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Test yourself repeatedly throughout your studies. This will not only help you figure out what you know and don’t know; the testing itself will help you learn and remember the information more effectively thanks to the testing effect.
1. The three major issues that interest developmental psychologists are nature/nurture, stability/change, and _______/ _______.
continuity/stages
2. Although development is lifelong, there is stability of personality over time. For example,
most personality traits emerge in infancy and persist throughout life.
temperament tends to remain stable throughout life.
few people change significantly after adolescence.
people tend to undergo greater personality changes as they age.
b
3. The threadlike structures made largely of DNA molecules are called _______.
chromosomes
4. A small segment of DNA is referred to as a _______.
gene
5. When the mother’s egg and the father’s sperm unite, each contributes
one chromosome pair.
23 chromosomes.
23 chromosome pairs.
25,000 chromosomes.
b
6. Body organs first begin to form and function during the period of the _______; within 6 months, during the period of the _______, the organs are sufficiently functional to allow a good chance to survive and thrive.
zygote; embryo
zygote; fetus
embryo; fetus
placenta; fetus
c
7. Chemicals that the placenta isn’t able to screen out that may harm an embryo or fetus are called _______.
teratogens
8. Stroke a newborn’s cheek and the infant will root for a nipple. This illustrates
a reflex.
nurture.
a preference.
continuity.
a
9. Fraternal twins result when
a single egg is fertilized by a single sperm and then splits.
a single egg is fertilized by two sperm and then splits.
two eggs are fertilized by two sperm.
two eggs are fertilized by a single sperm.
c
10. _______ twins share the same DNA.
Identical
11. Adoption studies seek to understand genetic influences on personality. They do this mainly by
comparing adopted children with nonadopted children.
evaluating whether adopted children’s personalities more closely resemble those of their adoptive parents or their biological parents.
studying the effect of prior neglect on adopted children.
studying the effect of children’s age at adoption.
b
12. _______ studies explore how experiences put molecular marks on genes that trigger or block their expression.
Epigenetic
13. Between ages 3 and 6, the human brain experiences the greatest growth in the _______ lobes, which we use for rational planning and which aid memory.
frontal
14. Which of the following is true of motor-
It is determined solely by genetic factors.
The sequence, but not the timing, is universal.
The timing, but not the sequence, is universal.
It is determined solely by environmental factors.
b
15. Why can’t we consciously recall how we learned to walk when we were infants?
We have little conscious memory of events occurring before age 4, in part because major brain areas have not yet matured.
16. Use Piaget’s first three stages of cognitive development to explain why young children are not just miniature adults in the way they think.
Infants in Piaget’s sensorimotor stage tend to be focused only on their own perceptions of the world and may, for example, be unaware that objects continue to exist when unseen. A child in the preoperational stage is still egocentric and incapable of appreciating simple logic, such as the reversibility of operations. A preteen in the concrete operational stage is beginning to think logically about concrete events but not about abstract concepts.
17. Although Piaget’s stage theory continues to inform our understanding of children’s thinking, many researchers believe that
Piaget’s “stages” begin earlier and development is more continuous than he realized.
children do not progress as rapidly as Piaget predicted.
few children progress to the concrete operational stage.
there is no way of testing much of Piaget’s theoretical work.
a
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18. An 8-
stranger anxiety
19. In a series of experiments, the Harlows found that monkeys raised with artificial mothers tended, when afraid, to cling to their cloth mother, rather than to a wire mother holding the feeding bottle. Why was this finding important?
Before these studies, many psychologists believed that infants became attached simply to those who nourished them.
20. From the very first weeks of life, infants differ in their characteristic emotional reactions, with some infants being intense and anxious, while others are easygoing and relaxed. These differences are usually explained as differences in _______.
temperament
21. Adolescence is marked by the onset of
an identity crisis.
puberty.
separation anxiety.
parent-
b
22. According to Piaget, a person who can think logically about abstractions is in the _______ stage.
formal operations
23. In Erikson’s stages, the primary task during adolescence is
attaining formal operations.
forging an identity.
developing a sense of intimacy with another person.
living independent of parents.
b
24. Some developmental psychologists refer to the period that occurs in some Western cultures from age 18 to the mid-
emerging adulthood
25. By age 65, a person would be most likely to experience a cognitive decline in the ability to
recall and list all the important terms and concepts in a chapter.
select the correct definition in a multiple-
recall their own birth date.
practice a well-
a
26. How do cross-
Cross-
27. Freud defined the healthy adult as one who is able to love and work. Erikson agreed, observing that the adult struggles to attain intimacy and _______.
generativity
28. Contrary to what many people assume,
older people are much less happy than adolescents are.
we become less happy as we move from our teen years into midlife.
positive feelings tend to grow after midlife.
those whose children have recently left home—
c
Find answers to these questions in Appendix E, in the back of the book.