53. Which statement best exemplifies the premise of an imaginary audience?
a.
Live hard and die young.
b.
Why ask why.
c.
Why is everyone looking at me?
d.
You don’t know me, no one knows me.
54. The key to a personal fable is the belief that you
a.
are being watched by an imaginary audience.
b.
have an “invisible” friend.
c.
cannot deal with abstract concepts like philosophy or theology.
d.
are different from everyone else.
55. Elkind suggested that adolescent egocentrism is due to increased
a.
b.
c.
d.
56. People are most likely to regularly use formal operational thinking
a.
in making relationship decisions.
b.
in areas where they have some expertise.
c.
in high school and college courses but not on nonacademic tasks.
d.
on novel and complex tasks.
57. Jorge doesn’t understand why his psychology instructor doesn’t just tell the class the correct answer. When asked, his
instructor says that there is no single correct answer; it depends on each individual’s interpretation. Jorge’s difficulty in
accepting his professor’s answer would indicate that Jorge lacks _____ thinking.
a.
class inclusion
b.
systematic
c.
relativistic
d.
concrete
58. Which famous statement best illustrates the concept of relativistic thinking?
a.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
b.
Truth is absolute.
c.
What goes up must come down.
d.
All men are created equal.
59. _____ thinking is best defined as detecting paradoxes and inconsistencies among ideas and attempting to reconcile
them.
a.
Absolutist
b.
Static
c.
Preoperational
d.
Dialectical
60. Whose statement indicates that they are engaging in dialectic thinking?
a.
Earl, who says, “I love the fact that ice is cold.”
b.
Soraya, who says, “I don’t yet understand how light can be both a wave and an individual element, but I will!”
c.
Paolo, who says, “Drop a bowling ball and it will fall; can the world get any more consistent?”
d.
Fatima, who says, “The moon looks massive tonight.”
61. Which item would NOT typically be on a list of the characteristics of postformal thought?
a.
Understanding that knowledge is relative
b.
Accepting that the world is full of contradictions
c.
Rejecting input from others as it will taint the truth
d.
Integrating contradictions in some larger understanding
62. Which of the following statements is true regarding cognitive capacities during
later adulthood?
a.
Older adults do not perform as well as younger adults on formal operational tasks.
b.
Older adults perform better than younger adults on novel tasks.
c.
Older adults perform better on laboratory tasks than on applied, everyday tasks.
d.
Older adults perform just as well as younger adults on concrete-operational and formal operational tasks.
63. What is the likely reason the group of nursing home residents performed so poorly on a set of Piaget’s cognitive tasks?
a.
lack of motivation to solve tasks that are rarely encountered in real life
b.
over emphasis on IQ testing common to cognitive testing tasks
c.
slower reaction times commonly found in older study participants
d.
the fact that normal hearing is required to solve Piaget’s tasks
64. Which is a common challenge to Piaget’s theory?
a.
It failed to distinguish between competence and performance.
b.
It overestimated young minds.
c.
It placed too much emphasis on explaining development rather than describing development.
d.
It overemphasized the role of social influence on cognitive development.
65. Gustav was born and raised in a small fishing village in Sweden. Vygotsky would argue that this experience will
a.
impact both how he thinks and what he thinks about.
b.
impact how he thinks but not what he thinks about.
c.
impact what he thinks about but not how he thinks.
d.
have no impact on this cognitive development.
66. Which of the following is an example of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development?
a.
Figuring out the answer to your math homework after your sister gives you a hint
b.
Getting a better grade on the math test than you usually get
c.
Using trial and error to eliminate incorrect answers to a problem
d.
Thinking about a purely abstract problem like how many digits there are in infinity
67. Learning through active involvement in culturally relevant activities with the aid of knowledgeable individuals is
referred to as
a.
the personal fable.
b.
guided participation.
c.
transformational thought.
d.
class inclusion.
68. Josif never had any formal training in breeding animals, but had always actively helped his father in the family’s
business of breeding sheep. Consequently, Josif is now quite skilled at this practice. Vygotsky would refer to this skill
acquisition as being the result of
a.
a personal fable.
b.
imaginary companions.
c.
guided participation.
d.
transformational thought.
