Discuss the characteristics of conversion disorders.
What will be an ideal response?
Conversion disorders are a type of somatic symptom disorder. Conversion disorders involve an apparent physical disturbance, such as the inability to see or hear or to move an arm or leg. However, the cause of the physical disturbance is purely psychological; there is no biological reason for the problem. Conversion disorders often begin suddenly. Previously normal people wake up one day blind or deaf, or they experience numbness that is restricted to a certain part of the body. A hand, for example, may become entirely numb, while an area above the wrist, controlled by the same nerves, remains sensitive to touch-something that is physiologically implausible. Mental health professionals refer to such a condition as "glove anesthesia" because the numb area is the part of the hand covered by a glove and not a region related to pathways of the nervous system. Surprisingly, people who experience conversion disorders frequently remain unconcerned about symptoms that most of us would expect to be highly anxiety producing.
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Which of the following philosophers and political figures wrote about women in a way that would be most admired by feminists?
a. Jean-Jacques Rousseau b. Napoleon Bonaparte c. John Stuart Mill d. Aristotle
Wilder Penfield and Robert Heath used which of the following techniques with their human participants?
a. patch clamps b. magnetoencephalography (MEG) c. electrical stimulation d. single cell recording
Cognitive-behavior therapists are likely to treat generalized anxiety with which of the following treatments?
a. aversive conditioning b. electroconvulsive therapy c. negative reinforcement d. a token economy
?Ja’seph is at the gym one afternoon, jogging on the treadmill at 3.0 miles per hour. A stranger gets on the treadmill next to her, and begins running at 6.5 miles per hour. Ja’seph notices this, and slowly increases her own running speed. This enhancement of Ja’seph’s performance on a simple task by the presence of others is called ____.
a. ?social augmentation
b. ?social facilitation
c. ?practical inhibition
d. ?peripheral bolstering