Chapter 11
The Developing Person
Developmental
Psychology
“Womb to Tomb” Psychology
The Life Span
Developmental Psychology
• Developmental Psychology:
– A branch of psychology that studies physical,
cognitive, and social change throughout the
life span
• Research focuses around three major issues:
1. Nature vs. Nurture
2. Continuity vs. Stages
3. Stability vs. Change
Developmental Research Methods
• Cross-sectional study: a study in which
people of different ages are compared with
one another
• Longitudinal study: research in which the
same people are restudied and retested
over a long period
The Major Stages of Life
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Conception
Pre-natal: conception- 36/40 weeks
Infancy 0-2
Childhood
pre-school 2-5
school child 5-12
Adolescence 13-17/19
Adult
young 20-30’s
middle 40-50’s
old
60-0ver
Death
Basic Processes of
Development
Basic Processes of
Development
• Maturation
– in the study of development, maturation is
the most important factor to consider
– maturation is a progressive unfolding by
“schedule”
– you will begin to walk at a certain age range,
begin to talk at another age range, etc.
– biological growth processes that enable
orderly changes in behavior, relatively
uninfluenced by experience
Infant Gross Motor Milestones
Motor Development: progression of muscular coordination required for physical
activities
Physical Skill Set:
cephalocaudal trend: head-to-foot direction of motor development
Proximodistal trend: center-outward direction of motor development
-Lift head: 1 month
-Hold head up when in sitting position: 4 months
-Control head & neck: 6 months
-Roll over: 6 months
-Sit up unsupported: slightly after 6 mths
-Crawl: by one year old
-Walk: 90% by 15 mths
Developmental norms: typical (median) age at which individuals display
various behaviors and abilities
THE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
Prenatal Period and the Newborn
 Zygote (Stage 1)




the fertilized egg (one celled organism- sperm/egg)
enters a 2 week period of rapid cell division
less than half survive pass 2 weeks
develops into an embryo
 Embryo (Stage 2)
 Embryonic process begins with the forming of the
placenta
 the developing human organism from 2 weeks
through 2nd month
 Fetus (Stage 3)
 the developing human organism from 2 months (9
weeks) after conception to birth
Prenatal Development and
the Newborn
 Teratogens
 agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach
the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and
cause harm EX. Smoking causes underweight births
 Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)
 physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused
by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking
 symptoms include misproportioned head
 A heroin addicted mother will give birth to a heroin
addicted baby
Prenatal Development
and the Newborn
Film: Fertilization
http://www.babycenter.com/2_inside-pregnancy-fertilization_10354435.bc
Prenatal Development and
the Newborn
40 days
45 days
2 months
4 months
7 weeks
-Hands and feet are emerging from developing arms and legs,
although heart began beating 2 weeks ago!!!
-measures half an inch long, about the size of a blueberry.
- eyelid folds partially covering her peepers
-liver is churning out red blood cells until her bone marrow forms and
takes over this role
-Baby still considered an embryo-
8 weeks
-Webbed fingers and toes are poking out from baby's hands and feet
-his eyelids practically cover his eyes
-breathing tubes extend from his throat to the branches of his
developing lungs
-Size of a kidney bean
- Begins moving this week if not last
http://www.babycenter.com/2_inside-pregnancy-weeks-1-to-9_10302602.bc
Four months old- 16 weeks
-Right now, he's about the size of an avocado: 4 1/2 inches long
(head to rump) and 3 1/2 ounces.
- His legs are much more developed, his head is more erect than it
has been
- His eyes have moved closer to the front of his head
-His ears are close to their final position, too.
5 months- 20 weeks
-She’s the length of a banana.
-She swallowing more these days which is good practice for her digestive
system.
http://www.babycenter.com/2_inside-pregnancy-weeks-15-to-20_10308111.bc
http://www.babycenter.com/2_inside-pregnancy-weeks-28-to-37_3658874.bc
36 weeks
-She now weighs almost 6
pounds (like a crenshaw
melon) and is more than 18
1/2 inches long.
-At the end of this week, the
baby will be considered fullterm. (Full-term is 37 to 42
weeks
Early experience
and critical periods
CRITICAL PERIOD: A period in a person’s
development in which a given event will have it’s
greatest impact on the individual
Shortly after birth: an optimal period when an
organism;s exposure to certain stimuli or
experiences produces proper development.
