Like longitudinal research, cross-sectional studies can be threatened by
A) practice effects.
B) participant dropout.
C) sequential timing.
D) cohort effects.
Between 6 and 10 weeks, the parent’s communication with the infant evokes
A) the social smile.
B) laughter.
C) social referencing.
D) secure attachment.
According to the core knowledge perspective, each of an infant’s __________ permits a
ready grasp of new, related information.
A) core domains of thought
B) sensorimotor schemes
C) mental states
D) five senses
Men affected by even tiny amounts of dioxin in their bloodstream father
A) nearly twice as many girls as boys.
B) more boys than girls.
C) more twins and triplets than unaffected men.
D) fewer children than unaffected men.
Which of the following questions or statements will likely elicit accurate, detailed
information from a child witness?
A) “Your friend answered “yes’ to this next question, and I want to see if you agree with
her.”
B) “He touched you there, didn’t he?”
C) “The bad man who went to jail came into your room, didn’t he?”
D) “Tell me what happened.”
Which of the following statements about death rates and causes in the United States is
true?
A) The leading cause of death in early adulthood is suicide.
B) Homicide death rates rise with age.
C) Death rates for all causes in the United States exceed those of other industrialized
nations.
D) Death rates due to disease decline with age.
Frank, a kindergartener, says that Pat is his best friend on days they get along. But when
a dispute arises, he reverses himself: “Pat is not my friend!” Frank’s parents should
A) talk to the teacher about Frank’s poor attitude.
B) talk to Pat’s parents and both children about the true meaning of friendship.
C) be aware that first friendships do not have a long-term, enduring quality based on
mutual trust.
D) be concerned because secure friendships in early childhood should survive conflicts.
Which of the following middle-aged adults will most likely experience the biggest
increase in job satisfaction?
A) Janae, a female account executive
B) Marcia, a female postal worker
C) Virl, a male assembly-line worker
D) Rodney, a male corporate vice president
The United States
A) ranks lower than any other industrialized nation in infant deaths in the first year of
life.
B) does not rank well on any key measure of children’s health and well-being.
C) ranks lower than Canada in childhood poverty.
D) ranks higher than any other industrialized nation in public expenditure on education.
__________ brain growth refers to the young brain’s rapidly developing organization,
which depends on ordinary experiences.
A) Early-dependent
B) Experience-expectant
C) Experience-dependent
D) Early-expectant
A researcher places a red dot on 2-year-old Raven’s nose. When she looks into a mirror,
she tries to rub the dot off of her nose rather than off of the mirror. This behavior
indicates that she has developed
A) effortful control.
B) a categorical self.
C) continuity of control.
D) self-recognition.
Self-esteem takes on a __________ structure in the mid-elementary school years.
A) unidirectional
B) hierarchical
C) flat
D) horizontal
Marion has just learned that her brain contains an abundance of neurofibrillary tangles
and amyloid plaques. Marion’s doctors are probably concerned that she might have
A) stroke.
B) Parkinson’s disease.
C) Huntington’s disease.
D) Alzheimer’s disease.
When Paul started his job, he developed a close relationship with Richard, a senior
colleague. Richard helped Paul succeed in his job, and with his help, Paul was quickly
promoted. According to Levinson, Richard
A) was acting out Paul’s dream.
B) was probably going through the age-30 transition.
C) acted as a mentor to Paul.
D) probably jeopardized his own dream.
During the school years, friendship becomes
A) less complex.
B) more psychologically based.
C) more proximity based.
D) less trust based.
Lana understands that an object’s shape is the same whether she sees it or touches it;
that breaking a glass causes a sharp, crashing sound; and that the pattern of footsteps
signals the approach of a person. This understanding is called
A) amodal stability.
B) differentiation theory.
C) intermodal stimulation.
D) intersensory theory.
Which of the following statements about the widespread belief that intelligence
inevitably declines in middle and late adulthood as the brain deteriorates is true?
A) Many early cross-sectional studies showed an age-related increase in cognitive
functioning.
B) Cohort effects do not appear to affect the appearance of age-related intelligence
declines in middle adulthood.
C) Widespread testing of college students and soldiers in the 1920s revealed an
age-related increase in intelligence in middle adulthood.
D) When adults are followed longitudinally, their verbal scores rise during early
adulthood and decline gradually during middle adulthood.
In Canada and Western Europe, where community- and school-based clinics offer
adolescents contraceptives and where universal health insurance helps pay for them,
__________ than in the United States.
A) teenage sexual activity is much higher
B) teenage sexual activity is much lower
C) pregnancy, childbirth, and abortion rates are much higher
D) pregnancy, childbirth, and abortion rates are much lower
Which of the following statements is consistent with the proximodistal trend of body
growth?
A) During the prenatal period, the head develops more rapidly than the lower part of the
body.
B) During infancy, the body grows from “head to tail.”
C) During the prenatal period, the trunk grows first, followed by the chest and the head.
D) During childhood, the arms and legs grow somewhat ahead of the hands and feet.
Which of the following statements about unemployment in midlife is true?
