1. The stage of development that lasts from approximately the 8th week after conception until birth is the:

fetal stage
embryonic stage
preoperational stage
zygotic stage

Correct answer = fetal stage

Explanation = the fetal stage begins after the embryonic stage and continues until the child is born. As you can guess, this is the longest stage of prenatal development. The majority of development during the fetal stage occurs up to the 6th month of development, after which there is more physical growth in the fetus than at any other time. This is why premature babies are so small - they have not finished the period of psychical growth.

2. In a famous study of infant visual perception, Frantz (1961) found that infants preferred to look at:

complex auditory stimuli
simple visual stimuli
moving stimuli
complex visual stimuli

Correct Answer = complex visual stimuli

Explanation = in addition to staring at complex visual stimuli, infants tend to focus much of their attention on stimuli that resemble the human face. It is possible that this is a survival mechanism in which the infant increases its chances of being cared for if it can keep adults interested in or attending to the infant. A baby that is ignored may have a greater chance of being forgotten.

3. When an infant has its cheek stroked, the infant will turn its head toward the side that is being stroked, and begin to suckle, thus increasing the infant's chance of obtaining the mother's nipple. This response is known as the _____ reflex.

Rooting
Moro
Plantar
Babinski

Correct Answer = Rooting reflex

Explanation = the Rooting reflex helps the infant locate the nipple, and thus find food. The term comes from the infant's action of opening the mouth and "rooting" for a nipple which means to search or rummage for something. In addition, this reflex demonstrates that infants have quite a bit of coordination and a wide variety of skills needed for survival.

4. In her famous body of work on attachment, Mary Ainsworth found that the majority of infants demonstrated _______ attachment when tested with her strange situation test.

secure
avoidant
anxious-avoidant
ambivalent

Correct Answer = secure

Explanation = it is a good thing that most children demonstrated secure attachments since this tends to be the healthiest form of attachment. According to Ainsworth, a child who has a secure attachment seeks out physical contact with the mother but is also willing to explore the environment away from the mother (not too far away) while keeping the mother as a safety device or home base during exploration. Children who are insecure are more clingy and less willing to explore the environment.

5. The process of creating a new scheme or changing an existing scheme to make room for a new situation or experience is known as:

assimilation
readiness to learn
accommodation
maturation

Correct Answer = accommodation

Explanation = children continually learn about and interact with the world. As a result, they must find ways to deal with all the new information that they acquire. According to Piaget, children interpret new experiences according to the knowledge they already have. The process of assimilation allows children to take in new information and add it to some current knowledge structure (e.g., calling all men daddy). However, children can also use accommodation, which allows them to create completely new categories and knowledge structures when some new information no longer fits their current categories (e.g., create separate "men" categories for daddy, uncles, strangers, etc.).

6. In his research on cognitive development, Jean Piaget found that if a child knew that the amount of liquid in two containers were the same regardless of the shape of the containers (e.g., if one was short and fat; the other was tall and thin, but they both had the same amount of liquid in them), then the child accomplished the cognitive task of:

egocentrism
conservation
object permanence
decentering

Correct Answer = conservation

Explanation = before a child achieves object permanence, they don't have complex or abstract understandings of shapes, sizes, amounts, etc. For example, a child may want a lot of milk, you pour 16 ounces into a short, wide glass. The child insists that this is not enough milk, so you take the glass of milk (the same 16 ounces) and pour it into a tall skinny glass. This pleases the child who now thinks it is getting more milk. The child does not have the ability to understand that it is simply the size and shape of the glass that changed, NOT the amount of liquid. However, after a child achieves this developmental milestone, they do not get fixed on only one aspect (the shape of the glass), but have a more thorough understanding of the situation.

7. Which one of the following is NOT a function offered by hospices when a person is dying?

provide medical care
provide psychological care
provide counseling for the dying person's family
provide financial assistance with family expenses

Correct Answer = provide financial assistance with family expenses

Explanation = hospices are amazing facilities. It seems that many people who are dying, know they are dying, come to some type of understanding or acceptance of it, and are willing to talk about it although others (like their families and friends) often are not. At a hospice, people accept dying, talk about it, and prepare for it in a open manner. In addition, patients receive a wide variety of care including physical, and emotional/psychological. Even the families of the patients can receive counseling if they wish. However, they do not give money to the families of the patients. They are remarkably helpful, but they do have limits.

8. According to Piaget, the stage of development that occurs in conjunction with adolescence, and is marked by the new found ability to use abstract reasoning and solve problems through hypothesis testing, is known as the:

concrete operational stage
formal operational stage
preoperational stage
pubescent stage

Correct Answer = formal operational stage

Explanation = according to Piaget, adolescence is not a time of dramatic cognitive changes like those that occur in earlier stages, but now adolescents obtain the ability to think more abstractly. Once they have reached this stage, adolescents can consider different theoretical perspectives, make predictions or hypotheses, consider people, actions, and places that are not currently present.

9. According to the ______ theory, young people learn about and acquire their gender roles through a process of observing and imitation at both cognitive and behavioral levels.

social-learning
psychosexual
psychoanalytic
cognitive

Correct Answer = social learning

Explanation = the theory of social learning, proposed by Albert Bandura is not limited to gender roles, but states that people learn about all sorts of behaviors by watching others, seeing the outcomes of their actions, and then imitating (or not imitating, depending on the consequences) them. For example, a child may watch his older brother take a cookie off the counter and eat it after their mother had told him not to, get caught, and punished. The younger child may then decide not to take cookie off the counter and eat it after mom says not to because he now knows that doing so can result in punishment. The same goes for gender roles; people observe how others behave, and if the behaviors evoke the type of responses a person seeks, then the behaviors may be imitated.

10. My parents always set guidelines and made me live my life following certain rules. In addition to setting life rules, they also always showed me warmth and affection, thus making me feel loved and supported. This type of parenting style is known as _____:

authoritarian
authoritative
restrictive
permissive

Correct Answer = authoritative

Explanation = authoritarian parents are strict, punish their children harshly when rules are broke, and do not offer explanations that help children learn and understand, and do not foster a loving and supportive environment. However, authoritative parents, while they create boundaries, develop rules, and punish when rules are broken, more often provide explanations for why the rules exist (not just, "I am the parent and you do what I say"), and that getting punished does not mean that the parents love them any less. It is a very effective and appealing type of parenting style.

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