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psych 464 midterm Questions and Answers
Describe the field of life-span development.
Ans: Scientific approach to questions about growth, change, and
stability in the physical, cognitive, social, and personality
characteristics.
What are the major features of life span perspective
Ans: Multiple contexts, Collaborative relationships, Scientific, and
Change
Normative age-graded
Ans: Influences are universal for persons within a particular age range
EX: puberty for adolescent
Normative history graded
Ans: Influences common to people of a particular generation
EX: baby boomers experiencing association of JFK
non-normative influences
Ans: Influences that are specific to an individual
EX: death of parent for a young child
independent variable
Ans: The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose
effect is being studied.
dependent variable
Ans: The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to
manipulations of the independent variable.
© 2025 All rights reserved
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treatment variables
Ans: factors researchers change/manipulate to a change in outcome
subject variable
Ans: interested in the independent variable, but cannot be manipulated
internal validity
Ans: it is whether independent is related to the dependent variable
selection bias
Ans: draw participants from settings that aren't equivalent
history
Ans: events outside the experiments, but occurs during the study and
affects responses
maturation
Ans: changes in participants over time affect the results of a study
testing effects
Ans: using the same measures so participants copy responses
selective dropout
Ans: study people overtime, people dropout
reactivity
Ans: unattended changes in result of participation in study
external validity
Ans: the extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to
other situations and to other people
sample
© 2025 All rights reserved
psych 464 midterm Questions and Answers
Describe the field of life-span development.
Ans: Scientific approach to questions about growth, change, and
stability in the physical, cognitive, social, and personality
characteristics.
What are the major features of life span perspective
Ans: Multiple contexts, Collaborative relationships, Scientific, and
Change
Normative age-graded
Ans: Influences are universal for persons within a particular age range
EX: puberty for adolescent
Normative history graded
Ans: Influences common to people of a particular generation
EX: baby boomers experiencing association of JFK
non-normative influences
Ans: Influences that are specific to an individual
EX: death of parent for a young child
independent variable
Ans: The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose
effect is being studied.
dependent variable
Ans: The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to
manipulations of the independent variable.
© 2025 All rights reserved
, 2 | Page
treatment variables
Ans: factors researchers change/manipulate to a change in outcome
subject variable
Ans: interested in the independent variable, but cannot be manipulated
internal validity
Ans: it is whether independent is related to the dependent variable
selection bias
Ans: draw participants from settings that aren't equivalent
history
Ans: events outside the experiments, but occurs during the study and
affects responses
maturation
Ans: changes in participants over time affect the results of a study
testing effects
Ans: using the same measures so participants copy responses
selective dropout
Ans: study people overtime, people dropout
reactivity
Ans: unattended changes in result of participation in study
external validity
Ans: the extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to
other situations and to other people
sample
© 2025 All rights reserved
