Deck 8: Middle Childhood 6 to 12 Years

Question 1

How does the school environment affect close friendships?

A) Close friendships are more stable in schools that keep children in the same classroom groups from grade to grade.
B) The school curriculum emphasizes the importance of having close friends.
C) Teachers decide which children will become close friends.
D) Schools that contextualize learning promote the formation of more stable best friend relationships.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Which emotion is most characteristic of withdrawn children?

A) Disdain for peers
B) Guilt
C) Anger
D) Happiness

Answer 2

C

Question 3

In middle childhood, children are aware of social norms for peer acceptance. This results in more pressure toward

A) conformity.
B) egocentrism.
C) altruism.
D) isolation.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

One cognitive benefit of active involvement in the peer group is increased

A) emotional control.
B) hopefulness.
C) perspective-taking skills.
D) egocentrism.

Question 5

Which of the following happens to a rejected child in the process of social skill development?

A) The child becomes closer to siblings and extended family members.
B) The child selects an activity such as sports or drama in order to gain peer acceptance.
C) The child comes to expect negative behaviors from others.
D) The child has as many opportunities as accepted children to develop social-relations skills.

Question 6

The work of Erikson and Piaget point to which area as central in psychological development during middle childhood?

A) Parental identification
B) Intellectual development
C) Development of a sense of trust
D) Formation of a personal identity

Question 7

From an ethological perspective, how might group cooperation contribute to species survival?

A) It is part of the mating ritual.
B) It allows more offspring to be produced.
C) It fosters more competition among the males for mating privileges.
D) It improves the group's ability to track and hunt for food.

Question 8

Tyrone has serious mental health problems as a teenager. It could be that he was part of which one of the following groups during middle childhood?

A) Aggressive children
B) Withdrawn children
C) Aggressive-withdrawn children
D) Aggressive-rejected children

Question 9

Which parental discipline technique is most likely to interfere with a child's friendship formation?

A) Power assertion
B) Love withdrawal
C) Induction
D) Synchrony

Question 10

Why are "best friend" relationships important in middle childhood?

A) They provide a model for relationships with authority figures.
B) They protect children from the peer group.
C) They rarely break up and often last a lifetime.
D) They provide a context for working on relationships in which both members have equal power, status, and access to resources.

Question 11

Children who are aware of the variety of perspectives that are present in the social situation are likely to be

A) positively evaluated by their age-mates.
B) exposed to harsh discipline by parents.
C) friendly with rejected and withdrawn children.
D) more positively evaluated by their teachers than by their peers.

Question 12

What is the difference between peer acceptance and having a "best friend" relationship?

A) Once established, peer acceptance can never be lost whereas best friends can break up.
B) Peer acceptance requires more conformity than best friend relationships.
C) Peer acceptance is more important to a sense of well-being than having a close friend.
D) Peer acceptance allows more openness and self-disclosure than a best friend relationship.

Question 13

Sally's mother used power-assertive discipline techniques, such as yelling and spanking, when Sally was young and continues to do so. Today, Sally is 8. You can expect her relationships with her peers to be characterized by

A) cooperation and mutuality.
B) avoiding conflict at all costs.
C) asserting power in peer conflicts.
D) hostility, warmth, and honesty.

Question 14

Which of the following statements is correct?

A) Aggressiveness is a highly valued characteristic for girls that promotes peer acceptance.
B) Aggressiveness is a characteristic of withdrawn-rejected children.
C) Children with special needs problems are more likely to be accepted if they are aggressive.
D) In some school environments, aggressiveness contributes to popularity and closeness among boys.

Question 15

How is attachment formation in infancy related to friendship formation?

A) Children who are securely attached look for one best friend with whom to share their feelings.
B) Children who are securely attached are more popular and more comfortable in social interactions.
C) Children who are anxiously attached make friends readily.
D) Children who are securely attached do not need friends.

Question 16

Which of the following is a characteristic of withdrawn children who have strong feelings of loneliness?

