Deck 1: An Introduction to Child Development

Question 1

The "turtle technique" discussed in the textbook
demonstrates that:

A)child-development research can help teachers in real- life classrooms.
B)child-development research can help parents in real-life situations.
C)although child-development research can help trained therapists, it rarely can help real teachers and parents.
D)the techniques that parents and teachers believe work with children often do not stand up to rigorous scientificresearch.

Answer 1

child-development research can help teachers in real- life classrooms.

Question 2

One of the earliest examples of research conducted for the benefit of children was:

A)Watson's experiments on the effects of reward and punishment.
B)the Earl of Shaftesbury's effort to reform child labor practices.
C)Freud's dream analysis.
D)Locke's advocacy of early discipline and later
freedom.

Answer 2

the Earl of Shaftesbury's effort to reform child labor practices.

Question 3

The emergence of theories such as those of Freud and Watson in the early twentieth century reflected the:

A)increasing influence of early philosophical views of childhood.
B)incorporation of research findings into the study of child development.
C)frustration of universities trying to find suitable
articles to print in professional journals.
D)rise of young children as paid laborers in factories andmines.

Answer 3

incorporation of research findings into the study of child development.

Question 4

A longitudinal design would be most useful for which of the following research questions?

A)Are older children better than younger children at playing hopscotch?
B)What are the similarities and differences in the TV- viewing habits of elementary school students and junior high school students?
C)Do children who are empathetic preschoolers become empathetic teenagers?
D)How do children learn to solve jigsaw puzzles?

Question 5

Consider the research on preschoolers' ability to provide accurate testimony about past events discussed in the text. Of the following pieces of advice, which one would be the MOST important to tell an interviewer prior to interviewing a young child?

A)Be sure to bring a doll to aid the child in answering your questions.
B)Be sure you know the answers to the questions before
asking the child.
C)If you don't think the child answered a question accurately, be sure to ask the child the question again.
D)All of the answers are correct.
E)None of the answers is correct.

Question 6

Which of the following statements best characterizes the results of research on children from Romanian orphanages?

A)Positive experiences in later childhood cannot counteract the effect of negative early childhood experiences.
B)Positive experiences in later childhood counteract theeffect of negative early childhood experiences.
C)The impact of positive experiences on children's resiliency depends on the age at which the neglect occurred.
D)Neglect in infancy and early childhood always has lasting consequences.

Question 7

The finding that children born to schizophrenic parents who are adopted as infants by nonschizophrenic parents are more likely than other children to become schizophrenic themselves is evidence of:

A)the influence of nature.
B)the influence of nurture.
C)the interaction of nature and nurture.
D)random variation in the population.

Question 8

The "baby biography" was developed by:

A)Darwin.
B)Locke.
C)Freud.
D)Watson.

Question 9

The question of the influence of biological and environmental factors on child development is best termed:

A)nature versus nurture.
B)nature and nurture.
C)nature then nurture.
D)nature and/or nurture.

Question 10

Which of the following factors involved in child development is NOT an environmental factor?

A)parental involvement in school
B)paternal IQ
C)maternal attractiveness
D)All of the answers are environmental factors.

Question 11

Which of the following characteristics is entirely the result of biological endowment?

A)intelligence
B)mental health
C)liking for chocolate
D)physical appearance
E)None of the answers is correct.

Question 12

The "turtle technique" is a method:

A)children were taught to help cope with anger.
B)parents can use to teach children to crawl.
C)children can use when they are feeling shy.
D)teachers were taught to help deal with children who
have developmental delays.

Question 13

"Nature" refers to:

A)parents' physical health.
B)characteristics of the womb in which the prenatal period is spent.
C)genes received from parents.
D)All of the answers are correct.

Question 14

"Nurture" refers to all of the following EXCEPT:

A)maternal drug use during childhood.
B)paternal drug use during early infancy.
C)growing up in poverty.
D)genetic predisposition towards elevated cortisol levels.

