Module 13. Culture, Gender, and Other Environmental Influences

The musician Stevie Wonder has been blind since shortly after birth. Even if his vision was restored by a miracle surgery, he probably would not get his eyesight back because:

brain cells normally devoted to vision died or were diverted to other uses.

Because humans live in the technology age, they are able to harness _____ so that they benefit from the preservation of innovatio

brain plasticity

If a child loses vision, his or her brain will respond by using the area previously devoted to vision for other abilities. This is an example of _____

brain plasticity

Two of the most unhealthy lifestyle factors of contemporary English-speaking countries are _____ and _____.

insufficient sleep; long work hours

Pamela is a 15-year-old white teen who lives in the suburbs. She is likely to have her _____ influence her clothing selection and her _____ influence her college choice

peers; parents

Teens who smoke typically have friends who smoke. To avoid overestimating the impact of peer pressure on teens' smoking habits, it would make the most sense to consider the impact of:

smoking preferences on friendship choices.

Among the _____ chromosomes, _____ are unisex.

46; 45

Brad has noticed that the girls he has gone out with still expect him to pay for dinner even though they may have asked him out in the first place. These expectations are called:

gender roles.

Growing up on the South Side of Chicago was rough for Lee. He worked hard in school, kept out of trouble, and graduated college this past year. All of the following are possible reasons for his success to this point EXCEPT:

his parents were not involved in his life.

Parents and peers influence different domains. Parents influence _____ while peers influence _____.

long-range and large-scale plans; social status

Juan is a Puerto Rican boy who currently lives in Manhattan with his mother who speaks very little English. Juan attends school with bilingual peers and English-speaking teachers. How well will he speak English?

the same as his peers

Though a mom begs and pleads, she has no success in coaxing her preschooler to eat broccoli. She might try to use peer influence by:

asking his daycare center to serve broccoli and seat him with classmates who like to eat it.

Because of cataracts, a neighbor was deprived of visual experiences during early childhood. Last year, her vision was restored by surgery but she is having difficulty in dealing with the visual world. This is probably because:

brain cells normally devoted to vision died or were diverted to other uses.

John Locke thought that humans begin life as blank slates. Research has revealed that:

the brain has some pre-determined wiring but is strongly influenced by the environment.

Early Head Start has built off Rosenzweig's research on rats, to provide a(n) _____ environment for preschool children living in poverty.

enriched

Liz's sister and her husband want their four-year-old daughter to learn a new language and would like to start immediately. What advice would she give?

Early childhood is the best time to learn a new language.

A local high school is running an experiment with a colony of infant rats. Half of the infant rats are isolated in barren cages and the other half live together in an enriched environment with lots of rat toys and exercise equipment. What would the expected outcome be at the end of the school year?

The rats in the enriched environment will have significantly larger cerebral cortices.

Karen is a research assistant at the psychology lab and is surprised to find that the mice cortices she is studying are thinner and lighter than normal. What might have happened?

They were raised in deprived environments.

The concept of _____ refers to more than just being social. It allows enduring ideas and traditions shared by a group of people to be transmitted from one generation to the next. For example, although chimpanzees are social animals, their lives function in pretty much the same way they did 10,000 years ago. Humans, on the other hand, are living in a way their ancestors from 200 years ago could not imagine.

culture

According to researchers, teens who start smoking typically have _____ who model smoking and offer cigarettes.

friends

The effects of culture are largely invisible to a person within that culture, unless:

the person's views are in conflict with the culture.