A) Many other children like them and want to be with them.
B) They are likely to have been bullied or victimized.
C) They work hard to improve their social skills.
D) They rarely spend time alone.

Question 17

Some children who are rejected tend to be disruptive and aggressive; others tend to be socially withdrawn. Which of the following statements is more characteristic of the aggressive/disruptive children than the socially withdrawn group?

A) They tend to experience difficulty dealing with stress.
B) They tend to display inappropriate affect and unusual behavioral mannerisms.
C) They are more likely to attribute hostile intentions to others.
D) They are more likely to benefit from organized sports programs.

Question 18

Both aggressive and withdrawn rejected children tend to

A) have multiple problems.
B) seek out adults for companions.
C) be interpersonally reserved.
D) overcome rejection by the end of elementary school.

Question 19

Which of the following groups is most likely to develop serious mental health problems in adolescence or adulthood?

A) Aggressive-withdrawn children
B) Aggressive-rejected children
C) Aggressive children
D) Withdrawn children

Question 20

Which of the following increases a child's sense of loneliness?

A) Having musical skill
B) Being academically competent
C) Being a target of peer rejection
D) Being outgoing and sociable

Question 21

Billy is 4 years old. He has a big box of Legos, and his mother asks him to give her five Legos from the box. He has trouble deciding how many to give her so he takes a handful and says, "Here, it's five." What is Billy's problem with this task?

A) Four-year-olds cannot count to five.
B) Four-year-olds are obstinate.
C) Four-year-olds do not have a scheme for conservation of numbers.
D) Four-year-olds do not want to be tested by their mothers.

Question 22

What are the findings of studies that have tried to teach young children (under age 6) to conserve?

A) Children under age 6 are not able to use the principles necessary to solve conservation problems.
B) Children under age 6 can be taught the concept of conservation with clay, but they do not transfer this concept to other materials.
C) With special training, children as young as 4 years old can learn conservation principles and apply them across materials.
D) Children under age 6 are just as ready to solve conservation problems as older children.

Question 23

The investigator showed a card to a child and asked: "Are there more radishes or more vegetables in this picture?" What is the investigator likely to be studying?

A) Conservation
B) Combinatorial skills
C) Identity equivalence
D) Classification skills

Question 24

According to Piaget, an action or transformation that is carried out in thought rather than in action is called

A) a formal transformation.
B) fantasy thinking.
C) a mental operation.
D) a cerebral manipulation.

Question 25

What is a common characteristic of children who are victims of bullying?

A) When attacked, they do not retaliate.
B) They have a strong need for power and control.
C) They are aggressive toward authority figures.
D) They become forces of change within the school environment.

Question 26

Through________ , children begin to appreciate the logic, order, and predictability of the physical world.

A) fantasy play
B) sensorimotor intelligence
C) preoperational thinking
D) concrete operational thinking

Question 27

Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are all

A) computational skills.
B) examples of reciprocity.
C) classification skills.
D) examples of semantics.

Question 28

Why does Piaget use the term "concrete" to describe the quality of thinking that is characteristic of middle childhood?

A) The term reflects Piaget's concerns about the intellectual rigidity and vulnerability of middle childhood.
B) The term highlights the focus on real objects rather than hypothetical situations and relationships.
C) The term indicates that children can only reason about inanimate objects at this stage.
D) The term reflects the directness and transparency of young people at this age.

Question 29

In order for 7-year-old Rory to properly classify, he must be adept at both categorization and

A) permanence.
B) addition.
C) induction.
D) inversion.

Question 30

Computational skills like addition and subtraction require which of the following?

A) Hypothetical reasoning
B) Class inclusion
C) Conservation of number
D) Formal operations

Question 31

Zachary likes to group his Matchbox cars in different categories. Sometimes he sorts them by color, other times by model, and other times by the size of the car. Zachary is showing what trait?

