Chapter 19: Quiz
1. The DSM-5 defines a traumatic event (Criterion A) as:
- A) Any negative experience that causes distress
- B) Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence
- C) Anything that makes you feel uncomfortable
- D) Any experience from childhood that you remember negatively
Answer: B. The clinical definition is specific and narrow — actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. Many painful experiences don't meet this threshold.
2. Approximately what percentage of people who experience a Criterion A traumatic event develop PTSD?
- A) 80–90%
- B) 50–60%
- C) 6–9%
- D) Less than 1%
Answer: C. Only about 6–9% of trauma-exposed individuals develop PTSD. Resilience — recovery without clinical disorder — is the norm, not the exception.
3. Concept creep, applied to "trauma," means:
- A) That trauma doesn't exist
- B) The clinical term has expanded in popular usage to encompass progressively milder experiences, diluting its precision
- C) That more people are experiencing trauma
- D) That only psychologists should use the word "trauma"
Answer: B. Haslam's concept creep: the term "trauma" has expanded from its clinical definition to cover everything from combat exposure to strict parenting, losing diagnostic utility.
4. The ACEs study found:
- A) That all people with high ACE scores have poor adult health
- B) A dose-response relationship between childhood adversity and adult health RISK — not deterministic prediction
- C) That childhood experiences have no effect on adult health
- D) That ACE scores predict exactly who will develop mental illness
Answer: B. ACEs are population-level risk factors. They increase risk but don't determine individual outcomes. Many people with high ACE scores have good adult health.
5. "The body keeps the score" — the claim that trauma is stored in the body — is:
- A) A literal neuroscience finding
- B) A useful metaphor for the somatic dimension of trauma that becomes misleading when treated as a literal mechanism (memories are in neural networks, not muscles)
- C) Completely debunked
- D) Proven by multiple randomized controlled trials
Answer: B. Trauma has real somatic effects (physiological changes, somatic symptoms). But the literal claim that memories are stored in muscles and organs is not supported by neuroscience.
6. The mouse epigenetics studies on intergenerational trauma showed:
- A) That human trauma is definitely passed through genes
- B) That mice conditioned to fear an odor passed fear sensitivity to offspring through epigenetic changes — but the human extrapolation far outpaces the evidence
- C) That epigenetics doesn't exist
- D) That all psychological conditions are inherited
Answer: B. The mouse studies are real but limited. Human evidence is preliminary, small-sample, and can't rule out behavioral transmission (parenting patterns) rather than epigenetic inheritance.
7. The trauma framework HELPS when it:
- A) Labels all adversity as trauma
- B) Identifies genuine PTSD, validates real traumatic experiences, and connects people to evidence-based treatment
- C) Encourages everyone to see themselves as traumatized
- D) Substitutes for addressing current problems
Answer: B. The framework is most helpful when applied clinically — identifying genuine PTSD, reducing shame, and directing people to treatments like PE, CPT, and EMDR.
8. The trauma framework HARMS when it:
- A) Helps people understand PTSD
- B) Pathologizes normal adversity, creates learned helplessness, trivializes genuine PTSD through concept creep
- C) Is used by therapists
- D) Is taught in psychology courses
Answer: B. The framework becomes harmful when it labels normal difficulty as "trauma," suggests people are permanently damaged by adversity, and dilutes the concept so that genuine PTSD is trivialized.
9. The most popular claim about intergenerational trauma in popular culture is rated:
- A) Fully supported
- B) Debunked
- C) Unresolved — mouse evidence exists but human evidence is preliminary and can't distinguish epigenetic from behavioral transmission
- D) Not worth studying
Answer: C. The mechanism is biologically plausible and has some animal support, but the human evidence is preliminary. The popular version ("your grandmother's trauma changed your genes") far outpaces what has been demonstrated.
10. The chapter's overall message about trauma is:
- A) Trauma doesn't exist
- B) Everyone is traumatized
- C) Trauma is real and its effects are serious — but concept creep has expanded the term so far that it now describes everything from genuine PTSD to normal adversity, which dilutes its meaning and can harm both groups
- D) Only combat veterans can have trauma
Answer: C. The chapter validates genuine trauma and PTSD while documenting how concept creep has expanded the term beyond clinical utility, with consequences for both genuine trauma survivors and people experiencing normal difficulty.