A growing number of studies confirm that playing violent video games
A) increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior.
B) does not spark hostile behavior in nonaggressive children.
C) impacts girls more than boys.
D) has a greater impact on teens than on preschool and young school-age children.
Which of the following teenagers is at the highest risk for suicide?
A) Quinn, a Caucasian-American girl
B) Mercy, an African-American girl
C) Lou, a Native-American boy
D) Emilio, a Hispanic-American boy
Which of the following statements about gender differences in death rates from
cardiovascular disease and cancer is true?
A) Women have higher death rates for both cardiovascular disease and cancer than men.
B) Men have higher death rates for cardiovascular disease and women have higher
death rates from cancer.
C) There are no sex differences in the death rates from cancer or cardiovascular disease.
D) Men have higher death rates for both cardiovascular disease and cancer than women.
Dr. Kostel believes that development takes place in stages. This belief is consistent with
the __________ perspective.
A) nurture
B) continuous
C) discontinuous
D) nature
Mr. Johnson was in a skiing accident. He suffered traumatic head injuries when he came
in contact with a tree. Mr. Johnson’s cerebral cortex no longer registers electrical
activity, but his brain stem remains active. Mr. Johnson
A) is brain dead.
B) is in the agonal phase of death.
C) has entered a persistent vegetative state.
D) is in the mortality phase of death.
Differences in __________ skills are believed to be major contributions to a widening
gender gap in college enrollments.
A) math
B) science
C) computer
D) literacy
Which of the following statements about factors related to juvenile delinquency is true?
A) SES and ethnicity are strongly related to teenagers’ self-reports of antisocial acts.
B) Families of delinquent youths tend to be low in warmth, high in conflict, and
characterized by harsh, inconsistent discipline and low monitoring.
C) Girls who experience parental divorce and separation are more likely to engage in
antisocial behavior than boys who experience parental divorce and separation.
D) Teenagers tend to commit crimes in high-SES neighborhoods where parents are
more likely to be absent after school and in the early evening.
By age 2 or 3, most children can
A) copy vertical lines and a circle.
B) use a spoon effectively.
C) pedal and steer a tricycle.
D) walk down stairs, leading with one foot.
Children of bilingual parents who teach them both languages in infancy and early
childhood
A) generally take five to seven years to attain speaking and writing skills on par with
those of monolingual agemates.
B) attain language milestones in both languages far later than monolingual agemates.
C) have a much smaller and less sophisticated vocabulary than monolingual children.
D) separate the language systems early on and attain early language milestones
according to a typical timetable.
Travis and Chase, both age 13, are best friends. Their discussions probably focus on
A) educational aspirations.
B) achievements in school.
C) social status.
D) communal concerns.
The __________ theory of attachment recognizes the infant’s emotional tie to the
caregiver as an evolved response that promotes survival.
A) psychoanalytic
B) “clear-cut”
C) operant
D) ethological
Skeletal age is determined by __________ to determine the extent to which soft, pliable
cartilage has hardened into bone.
A) X-raying the long bones of the body
B) measuring the circumference of the skull
C) X-raying the spinal cord and teeth
D) measuring the length of the arms and legs
Compared with adults making decisions, teenagers
A) more often carefully evaluate alternatives.
B) less often fall back on intuitive judgments.
C) are more effective under “cool,” unemotional conditions.
D) perform less well because they must inhibit emotion and impulses in favor of
thinking rationally.
In college, Edward comes to the realization that his own beliefs are often subjective. He
notes that his roommate, who holds vastly different beliefs from his own, has his own
“truth.” Edward is engaged in
A) pragmatic thought.
B) dualistic thinking.
C) relativistic thinking.
D) commitment within relativistic thinking.
Which of the following statements about the sex lives of American adults is true?
A) People who engage in casual dating have the most physically satisfying sex lives.
B) As number of sex partners increases, satisfaction declines sharply.
C) Most married adults say they are only somewhat happy with their sex lives.
D) More men than women report persistent sexual problems.
Dennis and Kristen are an American cohabiting couple who are not engaged to be
married. Compared with their friends who waited to live together until after they were
engaged or married, which of the following is likely to be true?
A) They are less likely to divorce if they do decide to marry.
B) They have more conventional values.
C) They are more religious.
D) They are more androgynous.
Obese children tend to
A) be less responsive than normal-weight children to external stimuli associated with
food.
B) chew their food more thoroughly than normal-weight children.