WHICH IS DIFFERENT FROM THE…
Social clock: The culturally preferred timing of
social events such as marriage, parenthood, and
retirement.
Early Experience/Critical
Periods
• Imprinting (Konrad Lorenz): a form of early
learning that occurs in some animals during a
critical period in their development and involves
the formation of attachment
• Early social deprivation: Harry Harlow
Imprinting: Konrad Lorenz
• demonstrated how
incubator-hatched
geese would imprint
on the first suitable
moving stimulus they
saw within what he
called a "critical
period" of about 36
hours shortly after
hatching.
The Harlow Monkey Experiment
• WWII, Harlow served overseas
• Noticed orphanages filled with 1,000’s
babies
• Babies fed, clothed, changed
• Babies not held by nurses
• “Rocking baby syndrome”
The Nature of Love
• "Mother Love" and
its consequences
for social, sexual,
and cognitive
development.
• infant attachment
and social bonding.
• Monkey love
• Harry Harlow's classic primate experiments
suggest that to understand the human heart
you must be willing to break it
• "In Harlow's initial
experiments infant
monkeys were
separated from their
mothers at six to
twelve hours after
birth and were
raised instead with
substitute or
'surrogate' mothers
• 'surrogate'
mothers made
either of heavy
wire or of
wood covered
with soft terry
cloth.
• Harlow
discovered
that baby
monkeys
deprived of
their
mothers
(left) would
transfer
their
affections
to a cloth
surrogate.
Social Development
 Harlow’s Surrogate
Mother
Experiments
 Monkeys preferred
contact with the
comfortable cloth
mother (body
contact), even while
feeding from the
nourishing wire
mother
• as soon as the
infants finished
nursing, they
abandoned the wire
monkey and
clutched the cloth
one.
• When the cloth
model had the
bottle, they didn't go
to the wire model at
all
• One control group of neonatal
monkeys was raised on a
single wire mother, and a
second control group was
raised on a single cloth
mother.
• no differences between two
groups in amount of milk
ingested or in weight gain.
• difference between the two
groups lay in the composition
of the feces, the softer stools
of the wire-mother infants
suggesting psychosomatic
involvement.
• The wire mother biologically
adequate but psychologically
inept.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2M6XBJEEFQ&feature=related
Effects of the “Wire Mom”
• "...the actions of
surrogate-raised
monkeys became
bizarre later in life.
They engaged in
stereotyped behavior
patterns such as
clutching themselves
and rocking
constantly back and
forth; they exhibited
excessive and
misdirected
aggression..."
• Harlow found that young monkeys reared with
live mothers and young peers easily learned to
play and socialize with other young monkeys.
• Those with cloth mothers were slower, but
seemed to catch up socially by about a year.
• Babies raised with real mothers but no
playmates were often fearful or inappropriately
aggressive.
• Baby monkeys without playmates or real
mothers became socially incompetent, and
when older, were often unsuccessful at mating.
• Those unsocial females that did have babies
were neglectful of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRI8VKApgsU&feature=related
7 min 30 sec- til end
Natural
Curiosity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRCPRz4Zq2o&feature=related
Research Results
Attachment Theory
Attachment: powerful survival impulse that keeps
infants close to their caregivers
• 2 major developers of attachment theory:
Bowlby:
• – attachments between humans are adaptive over the
course of human evolution
• Infants are biologically programmed to emit behavior
that triggers a protective response from adult females.
• – bond formed between the infant & primary caregiver is
a general prototype for all subsequent love relationships
• – parents provide a “secure base” from which child can
adventure into the world & return knowing they will get
safety & comfort
Attachment Theory
Ainsworth:
• – pioneered assessment & comprehension of
individual differences in attachment
• The Strange Situation Experiment
– Infants are exposed to a series of eight
separation and reunion episodes to assess
the quality of their attachment
– Has to do with separation anxiety: emotional
distress seen in many infants when they are
separated from people with whom they have formed
an attachment (peaks 14-18 mths)
AINSWORTH'S STUDY OF THE
TYPES OF ATTACHMENT
• Aims: To do a study which
investigated the security of a child's
attachment with their caregivers. The
study provided a number of episodes
that provide various measures of the
attachment relationship.
• Procedures: Children aged 12 - 18 months and their
mothers were the participants. Observation was viewed
through a one-way mirror. There were several episodes
in the study, that included the following:
• - Caregiver and infant enter the room.
- Child plays with the toys while the mother is present.
