Eight-month-old Thea and her mother watch a grasshopper in their yard. Her mother
labels the grasshopper and describes what it is doing. Thea and her mother are engaged
in
A) telegraphic speech.
B) referential communication.
C) syntactic bootstrapping.
D) joint attention.
When 3-year-old Gwen explains that her bicycle is sad because it is alone in the garage,
she is demonstrating
A) analogical problem solving.
B) animistic thinking.
C) hypothetico-deductive reasoning.
D) propositional thought.
Which of the following is a major limitation of the clinical interview?
A) Participants may make up answers that do not represent their actual thinking.
B) It does not provide much insight into participants’ reasoning or ideas.
C) The questions are phrased the same for each participant, regardless of their
comprehension.
D) It overestimates participants’ intellectual capacities.
In both Asian and Western nations,
A) boys and girls feel equally competent at math, science, and language arts.
B) although girls outperform boys at language arts, they feel less competent about their
performance in these subjects.
C) although boys outperform girls at math and science, they feel less competent about
their performance in these subjects.
D) boys tend to feel more competent than girls at math, science, and athletics, and girls
feel more competent than boys at language arts.
U.S. 12- to 17-year-olds account for _____ percent of police arrests.
A) 8
B) 14
C) 21
D) 33
A major problem with systematic observation is
A) practice effects.
B) selective attrition.
C) biased sampling.
D) observer influence.
__________ grants children the confidence, social-cognition understandings, and social
skills they need to enter the world and form gratifying peer relationships.
A) A secure attachment bond
B) Authoritarian parenting
C) Emotional support
D) Coregulation
Research on the Flynn effect indicates that
A) IQ gains between generations are probably due to easier test items.
B) IQ gains between generations present a major challenge to the assumption that
ethnic variations in IQ are mostly genetic.
C) this phenomenon is not evident in developing nations.
D) the black”white gap in IQ is larger than the generational gain in fluid intelligence.
Research on school achievement suggests that
A) high-stakes testing improves educational quality in most public schools.
B) most achievement tests were designed to measure the specific skills covered in the
classroom.
C) many students who get passing grades fail high-stakes exams because a time-limited
test taps only certain skills.
D) achievement test scores are a better measure of a child’s true abilities than
teacher-assigned grades.
When asked what they expect their sons and daughters to be like as teenagers, Kate and
Harriett, moms of preschoolers, say “Rebellious and reckless” and “Full of rages and
tempers.” Their view is consistent with which theorists’ views on adolescence?
A) G. Stanley Hall and Erik Erikson
B) Jean-Jacques Rousseau and G. Stanley Hall
C) Sigmund Freud and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
D) Jean Piaget and John Bowlby
Compared with siblings in typical families, preschool siblings who have critical,
punitive parents
A) are more passive toward one another.
B) are more aggressive toward one another.
C) display characteristics of an inhibited temperament.
D) recognize hostile intent only when it is specifically directed at them.
A parent who uses imperatives and specific suggestions in everyday life is most likely
the parent of a
A) son.
B) teenager.
C) daughter.
D) son and a daughter.
In Taiwan, prenatal exposure to very high levels of __________ resulted in low birth
weight, discolored skin, and deformities of the gums and nails.
A) lead in paint chips
B) zinc in fish
C) radiation
D) PCBs in rice oil
Violet’s mother works long hours at a low-paying job. Her workplace maintains a
hostile atmosphere. Research suggests that
A) Violet will work harder to gain her teacher’s approval and attention because her
mother is unavailable to her.
B) Violet’s mother will engage in permissive child rearing.
C) Violet’s mother is at risk for maternal depression.
D) Violet will display aggressive and antisocial behavior toward her mother.
Which of the following appears first as children’s speech matures?
A) embedded sentences
B) tag questions
C) passive sentences
D) verb phrases
Central to Piaget’s view of development is the concept of
A) modeling.
