Deck 9: Assessing Perception and Cognition

Question 1

Describe two advantages of laboratory observations of temperament over parent-report measures.

Answer 1

Direct observations by unacquainted observers are more objective.
Greater control of the conditions in which children are studied yield more reliability measures.

Question 2

Provide an explanation and example of how a child's temperamental profile may influence the environmental influences it experiences.

Answer 2

A child's behavioral style may evoke certain reactions from others, such as how a child with a temperamentally sunny disposition naturally elicits smiles and interest from peers and adults.
A child's behavioral style may guide that person's preferences for partners, settings, and activities. For example, someone with a high activity level is more likely to participate in sports with other active people than a person with a low activity level.

Question 3

In what ways is emotional regulation social?

Answer 3

Emotion regulation is related to social competence.
The earliest forms of emotion regulation are the efforts of caregivers to manage the emotions of their young offspring.

Question 4

What is joint attention and what role does it play in the development of self-awareness?

Question 5

Describe two ways in which adolescents' capacity for abstract thought enables teenagers to think of themselves and others differently than before.

Question 6

The understanding and use of display rules to mask genuine feelings in social contexts typically appear:

A) By middle childhood
B) During early childhood
C) Much earlier for girls than boys
D) With the onset of adolescence

Question 7

Individual differences by which young infants first exert a unique influence on others around them form what developmental scientists refer to as:

A) Temperament
B) Emotional regulation
C) The self
D) Emotion

Question 8

Current research supports which of the following conclusion(s) about temperament?

A) It is biologically-based, relatively stable, and interacts with the environment to influence development
B) It predicts adult personality, varies across situations, and is best measured through parent report
C) It is an out-dated concept that has little genetic or physiological basis
D) It is influenced by some environmental factors (parenting) not others (cultural norms)

Question 9

The "differential susceptibility" hypothesis argues that the association of difficult temperament with later behavioral problems results from:

A) Negative environmental influences around them (such as frustrated parenting)
B) Continuing intrinsic vulnerability of such children with difficult temperaments
C) Cultural norms concerning gender differences (i.e., boys are more physically aggressive than girls)
D) Children with difficult temperaments tend to have poor-quality interactions with peers

Question 10

Recent conceptualizations of temperament by Rothbart and her colleagues in terms of _____ mirrors the interaction between excitatory and inhibitory nervous system processes:

A) Reactivity and self-regulation
B) Difficult- and easy-to-soothe
C) Conscience and sociability
D) Externalizing and internalizing behaviors

Question 11

By preschool age, children typically develop _____ emotions such as pride and embarrassment:

A) Self-conscious
B) Mixed
C) Socially-sanctioned
D) Moral

Question 12

In adulthood, emotional development focuses on individuals:

A) Constructing their lives to incorporate emotional experiences that are personally desirable
B) Learning to balance frustration and contentment in the face of declining abilities
C) More accurately interpreting the emotional displays of others
D) Dealing with loss of freedom and increased responsibility

Question 13

Which of the following is stressed in the functionalist account of emotion?

A) Goal attainment in everyday experience
B) Biological bases of emotional reactions
C) Conditioning of emotional responses via reinforcement
D) Self-regulation through approach-avoidance behaviors

Question 14

Which of the following neurological developments accompanies an increased ability for emotional regulation during childhood?

A) Maturation of functional connections between subcortical and frontal systems regulating emotion
B) Pruning of neurons in the cortex due to experience and learning
C) Doubling of synaptic connections between language and emotional centers of the brain
D) Completion of axonal myelination of the frontal cortex

Question 15

_____ organizes and integrates our experience of who we are in the context of changing life events and provides an essential foundation to personality development:

A) The sense of self
B) Emotional regulation
C) Temperament
D) Conscience

Question 16

Which of the following is NOT a facet of the self of interest to developmental science?

A) Self-interest
B) Self-awareness
C) Self-representation
D) Self-evaluations

Question 17

Social comparison becomes a central feature of self-awareness during:

A) Middle childhood
B) Early childhood
C) Adolescence
D) Adulthood

Question 18

Describe four ways emotional understanding develops between childhood and adolescence.

Question 19

Providing examples, explain how a child's temperamental profile may influence environmental experiences.

Question 20

Describe how cultural practices provide an envelope within which the self develops from birth throughout life.