People are most likely to think abstractly and systematically on tasks in which
A) they have had extensive guidance and practice in using such reasoning.
B) hypothetico-deductive reasoning is not required.
C) the rules of logical thought can be ignored.
D) logical necessity is required.
In an effort to gradually shift responsibilities to their teenage daughter, Mr. and Mrs.
Yan exercise supervision in the form of general oversight, but let her make
moment-by-moment decisions. The Yans are engaging in
A) joint decision making.
B) feigned disinterest.
C) bidirectional autonomy.
D) coregulation.
Three-year-old Giselle says, “I swimmed like a fish, Mommy!” Giselle’s addition of the
-ed ending, although incorrect, shows her growing awareness of
A) syntax.
B) semantics.
C) phonology.
D) morphology.
Which of the following statements is true regarding IQ and occupational success?
A) IQ is a stronger predictor than practical intelligence of on-the-job performance.
B) Educational attainment is a stronger predictor than IQ of occupational success and
income.
C) Home background is more important than IQ in predicting occupational success.
D) High-IQ individuals are no more likely than those with lower IQs to have
high-status occupations.
Jadzia is a young child with Williams syndrome. Recent evidence indicates that Jadzia
will
A) have less complex sentence production than a child with Down syndrome.
B) depend on rule learning to acquire language skills.
C) probably learn language by capitalizing on her social strengths.
D) have a limited vocabulary and rarely speak in full sentences.
Most research shows that parents
A) are the sole influence in children’s development.
B) are less influential in children’s development than teachers and siblings.
C) are not the sole influence in children’s development, although they exert a profound
impact.
D) do not perceive themselves as having much of an impact on their children’s
development.
A sequential design
A) does not allow inferences about individual differences.
B) permits researchers to find out whether cohort effects are operating.
C) is less efficient than a longitudinal design.
D) does not have any of the same limitations as a longitudinal or cross-sectional design.
Piaget’s belief that infants and young children must act on the environment to revise
their thinking is
A) widely accepted by contemporary researchers.
B) too broad a notion of how learning takes place.
C) too narrow a notion of how learning takes place.
D) a major contribution to early intervention research.
Which of the following is believed to be a major contributor to a widening gender gap
in college enrollments?
A) differences in male and female science skills
B) later maturity of females’ cerebral cortex
C) differences in male and female literacy skills
D) advances in female mathematical abilities
When 3-year-old Melissa was talking to her father on the phone, she asked, “What’s
that?” as she pointed to a bug on the window. Melissa’s question demonstrates her lack
of
A) illocutionary intent.
B) metalinguistic awareness.
C) speech registers.
D) referential communication skills.
Eight-month-old Annabelle is not yet able to organize objects or remember and interpret
experiences as an adult does because her development is
A) continuous.
B) discontinuous.
C) stable.
D) plastic.
Critics of Vygotsky argue that his theory __________ in advancing cognitive
development.
A) says little about biological contributions
B) overemphasizes the importance of children’s independent efforts
C) assumes a set of experiences common to all cultures
D) underemphasizes the significance of teaching
The percentage of REM sleep is greatest in
A) preterm babies.
B) full-term newborns.
C) infants between 2 to 3 months.
D) infants between 6 to 9 months.
Because social maturity in early childhood contributes to later academic performance, a
growing number of experts propose that
A) readiness for kindergarten be assessed in terms of not just academic skills but also
social skills.
B) preschool education be made mandatory for children.
C) kindergarten teaching focus almost exclusively on social skills rather than academic
instruction.
D) temperamentally shy, impulsive, and emotionally negative children be taught
separately from their prosocial agemates.
When mothers label gender, either with nouns or with pronouns, these statements
A) prevent the use of generics in children’s language.
B) promote gender-neutral thinking in children.
C) can confuse children about what it means to be male versus female.
D) encourage toddlers to sort their social world into gender categories.
When aggressive children make friends,
A) their aggressive behavior declines and prosocial behavior increases.
B) they often seek playmates of the other sex.
C) the relationship is often riddled with hostile interaction.
D) they develop age-appropriate outlets for their aggressive behavior.
Magnet schools offer
A) education to ethnically diverse students, although achievement results remain similar
to more segregated schools.
B) more exclusive education to high-SES students who are able to afford it.
C) the usual curriculum, plus an emphasis on a specific area of interest.
D) education in a specific area of interest to select groups of homogeneous students.
