First Exam
Life Span Development
Winter 2021
Please answer the following multiple choice questions to the best of your ability. Each question is worth 3 points. Take your time before answering. Do not access the internet to answer these questions, as I think the internet will likely steer you in the wrong direction anyways. As clearly noted in the syllabus, using the internet in any way will immediately result in your receiving a grade of F in the course. Please also avoid using direct quotes when writing up your essay responses. You should paraphrase what matters from our video lectures and our textbook.
Let me know if you have any questions. (sikorskijaf@ccsu.edu)!!!
Put your multiple-choice answer in bold font so I clearly know which response you selected.
1. In an attempt to decrease his daughter’s yelling in order to get her parents’ attention, Dr. J has decided to engage in a practice called Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior. Although this term sounds fancy, the practice simply involves offering verbal praise to her whenever she talks in a normal tone of voice in order to get things that she wants. In short, to increase her calm responding to get what she wants, we praise her with great enthusiasm when she talks in the right tone of voice. This way, she will be more likely to talk in a calm tone in the future. What type of operant conditioning is being used in this example?
a. Positive reinforcement
b. Negative reinforcement
c. Positive punishment
d. Negative punishment
2. Angelina has evolved into an intelligent and motivated person. Her study skills are improving and her social skills that she uses to interact with friends and people from work are very well developed. Unfortunately, since she works outside of school, some aspects of her development have diminished. For instance, she has less energy during the day and sometimes she has difficulty finding time to spend with her significant other, family and friends. This idea that, as we develop, some things improve and some things diminish in people is termed _______________
a. Multidirectionality
b. Multidimensionality
c. Non-normative contextual event
d. Plasticity
3. During the later stages of infancy, children began to adjust their schemas to be more specific and accurate in helping them respond to a number of different life challenges. For instance, today my young nephew, who is 1.5 years of age, learned the difference between a fork and a spoon. In the past, he had called virtually every eating utensil a spoon. Yet, after receiving a lot of feedback from his parents, he has finally developed a different schema for forks. In short, my nephew now knows the difference between forks and spoons. What is the term used to describe my nephew’s cognitive changes?
a. accommodation
b. assimilation
c. recordation
d. qualitative juncture
4. If a child is born at 41 weeks gestation and weighs 8.1 pounds, what would be a term that absolutely DOES apply to describe this newborn infant?
a. Low birth weight
b. Premature
c. Small for date
d. None of the above terms apply.
5. Which theorist might make the following statement?
Human beings succeed or fail based on more than just their own strengths and weaknesses. It’s not always about our genetics or our thinking tendencies. Sometimes the contexts where we live cause dramatic problems in our lives or help us negotiate our life span development in a healthy way. I wonder, why aren’t their more diagnoses of rough places or rough situations that people encounter. It is the contexts of our lives that matter when predicting human development.
a. Lorenz
b. Piaget
c. Bronfenbrenner
d. Erikson
6. Felicia was born with a genetic tendency to be kind and empathic when interacting with other people. She is polite and caring toward others due, in part, to her genetics. She has always been this way since childhood. All of her family members and friends have noticed how she is so interested in helping others succeed and thrive. As a result, many of her family members bring her to volunteer in the community, buy her books about others who have helped people succeed and routinely praise her for being so caring toward others. As a result, Felicia’s tendency to be kind and empathic toward others has developed even further. What gene environment interaction best explains Felicia’s development in this example?
a. Passive Genotype-Environment Correlation
b. Evocative Genotype-Environment Correlation
c. Active Genotype-Environment Correlation
d. The Dr. Sikorski Special Interaction
7. Which of the following things about prenatal development is NOT TRUE?
a. If the future mother feels stress and is not supported by others, this could
represent a teratogen that might impact the developing child in the womb in a
negative way.
b. A father’s past drug habits could represent a teratogen. If the father’s genes are
damaged, those genes might be passed on to the child.
c. Evidence suggests that a mother with lower levels of intelligence is more likely to have a child born with physical disabilities than those of moderate levels of intelligence.
d.There is no exact formula for determining exactly how a developing child
will respond to being exposed to a teratogen.