Question 15

The views of Aristotle, Locke, and Plato were primarily based on:

A)the scientific method.
B)impressions and general beliefs.
C)structured observations of children.
D)clinical interviews of parents.

Question 16

Of the following, which is the MOST likely conclusion from Werner's Kauai study?

A)Children with prenatal or birth complications nearly always have later difficulties regardless of experience.
B)Adverse family circumstances prevent normal
development.
C)Prenatal and birth circumstances combine with experiences to determine children's development.
D)Even when one knows both the birth circumstances and the family circumstances of children, one cannot predict how they will develop.

Question 17

Findings from psychological research can assist courts in obtaining more accurate testimony from young children. Which of the following methods have been demonstrated to increase the likelihood of accurate testimony?

A)offering children rewards for answering questions accurately
B)informing children's interviewers of the prosecutor's
beliefs about the event in question
C)asking children questions multiple times
D)asking children nondirected questions

Question 18

Freud based his theory of child development in large part on:

A)hypnosis and analysis of dreams and childhood memories.
B)a systematic daily diary of a single child's growth.
C)experiments on reward and punishment of rats and other animals.
D)study of children working in coal mines.

Question 19

Which of the following groups of Romanian-born children adopted by British families fared the best in weight gain after adoption?

A)children who were adopted before age 6 months

B)children who were adopted between the ages of 6 and 24 months

C) children who were adopted between the ages of 24 and42 months

D)All of the adopted children fared equally poorly in weight gain

Question 20

A main advantage of an interview is that it:
•ensures that behavior is addressed in all contexts.
•allows for accurate predictions of future behavior.
•helps illuminate social interaction processes.
•can reveal a child's subjective experience.

Question 21

Which of the following factors is an example of a way in which children shape their own development?

A)play style
B)socioeconomic status
C)number of siblings
D)All of the answers are correct.

Question 22

Which of the following aspects is NOT considered part of the sociocultural context?

A)neighborhood
B)societal values
C)historical era
D)genes

Question 23

Which of the following statements about individuals' contributions to their own development is true?

A)Most individuals rarely actively contribute to their own development.
B)Infants are incapable of actively contributing to their own development.
C)Individuals' active contributions to their own development increase as they age.
D) Individuals' active contributions to their own development decrease as they age.

Question 24

To examine whether or not children's cognitive development occurs in stages, Professor Blue observes four different groups of children. Each child's performance on cognitive tasks is observed two or more times over a period of two years. Which of the following groups is MOST likely to lead Professor Blue to the conclusion that development occurs continuously?

A)Group A, whose performance on a single task is observed twice each year
B) Group B, whose performance on multiple tasks is observed twice each year
C) Group C, whose performance on a single task is observed every week
D) Group D, whose performance on multiple tasks is observed every week

Question 25

The study in which 6-year-old children were presented with a 5-day training program designed to improve effortful attention demonstrated that learning:

A)can improve intelligence test scores but not brain processes.
B)can change brain processes but not intelligence test scores.
C)can improve both intelligence test scores and brain processes.
D)improves neither intelligence test scores nor brain processes.

Question 26

Which of the following statements reflects what the textbook maintains is the best answer to the question of whether development is fundamentally continuous or discontinuous?

A)Development is fundamentally continuous.
B)Development is fundamentally discontinuous.
C)Some domains of development, such as cognitive development, are fundamentally discontinuous, whereas other domains, such as social development, are fundamentally continuous.
D)Whether development is fundamentally continuous or discontinuous depends on perspective-how development is examined as well as how often it is examined.

Question 27

With which of the following statements would stage theorists disagree?

A)Behaviors of children at different ages differ sharply.
B)A child's entry into a new stage involves a gradual shift from one way of experiencing the world to a different way of experiencing it.
C)Children of a particular age show wide-ranging similarities across a variety of situations.
D) When children enter a new cognitive stage, they demonstrate their new way of thinking across a broad spectrum of tasks.

