Adolescent Psych Chapter 2

Brandon is 16 years old and his brother, Blake, is 26 years old. Which of the following statements about risky behavior is true?

Brandon is more likely than Blake to focus on the potential rewards of risky behavior

Changes in the production of dopamine and serotonin make adolescents

more sensitive to rewards more likely to engage in sensation seeking more responsive to stress more emotional

Changes in the "social brain" may help explain why adolescents tend to become

more susceptible to peer pressure

compared to children, adolescents more often demonstrate ______ thinking

multidimensional

Which of the following is one of the five chief changes in cognition during adolescence? multidimensional thought rules-based thought concrete reasoning limited imagination

multidimensional thought

One aspect of brain maturation that is associated with increases in the speed of neural impulses and improvements in information transmission is

myelination

are also called nerve cells.

neurons

Repeated activation of a specific collection of neurons ______ the connections among neurons

strengthen

Most research on adolescents' beliefs about rights and civil liberties comes from

studies of Western, middle-class youth

In recent years, which of these scientific techniques has taught us the most about how the brain changes during adolescence?

studies that use imaging techniques

Studies on information processing have focused on which areas?

attention, memory, organization

Sixteen-year-old Quentin fondly remembers the first time he went fishing with his grandfather. Although he was only 4 years old, Quentin caught a 6-pound catfish. Quentin's recollection is an example of _______

autobiographical memory

_____ memory is the ability to recall personally meaningful events.

autographical

T. J. recently took an intelligence test and his score was 100. T. J.'s score falls within the ______ range

average

Which of the following is one of the results of improvements in social cognition?

Adolescents become better able to interpret the feelings of others

Adolescents whose scores on a conventional IQ test rise higher than those of their peers will probably

have undergone more synaptic pruning than their peers have

Changes in the limbic system during adolescence may cause

increased risk-taking

The improvements in organizational strategies seen in adolescence include

increasing use of mnemonic devices

The ______ _____ perspective attempts to explain cognitive development in terms of the growth of specific components of the thinking process.

information processing

Dr. Brown argues that adolescents can solve problems better than younger children because they can store more information in memory and because they have more effective strategies. Dr. Brown's view is most consistent with which of the following perspectives?

information-processing perspective

Response _____ is the suppression of a behavior that is inappropriate or no longer required.

inhibition

IQ stands for

intelligence quotient

Children's brains are characterized by a large number of relatively "local" connections, but as individuals mature through adolescence into adulthood, more distant regions become increasingly (interconnected/disconnected)

interconnected

Which of the following best characterizes how sensitivity to others' mental states changes in adolescence?

it increases, though these increases are variable for different adolescents.

Dopamine and serotonin production are regulated by the ______ system of the brain

limbic

Better connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the _____ _____ leads to improvements in our ability to regulate our emotions and coordinate our thoughts and feelings.

limbic system

The ______ is an area of the brain that plays an important role in the processing of emotional experience, social information, and reward and punishment.

limbic system

_______ _______ memory involves being able to recall something from a long time ago.

long term

The ability to remember something from several years ago is called

long-term memory

Theorists who adopt a cognitive-developmental view of intellectual development have a ______ perspective

piagetian

______ is the capacity of the brain to change in response to experience

plasticity

The _____ _____ is the area of the brain most important for sophisticated thinking abilities, such as planning, thinking ahead, weighing risks and rewards, and controlling impulses.

prefrontal cortex

Which of the following brain structures is most important in adolescents' ability to weigh risks and rewards?

prefrontal cortex

The main health problems of adolescence are the result of behaviors that can be

prevented

In Vygotsky's theory, the level of challenge that is still within the individual's reach but that forces an individual to develop more advanced skills is known as the zone of _____ ______

proximal development

According to behavioral decision theory, decision making is ______ process in which individuals calculate the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action and behave in ways that maximize the benefits and minimize the costs

rational

Improvements in intuitive decision-making abilities are associated with

reduced risk taking

The social norms that guide day-to-day behavior are called

social conventions

The growth of ______ during adolescence is directly related to an improved ability to think abstractly

social thinking

Which of the following are ways that scientists study brain maturation?

using DTI technology to see the ways in which various regions of the brain are connected

Which of the following is an example of a social convention?

wait in line to buy concert tickets

______ memory is the ability to remember something for a brief period of time

working

Research on autobiographical memory indicates that most people can remember back to when they were only about ______ years old

2.5

About ______% of teen drivers reported texting while driving

40

You have been invited to be a research assistant on a study of adolescent brain function. Based on what you have read in the chapter, which of these questions would your team try to answer? Which parts of the brain become physically larger in the teen years? Do teens and younger children use different parts of their brains to perform the same tasks? Do adolescents pass through any of Piaget's cognitive development stages? Are adolescents capable of thinking in multiple dimensions?

Do teens and younger children use different parts of their brains to perform the same tasks?

Who of the following is probably an adolescent (and not a child)? Maryann, who accepts her parents' rules about room cleaning and bedtimes as matters of right and wrong Matthew, who believes that it is possible to go for a long period of time without thinking about anything Tamara, whose thinking is bound to observable events Frank, who appraises his reading comprehension before starting the next chapter

Frank, who appraises his reading comprehension before starting the next chapter

You are a psychologist. Your patient, Diana, had a long period of neural plasticity and a greater-than-usual amount of synaptic pruning. Based on this information, which of these conclusions would it make sense to draw about Diana?

