Exam 1: An Introduction to Child Development

What do longitudinal designs do?

A researcher is interested in examining whether offering children candy as an incentive to share will increase preschoolers' sharing behaviour. A group of preschoolers is brought into the laboratory to play with some interesting toys. The preschoolers are split into two groups through random assignment. Group A is told that they will get candy each time they share, and group B is not told anything about candy or sharing. Results indicate that preschoolers in group A share more than do preschoolers in group B, and the researcher concludes that offering children candy for sharing caused the children in group A to share more. Which statement BEST describes a possible limitation of this study?

Which statement is NOT a general reason to learn about child development, as outlined in the text?

This is a biochemical process that reduces expression of a variety of genes that is involved in regulating reactions to stress.

A method for combining the results from independent studies to determine a general conclusion on the topic is known as:

Which variable is LEAST likely to be an independent variable in an experiment?

Attributes that vary across individuals and situations are termed:

Katie and Natasha are sisters. Natasha has a lot of friends and is well liked by her peers. Katie, in contrast, has few friends and is constantly the target of her peers' teasing. Using the four factors Scarr identified as involved in differences among siblings, describe why these sisters might be so different when it comes to their peer relations. For each of the four factors, provide a specific example.

The internal validity of a measure involves the extent to which:

In the research by Blackwell, Trzeniewski, and Dweck described in the text, researchers created an educational program for low-income middle school students. The children who showed the MOST substantial improvement in math grades were those children who initially believed that intelligence _____ and who were provided with information about how _____.

Dr. Schmidt is studying the effectiveness of a new reading program on children who have experienced an impoverished family background and low maternal involvement among minority children. She will separate children into two groups; one that gets the new reading program and one that uses the current reading program. She will also use random assignment to create her two groups. The groups created in this manner would NOT be comparable with regard to which characteristic?

Which statement does NOT express a benefit of structured observation?

Suppose a researcher found out that there was a strong positive correlation between the number of minutes parents spend reading to children and the number of minutes parents spend engaging in athletic activity with children. If the researcher concluded that engaging in high levels of athletic activity with children causes parents to read to them more often, which type of problem would MOST likely be occurring?

A researcher is interested in examining the association between how humorous children are and their school achievement. Two observers go to children's homes and judge children as "not funny at all," "slightly funny," or "very funny." Upon comparison of the observers' judgments, it is apparent that the observers have a high level of disagreement as to children's humour level. This measure of humour level has poor:

Which person is MOST likely to develop schizophrenia, based on current research findings?

The external validity of a measure involves the extent to which:

This major group of philosophers and psychologists has argued that infants possess general learning mechanisms that allow them to learn a great deal quite quickly but that infants and young children lack the specialized capabilities that nativists attribute to them.

Which premise is at the foundation of the scientific method?

A correlation of -1.00 indicates that:

Which scenario provides the BEST example of how children actively contribute to their own development?