Foundation Quiz 1

The reading for this quiz is Habits of a Happy Brain Chapters 1-3 and the Slide Show The Science of Happiness

When you pass this quiz and the next two, you get a free copy of I, Mammal and qualify for the Advanced Inner Mammal Training and for 3 CEUs. You are on your way to becoming a Certified Inner Mammal Trainer!

Foundation Level #1

20 multiple-choice questions. When you complete all 3 Foundation Quizzes, you'll earn a free copy of I, Mammal and qualify for the Advanced Training and Certification.

1. Your brain responds to the world with life-or-death feelings because:

things are bad and getting worse

you are sensitive

you are knowledgable

our brains are inherited from a world where survival rates were low and these responses were valuable

2. The mammal brain defines survival in quirky ways, including all of the following EXCEPT:

Your brain cares about the survival of your genes, even if you are not focused on that.

Your responses depend on circuits built in youth, when your survival knowledge was quite limited.

Your brain is self-destructive and doesn’t really care about your survival.

Your brain assumes things that feel good are good for your survival.

3. Each happy chemical motivates a specific survival behavior. For example:

oxytocin motivates you to invest effort in steps toward rewards

endorphin motivates you to seek social importance

dopamine motivates you to find safety in numbers

serotonin motivates you to ignore pain

none of the above

4. How does the big human cortex work together with the mammal brain?

They take turns cooperatively unless a person has a disorder.

The cortex has extra neurons to store experience that fine-tunes the mammalian impulse to “go toward” or “avoid.”

The reptile brain mediates between them, turning one on and the other off when that choice is best for your survival prospects.

They don’t work together - they are always competing with each other for the electricity in your brain.

5. It useful to do nothing in a moment of cortisol for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:

Doing nothing is the highest step in a long path of personal development.

When cortisol gives you the feeling that you will die if you don’t make it stop, doing nothing teaches your brain that you will not actually die.

When cortisol gives you a “do something” feeling, you're tempted to do something that comes easily even though it has bad consequences.

Doing nothing gives your brain time to send electricity down an alternate path that is less well developed.

6. Love makes you happy for all the following reasons EXCEPT:

Dopamine turns on when you expect to meet a need.

An association that raises your status stimulates serotonin.

Touch and trust stimulate oxytocin.

Laughing stimulates endorphin.

Love rewires your brain so you will always be happy.

7. Dopamine can cause excitement about preparing vegetables or preparing a mind-altering substance. All of the following explain why EXCEPT:

some vegetables are high in dopamine and some drugs are too

steps toward things you expect to meet your needs trigger dopamine

anything that met your needs in the past built a pathway to your dopamine, which turns it on when you see something similar today

electricity flows easily down pathways carved by things that excited you before

8. Your natural endorphin turns on when:

someone hurts your feelings

you’re physically injured

you feel pride in your exercise regimen

you take heroin

9. Oxytocin causes the good feeling of

touch by someone you trust

building social alliances

safety in numbers

being surrounded by your herd

all of the above

10. Serotonin makes you feel good when you:

initiate conflict

avoid conflict

gain a social advantage

compare yourself unfavorably

11. Cortisol promotes survival in all of the following ways EXCEPT:

It helps you anticipate pain so you can avoid it.

The bad feeling motivates you to do something fast to make it stop.

It prevents you from stressing over minor threats such as social disappointments.

It connects neurons that help the bad feeling turn on quickly when you see things that hurt you before.

12. Mirror neurons activate when:

you realize you are more empathetic than others

you see another person get a reward or face a threat

you decide to be authentic instead of imitating others

you look at yourself

13. We humans have social pain because:

social isolation was a survival threat in the world of our ancestors

we are born fragile and unable to meet our own needs, so a lack of social support is a real survival threat during the formative years of our brain

our big brain anticipates threats, so a potential future threat to your social bonds feels urgent now

all of the above

14. Your brain has ten times more neurons going into your eyes than it has coming from your eyes. That shows we are designed to:

tell our senses what information to look for

open our minds to new information

scan the world for information with our sensory receptors

process a huge quantity of information

15. Expectations are powerful because:

of the effort and analysis you put into creating them

they are real physical pathways, so a mismatch between expectations and reality prompts us to question reality and reconcile it with expectations

they free you from the preconceptions of past experience and help you interpret new inputs in new ways

all of the above

16. Mammals cannot produce a huge number of offspring the way reptiles can, so in order to keep their genes alive they have to:

invest effort in each individual offspring

form attachments with their young to keep them safe

form attachments with peers to protect their young from threats

all of the above

17. Living in groups brings potential for conflict, but natural selection built a brain that resolves conflict by:

comparing itself to others

restraining itself in the presence of more powerful individuals

going for it when it seems safe

all of the above

none of the above

18. Reproductive success is relevant to modern life for all of these reasons EXCEPT:

We've inherited our brains from individuals who did what it took to keep their genes alive.

As we strive to feel good, it helps to know that natural selection built a brain that saves the good feelings for things that promote reproductive success.

People who reproduce the most are considered the most successful.

We react strongly to things that affect reproductive success, such as appearance and status.

19. The cortex can restrain neurochemical impulses in order to:

adjust for new information that better promotes survival

substitute goals unrelated to survival

feel good now without regard for long-term consequences

all of the above

20. The brain learns from its neurochemical experience. Which example is NOT true?

Oxytocin experience wires a mammal to know who to trust.

Serotonin experience wires a mammal to know when to seek social dominance.

Dopamine experience wires a mammal to know where to invest effort.

Cortisol experience wires a mammal to know what to avoid.

Endorphin experience wires a mammal to feel pain.

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