global causes, which is associated with learned helplessness and depression.
Question 6: Classical conditioning differs from operant conditioning primarily in that classical conditioning:
- Requires conscious awareness of the contingency
- Associates a neutral stimulus with an involuntary response (Correct answer)
- Uses reinforcement to increase voluntary behavior
- Relies on punishment to eliminate behavior
Correct answer: Associates a neutral stimulus with an involuntary response
Classical conditioning pairs a conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit an involuntary conditioned response, without requiring voluntary action.
Question 7: The Stroop effect, where naming ink color is slower when the word spells a different color, demonstrates which psychological phenomenon?
- Inattentional blindness
- Selective attention and cognitive interference (Correct answer)
- Change blindness
- Perceptual set
Correct answer: Selective attention and cognitive interference
The Stroop effect illustrates that automatic reading of words interferes with the controlled process of naming ink colors, demonstrating cognitive interference.
MCAT Psychology 2
A researcher studying attachment finds that infants who explore freely when their caregiver is present but become distressed when left alone and are easily soothed upon reunion are classified as which attachment type?