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