DOCPAGE NUM='1'>}][{}]CHAPTER 1€¦ · Web viewC) the child and the social environment collaborate to build cognition in culturally adaptive ways. D) by acting

CHAPTER 6

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: PIAGETIAN, CORE KNOWLEDGE, AND VYGOTSKIAN PERSPECTIVES

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1) Research indicates that children’s cognitive immaturity A) results from overstimulation during infancy and toddlerhood. B) results from a lack of stimulation.C) hinders their mastery of basic academic skills. D) may be adaptive.

Answer: D Page Ref: 226Skill: UnderstandObjective: 6.1

2) Piaget’s theory is described as a constructivist approach because he A) stressed the social and cultural contributions to children’s thinking. B) viewed children as discovering virtually all knowledge about their world through their own activity. C) emphasized how genetic and environmental factors combine to yield more complex ways of thinking. D) believed that children construct knowledge through adult training and modeling.

Answer: B Page Ref: 226Skill: UnderstandObjective: 6.1

3) In Piaget’s theory, children move through four stages A) during which their exploratory behaviors transform into logical and abstract intelligence. B) not always in a sequential manner, depending on the children’s innate intelligence. C) sequentially at a rate observed in children everywhere. D) in which different cognitive skills follow unique courses of development.

Answer: A Page Ref: 226Skill: UnderstandObjective: 6.1

4) In Piaget’s theory, the most powerful __________ are __________ and __________. A) schemes; categorization; hierarchical classification B) mental representations; images; concepts C) operations; hypothetico-deductive reasoning; logical necessity D) cognitive skills; private speech; propositional thought

Answer: B Page Ref: 227Skill: RememberObjective: 6.1

Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 1

Test Bank for Berk / Child Development, 9e

5) According to Piaget’s theory, A) the disappearance of schemes marks the transition from sensorimotor to preoperational thought. B) environmental, but not genetic, factors can affect the speed with which children move through cognitive stages.C) schemes are built through interaction with adults or more skilled peers. D) two processes account for the change from sensorimotor to representational schemes.


6) In Piaget’s theory, adaptation refers to A) the back-and-forth movement between equilibration and disequilibration. B) the process of building schemes through direct interaction with the environment. C) a rearrangement and linking together of schemes. D) a steady, comfortable cognitive state.


7) Children use current schemes to interpret their world in the process of __________, whereas __________ allows them to create new schemes or adjust old ones after noticing that their current way of thinking does not capture the environment completely.

A) assimilation; accommodationB) adaptation; organizationC) adaptation; assimilation D) equilibration; organization

Answer: A Page Ref: 227Skill: RememberObjective: 6.1

8) When 18-month-old James is given peas for the first time, he picks one up, throws it, and says “ball.” According to Piaget’s theory, James is most likely __________ the pea into his ball scheme.

A) accommodating B) organizing C) equilibrating D) assimilating

Answer: D Page Ref: 227Skill: ApplyObjective: 6.1

9) Two-year-old Viola calls her father’s swimming goggles “water glasses.” According to Piaget’s theory, Viola is most likely

A) accommodating. B) assimilating. C) organizing. D) equilibrating.

Answer: A Page Ref: 227Skill: ApplyObjective: 6.1

2 Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 6 Cognitive Development: Piagetian, Core Knowledge, and Vygotskian Perspectives

10) In Piaget’s theory, when children are in a state of disequilibrium, A) their schemes become disorganized and development is temporarily stalled. B) they realize that new information does not match their current schemes. C) they are likely to construct inefficient schemes. D) their existing schemes are not likely to change very much.


11) According to Piaget’s theory, during periods of rapid cognitive change, children A) shift from accommodation to assimilation. B) shift from assimilation to accommodation. C) equally balance assimilation and accommodation. D) are in a state of cognitive equilibrium.


12) In Piaget’s theory, children use organization to A) build schemes through direct interaction with the environment. B) adjust old schemes and create new ones to fit with the environment. C) accommodate the back-and-forth movement between cognitive equilibration and disequilibration. D) internally rearrange and link schemes to create a strongly interconnected cognitive system.

Answer: D Page Ref: 227Skill: RememberObjective: 6.1

13) Baby Pedro has combined his reaching, grasping, and sucking schemes into one higher-order scheme that allows him to reach for his pacifier and put it into his mouth to suck. In Piaget’s theory, this achievement is an example of

A) accommodation. B) assimilation. C) organization. D) adaptation.

Answer: CPage Ref: 227Skill: ApplyObjective: 6.1

14) Which of the following behaviors is characteristic of infants in Piaget’s sensorimotor Substage 2? A) a baby who drops toys down the steps in varying ways B) a baby who accidentally makes a smacking noise while eating and later tries to reproduce the sound C) a baby who can push aside a cover to retrieve a hidden toy D) a baby who accidentally hits a toy hung in front of her and then tries to repeat this effect

Answer: B Page Ref: 228Skill: ApplyObjective: 6.2



15) In Piaget’s theory, primary circular reactions are oriented toward __________, whereas secondary circular reactions are oriented toward __________.

A) the infant’s own body; the surrounding world B) involuntary actions; voluntary actions C) external actions; internal representations D) concrete thought; abstract thought


16) According to Piaget, tertiary circular reactions include A) the ability to find a hidden object that has been moved while out of sight. B) deferred imitation and private speech. C) the ability to search in several locations for a hidden object. D) make-believe play and social speech.

Answer: CPage Ref: 228Skill: RememberObjective: 6.2

17) Piaget divided the sensorimotor stage into six substages based onA) anecdotal evidence provided by hundreds of parents.B) rigorous laboratory experiments with young children. C) observations of his three children.D) his research with children in French orphanages.


18) When Baby Carissa “stumbles” onto a new experience, such as making a mobile hanging over her crib move by kicking her feet, engaging in that activity repeatedly will

A) strengthen Carissa’s response and create a new scheme.B) provide Carissa with entertainment until she is better able to explore her world.C) lead to the refinement of reflexive schemes. D) facilitate cognitive equilibrium.

