W01 Introduction

1. If a researcher wishes to investigate how a group of children’s language skills improve between 18 to 24 months of age, which research design would give this researcher the best outcome?

• Cross-sectional

• Longitudinal

• Observational

• Correlational

2. Some of the earliest recorded and most influential ideas about children’s development came from ____.

• Plato and Aristotle

• Freud and Jung

• Skinner and Pavlov

• Erickson and Vygotsky

3. A mother consistently refuses to cuddle a child who has frequent tantrums and the occurrence of tantrums subsequently decreases. The mother has just used a mild form of:

• Negative reinforcement

• Punishment

• Classical conditioning

• Habituation

4. Which philosopher viewed the child as a "tabula rasa" (blank slate) and advocated for instilling discipline before freedom?

• Plato

• Aristotle

• John Locke

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau

5. Which of the following is considered a "nativist" view regarding child development?

• Children are born with innate knowledge.

• Children are a blank slate at birth.

• Knowledge comes exclusively from experience.

• Development is purely the result of social conditioning.

6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy on child-rearing can best be summarized as:

• Strict discipline followed by gradual freedom.

• Fitting child-rearing to the specific needs of the individual.

• Giving the child maximum freedom from the beginning.

• Formal education should begin as early as possible.

7. Which of the following is a primary strength of Naturalistic Observation?

• It allows for easy identification of causal relationships.

• It has good ecological validity.

• It is efficient for studying rare behaviors.

• It provides the highest level of experimental control.

8. Which research method allows for the direct testing of relationships between variables and offers relatively easy experimental control?

• Naturalistic Observation

• Interviews

• Experiments

• Cross-sectional designs

9. What is a specific limitation of the "Interview" method in developmental research?

• It cannot focus on the individual.

• It is impossible to ask follow-up questions.

• It can be difficult to generalize beyond the individual case.

• It is considered unethical for young children.

10. A "Micro-genetic" design is best described as:

• Comparing children of different ages at a single point in time.

• Studying the same children repeatedly over several years.

• Intensively studying children over a short period while a developmental change is occurring.

• Observing children in their natural home environment without interference.

11. Which of the following is a disadvantage of Longitudinal designs?

• They are uninformative about the stability of individual differences.

• They do not reveal patterns of change.

• Repeatedly testing children can threaten the external validity of the study.

• They do not allow for the study of the same participants over time.

12. "Synaptogenesis" refers to:

• The death of unused neurons in the brain.

• An increase in the density of synaptic connections between neurons.

• The hardening of the myelin sheath around axons.

• The division of the brain into two hemispheres.

13. Evidence that learning begins prenatally includes the finding that:

• Newborns prefer smells and tastes familiar from the womb.

• Newborns can solve simple puzzles immediately after birth.

• Newborns have fully developed vision at birth.

• Newborns can speak their first words within hours of delivery.

14. In the context of infant learning, a decrease in responsiveness to repeated stimulation is called:

• Sensitization

• Differentiation

• Habituation

• Classical Conditioning

15. The speed with which an infant habituates is believed to reflect:

• The infant's emotional stability.

• The efficiency of the infant's information processing.

• The quality of the infant's eyesight.

• The infant's attachment style.

16. When an infant's interest is renewed after a new stimulus is presented following a period of habituation, this is known as:

• Extinction

• Affordance

• Dishabituation

• Synaptogenesis

17. According to Gibson (1988), "Affordances" are:

• The emotional bonds formed between infant and caregiver.

• The statistical patterns found in language.

• The possibilities for action offered by objects and situations.

• The ability to differentiate between facial expressions.

18. Statistical learning in infants involves:

• Learning through rewards and punishments.

• Detecting predictable patterns and associations in the environment.

• Imitating the intentions of adults.

• The physiological maturation of the visual cortex.

19. Saffran et al. (1996) showed that 8-month-old infants could pick out words from a stream of speech after only 2 minutes. This is an example of:

• Classical conditioning

• Instrumental conditioning

• Statistical learning

• Habituation

20. In Pavlov’s famous experiment with dogs, the food acted as the:

• Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

• Conditioned Response (CR)

• Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

• Unconditioned Response (UCR)

21. Which type of conditioning involves learning the relation between one's own behavior and its consequences?

• Classical conditioning

• Perceptual learning

• Instrumental (Operant) conditioning

• Statistical learning

22. In the context of instrumental conditioning, "Positive Reinforcement" means:

• Behavior is reliably rewarded by a positive experience.

• Behavior is reliably rewarded by stopping a negative experience.

• Behavior is reliably penalized by a negative experience.

• Behavior is ignored, leading to its disappearance.

23. Rovee-Collier et al. (1978) attached a ribbon to an infant's ankle and a mobile. The infant learned that kicking made the mobile move. This is an example of:

• Habituation

• Observational Learning

• Instrumental Conditioning

• Classical Conditioning

24. "Extinction" in instrumental conditioning occurs when:

• A behavior is followed by a punishment.

• A behavior is followed by the removal of a negative stimulus.

• A behavior is neither reliably rewarded nor penalized.

• A behavior is reinforced every single time it occurs.

25. Research by Campbell et al. (1995) suggests that infants of depressed mothers may smile less because:

• They have genetically inherited the depression.

• They are habituated to the mother's face.

• They have learned there is no contingency relation between their smiling and being rewarded.

• They are incapable of perceiving the mother's emotions.

26. Regarding observational learning and imitation, recent work by Oostenbroek et al. (2016) suggests that:

• Newborns are excellent at imitating facial expressions.

• Young infants (newborns) likely cannot imitate.

• Imitation does not develop until age 3.

• Infants only imitate mechanical devices, not humans.

27. Meltzoff’s (1995) study, where 18-month-olds watched a person fail to pull a dumbbell apart, demonstrated that:

• Infants only imitate completed actions.

• Infants imitate the person’s intention, not just the action.

• Infants will imitate mechanical devices just as well as humans.

• Infants cannot understand goals until age 2.

28. What is the format of the assessment for this Developmental Psychology unit?

• An essay and a presentation.

• A written exam with short answer questions.

• A multiple-choice question (MCQ) examination.

• Continuous assessment through weekly quizzes.

29. Which of the following contributed to the "construction of modern childhood" in the 20th Century?

• The introduction of child labor in factories.

• Compulsory education and child labor legislation.

• The decline of developmental psychology as a science.

• The philosophical return to Ancient Greek ideals.

30. How do "Naturalistic Experiments" differ from standard "Naturalistic Observation"?

• They are conducted in a laboratory with strict controls.

• They do not allow for any data collection.

• Data are collected in everyday settings (like homes), but the situation is manipulated to test a hypothesis.

• They are only used for animal research.

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