Exam 1: Exploring Child Development

According to the biopsychosocial approach, development is an interaction of the following factors:

John Watson criticized psychoanalysis and argued that psychology needed to focus on _______________.

The study of the evolutionary development of social interactions among humans and among animals is called _______________.

Ethology has its roots in _______________.

Which of the following theorists thought that experience and learning, or nurture, determined what children would become?

A researcher would like to investigate the effect of alcohol consumption on prenatal development but decides that it would be inappropriate to randomly assign mothers to the alcohol condition. In this case, what is the best alternative for studying the relation between these two variables?

A 10-year-old boy, Benjamin, always compares his grades with his classmates' grades and his athletic ability with his other teammates' abilities. Benjamin is probably facing which psychosocial crisis?

Nature refers to _______________.

________ was the psychologist who theorized that children actively adjust their own understandings as they learn about the world.

Naturalistic observation is a descriptive method of research.

The information-processing approach focuses on how children perceive, store, and retrieve information.

In the ________________ method, children are asked questions about a topic or process. One of the major drawbacks of this method is participants' abilities to remember accurately and to verbalize their answers.

Psychoanalytic theories are theories that focus on _______________.

Among the following, which is LEAST likely to be considered an aspect of "nurture"?

Amy is going through a "lanky" period of development. This indicates that _______________.

Define the terms nature and nurture. Do you think that the field of behavior genetics has significantly contributed to the nature-nurture argument? Why or why not?

Systems theories examine the adaptive significance or survival value of behaviors.

This model was first developed as a way to better understand illness and wellness.

If 10-year-old girls born in the 1950s act differently than 10-year-old girls born in the 1990s, it may be due to _______________.

Theories act as filters for identifying relevant information, observations, and relationships. This means that they _______________.