Chapter 11 Test Yourself Flashcards
What would best express the meaning of the phrase “nature versus nurture”?
Genetics versus experience
Two researchers are interested in the development of reading comprehension. Dr.Vargas conducts a study comparing the reading comprehension of a group of 6-year-olds with that of a separate group of 10-year-olds. Dr. Byrne conducts a study tracking the reading comprehension abilities of a group of 6-year-olds over the course of four years. Dr. Vargas’s study uses a _____ design, and Dr. Byrne’s study uses a ______ design.
Cross-sectional; longitudinal
T/F: the brain begins to develop relatively late in prenatal development during the fetal stage
False
What does it mean when we say cigarette smoke is a teratogen?
Cigarette smoke is an environmental toxin that can interfere with development
When newborn infants with heterosexual parents listen to their mother’s voice, they tend to suck more vigorously on a pacifier than when they hear another woman’s voice or even the voice of their own father. What does this demonstrate?
Babies are capable of learning while still in the womb
Given the general rules of motor development, what would you expect a child to master first?
Sitting without support
Three-year-old Michael, who is visiting the park, watches a group of children eating cake next to a pile of presents. He also watches as they prepare to hit a piñata with a stick. Although he has never seen a piñata before, he points to the scene and says “birthday” to his father. What did Piaget call the process that Michael has just illustrated?
Assimilation
A 6-month-old baby, watching an object disappear beneath a blanket, will typically make no attempt to lift the blanket or otherwise retrieve the object. What did Jean Piaget conclude from this phenomenon?
Infants do not realize that hidden objects continue to exist.
A one-year-old infant is at the park with her mother when an older child approaches whom the infant doesn’t know. The infant quickly turns to look at her mother’s face. What is probably going on?
The infant wants to see how her mother is reacting to the new child.
In experiments conducted by Harry and Margaret Harlow in the late 1950s, infant monkeys showed a clear preference for an artificial
“surrogate mother” that gave no milk but was covered in soft terry cloth, over a bare wire surrogate that gave milk. What, according to the Harlows, did the infant monkeys gain from the cloth, milk-less surrogate?
a greater sense of emotional security
A parent leaves her child with a new babysitter. The child becomes distressed as soon as the parent leaves. When the parent returns, the child cries and runs to her to be picked up, but then immediately slaps her and struggles to get back down. To which attachment pattern does this behavior correspond?
insecure/ambivalent attachment
In a study, 2½-year-old children had trouble inferring the location of a toy hidden in a room after seeing a miniature toy placed in the same location in a scale model of the room. Which maneuver by the researchers would have improved the children’s performance?
placing the model out of reach behind a glass partition
When 3-year-old children are asked to sort a set of cards based on either the color or the shape of the object shown on the card, which aspect would you expect the children struggle with?
sorting by one criterion and then sorting by the other one
What did Jean Piaget mean when he said that the thinking of young children is egocentric?
Young children cannot see the world from the perspective of another person
Under what circumstance would a parent’s attempt to use Vgotsky’s concept of scaffolding be the most effective?
When it allows a child to feel challenged without feeling overwhelmed
Leila is four years old and identifies herself as a “girl.” When invited by a friend to play with a toy trainset, she says she doesn’t want to because “that’s for boys.” A few years later, Leila still identifies as a girl but is happy to play in less gender-stereotypical ways. What concept has Leila developed that allows her to view gender more flexibly?
Gender constancy
Which evidence most strongly suggests that some parenting styles are generally better for children than others?
Parenting style and child outcomes are demonstrably correlated
Which scientific finding was the basis of a U.S. Supreme Court decision banning the death penalty for 16-year-olds?
The decision-making portions of a teenager’s brain do not work like an adult’s
A driver accidentally dents a neighbor’s car. The damage is minor and the neighbor might not even have noticed it, but the driver decides to tell the neighbor and offers to pay repair costs. What explanation for the decision would, according to Lawrence Kohlberg, would represent the final, most mature stage of development?
“It’s only right. If someone dented my car, it’s what I would want them do to.”
What does a person’s “social identity” consist of?
The social groups to which the person belongs
Which two tasks, according to Erik Erikson, are the two major challenges of adulthood?
To build a romantic partnership and to make a difference in the world
During which years is a person’s fluid intelligence (the ability to deal with new and unusual problems) at its highest level?
Ages 21 to 30
Which form of activity has been shown to counteract age-related decline in cognitive functioning?
Physical exercise
What did Erik Erikson consider the final task in a person’s life? He called this the challenge of achieving integrity
Answering the question “what has my life meant?”
