Deck 5: The Nature, Nurture, and Evolution of Behaviour

Question 1

In the nature-nurture debate, nature stands for

A) Non-biological, learned characteristics
B) Biological, innate characteristics
C) Interactions between cultural and evolutionary traits
D) Functions of the family environment

Answer 1

B

Question 2

The non-biological, learned characteristics of individuals and their behaviour can be called

A) Nature
B) Navigation
C) Nurture
D) Nuance

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Which of the following is true of the nature-nurture debate?

A) Nature always exists via nurture
B) Nurture should be evaluated in isolation of nature
C) Nature should be evaluated more closely than nurture
D) Nurture is more important for developing skills in later life

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The field of behaviour genetics is a field within this psychological perspective

A) Behavioural
B) Cognitive
C) Sociocultural
D) Biobehavioural

Question 5

Chromosomes are found in which part of a cell?

A) Some
B) Nucleus
C) Endoplasmic reticulum
D) Golgi apparatus

Question 6

The functional units of DNA grouped along chromosomes are also known as

A) Alleles
B) Dominants
C) Genes
D) Genotypes

Question 7

Eva has blonde hair, but her sister, Cynthia, has brown hair. What is responsible for the sisters' different hair colours?

A) The sisters inherited two separate genomes
B) The sisters inherited different sets of alleles
C) The sisters are most likely identical twins
D) The gene for Cynthia's hair colour came from her mother

Question 8

Gregor Mendel was the first to understand that the fundamental unit of heredity is the

A) Zygote
B) Gene
C) Chromosome
D) Genome

Question 9

The main function of RNA is to

A) Code the genetic material to be passed on to the next generation
B) Transcribe information to code for protein synthesis
C) Ready the cell for mitosis
D) Generate genetic information to be used by mitochondria

Question 10

All of the following are examples of the relationship of nature and nurture in gene replication, EXCEPT

A) An infant whose mother drinks excessively during pregnancy may develop foetal alcohol syndrome
B) A genetically normal child deprived of human touch may develop profound cognitive and emotional problems
C) A child who develops more rapidly be perceived as mature as a less rapidly developing child
D) A human being reared in darkness during specific periods of early infancy will never develop normal vision

Question 11

One reason that the genome is complicated is that

A) Genes can become active or inactive based on other genes
B) Genes tend to be inherited only in enriched environments
C) Genes can be turned off by other aspects of evolution
D) Genes tend to only be important for developing culturally varied traits

Question 12

A scientist who studies behaviour genetics would be most interested in

A) The influence of the environment on the development of traits and behaviours
B) The individual differences in heredity of phenotypes
C) The development of sexual and aggressive behaviours in chimpanzees
D) The influence of genes and environments on different traits and behaviours

Question 13

Studies of pairs of twins like the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart are examples of

A) Correlational studies
B) True experiments
C) Natural experiments
D) Case studies

Question 14

Which of the following is not true of a "natural" experiment?

A) An experimenter can draw conclusions about causation
B) Nature controls some of the variables
C) True random assignment to conditions is possible
D) The code of ethics for human-subjects must be applied

Question 15

The importance of genes for the development of behavioural traits is most obvious in cases of twins that are

A) Similar ages as other family members
B) Reared together
C) Reared apart
D) Observed prior to puberty

Question 16

Studies of adopted children conducted by behaviour geneticists have revealed mixed results, such that

A) Adopted children tend not to develop personality characteristics that are similar to their adoptive parents
B) Adopted children inherit their personality traits from their birth parents
C) Adopted children are very similar to their birth parents in terms of IQ
D) Adopted children are very similar to their adoptive parents in terms of personality traits

Question 17

The field of molecular genetics differs from behavioural genetics in that

A) behaviour genetics involves identifying specific genes responsible for various traits
B) behaviour genetics is based on principles of social psychology
C) molecular genetics was founded by Charles Darwin
D) molecular genetics involves identifying specific genes responsible for various traits

