ERQ: Evaluate Biological Explanations of a Disorder

Respond to the ERQ prompt; you may use your Biological Etiology of MDD resources and the outline you have created to guide your response. All work submitted must be your own!

The typical format of an ERQ:

Introduction: Short and sweet. Answer the question directly. If the question asks you to discuss the role of one or more hormones in human behavior and/or cognition, identify the hormones that you will be discussing and the behavior that will be the focus of the response.

Conceptual understanding: This may be part of the introduction, but I personally recommend that it be a separate paragraph. In this paragraph, you have to show knowledge and understanding relevant to the question. In this case, what is the role of the hormone(s) that you are discussing? For example, if you are going to discuss cortisol, you want to explain where and why it is secreted, the function of the hormone (breaking down glycogen to release energy to support the fight or flight response) and where it interacts with the brain to influence behavior (the hippocampus).

Study 1: Describe the aim, procedure, and findings of one study.

Critical thinking: Evaluate the study that you have described. Although you could have it in the same paragraph as the study description, having it separate indicates both to you and the examiner how much critical thinking you have in your essay. Remember to link all of your critical thinking directly to the study - for example, not just "the study has high internal validity because it is done under lab conditions" (this is not always true), but "the study has low internal validity because, although memory was tested in a lab, the participants went home every night and the experiment where they could have been exposed to stressful events that would potentially affect the findings of the study. (e.g. Newcomer)"

Study 2: Describe the aim, procedure, and findings of one study.

Critical thinking: Evaluate the second study.

Command term paragraph: I call this the "holistic" paragraph where you answer the command term. This is important for both criteria A and D. In this case, discuss what we know about the role of the hormone. What are the difficulties of determining the role of a hormone?

Conclusion: This can literally be a single sentence. The conclusions are not a main focus of the assessment, but you should make a final conclusion or statement of the response.

Evaluate one or more biological explanations of one disorder. Type your response here.