8. Samira, in trying to impress a new date, goes out to a nice restaurant and tries escargot (snails) for the first time. Unfortunately, these snails that she ate were not cleaned properly and resulted in her getting severe food poisoning. The bacteria present in the snails automatically caused her to become dreadfully ill. As a result, the next time she went to a fancy restaurant, the mere sight and smell of escargot made her feel queasy and she gagged at the thought of eating snails. In this example of classical conditioning, what is the Conditioned Stimulus?
a. snails
b. bacteria
c. getting sick
d. stomach ulcers
9. Which of the following theorists outlines a discontinuous, qualitative stage theory of life span development?
a. Erikson
b. Vygotsky
c. Skinner
d. Pavlov
10. Dr. J’s neighbor is about 3.5 years old. According to the stage theories outlined in your book, which of the following statements below is TRUE?
a. According to Piaget, the child is certainly no longer in the Sensorimotor stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
b. The child just began Erikson’s trust versus mistrust stage of social and emotional development
c. The child is in Erikson’s stage of Identity versus Identity Diffusion regarding social and emotional development
d. The child is in the Formal Operational stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
e. None of the above are true
11. Which researcher likely said the statement below?
Human beings face different crises at different times of their lives. How people negotiate these crises will play a big role in how they interact with people in the future and how they go about expressing and managing their emotions. There is no variability in how people face these social and emotional crises. At different ages, we all face different challenges that need to be met in healthy ways if we are to develop in an ideal fashion.
a. Piaget
b. Vygotsky
c. Skinner
d. Erikson
12. Eric recently began college after finishing high school. He, like many of us, had a difficult time adjusting. It was challenging to spend more time away from home, accept additional responsibilities and manage limited amounts of time. In fact, within the United States, many young people face these types of challenges around the age of 18-21 years of age or so. What term best describes the type of contextual influence faced by Eric and others in early adulthood?
a. Non-normative event
b. Age graded normative event
c. History graded normative event
d. Dr. J is muscular and has a full head of hair
13.In class, we spent a considerable amount of time talking about the diathesis-stress model. Which of the factors below would be considered a stress?
e. Living in a high crime neighborhood from the ages of 12 to 18 years old
f. Being born with an endocrine disease
g. Being born with a genetic mutation
h. Being exposed to a virus in the womb and developing damage to their genes through epigenetics
14. According to Piaget, infants develop the tendency to accept that objects and people can exist even if we cannot see or hear them directly. For instance, the Polish word for grandmother is Babci. At about 2 years of age, Dr. J’s daughter began to exhibit the capability to draw pictures of her Babci, call her on the phone when she missed her and even wonder what she might be doing at different times of the day. Dr. J’s daughter was able to do these things even though her Babci lives many hours away from her. This example outlines that Dr. J’s daughter has clearly developed ___________
a. Centration
b. Qualitative
c. Object permanence
d. The A Not B Error
15. Haley uses a variety of theories to understand and explain the development of people. She conducts dream analyses and administers projective tests, assesses cognitive functioning and even attempts to change behavior using operant conditioning. She also considers the roles of genetics and biology in understanding people. Which term best describes Ajla’s theoretical beliefs?
a. Psychoanalytic
b. Observational Learning
c. Cognitive
d. Eclectic
16. Human beings have their heads develop more quickly than the rest of their body. In short, this pattern of development allows important brain areas to develop before capabilities to move around physically. This pattern of growth in human babies is termed the _______________________ pattern.
a. Cephalocaudal
b. Proximodistal
c. Dr. J Fat Head
d. Diathetic
17. During the middle to late stages of early childhood, children began to adjust their schemas to be more specific and accurate in helping them respond to several different life challenges. For instance, today my 7-year-old son Eli would prefer to eat 10 small M & M’s, as opposed to one large candy bar, even though the candy bar is larger. He thinks that more pieces mean more candy!! However, it won’t be long before Eli begins to _________________ his existing schemas and realize that more pieces does not ALWAYS mean more quantity of objects. At this stage, Eli will have begun to master Piaget’s concept called _______________.