A) Middle-aged workers are more likely than younger workers to secure a new job with
similar pay and status.
B) Middle-aged workers affected by layoffs remain jobless longer than younger
workers.
C) Job loss helps “wind” the social clock so that tasks like reappraisal of life goals are
accomplished sooner.
D) All forms of social support work equally well for middle-aged unemployed adults.
From middle to late adolescence, cognitive changes enable teenagers to
A) focus mostly on positive personality traits.
B) avoid the use of qualifiers in self-descriptions.
C) combine their traits into an organized system.
D) place less emphasis on personal and moral values than school-age children.
One of the greatest drawbacks of the information-processing approach is its difficulty
with
A) breaking down children’s thoughts into precise procedures.
B) integrating information into a broad, comprehensive theory.
C) analyzing cognition into its components.
D) implementing rigorous research procedures.
Which of the following statements about speech stream patterns is true?
A) When presented with controlled sequences of nonsense syllables, babies listen for
statistical regularities.
B) Babies learn to talk long before they learn the meaning of speech.
C) Babies and toddlers cannot discriminate a word-internal syllable pair from a
word-external syllable pair.
D) Children cannot detect words that start with weak syllables until around 3 years of
age.
According to anthropologist Margaret Mead, __________ is/are entirely responsible for
the range of teenage experiences.
A) biology
B) the social environment
C) the storm-and-stress of adolescence
D) psychological forces
In Substage 6 of the sensorimotor period, the ability to create mental representations
enables toddlers to __________ and __________.
A) engage in deferred imitation; use make-believe play
B) understand object permanence; engage in goal-directed behavior
C) engage in deferred imitation; understand object permanence
D) engage in functional play; solve invisible displacement problems
Research shows that maternal employment
A) reduces the time school-age children spend with their fathers.
B) often predicts declines in children’s academic achievement.
C) tends to create increased gender-stereotyped beliefs in children.
D) leads fathers to take on greater child-care responsibilities.
Four-year-old Erin is a picky eater. How can Erin’s parents encourage her to eat a new
food?
A) Reward her with dessert if she eats the new food.
B) Repeatedly expose her to the new food without any direct pressure to eat it.
C) Add salt or sugar to the new food to increase her willingness to eat it.
D) Make her stay at the table until she takes a few bites of the new food.
Viability occurs between __________ weeks.
A) 18 and 21
B) 22 and 26
C) 27 and 30
D) 31 and 36
__________ seems to foster a more positive, coherent early self-concept.
A) Permissive parenting
B) A warm, sensitive parent”child relationship
C) Authoritarian parenting
D) Strong identification with the other-sex parent
Men with a high school diploma or less and highly educated women in prestigious
careers are overrepresented among singles after age 30 because
A) they are the most likely to have married and divorced young.
B) women tend to “marry down” and men tend to “marry up.”
C) women tend to “marry up” and men tend to “marry down.”
D) they are the most likely to be closed to a long-term relationship.
__________ halves the number of chromosomes normally present in body cells.
A) Mitosis
B) Genomic imprinting
C) Cytoplasm
D) Meiosis
According to Vygotsky, children master activities through
A) joint activities with more mature members of their society.
B) interaction with the physical environment.
C) operant conditioning and modeling.
D) trial and error.
Cate, age 49, acknowledges both her good and bad qualities and feels positively about
herself and life. Cate exhibits
A) self-acceptance.
B) autonomy.
C) wisdom.
D) expertise.
Research on peer sociability demonstrates that
A) functional play is especially common among older preschoolers.
B) preschoolers who spend a lot time playing alone tend to be socially anxious.
C) preschoolers move from one type of play to another and back again.
D) the amount of solitary and parallel play decreases sharply during the preschool
years.
What value does social support have in the context of aging?
Describe the theory of biological aging that emphasizes the programmed effects of
specific genes.
Describe the development of depth perception, giving the order of when depth cues
emerge. Define both binocular and pictorial depth cues.
Describe the lifespan theory of development, and indicate its stance on the three basic
issues of human development .
Describe some of the undesirable side-effects of repeated, harsh punishment.
Explain parental imperative theory. What are its criticisms?
Discuss volunteer service in late adulthood.
Define temperament. Describe the difficult child, according to Thomas and Chess. Why
has the difficult pattern sparked the most research interest?
Describe characteristics of developmentally appropriate infant and toddler child care.
How do parents influence gender typing in early childhood?
According to the core knowledge perspective, babies are born with a set of innate
knowledge systems. Discuss research findings on numerical knowledge.
When Regan was 10 months old, her parents divorced and her father moved to a distant
city. Regan’s mother, Kelly, placed Regan in a family child-care home and began
working 45 to 55 hours per week. Kelly recently noticed that Regan ignores her when
she picks her up from child care. What can you tell Kelly about Regan’s behavior?
Describe the basic emotion of anger, how it develops, and why angry reactions increase
with age.
Describe major prenatal milestones during the second trimester of pregnancy.
Summarize the environmental factors that enhance academic achievement during the
teenage years.