UMN CPSY 3301 EXAM QUESTIONS WITH VERIFIED SOLUTIONS LATEST UPDATE 2026
Harry Harlow's "surrogate mothers" experiments provided strong support for the idea that
attachments form because: - Answers infants need close physical contact and comfort.
During the Strange Situation, an infant whose reaction to a stranger is similar to his/her reaction to
the parent and who is slow to greet the parent upon reunion would be classified as: - Answers
avoidant
Children rated as falling into the ____________ category of attachment appear indifferent to the
presence of their mother in the "strange situation," while children in the ____________ category stay
close to their mother and appear anxious even when she is near. - Answers avoidant; resistant
When the Strange Situation Procedure is conducted with Japanese infants and their mothers, it is
found that Japanese infants have higher rates of insecure resistant attachment than US infants. The
most likely reason for this cultural difference is that: - Answers Japanese mothers rarely allow anyone
unfamiliar to care for their infants so the separation during the Strange Situation is especially stressful
for them.
Which of the following accurately describes research on father-infant attachment? - Answers Infant-
father attachment relationships depend on fathers' sensitivity to children's needs.
One of the main conclusions made by Thomas and Chess in the New York Longitudinal Study is that: -
Answers In the right environment, the temperament of a difficult child does not necessarily lead to
later behavioral problems.
Four-year-old Emma has never liked new situations or experiences. However, when she is given ample
time to prepare and then eased into a new encounter, she responds in a quiet and positive manner.
Thomas and Chess would most likely describe Emma as a(n): - Answers slow-to-warm-up child
In order to increase the validity of using infants' facial expressions to measure their emotion,
researchers: - Answers include physiological measures (e.g., heart rate) along with facial measures.
Cora is 18 months old and just started in child care. She gets hungry or tired at different times each
day; she seems to always want to run, climb, jump, which she enjoys with lots of smiles and laughs.
She does not enjoy quiet activities, such as games and book reading, and pouts dramatically when
doing them. Cora also has trouble transitioning between activities, sometimes resulting in 10 minutes
of tantrums. According to Thomas & Chess' temperament styles, she is most likely to be classified as: -
Answers Difficult
Firm believers in the "nurture" side of the argument regarding temperament would likely cite the
following as evidence for their position: - Answers temperamentally inhibited (i.e., shy) children can
become less inhibited over time
According to Skinner's behaviorist perspective, the two major processes that allow for language
development are: - Answers reinforcement and imitation
Which of the following is NOT a strategy used for investigating how biology influences language
development? - Answers exploring how cultural differences in adult-child interaction influence
language development
Utterances such as, "Sarah eated fast": - Answers show that children have some grasp of grammatical
rules.
Language development during the FIRST YEAR of life is largely driven by: - Answers the growth of the
vocal tract
Research by Fernald on infant-directed speech has shown that: - Answers 9-month-olds pay attention
to the "melody" (emotional tone) rather than the words of infant-directed speech.
When evaluating Noam Chomsky's Nativist perspective on language acquisition, research has shown
that: - Answers Older children and adults have difficulty acquiring a second language with the same
competence as native speakers.
Two-year-old Julia knows the word "horse", but just used it to refer to a cow! If she is now asked to
pick out the picture of the horse from a set of animal pictures, what is she most likely to do? -
Answers Point to a horse
A child uses the word "doggy" only for his own family's dog, not for other dogs. This is an example of -
Answers underextension
The first words spoken by infants raised in English-speaking homes are generally - Answers labels for
objects
Research on the use of babbling by deaf children reveals that - Answers deaf children "babble" with
their hands in the same way that hearing children babble vocally.
,An outcome of centration in children's thinking is that they: - Answers are particularly susceptible to
faulty reasoning because they focus on a single aspect of a task.
Researching young children's ability to discern appearance versus reality has been important in: -
Answers Learning more about whether young children can reliably testify in court about past events
As used by Piaget, the term "egocentrism" refers to: - Answers difficulty taking another's point of
view
When compared to their performance on Piaget's classic "three-mountain-problem," children who
were asked to reason about a more familiar farm scene: - Answers exhibited greater success at taking
the perspective of others.