a. accommodate; conservation
b. accommodate; animism
c. assimilate; conservation
d. assimilate; animism
18. True or False. In order to get the best developmental outcomes for children in middle childhood, where accidents are the leading causes of death, parents need to really focus on limiting their child’s contact with friends, number of new activities pursued and number of hobbies they pursue. This will save their lives and result in better developmental outcomes across a range of dimensions.
a. True
b. False
19. In early childhood, Tayauna was very sensitive. Whenever someone told her she got a question wrong at school or that she could have done better in gym class, she became very sad and worried. Interestingly, many of her peers are not as sensitive, yet Tayauna would always walk up to her friends and tell them “everything will be OK, everybody makes mistakes.” She seemed to automatically think that many others were just like her. What tendency present during early childhood did Gabrielle exemplify?
a. Conservation
b. Centration
c. Egocentrism
d. Animism
20. Here is a freebie for your hard work this semester!!!! Everyone gets 3 points for this question. 😊 Happy New Year!!!
choose 2 out of the following 4 essays. They are each worth 10 points. DO NOT EXCEED ONE SIDE OF ONE PAGE IN RESPONDING TO THIS ESSAY. The examples requested in these essays are of central importance and far more important than your explanation of concepts or the definitions you provide. Just write your answer below.
1. Covid -19 has reared its ugly head and impacted us in so many ways. Using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological stage theory, how has covid-19 impacted your microsystem, exosystem, mesosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem? Take a sentence to explain each type of system in your own words and then cite an example of how this pandemic has impacted your environment in the way described by Bronfenbrenner.
2. In Piaget’s theory, what do the words schema, accommodation and assimilation mean in your own words? Describe examples of assimilation and accommodation that an infant might display. Bring the concepts to life with your examples. Which concept is more important in infancy…assimilation or accommodation? Make your case.
3. If you had a child in 2nd grade, outline how Vygotsky would teach your child. In your essay, be sure to define and cite examples of the following terms: dialogue, zones of proximal development, scaffolding and private speech. Use vivid examples and lots of detail here.
Long Essays
Just write your answer below and save your entire exam file in one document to upload.
1. Use a person in your life who you are very close to. Begin this essay be describing a personality characteristic that they display in a few sentences. Then, answer the following questions below where you outline how this tendency MIGHT HAVE developed based on gene-environment interactions. Make sure that you apply these concepts using detailed examples that clearly represent each of these gene-environment interactions.
a. What is a passive genotype environment correlation? Cite a specific example of how this type of interaction might have led the person you describe to develop this trait.
b. What is an evocative genotype environment correlation? Cite a specific example of how this type of interaction might have led the person you describe to develop this trait.
c. What is an active genotype environment correlation? Cite a specific example of how this type of interaction might have led the person you know to develop this trait.
d. Make an argument for why you feel one of these gene-environment interaction patterns is most responsible for the person you know developing their identified tendency. Don’t blow this section off. I want you to have evidence to support your choice. Make a strong case.
2. A. Compare and contrast clinical versus actuarial prediction. Be able to describe what both entail and provide detailed examples of how you would use clinical prediction methods to decide upon who your best friend should date. Then, describe how you might use an actuarial prediction method to describe who your best friend should date. Conclude your essay by noting at least two notable strengths of each methodology for making predictions about people. Then, offer an evidence-based argument, not an opinion-based argument, for which of these two prediction methods are most useful.
3. Take a child in the Early Childhood Period of Development that you know as an example. Once in the preoperational stage of thinking, children often think in certain ways. For each of the terms below: 1) Define the term; 2) Cite a clear REAL WORLD example that was not discussed in class or mentioned in the book of how a child in Early Childhood might display this tendency; and 3) Note how displaying this tendency sets the stage for future development and future opportunities to succeed in a complicated world. After all, these tendencies may look like weaknesses, but also can lead to the development of important strengths later in the lifespan.
i. Egocentrism
ii. Animism
iii. Centration
iv. Symbolic function