Answer: APage Ref: 228Skill: ApplyObjective: 6.2

19) Baby Raja accidentally pushes over a tower of blocks. Each time his sister rebuilds the tower, Raja tries to push it over. In Piaget’s theory, this is an example of a __________ circular reaction.

A) reflexive B) primary C) secondary D) tertiary

Answer: C Page Ref: 229Skill: ApplyObjective: 6.2



20) Baby Henry enters Piaget’s Substage 4 of the sensorimotor period when his schemes A) are directed toward his body. B) are repeated with variation to produce new outcomes. C) are coordinated deliberately to solve simple problems. D) represent sudden solutions rather than trial-and-error solutions.


21) __________ and __________ are the two landmark cognitive changes that take place in sensorimotor Substage 4 of Piaget’s theory.

A) Deferred imitation; make-believe play B) Conservation; centration C) Dual representation; analogical problem solving D) Intentional behavior; object permanence


22) Baby Lakota is shown a ball that is then hidden under a cover. What must Lakota do to retrieve the ball? A) Lakota will need to recall the location of the ball. B) Lakota must coordinate “pushing aside” and “grasping” schemes to retrieve the ball. C) Lakota will not be able to retrieve the ball until she is in Substage 6 of the sensorimotor period. D) Lakota will have trouble retrieving the ball until she no longer makes the A-not-B error.


23) Each time Mr. Chow hides 7-month-old Jana’s doll under her blanket, she retrieves the toy. When Mr. Chow then hides the doll under a pillow near the blanket, Jana continues to look under the blanket for the doll. Jana is demonstrating

A) the secondary circular reaction. B) habituation and recovery. C) displaced reference. D) the A-not-B search error.

Answer: DPage Ref: 229Skill: ApplyObjective: 6.2

24) Infants in Substage 5A) repeat behaviors with variations. B) become skilled at reaching for and manipulating objects. C) use their capacity for intentional behavior to try to change events. D) arrive at solutions to problems suddenly rather than through trial-and-error behavior.




25) Baby Waldo is twisting and turning triangles, circles, and squares to fit them into his shape-sorter toy. According to Piaget, this behavior is best described as a __________ circular reaction.

A) reflexive B) primary C) secondary D) tertiary


26) Toddlers in Substage 6 of the sensorimotor period can solve object-permanence problems involving invisible displacement because they have developed the capacity to

A) engage in goal-directed behavior. B) construct mental representations. C) carry out means–end action sequences. D) understand dual representation.


27) In the violation-of-expectation method, __________ suggests that Baby Will is “surprised” by a deviation from physical reality.

A) a lack of attention and unfocused behavior B) heightened attention to the unexpected event C) smiling rather than crying D) quick recovery to a familiar event


28) Some critics of the violation-of-expectation method A) believe that it indicates a conscious awareness of physical events rather than a limited understanding. B) argue that wide individual differences in recovery times exist. C) believe that it indicates limited, implicit awareness of physical events rather than conscious understanding. D) argue that it is an inappropriate task to use with very young infants.

Answer: C Page Ref: 230Skill: UnderstandObjective: 6.3

29) Baillargeon’s violation-of-expectation studies provided evidence that infants have some knowledge of object permanence

A) between 1½ and 2½ months. B) between 2½ and 3½ months. C) no earlier than 6 months. D) after 12 months.




30) When infants are tested to discover whether they understand the concept of object permanence and are shown two events—one expected and one unexpected—the infants

A) show no awareness that the events differ from one another.B) ignore the unexpected event.C) look longer at the unexpected event than the expected event.D) show a preference for the expected event.


31) Baby Rina, who is still developing the expertise at motor skills necessary for the search task, is more likely to make the A-not-B search error because

A) she does not yet understand object permanence. B) her short attention span prevents her from thinking beyond A. C) her reaching scheme is limited to reflexive actions. D) she has little attention left to focus on inhibiting her habitual reach toward A in favor of B.


32) In Piaget’s theory, infants are unable to mentally represent experience until about _____ months of age. A) 3 B) 9 C) 12 D) 18


33) Laboratory research suggests that deferred imitation is present at __________ of age. A) 6 weeksB) 12 weeksC) 6 months D) 14 months


34) Toddlers’ ability to represent others’ intentionsA) occurs later than Piaget predicted. B) requires the refinement of reflexive schemes. C) seems to have roots in earlier sensorimotor activity.D) leads to gains in categorization.




35) Categorization helps infants learn and remember by A) teaching them how to group abstract stimuli. B) enhancing their symbolic understanding. C) reducing the enormous amount of new information they encounter every day. D) pairing objects with word associations.


36) Based on habituation and recovery research, Dahlia’s parents know that between 6 and 12 months old, Dahlia will be able to

A) only sort items into one or two basic categories, such as animals and people. B) group objects into an impressive array of categories like food items, furniture, birds, animals, kitchen utensils,

and spatial location. C) organize her physical world but not yet categorize her emotional and social worlds. D) sort familiar and novel items based on color, size, shape, and function.


37) Some researchers believe that before the end of the first year, babies undergo a fundamental shift from a(n) __________ basis to a(n) __________ basis for constructing categories

A) logical; abstract B) perceptual; abstract C) logical; conceptual D) perceptual; conceptual

Answer: D Page Ref: 234–235Skill: RememberObjective: 6.3

38) Jae-Sun is a toddler growing up in Korea where children learn a language in which object names are often omitted from sentences. For that reason, he will most likely develop object-grouping skills __________-speaking counterparts.

A) later than his English B) earlier than his English C) at about the same time as his English D) earlier than his Spanish


39) Mara is 10 months of age. Research suggests that Mara can A) engage in sociodramatic play. B) imitate novel behaviors. C) engage in analogical problem solving. D) appreciate the symbolic nature of pictures.

Answer: CPage Ref: 235Skill: ApplyObjective: 6.3



40) By the end of the first year, infants A) use language to acquire new information about an absent object. B) use pictures as vehicles for communicating with others and acquiring new knowledge. C) begin to use an object that already has an obvious use as a symbol for another object. D) form flexible mental representations of how to use tools to get objects.