When children modify their language in speaking with younger children, they are demonstrating: -
Answers that they can take their listener's needs into account
Which of the following supports the claim that young children have unsophisticated TV viewing skills?
- Answers Young children often respond to commands given by characters on TV.
Playing video games is thought to be a stronger influence than television on children's behavior for all
of the following reasons EXCEPT: - Answers children spend more time playing video games than
watching television.
Researchers have found that boys and girls generally differ in their reactions to exposure to violent
television shows. Which of the following best describes this difference? - Answers Greater exposure
to violent shows predicted higher levels of physical aggression for boys, but not girls
Three-year-old Theo watches a TV program about a fireman who sets buildings on fire and then
attempts dramatic rescues. Theo is likely to - Answers have difficulty distinguishing between reality
and fiction.
Zimmerman & Christakis measured the amount and content of television watched by children from 3
to 5 years of age, and subsequently measured attention problems 5 years later. Their findings suggest
that: - Answers the more hours of ENTERTAINMENT television watched prior to age 3, the more likely
they were to have subsequent attention problems.
Sophia is given the chance to play with a Spider-man action figure and a mermaid doll. She is later
asked to remember details about these toys. According to the gender schema view of sex-role
development, which of the following results is MOST likely to occur? - Answers Sophia will remember
more about the mermaid doll than the Spider-man action figure.
According to Freud, girls develop a sex-role identity by ___________ their mothers, while boys
_____________ their mothers. - Answers affiliating with; differentiate from
According to research, which of the following is FALSE regarding the gender socialization of boys and
girls? - Answers Children are likely to seek out opposite-sex peers, but are forced to play in same-sex
groups by teachers and parents.
Which of the following results is revealed by research on children's knowledge of gender stereotypes?
- Answers Children who spend time in contexts in which gender is emphasized are likely to
demonstrate rigid gender stereotypes.
A task that required preschoolers to point to one of two puppets that portrayed their thoughts or
tendencies in certain situations, suggested that: - Answers Preschoolers have psychological
conceptions of self.
In a study of social-cognitive distortions, a confederate knocked over a tower that boys were building
in order to earn a prize. The action was presented as either hostile, ambiguous, or an attempt to help.
Results indicated that: - Answers highly aggressive boys were more likely than non-aggressive boys to
retaliate in the ambiguous intent condition.
Which of the following is FALSE regarding preschoolers' ability to understand masked emotions? -
Answers Children are unable to mask their own emotions during the preschool years.
From around 18 to 24 months of age, children tend to - Answers increase in verbal aggression.
Peter watches his father punch another man in a fight during a hockey game. Later, Peter punches his
younger brother in much the same way. This is an example of: - Answers observational learning
Research on relational and overt aggression in childhood suggests that: - Answers girls and boys are
about equally aggressive, but they are aggressive in different ways.
Stacey expects her children to follow family rules, but she explains these rules to her children so they
understand why they are needed. Stacey is using which kind of parenting style? - Answers
authoritative
, Research has found that compared to children raised in heterosexual families, children raised in gay
and lesbian households: - Answers are no different in terms of psychological well-being, peer
relationships, and behavioral adjustment.
The MOST important goals among parents whose families are living under conditions of threat are: -
Answers their children's health and safety.
Parents who demonstrate the authoritative pattern style tend to control their children by - Answers
explaining their rules or decisions.
Research comparing single-family households to two-parent households finds that: - Answers when
SES is taken into account, there are few differences between the outcomes for children in these two
groups.
Which of the following is a typical outcome for children whose parents divorce? - Answers Their
socioeconomic status goes down.
Research indicates that when parents get divorced while their children are preschoolers (ie. between
about 3 and 5 years of age): - Answers children are likely to blame themselves for their parents'
break-up.
Day care has been shown to have a positive effect on children's language and learning skills: -
Answers only if the day care is of high quality.
Large scale studies of the effects of child care in the United States have demonstrated which of the
following? - Answers The risk of children exhibiting problem behaviors increases the longer they are
in child care per week.