Question 28

A researcher who believes that nature and nurture
interact to produce high-achieving children would be MOST likely to make which of the following hypotheses?

A)Children who have older siblings will be more likely to do well in school than children who do not have older siblings.
B)Children whose parents have high IQs will be more likely to do well in school than children who do not have older siblings.
C)Both having an older sibling and having parents with high IQs will be associated with doing well in school.
D)Only when children have parents with high IQs will having an older sibling be associated with doing well in school.
E)None of the answers is likely to be the researcher's hypothesis.

Question 29

Which of the following statements is the best example of children's active contribution to their own development?

A)Joshua's bright blue eyes cause strangers to shower him with attention, influencing him to be less fearful of strangers.
B)Analisa's mother's anxiety about her daughter's academic success causes Analisa to panic whenever she takes an exam.
C) Manny's quiet nature influences him to seek out other quiet children, with whom he plays quiet games and stays away from the more rambunctious children in his class.
D)None of the answers is an example of children's active contribution to their own development.

Question 30

Which of the following pieces of evidence would provide the most support for the influence of the interaction between nature and nurture on the development of empathy?

A)Children who grow up with caring and altruistic parents are more likely than other children to be empathetic.
B)In comparison with other adopted children, the only children who show high levels of empathy are those whose biological parents are empathetic and who grow up with caring and altruistic parents.
C)Children whose biological parents are empathetic are more likely than other children to be empathetic, even when adopted as infants.
D) None of the answers provides evidence of the interaction between nature and nurture on the development of empathy.

Question 31

Neurotransmitters are:

A)the electrical impulses in the brain.
B)chemicals involved in communication between brain cells.
C)gene defects that produce schizophrenia.
D)what early philosophers theorized reflected children's core nature at birth.

Question 32

In a study of adopted children, the finding that the only children who had a considerable likelihood of becoming schizophrenic were those who had a schizophrenic biological parent and who were also adopted into a troubled home is evidence of:

A)the influence of nature.
B)the influence of nurture.
C)the interaction of nature and nurture.
D)random variation in the population.

Question 33

One of the best-known stage theories of cognitive development is the theory of:

A)Piaget.
B)Scarr.
C)Freud.
D)Erikson.

Question 34

Which of the following statements about crib speech is true?

A)Crib speech is a demonstration of the importance of nurture on development.
B)Crib speech is an early indication of schizophrenia.
C)Freud partially based his theory on observations of crib speech.
D)Crib speech is an example of individuals' contributions to their own development.

Question 35

Which of the following activities is NOT a core component of effortful attention?

A)exerting effort on tasks
B)controlling emotions
C)focusing attention
D)inhibiting impulses

Question 36

One study discussed in the text demonstrated that infants with a particular form of one of the genes influencing production of a neurotransmitter associated with effortful attention had lower effortful attention than other infants only when they also were exposed to poor parenting. This study demonstrates which of the following principles?

A)Genetic influences operate in one's environment.
B)Environmental influences operate in one's genetics.
C)Some genetic influences operate regardless of
environment.
D)Some environmental influences operate regardless of genetics.
E)Current research methods often do not allow researchers to separate the influences of genetics and environment.

Question 37

Stage theories regard development as:

A)active.
B)passive.
C)continuous.
D)discontinuous.

Question 38

Which of the following pieces of evidence would provide the most support for the influence of nurture on the development of empathy?

A)In comparison with other adopted children, the only children who show high levels of empathy are those whose biological parents are empathetic and who grow up with caring and altruistic parents.
B)Children who grow up with caring and altruistic parents are more likely than other children to be empathetic, even when adopted as infants.
C)Children whose biological parents are empathetic are more likely than other children to be empathetic, even when adopted as infants.
D)There is no association between parents' characteristics and children's empathy.