Answer: DPage Ref: 235Skill: UnderstandObjective: 6.3

41) Around the first birthday, the symbolic capacity called “displaced reference” emerges, which allows toddlers toA) use abstract thought to solve problems. B) form initial mental representations that can be used to evaluate further information. C) categorize objects on the basis of their physical attributes. D) recognize that words can be used to cue mental images of things not physically present.


42) The capacity to use __________ as a flexible symbolic tool improves from the end of the second into the third year. A) make-believe B) language C) deferred imitation D) the circular reaction


43) Before about 9 months of age, how are babies likely to treat a picture of a person or an object? A) They touch or manipulate the picture in ways that reveal confusion about the picture’s real nature. B) They do not seem to have difficulty distinguishing between the symbol and the referent. C) They use it as a tool to modify an existing mental representation. D) They treat it as a symbol.


44) Initially, infants respond to videos of people A) as make-believe characters. B) in a fearful manner. C) with indifference, paying little attention to the characters. D) as if viewing people directly.

Answer: DPage Ref: 237 Box: SOCIAL ISSUES: EDUCATION: Baby Learning from TV and Video: The Video Deficit EffectSkill: UnderstandObjective: 6.3



45) Gregor just turned 2½. By this age, the video deficit effectA) declines.B) increases.C) peaks.D) stabilizes.

Answer: APage Ref: 237 Box: SOCIAL ISSUES: EDUCATION: Baby Learning from TV and Video: The Video Deficit EffectSkill: ApplyObjective: 6.3

46) Research indicates that amount of TV viewing is negatively related to 8- to 18-month-olds’A) motor development.B) language process.C) analogical problem solving.D) visual development.

Answer: BPage Ref: 237 Box: SOCIAL ISSUES: EDUCATION: Baby Learning from TV and Video: The Video Deficit EffectSkill: RememberObjective: 6.3

47) Piaget believed that the major benefit of make-believe play during the preoperational stage is to A) strengthen representational schemes. B) exercise logical reasoning skills. C) build creativity and imagination. D) facilitate perspective-taking ability.


48) By the time children reach age 4 or 5, they combine their play schemes with those of peers by creating and coordinating roles in

A) sociodramatic play.B) adult-directed play acting.C) secondary circular reactions.D) categorization of others’ intentions.

Answer: APage Ref: 240Skill: RememberObjective: 6.4

49) Research on the development of make-believe play indicates that A) girls spend more time in sociodramatic play than boys. B) preschoolers who devote more time to sociodramatic play are seen as more socially competent by their teachers.C) school-age children are more self-centered in their pretend play than preschoolers. D) preschoolers who create imaginary companions are at risk for maladjustment.




50) Between 25 and 45 percent of preschoolers and young school-age children spend much time in solitary make-believe, A) avoiding contact with adults or peers. B) which interferes in their ability to form friendships. C) which is a sign of maladjustment. D) creating imaginary companions.


51) Because of __________, preschoolers are only able to draw figures in their simplest forms.A) limited adult instruction B) a lack of motivation C) an inability to form detailed mental representationsD) fine-motor and cognitive limitations


52) Research conducted on schooled and nonschooled children in the Jimi Valley of Papua New Guinea indicates that A) nonrepresentational scribbles seem to be a universal beginning in drawing. B) schooled children include fewer details in their drawings than nonschooled children. C) early drawings of the human figure produced by nonschooled children emphasize the head and face over the

hands and feet. D) schooling has minimal impact on children’s first representational shapes and forms.


53) In one study, 2½-year-olds were unable to use a scale model of a room to find a toy hidden in the room that the model represented. This is because young preschoolers have difficulty with

A) deferred imitation. B) analogical problem solving. C) transitive inference. D) dual representation.


54) According to Piaget, preschoolers’ thinking is A) flexible. B) rigid. C) abstract. D) nonverbal.

Answer: B Page Ref: 243Skill: Remember Objective: 6.4



55) According to Piaget, when children first mentally represent the world, theyA) exhibit thinking that is unlimited and flexible.B) are adept at forming mental representations of actions that obey logical rules.C) assume that others perceive, think, and feel the same way they do.D) are especially adept at distinguishing other people’s symbolic viewpoints from their own.

Answer: CPage Ref: 244Skill: UnderstandObjective: 6.4

56) Five-year-old Sasha is participating in Piaget’s three-mountains problem. When Sasha is asked to choose the picture that shows what the display looks like from the doll’s perspective, he will most likely

A) choose the correct picture, but not be able to explain why he chose that picture. B) know that the correct picture is different from his point of view, but not be sure which picture to choose. C) choose the picture that shows his own point of view. D) choose the correct picture and be able to explain why he chose that picture.


57) When 3-year-old Gwen explains that her bicycle is sad because it is alone in the garage, she is demonstrating A) analogical problem solving. B) animistic thinking. C) hypothetico-deductive reasoning. D) propositional thought.


58) Children in Western nations typically acquire conservation of number, mass, and liquid sometime between __________ years and of weight between __________ years.

A) 2 and 3; 5 and 6 B) 4 and 6; 7 and 9 C) 6 and 7; 8 and 10 D) 8 and 10; 11 and 12

Answer: C Page Ref: 244Skill: RememberObjective: 6.4



59) Which of the following helps to explain why preoperational children’s thinking keeps them from being able to understand the idea of conservation?

A) They tend to spend too much time on reversibility, or mentally reversing the steps in a problem back to the starting point.

B) They tend to focus more on the dynamic transformation of a situation without giving adequate attention to beginning and ending states.

C) They have a significant grasp on the idea that appearances can change without changing the fundamental characteristics of the situation.

D) Their understanding is characterized by centration in which they focus on one aspect of the situation while ignoring other important features.


60) According to Piaget, 4-year-olds cannot solve a conservation-of-liquid problem because they A) focus on the height of the water, failing to realize that changes in width compensate for the changes in height.B) do not notice the difference in appearance between the water levels in the two glasses. C) have limited experience with the task materials. D) do not understand the point of the question, “Which glass holds more water?”


61) The most important illogical feature of preoperational thought isA) irreversibility. B) egocentrism. C) magical thinking. D) conservation.