Question 18

When comparing samples of middle-class and impoverished twins, researchers have found that

A) Genes influence behaviour more greatly in the impoverished samples
B) About 50% of the variation in middle-class twins was due to random chance
C) Genes accounted for less than 10% of the IQ differences among impoverished twins
D) Less than 40% of the IQ differences in middle-class twins was accounted for by genes

Question 19

Some gene-environment correlations are "active" in that an individual

A) Actively seeks a particular kind of environment as the result of a genotype
B) Actively inhibits his emotions as the result of a genotype
C) Actively seeks refuge from a demanding parent
D) Never chooses to participate in the environment

Question 20

When a child's behaviour evokes particular kinds of behaviour around her, this type of gene-environment correlation is likely to occur

A) Proactive
B) Active
C) Passive
D) Reactive

Question 21

Which of the following is correct regarding the acceptance of the idea that humans evolved from earlier forms of life?

A) Only about 39% of Americans do not accept evolution
B) Nearly three quarters of all Americans with high-school educations accept evolution
C) Evolution is accepted by about 74% of Americans with post-graduate degrees
D) About 60% of Americans accept evolution but only applied to primates

Question 22

Scientific investigations of the differences in the behaviour of men and women throughout different cultures would probably be led by

A) Visual anthropologists
B) Psychoanalysts
C) Palaeontologists
D) Evolutionary psychologists

Question 23

According to Charles Darwin, characteristics of organisms that allow for better survival rates in a given environment also

A) Increase the chances that an organism will become extinct
B) Increase the chances that an organism will leave many offspring
C) Decrease the chances that an organism will leave many offspring
D) Not affect the rate at which an organism leave offspring

Question 24

A stick insect is able to assume the appearance of a stick to fool predators. The stick bug also eats leaves as a means of survival. When eating a leaf, the stick bug is often vulnerable to predators and sometimes is caught and eaten by birds. Which of the stick insect's traits is the most adaptive?

A) Eating leaves
B) Climbing trees
C) Chirping to attract males
D) Resembling a stick

Question 25

Which of the following is the best example of a human psychological adaptation in pregnancy?

A) The enlargement of the breasts to enable nursing in the third trimester
B) The craving of high calorie foods in the second trimester
C) The increase in progesterone in the first trimester
D) The incidence of morning sickness in the first trimester

Question 26

Despite the health risks of high fat diets and foods with processed sugars, humans seemed to evolve to prefer those sorts of foods. This phenomenon is known as

A) Evolutionary mismatch
B) Natural selection
C) Environmental fitness
D) Environmental mismatch

Question 27

An environmental mismatch has occurred when

A) An adaptation is no longer suited to help survival and reproduction in a current environment
B) An adaptation gives one organism an advantage over its environment
C) The rate of reproduction increases to a point of starving the environment
D) An adaptation becomes so well suited to the environment that it leads to infestation

Question 28

Which of the following is true regarding short term mating (aka "casual sex") in men?

A) Men have greater average interest in casual sex compared with women
B) Men are less likely to engage in long-term mating as they age
C) Men are not as likely to be interested in short-term mating compared with women
D) Men are more likely to try different sexual acts before the age of 20

Question 29

Though it is common to assume that women are less interested in sex than men are, women have a greater interest in long-term mating, which is

A) A need to have a large variety of partners over a long period of time
B) A casual part of the courtship process
C) A central component of an ongoing relationship
D) A means to acquire resources for providing for offspring

Question 30

Which of the following statements supports the historical idea that women invest much more in the entire process of reproduction.

