Midterm #1

Question 1

Chronological age

Answer 1

Number of months or years since an individuals birth

Question 2

Developmental age

Answer 2

• The chronological age at which most show a particular level of physical or mental development
• ex/ developmental age for walking without assistance is 12 months

Question 3

Normative investigations

Answer 3

Research efforts designed to describe what is characteristic of a specific age or developmental stage.

Question 4

Longitudinal design

Answer 4

The same participants are observed repeatedly, sometimes
over many years.

Question 5

Cross-sectional design

Answer 5

Groups of participants of different chronological ages are observed and compared at a given time.

Question 6

What are advantages of longitudinal design

Answer 6

• Identification of individual differences
• can test a partitial hypothesis with cause & outcome
• direction of causation

Question 7

What are didadvantages of longitudinal design

Answer 7

-Time consuming and costly
- data is completely lost by drop outs
- data contamination occurs via: biased sampling, practice effects, cohort effects

Question 8

What is the cohort effect

Answer 8

• Cohort: group of people whowere born around the same time and grew up in similar cultural conditions
• idea that the same cohort ages as a group and therefor the condition follows that group rather than being correlated to a year

Question 9

What are the advantages to a cross-sectional design

Answer 9

• takes less time to complete
  -Less costly
• not subject to practice effects

Question 10

What are the disadvantages to cross-sectional design

Answer 10

• Cannot tell if early event has an impact on later event
• cohort effects

Question 11

What are the two types of intelligence

Answer 11

Fluid and crystallized

Question 12

When does fluid intelligence start to decline

Answer 12

Early adulthood

Question 13

What is fluid intelligence

Question 14

What is crystallized intelligence

Question 15

How does aging affect memory

Answer 15

• Aging causes memory deficits even in highly educated individuals
• memory of general knowledge (semantic memory) that was acquired long ago is unaffected
• memory of personal events (episodic memory) that occurred long ago is unaffected

Question 16

What is transience?

Answer 16

Tendency to lose access to info across time

Question 17

What is absent mindedness

Answer 17

• Failure to remember info because of insufficient attention

Question 18

What is the strange situation test?

Answer 18

• Widely used research

Question 19

What occurs in the developmental stage of adolescence

Answer 19

• Identity vs role confusion
  -Trying out different roles to see what works

Question 20

What is Marcia’s identity status model?

Answer 20

• Graph that combines exploration and commitment into 4 categories
• high commitment, low exploration = foreclosure (makes choice without thinking)
• high commitment, high exploration = identity achievement (I’ve thought about it and (know)
  -Low commitment, low exploration = identity diffusion (don’t know, don’t care)
  -Low commitment, high exploration = moratorium (I’m thinking about what I should do)

Question 21

What is a typical progression for adolescents with Marcia’s model

Answer 21

Identity diffusion → moratorium → identity achievement

Question 22

What happens to adolescents who fail identify achievement?

Answer 22

• Enter adulthood w/o solid sense of who they are or what is meaningful
  -Bounce roles and relationships

Question 23

What is the emerging social need in early adolescence (12 16y)

Answer 23

-Intimacy and passion

Question 24

What is the red zone?

Answer 24

• period of time early in one’s 1st year in uni during which women are thought to be at particularly high risk of unwanted sexual experiences

Parameters of the Red Zone vary from one college to another in the United States. Here are some suggestions:
– Between August and November
– Between freshman move-in and fall break (mid October) – Between freshman move-in and the first week of classes – The first 6 weeks of the fall semester

Question 25

What is the reason for year 1 red zone

Answer 25

• Partying
• alcohol consumption
• social vulnerability of 1st year students

Question 26

What are the 3 stages of date rape

Answer 26

1) isolation
2) intrusion
3) desensitization

Question 27

What becomes a priority in adulthood?

Answer 27

1) social relationships
2) personal accomplishments

Question 28

What are the communication patterns that are a list factor for divorce

Answer 28

1. Contempt
2. Criticism
   3, defensiveness
   4, stonewalling

Question 29

What is the middle adulthood developmental outcome?

Answer 29

Generativity: ability to generate something that an individual cares about in life (career or family)
- commitment beyond one self
- occurs in 30 - 40s