62) Piaget’s famous __________ demonstrates preoperational children’s difficulty with __________. A) three-mountains problem; dual representation B) three-mountains problem; hierarchical classification C) class inclusion task; hierarchical classification D) class inclusion task; dual representation


63) During a __________ task, 4-year-old Vanessa is asked whether there are more oranges or fruits in a group of two apples, three bananas, and five oranges. She will most likely say that there are more __________.

A) class inclusion; fruits B) class inclusion; oranges C) conservation-of-number; fruits D) conservation-of-number; oranges




64) Three-year-old Dominic calls his toy robot Sam and talks to him as if Sam is another 3-year-old. What explanation do researchers give for Dominic’s behavior?

A) Dominic actually believes that the robot is alive. B) Dominic believes that all people and objects think the same thoughts that he thinks. C) Dominic cannot distinguish between animate and inanimate objects. D) Dominic has incomplete knowledge about certain objects, including his toy robot.


65) When 4-year-old Leela wished for her grandmother to come and visit, and the very next day her grandmother arrived at Leela’s house, Leela believed it was

A) because her grandmother knew every thought Leela had. B) nothing out of the ordinary. C) because magic accounts for events she cannot otherwise explain. D) a special power that only Leela has.


66) Preschoolers’ understanding that sugar continues to exist when it is dissolved in water is evidence that they A) can overcome appearances and think logically in familiar contexts. B) can think logically even about unfamiliar topics. C) are incapable of logical thought, as Piaget asserted. D) do not understand cause-and-effect relationships.


67) Preschoolers seem to use __________ when they must grapple with unfamiliar topics, too much information, or contradictory facts that they cannot reconcile.

A) illogical reasoning B) mental representation C) analogical problem solving D) logical thought


68) Preschoolers’ impressive skill at categorization is supported byA) animistic thinking.B) their rapidly expanding vocabularies.C) egocentric tendencies.D) the use of magical thinking for events they cannot explain.

Answer: BPage Ref: 247Skill: RememberObjective: 6.5



69) A hallmark of the concrete operational stage is the ability toA) understand dual representation.B) participate in sociodramatic play.C) pass conservation tasks. D) engage in animistic thinking.


70) During a conservation-of-water problem, Wanda recognizes that a change in the height of the water is compensated for by a change in its width. This example demonstrates that Wanda is capable of

A) seriation. B) decentration. C) reversibility. D) hypothetico-deductive reasoning.


71) According to Piaget, children who pass class inclusion tasks A) can focus on relations between a general and two specific categories at the same time. B) have the capacity to think through a series of steps and then mentally reverse them. C) can order items along a quantitative dimension. D) are able to recognize more than five separate and distinct categories of items.


72) Ten-year-old Delaney is helping her dad put new shingles on her playhouse in the backyard. Her dad asks her to put the shingles in order from longest to shortest so that he can vary the start of each row. She is able to do this because she

A) can think abstractly.B) can perform seriation tasks.C) understands dual representation. D) understands conservation.

Answer: BPage Ref: 250Skill: ApplyObjective: 6.6

73) Elena can mentally represent her neighborhood and describe the space to others. Elena’s mental representation of her neighborhood is known as

A) a cognitive map. B) propositional thought. C) reasoning by analogy. D) an organized route of travel.




74) Children’s ability to draw a map of a large-scale space improves with age due toA) their ability to reason by analogy.B) gains in fine-motor development. C) an increase in spatial cognition. D) better perspective-taking skills.


75) When his friend’s mom asks him if he wants a ride home from baseball practice, Pele gives her directions using a __________ that helps him imagine the mom’s movements along the route she needs to take between the baseball field and Pele’s house.

A) conservation technique B) “mental walk” strategy C) “decentration” method D) transitive inference strategy


76) Melissa and Anjay are both 12 years old. Melissa is from the United States, and Anjay is from India. When asked to draw a map of their neighborhood, Melissa’s map will show __________ than Anjay’s map.

A) a richer array of landmarks and aspects of social life B) a smaller area surrounding her home C) a more formal, extended space, highlighting main streets and key directions D) fewer features that are actually helpful in providing directions for other people


77) Children in the concrete operational stage A) can think logically when dealing with abstract information. B) move along a continuum of acquisition of logical concepts. C) master Piaget’s concrete operational tasks all at once. D) continue to fail conservation tasks.


78) Opportunities to seriate objects, to learn about order relations, and to remember the parts of complex problems are probably responsible for

A) the development of the imaginary audience.B) improvements in decision-making strategies. C) mastery of Piagetian tasks.D) advanced abstract thinking.




79) Some investigators have concluded that the forms of logic required by Piagetian tasksA) are heavily influenced by training, context, and cultural conditions.B) emerge spontaneously during middle childhood.C) emerge spontaneously during adolescence.D) show little variation worldwide.

Answer: APage Ref: 252Skill: UnderstandObjective: 6.7

80) Petra is an average 10-year-old. Research indicates that Petra A) is egocentric in her social relationships. B) provides clear directions and constructs well-organized cognitive maps. C) is in Piaget’s formal operational stage. D) grasps the logical necessity of propositional thought.


81) The capacity for __________ distinguishes the formal operational stage from the concrete operational stage. A) conservation B) abstract thinking C) analogical problem solving D) dual representation


82) Once young people enter the formal operational stage, they are able to systematically isolate and combine variables to see which of these inferences are confirmed in the real world through

A) hypothetico-deductive reasoning. B) animistic thinking. C) transitive inference. D) analogical problem solving.

Answer: A Page Ref: 253–254Skill: RememberObjective: 6.8

83) In watching two children, Wiley, who is in the concrete operational stage, and Abby, who is in the formal operational stage, solve Piaget’s pendulum problem, what difference would be evident?

A) Both Wiley and Abby will use similar strategies to solve the problem. B) Wiley will systematically test alternative hypotheses. C) Abby will intuitively solve the problem without experimentation. D) Abby will systematically test alternative hypotheses.