In studying the association between daycare and children's functioning, which of the following factors
has the largest effect on the development of children? - Answers the quality of the parenting children
receive at home
The process in which two or more research methods are combined to confirm a conclusion is called: -
Answers triangulation
The range between what one can do unsupported and what one can do with optimal social support is
referred to as ____________. - Answers the zone of proximal development
One of the first developmentalists to stress the importance of systematic observation was Wilhelm
Preyer (1841-1897). In his view, careful observation was necessary to establish the ____________ of
behavior and, hence, to see how behavioral patterns arose. - Answers sequence
Qualitatively new patterns of behavior during development, such as the change from crawling to
walking, are often referred to as: - Answers stages
What is the primary way that developmental scientists learn about historical beliefs about childhood?
- Answers by examining books, magazines, art, and other records from earlier times
Itard worked with Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron, to test what theory? - Answers The social
environment shapes children's development.
Alfred Binet developed the first intelligence test to: - Answers identify schoolchildren who could use
special education instruction.
Developmentalists recognize four major domains of development, including: - Answers cognitive,
social, physical, and emotional.
An example of Piaget's concept of assimilation is an infant who: - Answers knows how to grasp her
mother's hair and uses the same grasping movements to grab a toy.
In Erikson's theory, the main challenge of adolescence is: - Answers In Erikson's theory, the main
challenge of adolescence is:
Which of the following is an example of Piaget's concept of accommodation? - Answers An infant
learning to suck on a rattle differently than she sucks on a pacifier.
The function of a theory is to: - Answers guide the collection and interpretation of evidence.
A psychologist plans to study father/child interactions and her primary concern is that she does not
let her biases influence her data collection and analysis. To address this concern, she must attend
primarily to ____________. - Answers objectivity
Concerns about cohort differences are primarily related to which research designs? - Answers
longitudinal and cross-sectional
Which of the following questions is BEST answered using a longitudinal research design? - Answers
What is the sequence of a child's concept of gender development?
The greatest strength of the experimental method is its ability to: - Answers isolate causal factors.
Harry Harlow's "surrogate mothers" experiments provided strong support for the idea that
attachments form because: - Answers infants need close physical contact and comfort.
During the Strange Situation, an infant whose reaction to a stranger is similar to his/her reaction to
the parent and who is slow to greet the parent upon reunion would be classified as: - Answers
avoidant
Children rated as falling into the ____________ category of attachment appear indifferent to the
presence of their mother in the "strange situation," while children in the ____________ category stay
close to their mother and appear anxious even when she is near. - Answers avoidant; resistant
When the Strange Situation Procedure is conducted with Japanese infants and their mothers, it is
found that Japanese infants have higher rates of insecure resistant attachment than US infants. The
most likely reason for this cultural difference is that: - Answers Japanese mothers rarely allow anyone
unfamiliar to care for their infants so the separation during the Strange Situation is especially stressful
for them.
Which of the following accurately describes research on father-infant attachment? - Answers Infant-
father attachment relationships depend on fathers' sensitivity to children's needs.
One of the main conclusions made by Thomas and Chess in the New York Longitudinal Study is that: -
Answers In the right environment, the temperament of a difficult child does not necessarily lead to
later behavioral problems.
Four-year-old Emma has never liked new situations or experiences. However, when she is given ample
time to prepare and then eased into a new encounter, she responds in a quiet and positive manner.
Thomas and Chess would most likely describe Emma as a(n): - Answers slow-to-warm-up child
In order to increase the validity of using infants' facial expressions to measure their emotion,
researchers: - Answers include physiological measures (e.g., heart rate) along with facial measures.
Cora is 18 months old and just started in child care. She gets hungry or tired at different times each
day; she seems to always want to run, climb, jump, which she enjoys with lots of smiles and laughs.
