The Primary Purpose of the DSM Is to

question 224

Multiple Choice

The primary purpose of the DSM is to

• A) provide descriptive criteria for diagnosing mental disorders
• B) help psychologists assess normal as well as abnormal behavior
• C) describe the causes of common disorders
• D) keep the number of diagnostic categories of mental disorders to a minimum.

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Definitions:

Genes

Genes are units of heredity made up of DNA. They carry the information responsible for the development of organisms.

Carriers

Individuals who have one copy of a gene for a recessive trait and can pass that gene to their offspring, even if they do not exhibit the trait themselves.

Recessive Genes

Genes that are not dominant and can be masked by the presence of dominant genes, requiring two copies, one from each parent, for the trait to be expressed.

Meiosis

The form of cell division in which each pair of chromosomes splits and one member of each pair moves to the new cell. As a result, each new cell has 23 chromosomes.