Answer: D Page Ref: 253–254Skill: ApplyObjective: 6.8



84) During a study, the experimenter tells Kerri, “Either the swan is black or it is not black.” Even though Kerri has never seen a black swan, she judges this statement to be true. This is because Kerri

A) cannot yet conserve. B) is making an A-not-B error. C) is engaging in propositional thought. D) is egocentric.


85) In one study, an experimenter hid a poker chip in her hand and asked adolescents to evaluate the truthfulness of the following statement: “The chip in my hand is green and it is not green.” An adolescent who is capable of propositional thought would most likely answer that this statement is

A) always false, regardless of the color of the poker chip. B) false only if the poker chip is not green. C) true if the poker chip is green. D) always true, regardless of the color of the poker chip.


86) Adolescents are able to ponder the concepts of justice and freedom because they have developedA) a moral code.B) verbal reasoning about abstract concepts.C) idealism and egocentric decision making.D) the ability to delay gratification.

Answer: BPage Ref: 254–255Skill: RememberObjective: 6.8

87) According to Piaget, a form of egocentrism emerges during the formal operational stage in which adolescents have difficulty

A) distinguishing their own and others’ perspectives. B) with day-to-day decision making. C) comparing the merit of their accomplishments with that of others. D) establishing a sense of self that is independent from their parents.


88) __________ helps explain the long hours adolescents spend inspecting every detail of their appearance and why they are so sensitive to public criticism.

A) Propositional thought B) The imaginary audienceC) Abstract thought D) Hierarchical classification




89) Which of the following statements is true regarding the consequences of abstract thought? A) Sense of personal uniqueness eliminates sensitivity to criticism. B) Sense of omnipotence is moderately associated with depression and suicidal thinking. C) The imaginary audience discourages independence from parents. D) The imaginary audience helps teenagers maintain important relationships.


90) With respect to the personal fable, viewing the self as highly capable and influential helps young peopleA) cope with the “storm and stress” of puberty. B) view the imaginary audience more realistically and avoid negative emotions. C) cope with the challenges of adolescence.D) recognize their vulnerability and decrease their risk-taking behaviors.


91) As a result of adolescents’ ability to engage in __________, they often construct grand visions of a perfect world that are at odds with adults’ more realistic views.

A) hypothetico-deductive reasoning B) propositional thinking C) animistic thinking D) abstract thinking


92) Evidence confirms that, when making decisions, adolescents, relative to adults, are A) less willing to take risks. B) more influenced by the possibility of immediate reward. C) more apt to seek advice from others. D) more likely to learn from feedback by revising their decision-making strategies.


93) In making decisions, adolescents, more often than adults, A) ignore well-learned intuitive judgments. B) seek advice from parents or other trusted adults. C) fall back on well-learned intuitive judgments. D) weigh the pros and cons of possible outcomes.




94) Research on formal operational thought indicates that 6-year-olds A) show signs of hypothetico-deductive reasoning on tasks that involve simplified situations. B) display hypothetico-deductive reasoning only when assisted by an adult. C) only display hypothetico-deductive reasoning during pretend play. D) are capable of abstract thinking when presented with real-world problems.


95) Axel, who is younger than age 10, will have difficulty reasoning from premises that contradict reality or his own beliefs because he is not yet able to

A) analyze the logic of propositions in situations in which he has had extensive experience. B) grasp the logical necessity of propositional thought. C) recognize symbolic objects as both objects and symbols. D) apply his problem-solving strategies.

Answer: B Page Ref: 257–258Skill: ApplyObjective: 6.9

96) People are most likely to think abstractly and systematically on tasks in which A) they have had extensive guidance and practice in using such reasoning.B) hypothetico-deductive reasoning is not required.C) the rules of logical thought can be ignored.D) logical necessity is required.

Answer: APage Ref: 258Skill: UnderstandObjective: 6.9

97) Miss Caroline, a teacher who uses Piagetian principles in her classroom, A) provides extensive instruction in reading and mathematics. B) pairs low-ability students with high-ability students to enhance learning. C) encourages her students to discover for themselves through spontaneous interaction with their environment. D) forms cooperative groups with two to four students who take turns leading dialogues.


98) Piaget’s belief that infants and young children must act on the environment to revise their thinking is A) widely accepted by contemporary researchers. B) too broad a notion of how learning takes place. C) too narrow a notion of how learning takes place. D) a major contribution to early intervention research.

Answer: CPage Ref: 260Skill: UnderstandObjective: 6.11



99) One neo-Piagetian perspective combines Piaget’s stage approach with A) ecological systems theory. B) information processing. C) behaviorism.D) the core knowledge perspective.

Answer: BPage Ref: 261Skill: Remember Objective: 6.11

100) Researchers in diverse theories continue to draw inspiration from Piaget’s view of the child as a(n)A) tabula rasa.B) active, constructive learner. C) passive learner. D) social being.

Answer: BPage Ref: 261Skill: RememberObjective: 6.11

101) Core knowledge theorists disagree with Piaget’s ideas and argue thatA) infants begin life with innate, special-purpose knowledge systems.B) cognitive development originates with sensorimotor reflexes.C) development occurs in stages with little variations across domains.D) development is primarily a matter of cultural and social influences.

Answer: APage Ref: 261Skill: RememberObjective: 6.12

102) According to the core knowledge perspective, physical and numerical knowledge A) permitted our ancestors to secure food and other resources from the environment. B) does not emerge until children start formal schooling. C) helps children understand people as agents who have mental states that influence their behavior. D) helps children understand certain bodily processes, such as birth, growth, illness, and death.


103) Core knowledge theorists view development as A) simply refining already advanced knowledge systems. B) following a strict, stagewise progression. C) a sociocultural phenomenon. D) domain-specific and uneven.




104) Which of the following statements provides support for the core knowledge perspective? A) Baby Lisa looks longer at an unexpected physical event than an expected physical event. B) Baby Marcus can discriminate quantities up to three and use that knowledge to perform simple arithmetic.C) Before entering preschool, Fayola has difficulty with less-than and greater-than number relationships. D) Quinn cannot understand the concepts of addition and subtraction until elementary school.


