Exam 1: The Science of Child Development

In Erikson's psychosocial theory,

To measure children's social skills, you decide to use the number of interactions children have with other children as your measure of social skills. As you collect data, you notice that some children who have many interactions do not seem to be very socially skilled because many of their interactions are negative. This makes you question the __________ of your measure.

Olivia wants to find out how many calories children of various ages consume. She asks parents of children aged 2 to 6 to bring their children to the laboratory for an hour session. While there, children are encouraged to eat as much as they want. Which of the following designs is Olivia using?

Which of the following designs used in child-development research provides information about continuity and allows researchers to determine the presence of practice and cohort effects?

If parents believe that children are tabula rasas at birth, they are likely to

Abe is investigating moral reasoning by asking children what they would do in different situations, such as if one of their friends would shoplift when they were together. He is concerned that children may be giving him the answers they think he wants to hear, rather than their genuine feelings about what they would really do. Abe is worried about

Frank was watching a Saturday morning cartoon in which the main character kicked someone and took away a toy. Frank then walked across the room and kicked his brother Joe and took away Joe's toy just as the cartoon character had done on the TV show. According to social cognitive theory, Frank has just demonstrated

Detailed, systematic observations of individual children are referred to as

Name and briefly describe the eight stages of Erikson's psychosocial development theory.

Marcio studies developmental changes in intelligence by testing one group of subjects when they are 4, 8, 12, and 16 years of age. What kind of design is Marcio using?

When a particular type of learning can take place only during a specific time period, not before or after that period, there is a(n) ___________ for learning that behavior.

Two first-grade teachers were interested in boys' aggressive behavior that seemed to happen during recess. One teacher believed that the aggressive behavior was more likely to happen when the boys and girls got to play together during recess while the other teacher believed that the boys' aggressive behavior was worse when they played among themselves. To settle their debate, for one week they had the boys play alone (without the girls) during recess. The following week they had the boys play with the girls during recess. The teachers monitored boys' aggressive behavior each week. What potential ethical problems do these teachers have? How could this problem be corrected and avoided?

A strength of field experiments is that the results are more likely to be representative of behavior in real-world settings than results obtained in a laboratory.

The view that development is a result of the unfolding of a specific and prearranged scheme or plan within the body is characteristic of

Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development focused on

Sonja conducts an experiment to determine whether listening to music affects emotional state. She has children wait alone in a room that either did or did not have music playing and then has them complete a questionnaire asking about their current level of happiness. The independent variable in this study is

A researcher is interested in how the scores that children receive on a spelling test are affected by the amount of food that they eat for lunch. The independent variable is

Erikson's theory suggests that 16-year-old Glenn is likely to be facing the challenge of

A researcher wants to see if watching a violent movie leads to more aggressive behavior in preschool children. How should the researcher proceed? Be sure to discuss sampling, assignment to conditions, and choice of independent and dependent variables.

Your sister Kumi is having problems with her 2-year-old daughter. Your niece, Kayla, has been throwing tantrums to get her own way. As you watch Kumi and Kayla interact, you see that Kumi will say "no" to Kayla, Kayla will scream and cry, and then Kumi will give in to her. What can you tell Kumi about the principles of operant conditioning that might help her deal with the situation?