- A stranger enters the room and the caregiver leaves.
- The stranger tries to comfort the child.
- The caregiver returns and the stranger leaves.
- The caregiver comforts the child and then leaves for a
second time.
- The child is left alone for 3 minutes.
- The stranger enters and interacts with the child.
- The caregiver enters, picks up the child and the
stranger leaves.
•
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5MudJ7yxkE&safe=active
• Findings: Three catagories of attachment were
identified:
• SECURE - The baby considers the mother to be a safe
base to explore from. The child showed distress when
the mother left the room and seeked interaction with her
as soon as she returned. 70% of the infants fell into this
catagory. Greater curiosity, better peer relations, more
self-reliant….NOT higher morality
• AVOIDANT (insecure)- The child paid little attention to
the mother and was not distressed when she left the
room. the child was easily comforted by the stranger.
The mother was ignored upon her return by the child.
15% of the infants fell into this category.
• RESISTANT (insecure)- The child showed
simultaneous seeking and resistance to the mother. The
child was very distressed when it was separated from
the mother and was difficult to comfort upon her return.
15% of the infants fell into this category.
• Disorganized/Disoriented Attachment:
– Upset
– May happily greet but then turn away
or approach without looking
Social Development:
Child-Rearing Practices
 Authoritarian
 parents impose rules and expect obedience but over little
parental responsiveness
 “Don’t interrupt.” “Why? Because I said so.”
 Permissive
 submit to children’s desires, make few demands, use little
punishment
 Authoritative
 both demanding and responsive
 set rules, but explain reasons and encourage open discussion
 Results: highest self-esteem, self-reliance, & social
competence…b/c granted more control
 Uninvolved
 cares for basic needs but shows little communication, few
demands, & low responsiveness
 Results in little self-control; low self-esteem & competency
Early Experience/Critical
Periods
• The “Battered-Child Syndrome”
– identified in the early 1960s
– child abuse can pass from one generation to
the next
– approximately 15% of child abusers do not
change their ways even with social service
and court intervention
– approximately 2,000 children killed annually
as a result of child abuse
Child Abuse
• Types: physical, sexual, emotional, neglect
• Another type of abuse is child exploitation
• Over 3 million (3,195,000) children were
reported for child abuse and neglect to child
protective service (CPS) agencies in the United
States, in 1997
• reports currently suggest about 47 out of every
1000 children are reported as victims of child
maltreatment. Overall, child abuse reporting
levels have increased 41%
Sexual Abuse
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
any sexual act between an adult and a child. This includes:
fondling, touching, or kissing a child's genitals
making the child fondle the adult's genitals
penetration, intercourse, incest, rape, oral sex or sodomy
exposing the child to adult sexuality in other forms (showing
sex organs to a child, forced observation of sexual acts,
showing pornographic material, telling "dirty" stories, group
sex including a child)
other privacy violations (forcing the child to undress, spying on
a child in the bathroom or bedroom)
sexual exploitation
enticing children to pornographic sites or material on the
Internet
luring children through the Internet to meet for sexual liaisons
exposing children to pornographic movies or magazines
child prostitution
using a child in the production of pornography, such as a film
or magazine
Who are Sexual Abusers
•
•
•
•
•
•
Sexual abusers can be:
parents, siblings, or other relatives
childcare professionals
clergy, teachers, or athletic coaches
neighbors or friends
strangers
What is emotional abuse?
• Emotional abuse is any attitude, behavior,
or failure to act on the part of the caregiver
that interferes with a child's mental health
or social development.
• Other names for emotional abuse are:
• verbal abuse
• mental abuse
• psychological maltreatment or abuse
What is neglect?
• Neglect is a failure to provide for the
child's basic needs. The types of neglect
are:
• physical
• educational
• emotional
Causes of Child Abuse
• Cyclical effect: 0ver 70% of abusers were
abused themself
• general stress
• the stress of having children in the family, when
one didn't have children before
• dealing with a child who has a disability or
difficult behaviors
• the stress of caring for someone besides oneself
• alcohol or drug use
• marital conflict
• unemployment
Variations in Development
• Different children develop at different
rates
• The same child will vary in rate of their
own development at different times in
their life
• Understanding the variance and range of
developmental rates is important to
developmental psychologists
Stage theories of development
• Do we develop in stages or not? Are we
like oak trees or butterflies in our
development?
– is our development continuous or
discontinuous?