105) According to theory theory, A) children draw on innate concepts to form explanations of everyday events. B) cognitive development is largely due to increases in information-processing capacity. C) the child and the social environment collaborate to build cognition in culturally adaptive ways. D) by acting directly on the environment, children construct virtually all their knowledge about the world.


106) More seriously than other perspectives, core knowledge theorists have addressed which of the following questions?A) “Why is experience essential for children and the knowledge they are born with?” B) “Why does speed of learning differ in children?” C) “What allows learning to get off the ground?”D) “Do all aspects of cognition develop uniformly, or do some develop at faster rates than others?”


107) A criticism of both the core knowledge perspective and Piaget’s theory focuses on A) how they ignore children’s independent efforts to construct knowledge. B) their inability to explain how heredity and environment jointly produce cognitive change. C) how they underestimate the cognitive competencies of children and adolescents. D) their inability to account for or explain stagewise change.


108) According to Vygotsky, infants are endowed with basic perceptual, attention, and memory capacities that they share with other animals. These develop during the first two years through

A) stimulating interactions with adults. B) direct contact with the environment. C) the biological unfolding of genetic structures. D) independent exploration of the environment.




109) Based on Piaget’s view of children’s private speech, which of the following statements is true? A) Both Tatiana and her parents engage in private speech. B) Taylor’s cognitive development and certain social experiences will bring an end to his private speech. C) As Carolina internalizes the perspective of others, she will begin to engage in private speech. D) Kaz’s social speech declines in favor of egocentric speech, in which he adapts what he says to his listeners.


110) Unlike Piaget, Vygotsky believed that A) language often distracts children from thinking about mental activities and behavior. B) egocentric speech interferes with children’s attempts at constructing knowledge.C) children discover virtually all knowledge about the world through their own activity. D) language provides the foundation for all higher cognitive processes.


111) Anthony has a learning disability. Which of the following statements is most likely true about Anthony? A) Anthony’s private speech is an indication of unhealthy egocentric behavior. B) Anthony’s use of self-guiding private speech during a challenging activity will not lead to better task

performance. C) Anthony’s private speech will only be as good as his communication skills with others. D) Anthony uses private speech to help compensate for impairments in cognitive processing.


112) Research on private speech suggests that young children A) are more likely to talk to themselves when tasks are too hard. B) are more likely to talk to themselves when tasks are appropriately challenging. C) talk to themselves because they have difficulty taking the perspective of others. D) with learning and behavior problems rarely use private speech.


113) Vygotsky believed that learning takes placeA) within the zone of proximal development. B) in discrete stages. C) primarily through independent exploration. D) once children are capable of mental representation.




114) According to Vygotsky, which of the following would be within a child’s zone of proximal development? A) Edward is completing a homework assignment with a classmate. B) Elise recently mastered a task independently following the assistance of her mother. C) Jasira cannot yet handle a specific task on her own, but she can do it with the help of an adult. D) Tevan figures out how to accomplish a task through trial and error.


115) In Vygotsky’s theory, when two participants to a task each adjust to the perspective of the other in order to create common ground for communication, they are

A) engaging in scaffolding, but only at a verbal level. B) engaging in reciprocal teaching. C) stepping outside each other’s zone of proximal development. D) contributing to cognitive development through intersubjectivity.


116) Two-year-old Maya is building a block tower. Her father begins by pointing to where each block needs to go as Maya piles them up. As Maya’s competence with the task increases, her father gradually withdraws support. This is an example of

A) transitive inference. B) cooperative learning. C) reciprocal teaching. D) scaffolding.


117) Lester has learned how to give his dog a bath all by himself from helping his mother give the dog a bath in the past. Lester has learned this skill through

A) cooperative learning. B) intersubjectivity. C) guided participation. D) scaffolding.


118) Vygotsky regarded make-believe play as a major source of cognitive development because it __________ in which children advance themselves.

A) is a zone of proximal development B) fosters intersubjectivity C) promotes cooperative learning D) provides opportunities for private speech




119) Which of the following would signal to Christie, a toddler, that her mother is engaging in make-believe play with her? A) She smiles less and is more serious with Christie. B) She uses more “we” talk than she would during the same real-life event. C) She always waits for the cues to come from Christie before participating in make-believe play with Christie. D) She rarely offers any cues, and so Christie has to learn on her own when her mother is pretending and when she

is not. Answer: B Page Ref: 270 Box: CULTURAL INFLUENCES: Social Origins of Make-Believe PlaySkill: ApplyObjective: 6.15

120) Which of the following statements is supported by research on make-believe play? A) When adults participate, toddlers’ make-believe play is more elaborate than when they play alone. B) In early childhood, make-believe play often occurs with an imaginary companion. C) In cultures where make-believe play occurs with older siblings rather than with mothers, the fantasy play of

toddlers is hindered. D) Children are more likely to combine schemes into complex sequences when engaging in make-believe play with

agemates than when they are playing with caregivers. Answer: A Page Ref: 270 Box: CULTURAL INFLUENCES: Social Origins of Make-Believe PlaySkill: UnderstandObjective: 6.15

121) Make-believe play is a major means through which children A) develop and refine representational schemes. B) learn about prejudice and the differences among different racial and ethnic groups. C) learn language and its more subtle nuances. D) extend their cognitive skills and learn about important activities in their culture.

Answer: D Page Ref: 270 Box: CULTURAL INFLUENCES: Social Origins of Make-Believe PlaySkill: UnderstandObjective: 6.15

122) Vygotsky emphasized __________ for preschool children, and then shifting to __________ once formal schooling begins.

A) independent discovery learning; social context and collaborationB) rote memory; make-believe play and reading C) meaningful activities in children’s zones of proximal development; literacy activitiesD) a basic skills approach; scaffolding


123) In her classroom, Kim and small groups of students take turns leading dialogues on the content of various texts. This is an example of

A) cooperative learning. B) reciprocal teaching. C) scaffolding. D) guided participation.




124) Elementary and middle school students exposed to reciprocal teaching A) tend to experience more conflict and competition. B) have dramatically higher IQ scores than children exposed to traditional methods. C) show impressive gains in reading comprehension. D) are often overly dependent on adults.