A) Introversion
B) Reciprocity
C) Classification
D) Conservation

Question 32

When a child understands that even though you change the shape of a piece of clay you still have the same clay, we say that the child understands

A) reciprocity.
B) reversibility.
C) classification.
D) identity.

Question 33

When a child can simultaneously manipulate two dimensions cognitively, such as circumference and thickness, so that s/he understands that a change in one dimension is compensated for by a change in the other, s/he understands

A) reversibility.
B) reciprocity
C) identity.
D) metacognition.

Question 34

Sheila continually monitors how well she understands her homework assignments and takes steps to make sure she studies hard to understand them better. This is called

A) conservation.
B) metacognition.
C) industry.
D) classification.

Question 35

Nine-year-old Gerson scores proficient in grouping objects according to some shared dimension. This reflects acute abilities in which of the following?

A) Introversion
B) Reciprocity
C) Conservation
D) Classification

Question 36

The ability to order subgroups in a hierarchy is an ability related to

A) conservation.
B) categorization.
C) computational skills.
D) object permanence.

Question 37

Meredith practices her math skills using flash cards with her father. Meredith is showing what type of skill?

A) Reciprocity
B) Classification
C) Computational
D) Abstraction

Question 38

When a child understands that physical matter does not change in quantity despite changes in form or container, she should be able to do which of the following types of problems?

A) Categorization problem
B) Classification problem
C) Conservation problem
D) Computational problem

Question 39

Bobby is often mean to younger children at school by taunting, teasing, and pushing them. However, when an older boy taunts, teases, and pushes Bobby, he rarely retaliates. It is most likely that Bobby is a(n)

A) aggressive-rejected child.
B) bully-victim.
C) empathic individual.
D) physically immature child.

Question 40

Metacognition includes

A) a feeling of knowing.
B) shared meaning between two or more people.
C) grammar and syntax.
D) conservation of space.

Question 41

Nine-year-old Laure has great confidence that she will perform very well in the sold-out school play later this evening. This is called ________.

A) self-efficacy
B) effortful control
C) conservation
D) zone of proximal development

Question 42

How might the cultural context influence a child's ability to read?

A) Some cultures consider reading to be of little use and too difficult for children.
B) All cultures value reading as a useful tool in daily life.
C) Children in all cultures are able to read at a third-grade level by age 10.
D) Reading is a universal skill, not influenced by cultural context.

Question 43

During middle childhood, self-evaluation is strongly influenced by

A) combinational skills.
B) the ability to maintain emotional control.
C) trust in one's parents as economic providers.
D) comparisons with the performance of peers.

Question 44

Juan is sure he is going to strike out when he is up to bat in baseball, so he doesn't swing at any pitches. As a result, he strikes out! What is this called?

A) Self-efficacy
B) Metacognition
C) Self-fulfilling prophecy
D) Psychophyisiological

Question 45

Bandura suggests that there are four sources of information that contribute to judgments of self-efficacy. Which of the following is one of these?

A) Literacy
B) Practical intelligence
C) Past performance in the specific area of mastery
D) Combinatorial skills

Question 46

What new aspect of the self-concept influences a child's enthusiasm for reading?

A) The child thinks of himself/herself as a first grader.
B) The child thinks of himself/herself as someone who can read.
C) The child thinks of himself/herself as loved and valued.
D) The child thinks of himself/herself as someone who can ride a two-wheeled bicycle.

Question 47

Milly is thinking about why she is feeling sad and disappointed. This kind of thinking is called

A) depression.
B) inferiority.
C) psychological mindedness.
D) shame.

Question 48

According to Sternberg, there are three kinds of intelligence. However, tests of intelligence typically only assess ________ intelligence.

A) analytic
B) creative
C) practical
D) interpersonal

Question 49

Which of the following is considered a feature of complex skilled behavior?

