PSYC 200 Exam 1 Questions and Answers Latest Update 2025-2026
Plasticity - Answers open to change
in response to influential experiences
Lifespan perspective - Answers development occurs across the lifespan; no age period
dominates development
Age-graded influences - Answers Influences on lifespan development that are strongly related
to age and therefore fairly predictable in when they occur and how long they last.
history-graded influences - Answers Influences on lifespan development that are unique to a
particular historical era and explain why people born
around the same time (cohort) tend to be alike in ways that set them apart from people born at
other times
Non-normative influences - Answers events that are irregular: they happen to just one person or
a few people and do not follow a predictable timetable
Theory - Answers orderly, integrated set of statements that describe, explain, and/or predict
behavior
Social Learning Theory - Answers emphasizes the role of modeling, observational learning, in
the development of behavior.
Psychosexual Theory - Answers emphasizes that how parents manage their child's sexual and
aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for healthy personality development.
Behviorism - Answers directly observable events (stimuli and responses) are the focus of study
Modeling - Answers imitation or observational learning
Piaget's Cognitive Developmental Theory - Answers children actively construct knowledge as
they manipulate and explore their world
-4 stages:
-Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete operational Formal operational
Information Processing - Answers the human mind might also be viewed as a symbol
manipulating system through which information flows
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience - Answers study of relationships between changes in
the brain and development of cognition, behavior.
- Brings together researchers from psychology, biology, neuroscience, and medicine.
, Ethology - Answers concerned with the adaptive, or survival, value of
behavior and its evolutionary history
Naturalistic Observation - Answers in the field/natural environment and record the behavior of
interest
Structured Observation - Answers set up a laboratory situation that evokes the behavior of
interest so that every participant has equal opportunity to display the response
correlations coefficients - Answers a number that describes how two measures, or variables,
are associated with each other.
- magnitude and direction
indepedent variable - Answers changed/ manipulated by experimenter; causes changes in other
variables
Dependent variable - Answers not manipulated by experimenter; influenced by independent
variable
Longitudinal Designs - Answers Same group studied at different times
Cross-sectional design - Answers Differing groups studied at same time
Sequential Design - Answers Several similar cross-sectional longitudinal studies at varying
times
Cohort effects - Answers grouping by age; generational influence, ex: baby boomers
Time of Measurement Effects - Answers Historical events that affect most everybody at a given
point in history (ex: 9/11)
Age effects - Answers changes that occur as we get older
Informed consent - Answers special interpretation when participants cannot fully appreciate the
research goals and activities
What determines sex of developing organism? - Answers The sex chromosomes, dad
determines sex of baby
Fraternal twins - Answers 2 zygotes (dizygotic) 2 fertilized ova
Homozygous - Answers 2 alleles are alike
Heterozygous - Answers 2 alleles are different
Carriers - Answers heterozygous individuals with just one recessive allele; can pass that trait to
Plasticity - Answers open to change
in response to influential experiences
Lifespan perspective - Answers development occurs across the lifespan; no age period
dominates development
Age-graded influences - Answers Influences on lifespan development that are strongly related
to age and therefore fairly predictable in when they occur and how long they last.
history-graded influences - Answers Influences on lifespan development that are unique to a
particular historical era and explain why people born
around the same time (cohort) tend to be alike in ways that set them apart from people born at
other times
Non-normative influences - Answers events that are irregular: they happen to just one person or
a few people and do not follow a predictable timetable
Theory - Answers orderly, integrated set of statements that describe, explain, and/or predict
behavior
Social Learning Theory - Answers emphasizes the role of modeling, observational learning, in
the development of behavior.
Psychosexual Theory - Answers emphasizes that how parents manage their child's sexual and
aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for healthy personality development.
Behviorism - Answers directly observable events (stimuli and responses) are the focus of study
Modeling - Answers imitation or observational learning
Piaget's Cognitive Developmental Theory - Answers children actively construct knowledge as
they manipulate and explore their world
-4 stages:
-Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete operational Formal operational
Information Processing - Answers the human mind might also be viewed as a symbol
manipulating system through which information flows
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience - Answers study of relationships between changes in
the brain and development of cognition, behavior.
- Brings together researchers from psychology, biology, neuroscience, and medicine.
, Ethology - Answers concerned with the adaptive, or survival, value of
behavior and its evolutionary history
Naturalistic Observation - Answers in the field/natural environment and record the behavior of
interest
Structured Observation - Answers set up a laboratory situation that evokes the behavior of
interest so that every participant has equal opportunity to display the response
correlations coefficients - Answers a number that describes how two measures, or variables,
are associated with each other.
- magnitude and direction
indepedent variable - Answers changed/ manipulated by experimenter; causes changes in other
variables
Dependent variable - Answers not manipulated by experimenter; influenced by independent
variable
Longitudinal Designs - Answers Same group studied at different times
Cross-sectional design - Answers Differing groups studied at same time
Sequential Design - Answers Several similar cross-sectional longitudinal studies at varying
times
Cohort effects - Answers grouping by age; generational influence, ex: baby boomers
Time of Measurement Effects - Answers Historical events that affect most everybody at a given
point in history (ex: 9/11)
Age effects - Answers changes that occur as we get older
Informed consent - Answers special interpretation when participants cannot fully appreciate the
research goals and activities
What determines sex of developing organism? - Answers The sex chromosomes, dad
determines sex of baby
Fraternal twins - Answers 2 zygotes (dizygotic) 2 fertilized ova
Homozygous - Answers 2 alleles are alike
Heterozygous - Answers 2 alleles are different
Carriers - Answers heterozygous individuals with just one recessive allele; can pass that trait to