A) As a woman ages, the experience of labour and childbirth becomes much less dangerous
B) Throughout pregnancy and during breastfeeding, the mother continually shares her scarce bodily resources with her young child
C) Women a young woman becomes pregnant, the chances of her attracting a male increases by 10%
D) The woman's window of fertility is basically unlimited after puberty

Question 31

According to evolutionary psychologists females are thought to be more picky in their choice of a mate because

A) Males have fewer opportunities to mate continuously
B) Females are less concerned with the resources provided by mates
C) Females have fewer opportunities to mate successfully
D) Males are usually less available during the winter months

Question 32

The sex differences in physical size and strength, competition for mates, and ornamentation of the body in humans are

A) About the same as most other species
B) Minimal compared with most other species
C) More likely to occur later in life compared with other species
D) Less likely in western cultures compared to eastern cultures

Question 33

One way to continue to improve the scientific conclusions drawn by evolutionary psychologists would be to

A) Focus primarily on more "evolved" western cultures
B) Stop trying to identify sex differences and investigate human emotion
C) Broaden the focus of research to include all representative cultures
D) Continue to apply all of Darwin's principles to theories of human behaviour

Question 34

Any enduring and cooperating group such as the Girl Scouts, the ancient Greeks, or the citizens of the United States of America can be called a

A) Culture
B) Society
C) Tribe
D) Order

Question 35

Dr. Freeman is a clinical psychologist who studies how inner-city neighborhood life effects the development of attachment styles between young mothers and their sons. Dr. Freeman's research is most in line with the

A) Clinical perspective
B) Cultural perspective
C) Sociocultural perspective
D) Evolutionary perspective

Question 36

Geert Hofstede employed this method in order to establish specific dimensions of behavior that varied from culture to culture

A) Case study
B) Experimental
C) Correlational
D) Survey

Question 37

Many Asian cultures emphasize group effort, group accomplishment, and group membership and as such can be labelled

A) Individualist
B) Group dynamic
C) Socialist
D) Collectivist

Question 38

What does it mean to say that the United States is an individualist culture?

A) The accomplishments and welfare of the individual are stressed ahead of the group
B) The importance of the individual is emphasized less than that of the group
C) The traditional behaviours of the individual sexes are restricted in specific ways
D) The accomplishments of groups are held in high esteem

Question 39

Cultures that place a heavy emphasis on competitiveness, assertiveness, ambition, and wealth are referred to as

A) Competitive
B) Rational
C) Masculine
D) Desire driven

Question 40

Cultures that create conditions to avoid uncertainty, stress, and risk also support

A) Competition among men for resources
B) Unstructured family relationships
C) Structured work environments
D) Complicated economic markets

Question 41

Which of the following situations did both Americans and Hindu Brahmans agree was morally wrong?

A) Cutting in line
B) Addressing one's father by his first name
C) Beating a woman for being unfaithful
D) Eating beef

Question 42

Humans are motivated to maintain a positive view of themselves, and to focus on their good qualities while downplaying the bad. This known as

A) Self-improvement
B) Self-enhancement
C) Self-sabotage
D) Self-reliance

Question 43

Research illustrates that self-enhancement based on individual accomplishments is more likely among

A) European-Americans
B) East Asians
C) Africans
D) Latin Americans

Question 44

Which of the following is typical of friendship in collectivist cultures?

A) People are allowed to make friends with anyone they wish
B) Friendship is generally regarded as a means towards social mobility
C) Relationships are constrained by family status, custom, and cautiousness
D) Friend "networks" are much larger than they are in individualist cultures

Question 45

This concept is in place when men dominate a large majority of uppermost positions in political and social hierarchies

A) Matriarchy
B) Fratriarchy
C) Patriarchy
D) Patrimony

Question 46

What explanation would an evolutionary psychologist give for the propensity of women to look for older, more established, high-status mates?

A) The greater minimal parental investment of women
B) The social norm of finding a rich husband
C) The greater parental investment of men
D) The status of most ancestral women in society

Question 47

Which of the following results did Fieder and Huber conclude was evidence of the evolution of sex differences in mate selection among Swedish citizens?