A) Complex skilled behavior relies primarily on sensory/perceptual capacities.
B) Skilled behaviors are acquired in a strict order from simple to more complex.
C) Skilled behaviors rely on memorization rather than adaptive strategies.
D) The limits of the human system place constraints on a child's ability to perform skilled behaviors.

Question 50

Tally, an 8-year-old, watches Claire climb the rock wall. Tally had been scared to try it until she saw Claire do it. This is an example of how Tally's self efficacy can be raised through

A) enactive attainments.
B) vicarious experiences.
C) verbal persuasion.
D) physical state.

Question 51

One of the most critical intellectual skills that is developed and elaborated during middle childhood is

A) speaking.
B) synthesizing information from multiple sources.
C) reading.
D) forming scientific hypotheses.

Question 52

Self-evaluation takes place in two contexts. They are the ________ frames of reference.

A) external and social
B) internal and external
C) psychological and social
D) internal and psychological

Question 53

Thomas knows he is good at baseball because he can hit the ball further than any of his teammates. This is an example of what?

A) Internal frames of reference
B) External frames of reference
C) Internal and external frames of reference
D) Psychological and social frames of reference

Question 54

What is one academic benefit of metacognition?

A) It helps guide actions to improve understanding.
B) It supports fantasy play.
C) It encourages a competitive outlook for problem solving.
D) It helps children form more secure attachments.

Question 55

Which of the following is the best definition of self-evaluation?

A) Children develop ways of knowing about knowing.
B) Children identify role expectations.
C) Children feel optimistic about their ability to succeed.
D) Children compare their achievements to both internal and external standards for performance.

Question 56

Aguar is very excited about jumping off the diving board, while Penelope is fearful and anxious. Who is more likely to perceive themselves as able to jump off of the diving board?

A) Aguar only
B) Penelope only
C) Aguar and Penelope are both as likely to jump off of the board.
D) Neither are likely to jump off the board.

Question 57

How is a sense of self-efficacy related to persistence?

A) Children who have a low sense of self-efficacy are likely to give up after a failure experience.
B) Children who have a positive sense of self-efficacy give up after they fail.
C) Children who fail often are more likely to believe the encouragement offered by others.
D) Children who have a low sense of self-efficacy try harder after they fail.

Question 58

Which of the following is an example of a sociocultural factor that contributes to the superior mathematical skill development of Japanese and Chinese children?

A) Japanese and Chinese parents expect their schools to do a better job and put pressure on educators to improve the quality of education.
B) Japanese and Chinese parents emphasize natural ability over effort.
C) Japanese and Chinese children have a genetically superior capacity for mathematical problem solving.
D) Japanese and Chinese children have more fun studying for mathematics.

Question 59

What is an example of a vicarious experience that contributes to the sense of self-efficacy?

A) Remaining calm as you approach the situation
B) Watching someone else, who is like you, succeed
C) Succeeding at a similar task in the past
D) Having a teacher or coach tell you that you can succeed

Question 60

Why are skills the basis of intellectual competence?

A) They are the same across cultures and historical periods.
B) They combine knowledge and practice for solving meaningful problems.
C) They can be taught.
D) They can be differentiated and assessed easily.

Question 61

Children discover that they cannot master every skill they attempt. This contributes to feelings of

A) inferiority.
B) purpose.
C) competence.
D) alienation.

Question 62

Children who participate in team sports learn that each position has a unique function and that the team has the best chance of winning if each player performs the functions of their position. This is called

A) competition.
B) division of labor.
C) in-group attitudes.
D) out-group attitudes.

Question 63

Some children who perform well on standardized tests perceive themselves to be below average in academic ability. Why is this?

A) These children think their parents have a low opinion of their abilities.
B) These children have been praised too much by parents so they have no realistic standard by which to judge their abilities.
C) These children are good test takers, but they don't perform well in school.
D) These children feel guilty about being so smart.

Question 64

______ children are more aware of the emotional and nonverbal behavior of others and make more use of social information to evaluate and regulate their own behavior.