Question 39

Rachel is a 6-month-old who has recently learned to sit up on her own. Her mother places two toys in front of her: a soft, yellow, stuffed animal within her reach and a colorful rattle slightly out of her reach. Seeing both toys, Rachel chooses the one she finds more appealing to play with. Over time, choices such as these may:

A)influence her development of crawling.
B)influence the development of her understanding of cause and effect.
C)be active contributions to her development.
D)influence the development of her personality.
E)All of the answers are correct.

Question 40

Which of the following views of changes in height is more likely to lead to a view that it is continuous?

A)measuring the height of a boy at yearly intervals from birth to age 18
B)examining changes in height from one year to the next from birth to age 18
C)Both of these views make changes in height look continuous.
D) Both of these views make changes in height look
discontinuous.

Question 41

A hypothesis is a(n):

A)research question.
B)conclusion yielded by research.
C)method to answer a question.
D)educated guess.

Question 42

Which of the following statements qualifies as a hypothesis?

A)Children whose parents argue in their presence are more likely than other children to try illegal drugs.
B)Which parental behaviors are associated with an increased likelihood of teenage illegal drug use?
C)What are the differences between children whose parents argue in their presence and those whose parents do not argue in their presence?
D)There are many differences between children whose parents argue in their presence and those whose parents do not argue in their presence.

Question 43

Which of the following factors is the greatest obstacle to poor children's chances of successful development?

A)accumulation of various disadvantages
B)growing up in single-parent homes or without
biological parents
C)parents' lack of involvement in their schooling
D)living in dangerous neighborhoods

Question 44

Which of Scarr's factors is related to the theme of the "active" child?

A)genetic differences
B)different choices of environment
C)differences in treatment by parents and others
D)different reactions to similar experiences

Question 45

The highest percent of the population below the poverty line is found in which of the following groups?

A)married-couple white families
B)married-couple black families
C)single-mother Asian families
D)single-mother Hispanic families

Question 46

The term used for the social class measure based on income and education is:

A)race.
B)socioeconomic status.
C)culture.
D)sociocultural context.

Question 47

The child-developmental research method of preferential looking has yielded practical benefits for:

A)diagnosing the severity of cataracts in infants.
B)training children with specific language impairment.
C)training infants to see more clearly.
D)diagnosing attention deficit disorder.

Question 48

The technique of preferential looking draws from research demonstrating that infants consistently prefer to look at over .

A)animals; objects
B)the color red; the color blue
C)their mothers' faces; their fathers' faces
D)a simple pattern; a gray block

Question 49

Which of the following items would NOT be considered part of the sociocultural context involved in an American child's language development?

A)number of words in a child's vocabulary
B)town budget for speech therapy
C)parental knowledge of child development
D)modern American value for education
E)All of the answers are parts of the sociocultural context involved in a child's language development.

Question 50

At the foundation of the scientific method is the premise that:

A)if a hypothesis is repeatedly tested and found, it must be abandoned.
B)some hypotheses cannot be tested scientifically.
C)beliefs that are plausible to many experts are assumed to be accurate.
D)All of the answers are correct.

Question 51

Which of the following items is NOT one of the four factors Scarr identified as involved in the differences among siblings?

A)sociocultural context
B)genes
C)children's choice of environments
D)treatment by parents and others

Question 52

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." On comparison of the observers' judgments, it is apparent that the observers have a high level of disagreement as to children's humor level. This measure of humor level has poor:

A)test-retest reliability.
B)interrater reliability.
C)internal validity.
D)interrater validity.

Question 53

The term reliability does NOT

A)consistency of measure.
B)similarity in results when variable is measured at two different time points.
C)ability to generalize measure.
D)level of agreement in observations by different observers.

Question 54

Which of the following aspects is the best reason for the difference between U.S. and Mayan cultural differences in childhood sleeping patterns?

A)differences in laws
B)differences in financial circumstance
C)differences in the value placed on independence versus interdependence
D)random cultural variation

Question 55

Which of the following activities is a typical use of the technique of preferential looking?