A) A slightly greater number of men sought to marry women who were in the age range of 20 to 24.
B) Significantly more children were born to first marriages where the woman is four-to-six years younger than the man.
C) Significantly less women chose to marry a man five years older than herself if he was a part of the social elite
D) A slightly lower degree of patriarchy exists in the Swedish culture compared with American culture

Question 48

The results of the Clark and Hatfield (1989) study can be explained by social roles such that

A) It is more likely for males to be rewarded for being sexual naïve in adolescence
B) Rewards are given to females for being sexual suggestive and promiscuous
C) It is less likely for a man to find a mate if he is still a virgin
D) It is more likely for females to be rewarded for being sexually reserved

Question 49

In Eagly and Wood's (1999) reanalysis of Buss's data on sex differences, they concluded that a greater level of equality between men and women in a particular culture, the

A) Fewer the number of mates each sex was likely to have over a lifetime
B) Greater the difference between men's and women's interest in status and resources in a mate
C) Fewer the number of divorces based on age of the female mate in one year
D) Smaller the difference between men's and women's interest in status and resources in a mate

Question 50

Though as they age, men tend to be attracted to women at the peak of fertility, men also

A) Prefer women as young as 18 years old as long-term companions
B) Have little preference regarding age of their long-term companions
C) Prefer long-term companions who are from a similar age-group to theirs
D) Prefer long-term companions who are more attractive than their peers

Question 51

The majority of evolutionary psychologists believe that nature has a significantly greater influence on behaviour than nurture

Question 52

All humans inherit the same versions of genes in collections called alleles

Question 53

Without proper nutrition and the appropriate chemical and hormonal environment, the 30,000 genes in a fetal genome will tend to express themselves as a phenotype

Question 54

Psychologists have generally been quick to pick up the findings of behaviour geneticists, especially those that pertain to personality characteristics.

Question 55

Twins that have very similar psychological traits but were reared apart are better evidence for heritability than twins that were reared together

Question 56

In general, studies of adopted children show lesser contributions of genes to personality than studies of twin

Question 57

The heritability statistic represents a measurement of exactly which traits are inherited and which traits have been acquired through a child's environment

Question 58

Rashida's love of music was probably the result of a passive gene-environment correlation because her father's music production career enabled her to explore her musical interests at an early age

Question 59

According to Charles Darwin, the reason that species do not reproduce with unlimited numerical growth is that variations in traits among members of a species lead to different likelihoods of survival in any given environment

Question 60

_________psychology is a multi-disciplinary approach explaining behaviour based on the influence of natural selection and sexual reproduction

Question 61

_________arise as a result of small incremental changes in the genome of organisms over many generations, which help the organism to survive in a changing environment.

Question 62

Genes can take two or more forms, also called _________that account for genetic differences like eye colour, height, and perhaps even behavioural differences.

Question 63

Most evolutionary psychologists view the mind as______, or that the mind developed as a collection of processes, adapted for specific purposes

Question 64

The _____is a collection of genes that provide the general instructions for the development of a human being.

Question 65

Sociocultural theorists use ___to explain the influence of the social organization or culture on individual behaviour

Question 66

Robert Trivers's theory of _______ and _______ explains sex differences as resulting from unequal minimal levels of sacrifice between males and females surrounding reproduction.

Question 67

Jennifer's ballet dancing interests resulted from a(n) ________________________gene-environment interaction because her parents fostered her love of dance from an early age.

Question 68

The _________environment of two siblings includes all experiences that each of the two encountered throughout development

Question 69

In the human genome, _________molecules provide directions for production of _________molecules that create proteins and amino acids

Question 70

Research on the heritability of psychological traits has typically targeted two populations. Identify those populations and give a description of a gene-environment correlation and a gene-environment interaction

Question 71

The main "test case" for evolutionary psychological theory has been human sex differences. Give three examples of universal differences between males and females found to exist surrounding mating and parenting

Question 72

Sociocultural psychologists have identified four dimensions of behaviour along which cultures typically differ. Identify all four dimensions and give a specific example of the extremes of each dimension

Question 73

Sociocultural psychologists use social role theory to explain the transmission of prototypical behaviours seen in men and women surrounding mating. Describe two specific research results that illustrate such prototypical behaviour