• There are a number of various “stage”
theorists in study of developmental
psychology
Stage Theories
Piaget’s stage theory of
cognitive development
• Piaget’s interest was in identifying
particular eras (stages) of cognitive style
(development) in humans
• He distinguished 4 stages; they are:
–
–
–
–
sensiomotor stage: 0-2 years
preoperational stage: 3-6 years
concrete operations stage: 7-11 years
formal operations stage: 12+ years
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive
Development
Typical Age
Range
Description
of Stage
Developmental
Phenomena
Birth to nearly 2 years
Sensorimotor
Experiencing the world through
senses and actions (looking,
touching, mouthing)
•Object permanence
•Stranger anxiety
•Grasping & sucking
items (explore)
About 2 to 6 years
Preoperational
Representing things
with words and images
but lacking logical reasoning
•Pretend play
•Egocentrism
•Language development
About 7 to 11 years
Concrete operational
•Conservation
Thinking logically about concrete
•Mathematical
events; grasping concrete analogies
transformations
and performing arithmetical operations
About 12 through
adulthood
Formal operational
Abstract reasoning
•Abstract logic
•Potential for
moral reasoning
Infancy and Childhood:
Piaget’s Cognitive Development
 Object Permanence
 the awareness that things continue to exist
even when not perceived
Infancy and Childhood:
Piaget’s Cognitive Development
 Baby Mathematics
 Shown a numerically impossible outcome, infants
stare longer (Wynn, 1992)
4. Possible outcome:
Screen drops, revealing
one object.
1. Objects placed
in case.
2. Screen comes 3. Object is removed.
up.
4. Impossible outcome:
Screen drops, revealing
two objects.
Infancy and Childhood:
Piaget’s Cognitive Development
 Conservation
 the principle that properties such as mass,
volume, and number remain the same despite
changes in the forms of objects
Stage theories of moral
development
• There are 2 theorists concerned with
identification of stages of moral
development in humans
– Kohlberg’s theory of moral development
– Piaget’s Theory of moral development
• Theories of moral development concern
how does one learn to do the “right” thing
in society
Kohlberg’s theory
• Kohlberg’s theory of moral development
includes 3 general phases (stages) of
morality that persons can develop. They
are:
– the premoral level of morality
– the conventional level of morality
– the postconventional level of morality
• Why do you do the right thing?
Kohlberg’s Moral Ladder
Postconventional
level
Morality of abstract
principles: to affirm
agreed-upon rights and
personal ethical principles
Conventional
level
Morality of law and
social rules: to gain
approval or avoid
disapproval
Preconventional
level
Morality of self-interest:
to avoid punishment
or gain concrete rewards
 As moral
development
progresses, the
focus of concern
moves from the
self to the wider
social world.
Jean Piaget
theory of moral development
• External motivation
• Morality of constraint
• Point of view: black and
white
• Rules: sacred unalterable
• Punishment: harsh and
immediate; defines the act
• Intentionality: the outcome
determines right or
wrongness of act
• Authority: unilateral respect
•
•
•
•
Internal motivation
Morality of cooperation
Point of view: shades of grey
Rules; made by people,
broken or changed by
people.
• Punishment: want less
severe, more reciprocal
• Intentionality: the motivation
behind the act determines it
regardless of outcome.
• Authority: value peers and
adults equally
Erik Erikson’s Theory
• Erikson’s stage theory of personality
development
– there are eight (8) stages of development
– each stage has a “crisis” to be resolved that
has a profound effect on how a person’s
personality will develop in the long term
– these stages start at birth and go to old age
Erik Erikson’s Theory
• The 8 stages are:
1. basic trust vs mistrust: 0-1 year
– “the world is a good place and I can trust
people”
2. autonomy vs shame/doubt: 1-3 years
– “I’m gonna stand up to the big people….did I go
too far?”
3. initiative vs guilt: 3-5 years
– “I got a bright idea and I’m gonna do it!”
4. industry vs inferiority: 5-11 years
5. identity vs role confusion: 11-18 years
6. intimacy vs isolation: 18-40 years
7. generativity vs stagnation: 40-65 years
8. integrity vs despair: 65+ years
Erikson’s Stages of
Psychosocial Development
Approximate
age
Stage
Description of Task
Infancy
(1st year)
Trust vs. mistrust
If needs are dependably met, infants
develop a sense of basic trust.
