Free practice final
Developmental Psychology practice final (free, with answers)
A typical developmental psychology final follows the lifespan, from research designs and prenatal development through cognitive, social, and moral development in childhood to adolescence, adulthood, and aging. Many questions ask you to recognize a theorist's idea, such as a Piagetian stage or one of Erikson's crises, in a short scenario, and these 15 do the same. Try each one on your own before opening the answer, and read the explanation even when you got it right.
Topics
- Research Designs
- Prenatal Development
- Cognitive Development
- Attachment and Parenting
- Psychosocial Development
- Moral Development
- Adolescence
- Adulthood and Aging
15 questions
Try each one before you open its answer.
1. A researcher gives the same memory test, at the same point in time, to separate groups of 20-, 40-, 60-, and 80-year-olds and finds that scores drop with each older group. A critic points out that the oldest participants, on average, had far fewer years of schooling growing up than the youngest. The critic is raising concern about:
- A A cohort effect, a common weakness of cross-sectional designs
- B Selective attrition, a common weakness of longitudinal designs
- C Practice effects from taking the same test several times
- D Low inter-rater reliability in scoring the test
Show answer
Answer: A. A cohort effect, a common weakness of cross-sectional designs
A cross-sectional study compares people born in different eras, so age differences can be tangled up with generational differences in schooling, health, or technology. Attrition and practice effects are problems for longitudinal studies, which follow and retest the same people over time.
2. In a 30-year longitudinal study of aging, the participants who drop out over the years tend to be sicker and less educated than those who stay. What is this problem called?
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Answer: Selective attrition (also called attrition bias or nonrandom dropout)
When dropout is not random, the people left at the end are healthier and better educated than the original sample, which can make age-related decline look smaller than it really is. Researchers check whether dropouts differed at the start and use statistical methods to adjust.
3. A pregnant woman takes a medication that is known to interfere with limb formation. Exposure at which point would most likely cause a major structural defect, such as malformed arms or legs?
- A The first 2 weeks after conception (germinal period)
- B Weeks 3 to 8 after conception (embryonic period)
- C Weeks 20 to 28 after conception (fetal period)
- D The last month before birth
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Answer: B. Weeks 3 to 8 after conception (embryonic period)
The major organs and limbs form during the embryonic period, so that is when teratogens are most likely to cause major structural defects, as thalidomide did with limbs in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Exposure in the fetal period more often affects growth and brain development than basic body structure.
4. A child has a smooth philtrum (no groove between the nose and upper lip), a thin upper lip, small eye openings, below-average growth, and learning difficulties. His mother drank heavily during pregnancy. What diagnosis do these features point to?
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Answer: Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), the most severe form of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder
Alcohol is a teratogen, and no amount during pregnancy is known to be safe. Fetal alcohol syndrome is defined by this pattern of facial features, growth deficits, and central nervous system problems; milder conditions on the fetal alcohol spectrum can involve learning and behavior problems without the facial features.
5. Fourteen-year-old Ana is given strings of different lengths and weights of different sizes and asked what controls how fast a pendulum swings. She changes one factor at a time while holding the others constant, and concludes that only string length matters. According to Piaget, this systematic testing of hypotheses is typical of which stage?
- A Sensorimotor
- B Preoperational
- C Concrete operational
- D Formal operational
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Answer: D. Formal operational
In Piaget's formal operational stage, beginning around age 11 or 12, people can reason abstractly and test hypotheses systematically. Concrete operational children reason logically about concrete situations but on this task tend to change several factors at once; later research also found that many adolescents and adults do not use formal reasoning consistently.
6. Two-year-old Theo has learned that four-legged furry animals are "doggies." At a farm he points to a cow and calls it a doggy. In Piaget's terms, is calling the cow a doggy an example of assimilation or accommodation?
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Answer: Assimilation
Assimilation means fitting a new experience into an existing schema, here Theo's "doggy" schema. When he later learns that cows are a different kind of animal and forms a new schema for them, that change is accommodation.
7. Four-year-old Mia talks out loud to herself while working on a hard puzzle: "Edge pieces first. No, that one goes here." How would Vygotsky most likely interpret this?
- A As egocentric speech showing she cannot yet take a listener's point of view
- B As a sign that the puzzle is too easy for her
- C As private speech that helps her guide her own thinking and will gradually become silent inner speech
- D As a habit that gets in the way of problem solving and should be discouraged
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Answer: C. As private speech that helps her guide her own thinking and will gradually become silent inner speech
Vygotsky saw private speech as a tool for self-regulation: children turn the language they first used with others inward to plan and guide their actions, and it gradually becomes inner speech. Piaget instead saw such talk as a sign of egocentrism, and later research found that children use more private speech on harder tasks, as Vygotsky's view predicts.
8. In Ainsworth's Strange Situation, 13-month-old Leo keeps playing with the toys when his mother leaves the room and shows little visible distress. When she returns, he turns away and does not seek contact with her. Which attachment classification fits best?