A)diagnosing cataracts in infants
B)determining sibling preference
C)testing changes in children's reasoning
D)All of the answers are correct.

Question 56

Which of the following statements best describes the results of research by Dweck on children's beliefs about intelligence?

A)Children who believe that intelligence is a fixed entity are more likely than other children to persist in the face of difficulty.
B)Children who believe that intelligence can be increased by learning are more likely than other children to say they are dumb when faced with a
challenge.
C)Children who believe that intelligence is a fixed entity are more likely than other children to think that a very challenging problem is too hard for them.
D)All of the answers describe Dweck's research on
children's beliefs about intelligence.

Question 57

In the research by Blackwell, Trzeniewski, and Dweck described in the text, researchers created an educational program for low-income middle school students. Which of the following groups of children showed the most substantial improvement in math grades?

A)children who initially believed that intelligence is an unchanging quantity who were provided with information about how memory works
B)children who initially believed that intelligence is an unchanging quantity who were provided with information about how learning alters the brain
C)children who initially believed that intelligence improves through leaning who were provided with information about how memory works
D)children who initially believed that intelligence improves through learning who were provided with information about how learning alters the brain

Question 58

Which of the basic steps of the scientific method is unique to the method?

A)Form a hypothesis.
B)Develop a method to test hypothesis.
C)Ask a question.
D)Draw a conclusion.

Question 59

One study discussed in the text demonstrated that the grades of children who were highly engaged in school changed in more positive directions than would have been predicted by genetic background or family environment alone. This finding is most supportive of the theory of:

A)Watson.
B)Scarr.
C)Dweck.
D)Piaget.

Question 60

Which disadvantage associated with growing up in poverty does the text present as the greatest obstacle to successful development?

A)single-parent homes
B)poor parental participation in school
C)dangerous neighborhoods
D)air and water pollution
E)accumulation of all of these factors and other
disadvantages

Question 61

Which of the following statements expresses a disadvantage of naturalistic observation?

A)Memory of participants for past events is often inaccurate and incomplete.
B)Naturalistic observation can feel artificial to the
participants.
C)Reports are often biased to reflect favorably on the participants.
D)Naturalistic observation has a limited value for
studying infrequent behaviors.
E)None of the answers is a disadvantage of naturalistic observation.

Question 62

Which of the following statements about naturalistic observation is NOT true?

A)Researchers try not to influence the behaviors of the individuals they are observing.
B)Researchers must ensure that the effects they observe are due to the variables they intentionally manipulated.
C)Obtaining sufficient interrater reliability is important.
D)The principal objective is to observe how people act in their usual surroundings.

Question 63

A researcher would be MOST likely to use naturalistic observation to explore:

A)toddlers' responses to their parents' encouragement to touch a dangerous object.
B)the frequency of bullying behavior among schoolchildren.
C)the beliefs of children in an elementary school class about how smart their classmates are.
D)extensive examination of a single child's feelings about his friendships.

Question 64

Which of the following statements does NOT express a benefit of structured observation?

A)The researcher can design the context to elicit the behavior of interest.
B)Structured observation allows researchers to observe behaviors that occur only infrequently.
C)Children feel comfortable in their own environment.
D)All children are observed in the same situation.

Question 65

To examine the effectiveness of empathy training on children's sharing behavior, two months of training are provided to 3-year-old children living in rural Georgia. Six months later, the children's sharing behaviors are measured and compared to their pretraining sharing behavior. Improvements are considered the result of the empathy training. Which of the following properties is a potential source of internal invalidity?

A)All children were from rural Georgia.
B)Children's sharing behavior may improve with the simple passage of time.
C)The observers of the sharing behavior may disagree.
D)Children who were the best sharers before the training were not necessarily the best after the training.

Question 66

Which of the following statements describes a potential disadvantage of the interview method?