Toddler
(2nd year)
Autonomy vs. shame Toddlers learn to exercise will and
and doubt
do things for themselves, or they
doubt their abilities.
Preschooler
(3-5 years)
Initiative vs. guilt
Preschoolers learn to initiate tasks
and carry out plans, or they feel
guilty about efforts to be independent.
Elementary
(6 yearspuberty)
Competence vs.
inferiority
Children learn the pleasure of applying
themselves to tasks, or they feel
inferior.
Erikson’s Stages of
Psychosocial Development
Approximate
age
Stage
Description of Task
Adolescence
(teens into
20’s)
Identity vs. role
confusion
Teenagers work at refining a sense of self by
testing roles and then integrating them to
form a single identity, or they become
confused about who they are.
Young Adult
(20’s to early
40’s)
Intimacy vs.
isolation
Young adults struggle to form close relationships and to gain the capacity for intimate
love, or they feel socially isolated.
Middle Adult
(40’s to 60’s)
Generativity vs.
stagnation
The middle-aged discover a sense of contributing to the world, usually through family
and work, or they may feel a lack of purpose.
Late Adult
(late 60’s and
up)
Integrity vs.
despair
When reflecting on his or her life, the older
adult may feel a sense of satisfaction or
failure.
Development in Infancy and Childhood
Development in infancy and
childhood
• The neonatal period: the newborn’s first
two (2) weeks
The Neonate
• Cognitive development
– neonates can imitate facial expressions
fairly soon
– neonates have some memory for visual
forms
•
•
•
•
they prefer to look at contrasts
they prefer order to disorder
they prefer to look at patterns
they prefer to look at human faces
Prenatal Development
and the Newborn
 Rooting Reflex
 tendency to open mouth, and search for
nipple when touched on the cheek
 Preferences
 human voices and
faces
 facelike images-->
 smell and sound of
mother
preferred
The Newborn
 Greater stimulation with
looking at a drawing of a
face
 Habituation
 Decreasing
responsiveness with
repeated stimulation
 Habituate more quickly to a
face-like image than to a solid
disk
 The beginnings of cognition
Prenatal Development and
the Newborn
Having
habituated to
the old
stimulus,
newborns
preferred
gazing at a
new one
The Neonate
• Emotional and social development of the
neonate
– five (5) emotional states can be
distinguished in the neonate. These states
are:
•
•
•
•
•
surprise
happiness
discomfort
distress
interest
Infancy and Childhood:
Physical Development
 Babies only 3
months old can
learn that
kicking moves
a mobile--and
can retain that
learning for a
month (RoveeCollier, 1989,
1997).
Infancy and Childhood:
Piaget’s Cognitive Development
 Cognition
 all the mental activities associated with
thinking, knowing, remembering, and
communicating
 Schema
 a concept or framework that organizes and
interprets information & experiences
Infancy and Childhood:
Piaget’s Cognitive Development
 Assimilation
 interpreting one’s new experience in terms
of one’s existing schemas
 Accommodation
 Adapting/adjusting one’s current
understandings (schemas) to incorporate
new information
Infancy: 2 weeks to 2 years
• Emotional and social development in infancy
– infant develops a “social smile” at about 2
months of age
– develops “separation anxiety” at about 6-9
months of age
– develops “stranger anxiety” at about 6-10
months of age
– these anxieties peak around 14 months and
gradually decline by about age 2
Early Childhood:
2 to 7 years
Emotional and social
development
• Emotional and social development: 2-7
years
– child progresses from solitary play to
parallel play and finally to cooperative play
– child incorporates others into his/her
pretending and games become more rulegoverned
Middle Childhood: 7-11 years
Emotional and social
development
– peers become increasingly more important
during this time
– school becomes increasingly important
– child’s early dependence on parents begins
to lessen; parents may have some difficulty
accepting this change
Adolescence
12-13 through18-19 years of age
Adolescence
 Adolescence
 the transition period from childhood to
adulthood
 extending from puberty to
independence
 Puberty (girls: 11 years old; boy: avg. 13 years old)
 the period of sexual maturation
 when a person becomes capable of
reproduction
 Surge of physical growth
Adolescence
 Primary Sex Characteristics
 body structures that make sexual reproduction possible
 ovaries--female
 testes--male
 external genitalia
 Secondary Sex Characteristics
 nonreproductive sexual characteristics
 female--breast and hips
 male--voice quality and body hair
 Menarche
 1st menstration (12-13)
 Spermarche
 1st ejaculation (13-14)
Adolescent Issues
Adulthood:
Young adulthood
through older
adulthood
Cognitive development
•
•
•
•
•