She does not enjoy quiet activities, such as games and book reading, and pouts dramatically when
doing them. Cora also has trouble transitioning between activities, sometimes resulting in 10 minutes
of tantrums. According to Thomas & Chess' temperament styles, she is most likely to be classified as: -
Answers Difficult
Firm believers in the "nurture" side of the argument regarding temperament would likely cite the
following as evidence for their position: - Answers temperamentally inhibited (i.e., shy) children can
become less inhibited over time
According to Skinner's behaviorist perspective, the two major processes that allow for language
development are: - Answers reinforcement and imitation
Which of the following is NOT a strategy used for investigating how biology influences language
development? - Answers exploring how cultural differences in adult-child interaction influence
language development
Utterances such as, "Sarah eated fast": - Answers show that children have some grasp of grammatical
rules.
Language development during the FIRST YEAR of life is largely driven by: - Answers the growth of the
vocal tract
Research by Fernald on infant-directed speech has shown that: - Answers 9-month-olds pay attention
to the "melody" (emotional tone) rather than the words of infant-directed speech.
When evaluating Noam Chomsky's Nativist perspective on language acquisition, research has shown
that: - Answers Older children and adults have difficulty acquiring a second language with the same
competence as native speakers.
Two-year-old Julia knows the word "horse", but just used it to refer to a cow! If she is now asked to
pick out the picture of the horse from a set of animal pictures, what is she most likely to do? -
Answers Point to a horse
A child uses the word "doggy" only for his own family's dog, not for other dogs. This is an example of -
Answers underextension
The first words spoken by infants raised in English-speaking homes are generally - Answers labels for
objects
Research on the use of babbling by deaf children reveals that - Answers deaf children "babble" with
their hands in the same way that hearing children babble vocally.
,An outcome of centration in children's thinking is that they: - Answers are particularly susceptible to
faulty reasoning because they focus on a single aspect of a task.
Researching young children's ability to discern appearance versus reality has been important in: -
Answers Learning more about whether young children can reliably testify in court about past events
As used by Piaget, the term "egocentrism" refers to: - Answers difficulty taking another's point of
view
When compared to their performance on Piaget's classic "three-mountain-problem," children who
were asked to reason about a more familiar farm scene: - Answers exhibited greater success at taking
the perspective of others.
When children modify their language in speaking with younger children, they are demonstrating: -
Answers that they can take their listener's needs into account
Which of the following supports the claim that young children have unsophisticated TV viewing skills?
- Answers Young children often respond to commands given by characters on TV.
Playing video games is thought to be a stronger influence than television on children's behavior for all
of the following reasons EXCEPT: - Answers children spend more time playing video games than
watching television.
Researchers have found that boys and girls generally differ in their reactions to exposure to violent
television shows. Which of the following best describes this difference? - Answers Greater exposure
to violent shows predicted higher levels of physical aggression for boys, but not girls
Three-year-old Theo watches a TV program about a fireman who sets buildings on fire and then
attempts dramatic rescues. Theo is likely to - Answers have difficulty distinguishing between reality
and fiction.
Zimmerman & Christakis measured the amount and content of television watched by children from 3
to 5 years of age, and subsequently measured attention problems 5 years later. Their findings suggest
that: - Answers the more hours of ENTERTAINMENT television watched prior to age 3, the more likely
they were to have subsequent attention problems.
Sophia is given the chance to play with a Spider-man action figure and a mermaid doll. She is later
asked to remember details about these toys. According to the gender schema view of sex-role
development, which of the following results is MOST likely to occur? - Answers Sophia will remember
more about the mermaid doll than the Spider-man action figure.
According to Freud, girls develop a sex-role identity by ___________ their mothers, while boys
_____________ their mothers. - Answers affiliating with; differentiate from
According to research, which of the following is FALSE regarding the gender socialization of boys and
girls? - Answers Children are likely to seek out opposite-sex peers, but are forced to play in same-sex
groups by teachers and parents.
Which of the following results is revealed by research on children's knowledge of gender stereotypes?
- Answers Children who spend time in contexts in which gender is emphasized are likely to
demonstrate rigid gender stereotypes.
A task that required preschoolers to point to one of two puppets that portrayed their thoughts or
tendencies in certain situations, suggested that: - Answers Preschoolers have psychological
conceptions of self.