125) Which of the following approaches is likely to be seen in a Vygotskian classroom? A) opportunities for active participation B) an emphasis on teacher-directed instruction C) activities developed to foster peer collaboration D) learning experiences designed to promote independent exploration


126) In which of the following situations of cooperative learning would children learn best? A) when children have first been trained in make-believe play B) when adults provide structured lessons C) when groups have more than three childrenD) when their peer partner is an “expert”


127) Which of the following statements is true regarding cooperative learning?A) The extent to which children achieve independence is key to fostering cooperative learning. B) For cooperative learning to succeed, Western children usually require extensive guidance. C) A single peer interaction is more beneficial than interactions with multiple peers. D) Children’s problem solving improves most when their peer partner has equal expertise on the task.


128) In Western societies, the role of equipping children with the skills they need to become competent workers is assigned to

A) school.B) parents.C) mentors.D) vocational programs.

Answer: A Page Ref: 273 Box: CULTURAL INFLUENCES: Children in Village and Tribal Cultures Observe and Participate in Adult WorkSkill: RememberObjective: 6.17



129) Recent ethnographic research reveals that A) young Yucatec Mayan children decide for themselves how much to sleep and eat, what to wear, when to bathe,

and when to start school. B) Yucatec Mayan children and Western children display impressive similarities in their make-believe play,

despite very different cultural and social conditions. C) in cultures where parents rarely scaffold their children’s learning, children tend to be delayed in early cognitive

skills. D) in cultures where parents rarely converse with their children, children tend to frequently display attention-

getting behaviors. Answer: A Page Ref: 273 Box: CULTURAL INFLUENCES: Children in Village and Tribal Cultures Observe and Participate in Adult WorkSkill: RememberObjective: 6.17

130) Critics of Vygotsky argue that his theory __________ in advancing cognitive development. A) says little about biological contributions B) overemphasizes the importance of children’s independent efforts C) assumes a set of experiences common to all cultures D) underemphasizes the significance of teaching


ESSAY

131) Describe Piaget’s sensorimotor stage of development, including follow-up research on Piaget’s ideas. Answer: According to Piaget, specific psychological structures called schemes, change with age. At first, schemes are

sensorimotor action patterns. Sensorimotor—the name of the stage—reflects Piaget’s belief that infants and toddlers “think” with their eyes, ears, hands, and other sensorimotor equipment. They cannot yet carry out many activities mentally.

The circular reaction involves stumbling onto a new experience caused by the baby’s own motor activity. It provides a special means of adapting her first schemes. The reaction is “circular” because, as the infant tries to repeat the event again and again, a sensorimotor response that originally occurred by chance strengthens into a new scheme. She starts to gain voluntary control over her actions through the primary circular reaction, by repeating chance behaviors largely motivated by basic needs. This leads to some simple motor habits. Through the secondary circular reaction, she tries to repeat interesting events—through intentional, or goal-directed, behaviors—in the surrounding environment that are caused by her own actions. As she begins to master object permanence and imitation, the tertiary circular reaction, or repeated behaviors with variation, emerges.

In Piaget’s theory, infants lead purely sensorimotor lives. Yet research indicates that, beginning at 8 to 10 months, babies can recall the location of hidden objects, indicating that babies construct mental representations of objects and their whereabouts. And in studies of deferred imitation, categorization, and problem solving, representational thought is evident even earlier. Researchers disagree on how babies arrive at these impressive attainments. One view holds that older infants and toddlers categorize more effectively because they become increasingly sensitive to fine-grained perceptual features and to stable relations among these features. An alternative view is that before the end of the first year, babies undergo a fundamental shift from a perceptual to a conceptual basis for constructing categories.

Consistent with Piaget’s ideas, sensorimotor action helps infants construct some forms of knowledge. Yet we have also seen evidence that infants comprehend a great deal before they are capable of the motor behaviors that Piaget assumed led to those understandings.

Page Ref: 226–238



132) Compare Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s views on children’s make-believe play.Answer: Piaget believed that through pretending, children practice and strengthen newly acquired representational

schemes. However, today, Piaget’s view of make-believe as mere practice of representational schemes is regarded as too limited. Play not only reflects but also contributes to children’s cognitive and social skills. Sociodramatic play has been studied most thoroughly. Compared with social nonpretend activities (such as drawing or putting puzzles together), during sociodramatic play preschoolers’ interactions last longer, show more involvement, draw more children into the activity, and are more cooperative.

Vygotsky regarded make-believe play as a unique, broadly influential zone of proximal development in which children advance themselves as they try out a wide variety of challenging skills. In Vygotsky’s theory, make-believe is the central source of development during the preschool years, leading development forward in two ways. First, as children create imaginary situations, they learn to act in accord with internal ideas, not just in response to external stimuli. While pretending, children continually use one object to stand for another—a stick for a horse, a folded blanket for a sleeping baby—and, doing so, change the object’s usual meaning. Gradually they realize that thinking (or the meaning of words) is separate from objects and that ideas can be used to guide behavior.

Second, the rule-based nature of make-believe strengthens children’s capacity to think before they act. Pretend play, Vygotsky pointed out, constantly demands that children act against their impulses because they must follow the rules of the play scene. For example, a child pretending to go to sleep obeys the rules of bedtime behavior. A child imagining himself as a father and a doll as his child conforms to the rules of parental behavior. Through enacting rules in make-believe, children better understand social norms and expectations and strive to follow them.

Vygotsky questioned Piaget’s belief that make-believe arises spontaneously in the second year of life. Vygotsky argued that, like other higher cognitive processes, the elaborate pretending of the preschool years has social origins.

Page Ref: 239–240, 269

133) Discuss the limitations of preoperational thought from Piaget’s point of view. Answer: For Piaget, the most fundamental deficiency of preoperational thinking is egocentrism—failure to

distinguish others’ symbolic viewpoints from one’s own. He believed that when children first mentally represent the world, they tend to focus on their own viewpoint and to assume that others perceive, think, and feel the same way they do. Egocentrism is responsible for preoperational children’s animistic thinking—the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities, such as thoughts, wishes, feelings, and intentions. Piaget argued that young children’s egocentric bias prevents them from accommodating, or reflecting on and revising their faulty reasoning in response to their physical and social worlds.