She will probably score high on intelligence tests

The researcher Daniel Kahneman would agree with which statement? Teenagers and adults often behave illogically. Teenagers often act illogically, but adults' executive function prevents illogical behavior. In many situations, adults are more illogical than teenagers. Although children often act illogically, teenagers rarely do.

Teenagers and adults often behave illogically

Which of the following questions would an information-processing researcher ask?

What is it about the way adolescents think that makes them better problem solvers than children?

Having complex discussions about politics and religion requires _____ thinking

abstract

Adolescents' persistent arguments over rules are most likely a result of

an increase in relativism

Which theory helps researchers understand adolescent risk taking?

behavioral decision theory

One study of delinquent youths found that adolescents' criminal activity was more strongly related to their

beliefs about the potential rewards of the activity than to their perceptions of the activity's riskiness

One study of delinquent youths found that adolescents' criminal activity was more strongly related to their ______

beliefs about the potential rewards of the activity than to their perceptions of the activity's riskiness

_____ reasoning is a type of logical reasoning in which you draw logically necessary conclusions from a general set of premises, or givens.

deductive

Consider the following problem: "All hockey players wear mouth guards. Kim is a hockey player. Does Kim wear a mouth guard?" Solving this problem requires ______

deductive reasoning

The ______ is the receiving part of the neuron, and the ______ carries information away from the cell body to other cells.

dendrite, axon

Which three parts make up a neuron?

dendrites, axon, cell body

_______ is a technique used to produce images of the brain that shows connections among different regions.

diffusion tensor imaging

Paying attention to two sets of stimuli at the same time is called ______

divided attention

The neurotransmitter _____ plays an important role in our experience of reward, while _____ plays an important role in the experience of different moods.

dopamine, serotonin

Gains in logical thinking fully explain the decline in risk taking between adolescence and adulthood

false

True or false: The reminiscence bump only applies to significant, life-altering events, such as one's first love or first time living away from home

false

True or false: The process of synaptic pruning assumes that "more is better."

false; it eliminates unnecessary connections between neurons in order to improve the efficiency of information processing

The simultaneous recruitment of multiple brain regions working as a "team" is referred to as ______

functional connectivity

______ is a technique used to produce images of the brain, often while the subject is performing some sort of mental task

functional magnetic resonance imaging

Which two techniques are commonly used by researchers to take pictures of individuals' brains and compare their anatomy and activity?

functional magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging

According to Piaget's theory, adolescent thinking is ______ the type of thinking employed by children

fundamentally different than

Advances in social cognition, particularly theory of mind, lead adolescents to become better at

lying

According to the textbook, which of the following methods is most likely to reduce adolescent risk taking?

making the penalties for engaging in certain risky behaviors more severe

Research testing the theory of adolescent egocentrism has found that certain aspects

may remain present throughout the adolescent and adult years

Which of the following terms refers to the ability to understand someone else's mental state?

mentalizing

Trey is studying for a science exam and needs to remember the eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Trey comes up with the following mnemonic to help him remember: My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nectarines. Trey's strategy is an example of _____

metacognition

______ often involves monitoring your own cognitive activity during the thinking process.

metacognition

examples of an adolescent behavior that affects brain development

participating in a train program, using drugs, practicing with a musical instrument

While children view things in black-and-white terms, adolescents see things as (relative/concrete)

relative

Adults generally remember details about the people, places, and events they encountered during adolescence better than those from other years, a phenomenon called the ______ ______

reminiscence bump

The suppression of a behavior that is inappropriate or no longer required is called ______

response inhibition

Martin is able to focus on his mother's voice among many in a crowded room. Martin is demonstrating _____ attention

selective

Jesse is in the seventh grade at a school that has open classrooms with multiple teachers instructing their classes in one large area. Which of the following cognitive processes will help Jesse focus on his teacher?

selective attention

What emotional characteristic makes an individual more likely to engage in risky behaviors?

sensation seeking

Liv, age 16, has developed the ability to see things as relative. How might this affect Liv's relationship with her parents?

she may question everything her parents say

According to Vygotsky, which of the following types of tasks fall within the zone of proximal development?

slightly above-level

The growth of ______ thinking during adolescence is directly related to the young person's improving ability to think abstractly

social

Between the tip of one neuron's axon and another neuron's dendrite, there is a tiny gap called

synapse

The gap in space between neurons, across which neurotransmitters carry electrical impulses, is called the

synapse

The process through which unnecessary connections between neurons are eliminated, improving the efficiency of information processing, is called

synaptic pruning

Which of the following supports adolescents' improved ability to use deductive reasoning, as described in the text? the ability to respond instinctively to a simple question the ability to stop oneself from acting automatically the ability to make an inference that rejects accumulated evidence increasing comfort with concrete, logical situations

the ability to stop oneself from acting automatically

When asked to describe herself, 16-year-old McKenzie replies, "I'm shy in big groups of people. But when I'm with my friends, I'm extroverted and outgoing." McKenzie's description reflects _____

the ability to think in multiple

Taylor is in 4th grade and Miguela is in 9th grade. Compared to Taylor, Miguela is more likely to

think about the process of thinking itself

Which of the following contributes to the adolescent's ability to have more sophisticated and more complicated self-conceptions and relationships?

thinking in multiple dimensions

Behavioral decision theory draws heavily on economics

true

At the heart of brain plasticity are which of the following two concepts?

use it or lose it & use it and improve it