Inner Mammal Training Sample Quiz

20 multiple-choice questions

To prepare for Quiz #1:
– read this short free sample of Habits of a Happy Brain
– read the infographic series
– watch the video series You Have Power Over Your Brain and read the accompanying Action Guide.

Get a free membership in the Inner Mammal Institute when you score 80%.
Be sure to click “Get Results” at the bottom of the quiz.

Ready?

The fun feature of this quiz is the “hint” that appears if you choose a wrong answer. You can take the quiz as many times as you’d like, so enjoy the hints the first time through if you wish. When you’re done, you must click “Get Results” to submit and get your free Inner Mammal Institute membership certificate. To save your work for later completion, click “Get Results” at the bottom and then select “Save and Continue Later” below. Then continue to the Foundation and Advanced Levels to become a Certified Inner Mammal Trainer.

Sample Quiz

There are 20 questions to complete. Once you are finished, click the button below. Any items you have not completed will be marked incorrect.

1. Good feelings come from:

dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphin

doing the right thing

a good society

good genes

Feelings come from chemicals The limbic built by natural selection rewards you with a good-feeling chemical when you meet a survival need.

2. A happy chemical is released:

all the time.

when you do something that promotes the survival of your genes.

when you make healthy choices.

when you make virtuous choices.

3. Your happy and unhappy chemicals are controlled by:

your diet.

brain structures inherited from earlier mammals, including the amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, pituitary, etc.

health-care providers.

your prefrontal cortex.

4. Your verbal inner dialogue:

tells you why a happy or unhappy feeling is being released.

decides when to turn your happy and unhappy chemicals on and off.

is all in your cortex, which is not on speaking terms with your mammal brain.

is meaningless and should be ignored.

5. You turn on your happy chemicals with:

circuits inherited from reptiles.

tapes installed by your parents.

cultural programming.

neural circuits built from your unique individual past experience with that happy chemical.

6. Your dopamine turns on when you:

take dope

put your feet up and relax

feel pride in your accomplishment

approach something you expect to meet your needs

7. Your endorphin turns on when you:

think happy thoughts

get injured to the point of pain

take a vacation from stress

live in a tropical paradise

8. Your serotonin turns on when you:

feel special

volunteer in a soup kitchen

drink kale smoothies

put others first

9. Your oxytocin turns on when you:

distance yourself from people who annoy you

find greener pasture

enjoy the safety of social support

find a place where you can be yourself

10. Your cortisol turns on when you:

visit your inlaws

see your boss coming

watch the news

experience pain, or the anticipation of pain

11. You were born with billions of neurons:

but you may be too lazy to use them.

but they are not connected to each other until activated by experience.

connected into circuits inherited from monkeys.

and you keep adding billions throughout life.

12. Your brain builds neural circuits in 2 ways:

male hormones and female hormones

exercise and nutrition

happiness and sadness

repetition and emotion

13. Your neural superhighways are formed by your experiences before age 8 and during puberty because that's when:

you try harder

the brain produces a lot of myelin, which coats neurons so they become super efficient at channeling electricity

you are nurtured

people tell you what to do

14. Your brain is always looking for ways to feel good because:

it evolved to promote survival, and in the world of scarcity that our brain evolved in, good feelings were a good guide to survival

you're messed up

you're enlightend

of advertising

15. Something that turned on your happy chemicals when you were young gets your attention because:

the electricity in your brain flows like water in a storm, finding the paths of least resistance

you're just a big kid

you failed to mature

you're a spoiled brat

16. If the brain is focused on survival, why do people do things that are bad for their survival?

Impulses that helped our ancestors survive for millions of years do not always lead to well-being today.

Behaviors that worked in adolescence get myelinated, so your electricity flows there even if those behaviors don't work today.

Habituation reduces the reward we get from old pleasures, so we keep trying and overdo it.

all of the above

17. Why are we so motivated to escape threatened feelings?

Brains that focused on threats before rewards were more likely to survive, so we've inherited a brain that focuses on threats.

We're born helpless, so any threat to our social support is a survival threat in our formative years. This wires us to feel like a social threat is a survival threat later on.

Animals only react to threats that are actually reaching their senses, but the human cortex can activate threat signals internally.

all of the above

18. How can you feel good about things that are actually good for you?

Choose a behavior or thought habit that's good for you and repeat it without fail for 45 days whether it feels good or not.

move to a place with high statistical rates of happiness

put on a happy face

tell everyone how much you love your new health routine

19. Why is it so hard to be happy with what you have?

habituation: your brain stops releasing happy chemicals once a reward is expected, so your old reliable happy habits fail to work sooner or later

social comparison: your brain rewards you with serotonin when you come out on top but you end up with cortisol when you try and fail

tradeoffs: One happy chemical is at risk when you take a step toward another.

all of the above

20. How can you help others to be happy?

reach into their brain and build new bridges between their neurons

join in their hostility so they feel understood

tell them to look on the bright side, and then let a doctor handle it

be happy yourself, and their mirror neurons will learn from your rewards

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