69. When Vygotsky referred to the concept of scaffolding, he was speaking about
a.
guided assistance that a skilled individual provides to a less skilled individual.
b.
the “intellectual ladder of success” that children are innately driven to climb.
c.
the importance of allowing children to “learn on their own” without adult interference.
d.
the structures of the mind that hold together lower levels of thought and higher levels of thought.
70. Four-year-old Jackie often mutters to herself as she builds things with her blocks. Her utterances (e.g., “the blue one
goes first”) seem to be a running dialogue of her actions that are guiding her behavior. Vygotsky referred to this activity
as _____ speech.
a.
private
b.
social
c.
egocentric
d.
telegraphic
71. Which is a legitimate criticism of Vygotsky’s theory?
a.
There is no evidence that private speech helps children solve problems.
b.
He placed too much emphasis on the influence of social interactions.
c.
His stages of psychosocial development have received little empirical support.
d.
A model that focuses only on postformal thinking in adulthood is too limited to be considered a major
developmental theory.
72. According to Fischer, _____ change and develop.
a.
cognitions
b.
thought processes
c.
representations
d.
skills
73. Fischer adopted Vygotsky’s idea of _____ to explain how cognitive development progresses.
a.
private speech
b.
zone of proximal development
c.
egocentrism
d.
postformal thought
74. Which of the following can be considered the best contribution of Piaget?
a.
highlighting the way culture impacts child thinking
b.
opening the door to exploration of child development
c.
discrediting the biological view of cognitive functions
d.
explaining how cognition develops in young children
75. It is the 1920s and you are attending a conference in which Jean Piaget is presenting his early theories on cognitive
development to the scientific community. The attendees are stunned when he postulates that ________.
a.
infant reaction time indicates a biological element to learning
b.
infants are empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge
c.
children have markedly different thought processes than adults
d.
cognition is partly dependent on the culture a child is raised in
76. When adults travel to a foreign country, which of Piaget’s processes do they employ to make sense of their new
experiences?
a.
dialectics
b.
scaffolding
c.
assimilation
d.
decentration
77. Ellen is giving a presentation to her psychology class on the contributions and limitations of Jean Piaget’s work in the
field of human development. She says that although his theories are inaccurate on the ________ of cognitive
development, his ideas about the ________ of cognitive development still hold true today.
a.
sequence; interactivity
b.
self-motivation; genetics
c.
direction; self-motivation
d.
process; direction
78. Piaget believed that babies and children are less cognitively competent than we understand them to be today. What
caused this error in Piaget’s perspective?
a.
small sample size
b.
lack of variable control
c.
inadequate testing
d.
cultural biases
79. Observing a class of kindergarten students, Piaget would say that ________.
a.
students from communal cultures will use more collaborative approaches
b.
students will approach tasks and problems differently based on domains
c.
all of the students will approach all tasks and problems the same way
d.
students with greater competence will guide students who are less capable
80. How would Piaget describe the role of adults in the cognitive development of young children?
a.
integrated but ineffectual
b.
separate but integral
c.
separate and ineffectual
d.
integrated and influential
81. If you were working on research with Denis Mareschal’s team, what would be your most valuable tool?
a.
pendulum experiment
b.
DNA sequencing
c.
Stanford-Binet test
d.
functional MRI
82. Callie has just entered a stage of development marked by a profound shift in her thinking processes. Vygotsky would
note that this has occurred because Callie now ________.
a.
is preoperational
b.
builds scaffolds
c.
utilizes words
d.
understands seriation
83. While observing a Russian kindergarten class, Lev Vygotsky points out how one of the students is teaching herself
during free playtime. What is this student engaging in?
a.
private speech
b.
circular reactions
c.
scaffolding
d.
egocentrism
84. When reviewing the results of a child’s performance on cognitive tasks, Kurt Fischer would likely ask for more details
on which of the following?
a.
the child’s ethnicity
b.
the situation
c.
the cognitive stage
d.
the child’s age
85. Which of the following terms best reflects Fischer’s perspective on a person’s cognitive performance in a specific
domain?
a.
irrelevant
b.
inconsistent
c.
quantitative
d.
universal
86. Which of the following describes a significant difference between Fischer’s and Piaget’s perspectives on cognitive
development?
a.
the shift from variable to universal competence in Fischer’s higher tiers
b.
the lack of clear boundaries between stages in Fischer’s model
c.
the emphasis on actions in Fischer’s first tier of development
d.
the lack of emphasis on reflexes across all of Fischer’s tiers