Cognitive abilities improve, change, or decline during
adulthood
Crystallized Intelligence: accumulated knowledge as
reflected in vocabulary and analogies
Fluid Intelligence: ability to reason speedily and
abstractly, as when solving novel logic problems
Crystallized intelligence improves over time while
fluid intelligence slowly wanes
Wisdom improves; wisdom is the appropriate use of
knowledge
Emotional and social
development
• Erickson: Early adulthood: Intimacy vs
Isolation;
• Styles of Marriage
STYLES OF MARRIAGE
• Conflict-Habituated: patterns of conflict
creates excitement and drives marriage
• Passive-Congenial: means to an end,
background to true life forces
• Devitalized: social commitment, going
through the motions
• Vital: romantic, closeness, separate id’s
• Total: complete and total togetherness
psychosomatic
MIDDLE ADULTHOOD
Middle adulthood: Erickson’s
Generativity vs stagnation; the
challenge is to find meaning in our
work and family lives and to
continue to be productive
Mid-Life Issues
MID-LIFE ISSUES
• Emotional and social development
• Climacteric: period beginning about
age 45 when a loss of the capacity to
sexually reproduce in women and a
decline in the reproductivity capacity in
men occurs
• Mid-life crisis: Empty nest, menopause
The Aged Adult
OLD AGE/LATE ADULTHOOD
• Gerontology: the study of old age
• Later adulthood: Erickson’s Integrity vs
despair; the challenge is to see a life with
meaning and continued satisfaction
Causes of Aging
• Aging is partly a biological process but is
a psychological process as well
• Staying engaged in life’s activities and
refusing to accept myths about aging are
two keys to happy aging
• Aging as a biological process may be
genetically solved toward the end of your
lifetime
Evaluation of stage theories of
adulthood
• Psychologists disagree as to whether the
changes in adulthood can be thought of
as a series or stages or just a
continuation of a single process
• This is a “continuity vs discontinuity”
debate that often occurs in developmental
psychology
• What do you think?
Death and dying: The final stage
Death and dying
• According to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the
stages in the acceptance of impending
death are describes as the Grief Cycle:
–
–
–
–
–
denial
anger
bargaining
depression
acceptance
Types of Death
• Social death: loss of socialization and
interaction with outside world
• Psychological death: loss of autonomy and
decision making, confused or disoriented
• Biological death: actual physical death:
problems with biological death: artificial
means of sustaining life, technological
advancements preventing natural death
Death and Dying
• One step beyond?
– what happens at the point of death?
– what happens after death?
– the “near death experience” and the
commonalities in these reports
• rushing down a tunnel which, at the end, has
an intensely brilliant light
• reports of seeing dead loved ones and
experiences with angelic beings and/or God
Practice Test
1. The stage of prenatal development during
which the developing organism is most
vulnerable to injury is the:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Zygotic stage
Germinal stage
Embryonic stage
Fetal stage
Practice Test
2. The cepgalocaudal trend in the motor
development of children can be described
simply as a :
a.
b.
c.
d.
head-to-foot direction
Center-outward direction
Foot-to-head direction
Body-appendages direction
Practice Test
3. Developmental norms:
a. Can be used to make extremely precise
predictions about the age at which an individual
child will reach various developmental
milestones
b. Indicate the maximum age at which a child can
reach a particular developmental milestone and
still be considered “normal”
c. Indicate the average age at which individuals
reach various developmental milestones
d. Involve both a and b
Practice Test
4. When the development of the same subjects is
studied over a period of time, the study is called a:
a.
b.
c.
d.
cross-sectional study
Life history study
Longitudinal study
Sequential study
Practice Test
5. The quality of infant-caregiver attachment
depends:
a. On the quality of bonding in the first few hours
of life
b. Exclusively on the infant’s temperament
c. On the interaction between the infant’s
temperament and the caregiver’s
responsiveness
d. On how stranger anxiety is handled
Practice Test
6. During the second year of life, toddlers begin to
take some personal responsibility for feeding,
dressing, and bathing themselves in an attempt
to establish what Erikson calls a sense of:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Superiority
Industry
Generativity
Autonomy
Practice Test
7. Five-year-old David watches as you pour water
from a short, wide glass into a tall, narrow one.