- A Secure
- B Insecure-avoidant
- C Insecure-resistant (ambivalent)
- D Disorganized
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Answer: B. Insecure-avoidant
Avoidant infants show little visible distress at separation and avoid or ignore the caregiver at reunion. Reunion behavior is the key clue, because some securely attached infants are not very upset by separation either, but they actively greet or approach the caregiver when she returns. Resistant infants are very upset and hard to soothe, and disorganized infants show contradictory behavior such as freezing or approaching while looking away.
9. Bowlby proposed that, through early experiences with caregivers, children build mental representations of whether others can be counted on and whether they themselves are worthy of care, which then shape their expectations in later relationships. What did he call these representations?
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Answer: Internal working models
According to Bowlby, a child whose caregiver responds reliably tends to form working models of others as dependable and of the self as worthy of care, which supports secure attachment. These models can change with later experiences, so early attachment influences later relationships without fixing them.
10. Ms. Chen sets clear, firm rules for her teenage son and enforces them, but she explains her reasons, listens to his point of view, and is warm and affectionate. In Baumrind's framework, this parenting style is:
- A Authoritative
- B Authoritarian
- C Permissive
- D Uninvolved
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Answer: A. Authoritative
Authoritative parenting pairs high demands with high warmth and responsiveness, while authoritarian parents are demanding but less warm and expect obedience without explanation, and permissive parents are warm but set few limits. Authoritative parenting is linked with good child outcomes in many studies, though the research is mostly correlational and the pattern varies somewhat across cultures.
11. At 45, Denise has begun mentoring new employees and coaching a youth soccer team because she wants to give something back to the next generation. Which of Erikson's psychosocial stages is she working through?
- A Identity vs. role confusion
- B Intimacy vs. isolation
- C Generativity vs. stagnation
- D Integrity vs. despair
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Answer: C. Generativity vs. stagnation
In middle adulthood, Erikson's central challenge is generativity, contributing to the next generation through parenting, work, mentoring, or community service, versus stagnation, a sense of self-absorption and of going nowhere. Intimacy versus isolation comes earlier, in young adulthood, and integrity versus despair comes in late adulthood.
12. Asked whether a man should steal an overpriced drug he cannot afford to save his dying wife, 12-year-old Eli says yes, because "a good husband would do anything for his wife, and people would think he was heartless if he didn't." In Kohlberg's theory, Eli's reasoning best fits:
- A Stage 1, punishment and obedience (preconventional)
- B Stage 2, self-interest and exchange (preconventional)
- C Stage 3, good interpersonal relationships (conventional)
- D Stage 5, social contract and individual rights (postconventional)
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Answer: C. Stage 3, good interpersonal relationships (conventional)
Kohlberg scored the reasoning behind an answer, not the answer itself, since "steal it" and "don't steal it" can each come from any stage. Eli's concern with being a good husband and with what others would think reflects stage 3, where being moral means living up to the expectations of the people close to you.
13. Since middle school, Jordan has planned to become a pharmacist, the career his parents chose for him. At 19 he is firmly committed to it but has never seriously considered other careers or values. In Marcia's model of identity, his status is:
- A Identity achievement
- B Identity moratorium
- C Identity diffusion
- D Identity foreclosure
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Answer: D. Identity foreclosure
Foreclosure means commitment without exploration, often by adopting parents' choices. Achievement is commitment after a period of exploration, moratorium is active exploration without commitment yet, and diffusion is neither exploring nor committed.
14. Compared with when she was 25, 72-year-old Judith is slower at solving unfamiliar puzzles and learning new software, but her vocabulary and general knowledge are as strong as ever. Which statement best describes this pattern?
- A Fluid intelligence tends to decline with age, while crystallized intelligence holds up into late adulthood.
- B Crystallized intelligence tends to decline with age, while fluid intelligence holds up into late adulthood.
- C Both kinds of intelligence decline at about the same rate from early adulthood on.
- D The pattern signals early dementia rather than typical aging.
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Answer: A. Fluid intelligence tends to decline with age, while crystallized intelligence holds up into late adulthood.
Fluid intelligence, the ability to reason quickly about new problems, tends to decline gradually from early or middle adulthood, partly because processing speed slows. Crystallized intelligence, made up of accumulated knowledge and vocabulary, usually holds steady or even grows until late in life.
15. Older adults tend to have smaller social networks than younger adults but report being at least as satisfied with them, because they focus on a few emotionally close relationships. What theory, developed by Laura Carstensen, explains this shift as a response to seeing one's remaining time as limited?
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Answer: Socioemotional selectivity theory
Socioemotional selectivity theory holds that when the future feels open-ended, people seek new information and contacts, but when time feels limited they prioritize emotionally meaningful goals and relationships. Supporting this, younger people facing a shortened time horizon, such as those with a serious illness, show similar preferences.