A) High self-monitoring
B) Low self-monitoring
C) High self-esteem
D) Low self-esteem

Question 65

Parents' stereotypes about which gender is more talented in a particular area such as math, English, or sports, influence their

A) discipline strategies.
B) own involvement in school activities.
C) child's confidence about being able to perform well in this area.
D) confidence in their ability to save for their child's college education.

Question 66

Nine-year-old Jamie has recently become involved in team sports. Which of the following is Jamie likely to improve upon, based on this new involvement?

A) Friendship formation
B) The principle of division of labor
C) Formation of group identity
D) Development of classification skills

Question 67

In team sports, when one team wins, the other team loses. This results in the creation of which of the following?

A) A division of labor among team members
B) A sense of compassion for the members of the other team
C) In-group and out-group antagonism
D) A willingness to learn the rules of the game

Question 68

Which of the following is the psychosocial crisis of middle childhood?

A) Autonomy versus shame and doubt
B) Intimacy versus isolation
C) Initiative versus guilt
D) Industry versus inferiority

Question 69

What parenting style is characteristic of fathers whose children have an illusion of incompetence?

A) The fathers are emotional and expressive.
B) The fathers use love withdrawal as a discipline technique.
C) The fathers set standards that are too easily attained.
D) The fathers are critical and unsupportive.

Question 70

Feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy in middle childhood come from which two sources?

A) Self-esteem and skill development
B) The self and the social environment
C) Ego and id
D) Self-efficacy and self-evaluation

Question 71

Which in-group attitude is most likely to be fostered through experiences in team play?

A) The other team is the enemy.
B) One may need to relinquish personal goals for team goals.
C) Assisting the other team is unethical.
D) One must try as hard as possible to beat the other team.

Question 72

Nathan's school records are passed from teacher to teacher each year. Every year his new teacher reads the same comments, "Nathan is intelligent but lazy." At the end of the year that new teacher writes the same summary statement and passes it on to the next teacher in the subsequent grade. This could be an example of

A) academic competence.
B) self-fulfilling prophecy.
C) self-efficacy.
D) metacognition.

Question 73

What might make a child especially vulnerable to believing the false expectations of others and thereby expecting less from themselves?

A) Being experienced in an area or being highly skilled
B) Learning a new skill or learning something for the first time
C) Being indifferent to the social expectations of others
D) Having many sources of information about one's abilities and performance

Question 74

Under what combination of student ability and student effort is the teacher most likely to take a sense of personal responsibility?

A) The child is bright but doesn't try hard.
B) The child has a behavioral problem.
C) The child has a low level of ability but doesn't try.
D) The child has a low level of ability and tries hard.

Question 75

Team sports emphasize which of the following concepts?

A) Interdependence of team members
B) The win-win approach to conflict resolution
C) Conservation of volume
D) Empathy with the victim

Question 76

Chris likes to burp loudly, and he does not care if people think it is gross. He just likes the sound of it and hopes that someday he can burp the entire alphabet in a row. Chris has

A) high self-monitoring.
B) low self-esteem.
C) low self-monitoring.
D) high self-esteem.

Question 77

Which of the following is an example of an out-group attitude fostered through experiences in team play?

A) One must relinquish personal goals for team goals when necessary.
B) Team victories bring personal satisfaction.
C) Team members are dependent on one another for success.
D) Assisting the other team is unethical.

Question 78

When teachers believe that a child is bright but does not try very hard, the teacher's reaction to the child is most likely one of

A) guilt.
B) pride.
C) anger.
D) satisfaction.

Question 79

According to psychosocial theory, a person's fundamental attitude toward      ________is established during middle childhood.

A) religion
B) intimacy
C) work
D) parenting

Question 80

Which of the following best captures the idea of an illusion of competence?

A) Children want to be smart but no one will help them.
B) Children are smart but feel worthless.
C) Children have such low ability they can't distinguish correct and incorrect responses.
D) Children want to be rewarded for trying hard even if they don't do well.