Piaget’s famous conservation tasks reveal several deficiencies of preoperational thinking. Conservation refers to the idea that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when their outward appearance changes. The inability to conserve highlights several related aspects of preoperational children’s thinking. First, their understanding is centered, or characterized by centration. They focus on one aspect of a situation, neglecting other important features.

The most important illogical feature of preoperational thought is irreversibility. Reversibility—the ability to go through a series of steps in a problem and then mentally reverse direction, returning to the starting point—is part of every logical operation. Preoperational children also have difficulty with hierarchical classification—the organization of objects into classes and subclasses on the basis of similarities and differences.

Page Ref: 244–245



134) Discuss the two major features of Piaget’s formal operations stage. Answer: Piaget believed that at adolescence, young people become capable of hypothetico-deductive reasoning. When

faced with a problem, they start with a hypothesis, or prediction about variables that might affect an outcome, from which they deduce logical, testable inferences. Then they systematically isolate and combine variables to see which of these inferences are confirmed in the real world. This form of problem solving begins with possibility and proceeds to reality.

A second important characteristic of Piaget’s formal operational stage is propositional thought—adolescents’ ability to evaluate the logic of propositions (verbal statements) without referring to real-world circumstances. In contrast, children can evaluate the logic of statements only by considering them against concrete evidence in the real world.

Although Piaget did not view language as playing a central role in cognitive development, he acknowledged its importance in adolescence. Formal operations require language-based and other symbolic systems that do not stand for real things, such as those in higher mathematics. Secondary school students use such systems in algebra and geometry. Formal operational thought also involves verbal reasoning about abstract concepts. Adolescents show that they can think in this way when they ponder the relations among time, space, and matter in physics or wonder about justice and freedom in philosophy.

Page Ref: 253–255

135) Describe the core knowledge perspective of cognitive development. Answer: According to the core knowledge perspective, infants begin life with innate, special-purpose knowledge

systems referred to as core domains of thought. Each of these “prewired” understandings permits a ready grasp of new, related information and therefore supports early, rapid development of certain aspects of cognition. Core knowledge theorists argue that infants could not make sense of the multifaceted stimulation around them without having been genetically “set up” in the course of evolution to comprehend its crucial aspects.

Two core domains have been studied extensively in infancy. The first is physical knowledge—in particular, understanding of objects and their effects on one another. The second is numerical knowledge—the capacity to keep track of multiple objects and to add and subtract small quantities. Physical and numerical knowledge permitted our ancestors to secure food and other resources from the environment.

Rather than regarding development as a general process, core knowledge theorists see it as domain-specific and uneven, with each core domain developing independently. And although initial knowledge is assumed to be innate, that knowledge becomes more elaborate as children explore, play, and interact with others.

Page Ref: 261–262



136) Compare and contrast Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s views on children’s private speech, and evaluate each on the basis of research findings.Answer: Piaget called preschoolers’ utterances egocentric speech, reflecting his belief that young children have

difficulty taking the perspectives of others. Their talk, he said, is often “talk for self” in which they express thoughts in whatever form they happen to occur, regardless of whether a listener can understand. Piaget believed that cognitive development and certain social experiences eventually bring an end to egocentric speech. Specifically, through repeated disagreements with peers, children see that others hold viewpoints different from their own. As a result, egocentric speech declines in favor of social speech, in which children adapt what they say to their listeners.

Vygotsky disagreed strongly with Piaget’s conclusions. Because language helps children think about mental activities and behavior and select courses of action, Vygotsky saw it as the foundation for all higher cognitive processes, including controlled attention, deliberate memorization and recall, categorization, planning, problem solving, abstract reasoning, and self-reflection. In Vygotsky’s view, children speak to themselves for self-guidance. As they get older and find tasks easier, their self-directed speech is internalized as silent, inner speech—the internal verbal dialogues we carry on while thinking and acting in everyday situations.

Over the past three decades, almost all studies have supported Vygotsky’s perspective. As a result, children’s self-directed speech is now called private speech instead of egocentric speech. Children use more of it when tasks are appropriately challenging (neither too easy nor too hard), after they make errors, or when they are confused about how to proceed. With age, as Vygotsky predicted, private speech goes underground, changing into whispers and silent lip movements. Furthermore, children who freely use self-guiding private speech during a challenging activity are more attentive and involved and show better task performance than their less talkative agemates.

Page Ref: 267

137) Describe how Vygotsky’s ideas influence trends in education today. Answer: Vygotsky’s theory offers new visions of teaching and learning—ones that emphasize the importance of social

context and collaboration. Vygotskian classrooms accept individual differences and provide opportunities for children’s active participation, but they go beyond independent discovery to promote assisted discovery. Teachers guide children’s learning with explanations, demonstrations, and verbal prompts, tailoring their interventions to each child’s zone of proximal development. Assisted discovery is aided by peer collaboration, as children work in groups, teaching and helping one another.

Vygotsky’s educational message for the preschool years is to provide socially rich, meaningful activities in children’s zones of proximal development and a wealth of opportunities for make-believe play—the ultimate means of fostering the self-discipline required for later academic learning. Once formal schooling begins, Vygotsky emphasized literacy activities.

Vygotsky-based educational innovations include reciprocal teaching, in which a teacher and two to four students form a collaborative group and take turns leading dialogues on the content of a text passage. Within the dialogues, group members apply four cognitive strategies: questioning, summarizing, clarifying, and predicting.

Today, peer collaboration is widely used, but evidence is mounting that it promotes development only under certain conditions. A crucial factor is cooperative learning, in which small groups of classmates work toward common goals. Conflict and disagreement seem less important than the extent to which peers achieve intersubjectivity—by resolving differences of opinion, sharing responsibilities, and providing one another with sufficient explanations to correct misunderstandings.

Teaching through cooperative learning broadens Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development, from a single child in collaboration with an expert partner (adult or peer) to multiple partners with diverse forms of expertise stimulating and encouraging one another.

Page Ref: 269–272


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