He says there is now more water than before.
This response demonstrates that:
a. David understands the concept of conversation
b. David does not understand the concept of
conversation
c. David’s cognitive development is “behind” for
his age
d. Both b and c are the case
Practice Test
8. Which of the following is not one of the criticisms of
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?
a. Piaget may have underestimated the cognitive skills of
children in some areas
b. Piaget may have underestimated the influence of
environmental factors on cognitive development
c. The mixing of stages raises questions about the value
of organizing development in stages
d. Evidence for the theory is based on children’s answers
to questions
Practice Test
9. If a child’s primary reason for not drawing
pictures on the living room wall with crayons is to
avoid the punishment that would inevitably
follow this behavior, she would be said to be at
which level of more development?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Conventional
Postconventional
Preconventional
Unconventional
Practice Test
10. The portion of the brain that appears to be the
last areas to mature fully is the:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Hypothalamus
Corpus callosum
Prefrontal cortex
Occipital lobe
Practice Test
11. Girls who mature ________ and boys who
mature________ seem to experience more
subjective distress and emotional difficulties with
the transition to adolescence.
a.
b.
c.
d.
Early; early
Early; late
Late; early
Late; late
Practice Test
12. Sixteen-year-old Foster wants to spend a few
years experimenting with different lifestyles and
careers before he settles on who and what he
wants to be. Foster’s behavior illustrates the
identity status of:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Identity moratorium
Identity foreclosure
Identity achievement
Identity diffusion
Practice Test
13. Which of the following does not decline with
age?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Speed of information processing
Memory
Crystallized intelligence
Fluid intelligence
1. Fertilization of an ovum outside a woman's body is called
a. artificial insemination.
b. invitro fertilization.
c. eugenics.
d. genetic engineering.
2. When a gene is __________, the trait it controls will be
present every time the gene is present.
a. recessive
b. dominant
c. polygenic
d. sex-linked
3. Which represents the correct order of Piaget's stages of intellectual
development?
a. sensorimotor, concrete operational, formal operational, post
operational
b. Pre operational, concrete operational, formal operational,
sensorimotor
c. sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal
operational
d. preoperational, informal operational, formal operational, post
operational
4. The grasping, rooting, and sucking reflexes of infants are best
described as
a.fixed action patterns.
b. instincts.
c. conditioned reflexes.
d. adaptive reflexes.
5. According to Chomsky, humans have a __________ to
develop language.
a. perceptual set
b. telegraphic readiness
c. learning set
d. biological predisposition
6. Harlow's finding that baby monkeys prefer a terrycloth
surrogate mother to a wire mother demonstrates the
importance of
a. imprinting or critical periods.
b. contact comfort.
c. acceptance.
d. good nutrition
7. Object permanence is to sensorimotor stage as
conservation and reversibility are to
a. formal operational stage.
b. preoperational stage.
c. informal operational stage.
d. concrete operational stage.
8. The rapid and early learning of permanent behavior
patterns during critical periods of development in birds and
other animals is called
a. separation anxiety.
b. learned referencing.
c. imprinting.
d. social referencing.
9. The rapid and early learning of permanent behavior patterns
during critical periods of development in birds and other
animals is called
a. separation anxiety.
b. learned referencing.
c. imprinting.
d. social referencing.
10. According to Erikson, failure to resolve the tasks of middle
adulthood leads to a sense of __________ involving a
concern for one's own needs and comforts only.
a. apathy
b. self-absorption
c. despair
d. stagnation
11. Teachers, peers, and adults outside the home become
important in shaping attitudes toward oneself in Erikson's
stage of
a. trust versus mistrust.
b. initiative versus guilt.
c. industry versus inferiority.
d. integrity versus despair.
12. In the __________ level of moral development, moral
choices are determined by the direct consequences of
actions.
a. preconventional
b. conventional
c. concrete
d. postconventional
13. With aging there is a decline of __________ intelligence,
but not of __________ intelligence.
a. fluid; fixed
b. fixed; fluid
c. fluid; crystallized
d. crystallized; fluid
14. Behavior directed by self-accepted moral principles
represents the __________ level of moral development.
a. preconventional
b. postconventional
c. unconventional
d. conventional
15. The onset of puberty for boys is between __________
years; for girls it is between __________ years of age.
a. 9-13; 10-12
b. 13-16; 11-14
c. 8-11; 9-13
d. 11-14; 13-16