In a study of social-cognitive distortions, a confederate knocked over a tower that boys were building
in order to earn a prize. The action was presented as either hostile, ambiguous, or an attempt to help.
Results indicated that: - Answers highly aggressive boys were more likely than non-aggressive boys to
retaliate in the ambiguous intent condition.
Which of the following is FALSE regarding preschoolers' ability to understand masked emotions? -
Answers Children are unable to mask their own emotions during the preschool years.
From around 18 to 24 months of age, children tend to - Answers increase in verbal aggression.
Peter watches his father punch another man in a fight during a hockey game. Later, Peter punches his
younger brother in much the same way. This is an example of: - Answers observational learning
Research on relational and overt aggression in childhood suggests that: - Answers girls and boys are
about equally aggressive, but they are aggressive in different ways.
Stacey expects her children to follow family rules, but she explains these rules to her children so they
understand why they are needed. Stacey is using which kind of parenting style? - Answers
authoritative
, Research has found that compared to children raised in heterosexual families, children raised in gay
and lesbian households: - Answers are no different in terms of psychological well-being, peer
relationships, and behavioral adjustment.
The MOST important goals among parents whose families are living under conditions of threat are: -
Answers their children's health and safety.
Parents who demonstrate the authoritative pattern style tend to control their children by - Answers
explaining their rules or decisions.
Research comparing single-family households to two-parent households finds that: - Answers when
SES is taken into account, there are few differences between the outcomes for children in these two
groups.
Which of the following is a typical outcome for children whose parents divorce? - Answers Their
socioeconomic status goes down.
Research indicates that when parents get divorced while their children are preschoolers (ie. between
about 3 and 5 years of age): - Answers children are likely to blame themselves for their parents'
break-up.
Day care has been shown to have a positive effect on children's language and learning skills: -
Answers only if the day care is of high quality.
Large scale studies of the effects of child care in the United States have demonstrated which of the
following? - Answers The risk of children exhibiting problem behaviors increases the longer they are
in child care per week.
In studying the association between daycare and children's functioning, which of the following factors
has the largest effect on the development of children? - Answers the quality of the parenting children
receive at home
The process in which two or more research methods are combined to confirm a conclusion is called: -
Answers triangulation
The range between what one can do unsupported and what one can do with optimal social support is
referred to as ____________. - Answers the zone of proximal development
One of the first developmentalists to stress the importance of systematic observation was Wilhelm
Preyer (1841-1897). In his view, careful observation was necessary to establish the ____________ of
behavior and, hence, to see how behavioral patterns arose. - Answers sequence
Qualitatively new patterns of behavior during development, such as the change from crawling to
walking, are often referred to as: - Answers stages
What is the primary way that developmental scientists learn about historical beliefs about childhood?
- Answers by examining books, magazines, art, and other records from earlier times
Itard worked with Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron, to test what theory? - Answers The social
environment shapes children's development.
Alfred Binet developed the first intelligence test to: - Answers identify schoolchildren who could use
special education instruction.
Developmentalists recognize four major domains of development, including: - Answers cognitive,
social, physical, and emotional.
An example of Piaget's concept of assimilation is an infant who: - Answers knows how to grasp her
mother's hair and uses the same grasping movements to grab a toy.
In Erikson's theory, the main challenge of adolescence is: - Answers In Erikson's theory, the main
challenge of adolescence is:
Which of the following is an example of Piaget's concept of accommodation? - Answers An infant
learning to suck on a rattle differently than she sucks on a pacifier.
The function of a theory is to: - Answers guide the collection and interpretation of evidence.
A psychologist plans to study father/child interactions and her primary concern is that she does not
let her biases influence her data collection and analysis. To address this concern, she must attend
primarily to ____________. - Answers objectivity
Concerns about cohort differences are primarily related to which research designs? - Answers
longitudinal and cross-sectional
Which of the following questions is BEST answered using a longitudinal research design? - Answers
What is the sequence of a child's concept of gender development?
The greatest strength of the experimental method is its ability to: - Answers isolate causal factors.