B) reinforcement.
C) adaptation.
D) cultural identity.
Mastery of gender __________ is associated with the attainment of conservation.
A) typing
B) equality
C) constancy
D) stereotyping
Which of the following statements is true about infectious diseases in developing
countries?
A) Illnesses such as measles and chicken pox typically do not appear until age 3.
B) Most developmental impairments and death due to diarrhea can be prevented with
nearly cost-free oral rehydration therapy (ORT).
C) Since 1990, public health workers have taught about 10 percent of the families in the
developing world how to administer ORT.
D) The majority of children in the world’s poorest countriessuch as Chad, Morocco,
Somalia, and Togoreceive ORT.
Compared with popular-aggressive children, rejected-aggressive children are
A) more socially skilled.
B) more antagonistic.
C) less antagonistic.
D) more likely to be identified as controversial.
Both adults and peers tend to view __________ as __________.
A) early-maturing boys; relaxed and physically attractive
B) early-maturing girls; lively and school leaders
C) late-maturing boys; independent and self-confident
D) late-maturing girls; unpopular and anxious
Both __________ and __________ protect immigrant youths from delinquency, early
pregnancy, drug use, and other risky behaviors.
A) family relationships; school achievement
B) collectivist values; extracurricular involvement
C) acculturation; assimilation
D) individualistic values; opportunities for peer mentoring
Dynamic systems theory provides convincing evidence that motor skill behaviors are
A) governed by a built-in maturational timetable.
B) hardwired.
C) genetically determined.
D) softly assembled.
According to Vygotsky, which of the following would be within a child’s zone of
proximal development?
A) Edward is completing a homework assignment with a classmate.
B) Elise recently mastered a task independently following the assistance of her mother.
C) Jasira cannot yet handle a specific task on her own, but she can do it with the help of
an adult.
D) Tevan figures out how to accomplish a task through trial and error.
Which of the following children would be judged most harshly by other children?
A) Monica, who does not like to play with dolls
B) Kate, who likes to play football
C) Roger, who likes to play with dolls
D) Eric, who does not like to play with younger children
Higher fetal activity in the last weeks of pregnancy
A) predicts a more active infant in the first month of life.
B) predicts a more fearful 2-year-old.
C) can indicate a premature delivery.
D) predicts a more easily frustrated toddler.
Which of the following describes the probable reaction of a 3-month-old who hears
another infant crying?
A) cries in response to the infant’s crying
B) attempts to pat and comfort the other infant
C) watches the other infant with a sense of curiosity
D) cries louder than the other infant to gain a caregiver’s attention
Mr. Donnelly wants to reduce gender stereotyping in his classroom and has decided to
form mixed-sex activity groups. To be successful, however,
A) a token system of reward and punishment must be established.
B) interventions may have to modify the styles of social influence typically learned in
same-sex peer relations.
C) he must delegate specific activities to boys and girls.
D) boys and girls must learn how to behave like the other sex.
The most consistent asset of resilient children is
A) a strong bond with a competent, caring adult.
B) high academic performance in elementary school.
C) musical ability.
D) athletic competence.
As school-age children judge their own appearance, abilities, and behavior in relation to
those of others,
A) their self-descriptions become more evaluative.
B) they become less adept at incorporating the messages of others into their
self-definition.
C) their self-descriptions become more general and neutral in evaluation.
D) their self-esteem temporarily declines.
The information-processing approach
A) regards children as tabula rasa.
B) does not divide development into stages.
C) views development as discontinuous.
D) regards thought processes as vastly different at all ages.
At what age do children begin to engage in social referencing?
A) 1 to 6 months
B) 7 to 12 months
C) 1 to 2 years
D) 3 to 6 years
An alarming __________ percent of U.S. infantswho are not yet capable of complying
with adult directivesget spanked or hit.
A) 25 to 35
B) 35 to 40
C) 35 to 50
D) 50 to 60