Week 11 Quiz

Which list puts Piaget's four stages of cognitive development in the order children move through them?

Select one.

• Sensorimotor, concrete operational, preoperational, formal operational
• Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational
• Preoperational, sensorimotor, concrete operational, formal operational
• Sensorimotor, preoperational, formal operational, concrete operational

A 4-year-old watches all the juice in a wide glass being poured into a tall, thin glass and says the tall glass now holds more. Using the course's boundary ages of about 2, 7, and 11, which stage is the child in, and what does the answer show?

Select one.

• Sensorimotor stage; object permanence is still being built
• Concrete operational stage; the child has conservation
• Preoperational stage; the child does not yet have conservation
• Formal operational stage; the child reasons about a hypothetical

A 1-year-old squeals with surprise each time a parent's face reappears in a game of peekaboo. The game works because the baby is still building which understanding, and in which stage?

Select one.

• Conservation, in the preoperational stage
• Egocentrism, in the preoperational stage
• Abstract reasoning, in the formal operational stage
• Object permanence, in the sensorimotor stage

A 14-year-old is asked how basketball would change if everyone in the world were the same height, and she reasons that the rules would start rewarding speed and passing. Which stage and hallmark does her answer show?

Select one.

• Formal operational stage; abstract, hypothetical reasoning
• Concrete operational stage; logic about real, concrete objects
• Preoperational stage; pretend play with words and images
• Concrete operational stage; conservation of amount

Using the course's boundary ages, the preoperational stage runs from about age 2 to about age 7. About how many years does the preoperational stage last?

Select one.

• About 4 years
• About 7 years
• About 5 years
• About 2 years

A classmate says, "Language ability is all nature, because babies everywhere learn to talk." Which response best fits how developmental psychology treats the nature and nurture question?

Select one.

• The classmate is right, because a universal ability must be fixed by biology alone
• Nature and nurture interact: babies are born ready to learn a language, and which language they learn comes from experience
• Language is all nurture, because children learn the words they hear at home
• The question is about stability vs. change, not about nature and nurture

A 6-year-old falls when riding a bike alone but rides the whole path with training wheels and a parent's hand on the seat. In Vygotsky's terms, what are the training wheels and the steadying hand?

Select one.

• Scaffolding: temporary support inside her zone of proximal development, removed as her skill grows
• Her zone of proximal development itself: the gap between riding alone and riding with help
• Conservation: understanding that the bike stays the same when its parts change
• Contact comfort: the soothing that comes from touching something soft and warm

In Harlow's (1958) studies, infant monkeys had a wire surrogate mother that held the bottle and a soft cloth surrogate mother that did not. What did the monkeys do, and what idea does the finding support?

Select one.

• They stayed mostly on the wire mother, supporting the idea that babies attach to whoever feeds them
• They divided their time evenly, supporting the idea that food and comfort matter equally
• They avoided both surrogates, supporting the idea that attachment needs a living caregiver from the start
• They spent most of their time clinging to the cloth mother, supporting the importance of contact comfort

In Ainsworth's Strange Situation, a toddler cries hard when her caregiver leaves the playroom. When the caregiver returns, she reaches up, calms within a moment, and goes back to playing. How is her attachment classified, and why?

Select one.

• Insecure, because the hard crying at the separation shows she cannot cope without the caregiver
• Secure, because she is comforted at the reunion and returns to play
• Insecure, because a securely attached toddler would not cry when the caregiver leaves
• Secure, because she cried louder than most toddlers at the separation

A high school junior joins the robotics team, quits it for theater, and argues with family about which values to keep, all while trying to work out who she is. Which of Erikson's psychosocial stages is she meeting?

Select one.

• Trust vs. mistrust
• Integrity vs. despair
• Identity vs. role confusion
• Conservation vs. egocentrism

An older crossword champion fills in rare words instantly but takes longer than his grandson to learn a brand-new phone game. Which kind of intelligence explains his instant recall of rare words?

Select one.

• Crystallized intelligence, the knowledge and vocabulary built up over a lifetime
• Fluid intelligence, the ability to reason quickly about new problems
• General intelligence (g), one ability that rises steadily with age
• Formal operational thought, which first appears in later adulthood

Which statement best describes how intelligence tends to change in later adulthood?

Select one.

• Both fluid and crystallized intelligence tend to decline at the same rate
• Fluid intelligence tends to hold steady while crystallized intelligence declines
• Neither kind changes, because intelligence is fixed after adolescence
• Fluid intelligence tends to decline while crystallized intelligence holds steady