C) be less responsive than normal-weight children to internal hunger cues.
D) eat slower than normal-weight children.
In low-SES families, attachment generally
A) moves from insecurity to security.
B) remains stable.
C) changes from one insecure pattern to another.
D) becomes more stable over time.
Most chubby babies
A) become overweight adults.
B) are bottle-fed rather than breastfed.
C) are less active than normal-weight babies.
D) thin out during toddlerhood and early childhood.
For young and old alike, reminiscence
A) is ruminative.
B) occurs during times of life transition.
C) reinforces negative stereotypes.
D) occurs more often among people who are self-focused.
Which of the following statements about resilience is true?
A) Resilience is a preexisting attribute rather than a capacity that develops over time.
B) Resilience enables children to use internal and external resources to cope with
adversity.
C) Because they are repeatedly exposed to adversity, abused children become
increasingly resilient over time.
D) Resilience is less common among children with a mastery-oriented approach to new
situations.
Which of the following statements about adolescent mothers is true?
A) Most experience serious birth complications.
B) Most receive state-mandated child support payments from the father.
C) They are less likely to divorce if they do marry.
D) Very few give up their infants for adoption.
Which of the following maternal grandmothers is the most likely to be the preferred
caregiver of her grandchildren while their parents are at work?
A) Sally, a retired Caucasian American
B) Alysha, a retired African American
C) Kristina, a Caucasian-American homemaker
D) Lupe, a Mexican-American homemaker
The force of contractions during childbirth causes the infant to produce high levels of
stress hormones that
A) can lead to anoxia, or inadequate oxygen supply, during delivery.
B) lead to irritability and digestive disturbances in newborns.
C) cause infants’ heart rate and activity level to become dangerously high during
childbirth.
D) help infants withstand oxygen deprivation during contractions by sending a rich
supply of blood to the brain and heart.
Which of the following children is most likely to believe in racial and ethnic equality?
A) Yaowu, a child who attends an ethnically diverse school and shares feelings with
close, cross-race friends
B) Gonzalo, a child who believes that people’s personality traits are fixed rather than
changeable
C) Deonte, a child with overly high self-esteem
D) Judy, a child whose parents highlight group distinctions
Most bereaved individuals
A) do not participate in bereavement interventions.
B) seek group counseling.
C) attend individual grief counseling.
D) seek family therapy.
With the transition to early childhood, many children
A) have an increase in appetite.
B) become unpredictable, picky eaters.
C) eat healthier foods than in infancy.
D) require different foods than adults for a healthy diet.
Adolescent drug experimentation
A) should not be taken lightly because a single heavy dose can lead to permanent injury
or death.
B) is a normal part of adolescence and, therefore, is not a cause for concern.
C) is much greater among European than U.S. adolescents.
D) is rare in the Native-American population.
Janet has cardiovascular disease. Her doctor detected high blood pressure and high
blood cholesterol. To relieve arterial blockage, Janet had __________, a procedure in
which a surgeon threaded a needle-thin catheter into her arteries and inflated a balloon
at its tip.
A) angioplasty
B) bypass surgery
C) a pacemaker implantation
D) angina pectoris
The __________ is believed to be responsible for the female advantage in average life
expectancy.
A) gender difference in alcohol consumption
B) protective value of the extra X chromosome
C) risk factor of the extra Y chromosome
D) gender difference in preventative health care
Maryann is pregnant and works in a smoke-filled environment. What can you tell her
about passive smoking?
A) The negative effects of smoking are only evident in children born to heavy smokers.
B) Passive smoking is related to low birth weight, infant death, and childhood
respiratory illnesses.
C) Smoke-filled environments are harmful to expectant mothers, but not to their unborn
children.
D) The effects of passive smoking are not yet known.
Which of the following statements is supported by research on newborn taste
preferences?
A) Newborns cannot distinguish basic tastes.
B) Not until 4 months do babies prefer a salty taste to plain water.
C) Newborns prefer the taste of formula to breast milk.
D) Unlike adults, babies relax their facial muscles in response to sour tastes.
Research on child care in infancy has found that
A) the majority of babies in child care display a resistant attachment to their mothers.
B) the relationship between child care and emotional well-being depends on both
family and child-care experiences.
C) the rate of insecurity among infants who attend child care is significantly higher than
among infants who do not attend child care.
D) regardless of quality, child care predicts long-term adjustment problems.