A)The interview method has limited value for studying infrequent behaviors.
B)The prediction of future behaviors in often inaccurate.
C)It is difficult to gather information about participants' subjective experiences.
D)It takes a long time to gather data from large groups of children.

Question 67

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

A)the effects of an experiment are truly due to conditions the researcher intended to manipulate.
B)different observers of the same behavior agree.
C)the results of a study will hold when studies are conducted with different participants and methods.
D)None of the answers is correct.

Question 68

Test-retest reliability refers to:

A)the level of agreement between different observers of the same behavior.
B)children's improvement over time in abilities such as mathematics.
C)the degree to which a test measures what it is intended to test.
D)the degree of similarity in the results of the same measure when it is given at two different times.

Question 69

Which of the following items is a potential source of internal invalidity?

A)passage of time
B)inconsistent findings across different groups of
participants
C)observer disagreement
D)conflicting scores on multiple test days

Question 70

A researcher asks children a series of predetermined questions about how much they like to play with their siblings. The researcher is using:

A)naturalistic observation.
B)structured observation.
C)clinical interview.
D)structured interview.

Question 71

A researcher is interested in thoroughly exploring 8- year-old Jane's thoughts and feelings about living in poverty. The researcher's best option for obtaining this information would be:

A)clinical interview.
B)structured interview.
C)naturalistic observation.
D)structured observation.

Question 72

The validity of a test refers to:

A)its consistency.
B)the extent to which two raters agree on its result.
C)the degree to which it measures what it is intended to measure.
D)the level of agreement between different observers of the same behavior.

Question 73

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

A)the effects of an experiment are truly due to conditions the researcher intended to manipulate.
B)different observers of the same behavior agree.
C)the results of a study hold when studies are conducted with different participants and different methods.
D)None of the answers is correct.

Question 74

Which of the following statements about the troubled homes in Patterson's study is NOT true?

A)Children responded to parents' punishment by behaving less aggressively.
B)Children often acted in an angry manner.
C)Children responded to their parents' anger with
hostility.
D)Parents reacted to children's hostility with increased anger.

Question 75

A psychologist is interested in 4-year-old Jacob's knowledge of the differences between animals and vehicles. The psychologist gives Jacob a multiple-choice picture test in which he must write the letter of the correct answer on a separate answer sheet. However, Jacob has trouble identifying and writing some letters. On two separate occasions, Jacob receives the same score on the test. This method has:

A)good validity and good reliability.
B)good validity and poor reliability.
C)poor validity and good reliability.
D)poor validity and poor reliability.

Question 76

To examine how children interact with their elementary school teachers on a daily basis, a researcher would probably use the technique.

A)naturalistic interview
B)structured interview
C)naturalistic observation
D)structured observation

Question 77

Researchers try to remain unobtrusive in which of the following data-gathering methods?

A)naturalistic interview
B)structured interview
C)naturalistic observation
D)structured observation

Question 78

Structured observation would probably be the method of choice for a researcher interested in:

A)how toddlers respond to their parents' encouragement to touch a dangerous object.
B)the frequency of bullying behavior among school children.
C)the beliefs of the children in an elementary school class about how smart their classmates are.
D)obtaining extensive information about a single child's feelings about his friendships.

Question 79

Kochanska and her colleagues probably chose to study toddlers' compliance with their mothers' requests with the methodology they used because:

A)children tend to feel most comfortable in their own homes.
B)they wanted all children to be exposed to the identical situation.
C)they were interested in children's subjective
experience of the event.
D)All of the answers are correct.

Question 80

To compare children's creativity levels at different ages, Dr. Leno asks children how many imaginary friends they have and considers their answers to be a measure of their creativity. A second researcher, Dr. Letterman, disagrees that the answers are a measure of creativity and instead believes that the number of imaginary friends a child has is an indicator of level of mental disturbance. Dr. Letterman believes Dr. Leno's measure of creativity has a problem with its:

A)external validity.
B)relevance to the hypothesis.
C)reliability.
D)interrater agreement.