__________ are sex cells that contain __________ chromosomes each.
A) Gametes; 23
B) Gametes; 23 pairs of
C) Zygotes; 46
D) Autosomes; 23 pairs of
In schools located in areas with high poverty, their large classes, weak instruction, rigid
rules, and reduced academic expectations and opportunities
A) lead to extremely low self-esteem.
B) heighten the capacity for delayed gratification.
C) are associated with higher rates of lawbreaking.
D) foster a fanatical adherence to social conventions and moral norms.
Dr. Moussai observes that bees sacrifice their lives to protect the hive, and a dog cowers
in the corner after wetting the carpet. Dr. Moussai concludes that many morally relevant
behaviors have evolutionary roots, which coincides with __________ theory(ies) of
human social behavior.
A) Piaget’s
B) social learning
C) biological
D) Kohlberg’s
A blended, or reconstituted, family is one in which
A) divorced parents remarry each other.
B) children live with grandparents instead of their parents.
C) adopted or foster children live together.
D) cohabitation or remarriage results in a parent, a stepparent, and children.
Research has shown that most preschoolers
A) do not use the words “think,” “remember,” or “pretend.”
B) have a complete grasp of cognitive processes.
C) believe that an event can be known without being directly observed.
D) often insist that they have always known information they just learned.
Bella belongs to a peer group that includes many swim team members. Bella may be
ousted from the group if she
A) lacks skills to swim competitively.
B) wears swimsuits that differ from the rest of the group.
C) is unable to spend time with the group on weekends because of family
responsibilities.
D) does not have a cell phone or instant messaging capabilities.
Preschoolers view the mind as a(n)
A) symbol-manipulating system through which information from the environment
flows.
B) tool for reconstructing isolated bits of information.
C) extension of their parents’ mind.
D) passive container of information.
With extensive training, dolphins and parrots can acquire a vocabulary and respond to
short, novel sentences,
A) although they do so less consistently than a preschool child.
B) but only chimps can be taught to produce strings of three or more symbols that
conform to a rule-based structure.
C) showing that they follow the same grammatical rules as humans in their own
“language.”
D) and are highly attuned to recognize human intentions that motivate use of language.
Which of the following statements is true about adolescent sexual attitudes and
behavior?
A) Girls tend to have their first intercourse earlier than boys.
B) During the past decade, adolescents have swung slightly back to more conservative
sexual beliefs.
C) Compared with a generation ago, fewer people approve of sexual intercourse before
marriage.
D) Rates of extramarital sex among U.S. young people have recently risen.
A __________ is a prediction of behavior drawn directly from a __________.
A) confirmation; fact
B) hypothesis; theory
C) theory; hypothesis
D) summary; study
Elevated heart rate and blood pressure, a depressed immune response, and reduced
digestive activity are all outcomes of
A) social referencing.
B) an avoidant attachment.
C) joint attention.
D) psychological stress.
Fraternal twinning
A) occurs more often in Asian than Caucasian births.
B) occurs more often among women whose mothers and sisters gave birth to fraternal
twins.
C) occurs less often among women who are overweight than among those with a slight
body build.
D) is less likely with each additional birth.
Petra is an average 10-year-old. Research indicates that Petra
A) is egocentric in her social relationships.
B) provides clear directions and constructs well-organized cognitive maps.
C) is in Piaget’s formal operational stage.
D) grasps the logical necessity of propositional thought.
__________ is an example of incomplete dominance.
A) Sickle cell anemia
B) Cooley’s anemia
C) Marfan syndrome
D) PKU
In the violation-of-expectation method, __________ suggests that Baby Will is
“surprised” by a deviation from physical reality.
A) a lack of attention and unfocused behavior
B) heightened attention to the unexpected event
C) smiling rather than crying
D) quick recovery to a familiar event
According to Vygotsky, children cannot guide their own behavior until they have
integrated standards represented in adult”child dialogues into their own
A) self-directed speech.
B) intersubjectivity.
C) cooperative dialogue.
D) zone of proximal development.
__________ has the highest divorce rate in the world.
A) Canada
B) New Zealand
C) Italy
D) The United States
At the end of high school, about _____ percent of U.S. young people are sexually
active, and by age 25 __________.
A) 25; that number increases to include all those who are married
B) 50; that number rises to over 75 percent
C) 60; nearly all have become sexually active
D) 70; more are active but it varies greatly by gender and SES