A role schema is a set of assumptions about how people in a particular role, such as a firefighter, will behave.
Correct Answer
True
True. A role schema holds expectations about people in a role, such as assuming a firefighter is brave. These expectations let us respond quickly but can lead to inaccurate assumptions about individuals.
Category: Concepts and Schemata
Question 2
Natural concepts are formed through direct or indirect experience, such as learning what snow is by seeing it or seeing pictures of it.
Correct Answer
True
True. Natural concepts come from experience and usually have fuzzy boundaries. They contrast with artificial concepts, which are defined by a fixed set of characteristics.
Category: Concepts and Schemata
Question 3
Young infants can distinguish the sounds of all human languages, but by about age one they discriminate mainly the sounds used in their own environment.
Correct Answer
True
True. Early in life babies can tell apart phonemes from any language. By around their first birthday, they become tuned to the phonemes of the language or languages they hear around them.
Category: Language
Question 4
Children typically begin producing two-word sentences at about 6 to 8 months of age.
Correct Answer
False
False. Two-word sentences typically appear at about 18 to 24 months. At 6 to 8 months, infants have not yet produced their first words.
Category: Language
Question 5
B. F. Skinner proposed that children learn language through reinforcement.
Correct Answer
True
True. Skinner, a behaviorist, argued that language is learned like other behaviors, through reinforcement. Noam Chomsky later challenged this view, arguing for a biological predisposition to learn language.
Category: Language
Question 6
Heuristics are mental shortcuts that often save time but do not guarantee the best solution.
Correct Answer
True
True. A heuristic is a general rule of thumb that speeds up problem solving and decision making. Because it is a shortcut rather than a fixed formula, it can lead to errors.
Category: Problem Solving
Question 7
Mental set is the tendency to abandon a problem-solving strategy as soon as it fails once.
Correct Answer
False
False. Mental set is the tendency to keep using an approach that worked in the past even when it is not working now. It makes people persist with old strategies rather than abandon them.
Category: Problem Solving
Question 8
Anchoring bias occurs when a decision maker relies too heavily on one piece of information, such as an initial asking price.
Correct Answer
True
True. With anchoring bias, a first number or fact becomes a reference point that distorts later judgments. For example, a buyer fixed on a starting price may overlook other important features.
Category: Problem Solving
Question 9
Charles Spearman proposed that intelligence reflects a single general factor, which he called g.
Correct Answer
True
True. Spearman observed that people who do well on one type of mental test tend to do well on others. He explained this with a general intelligence factor, g, that can be measured and compared across people.
Category: Intelligence and Creativity
Question 10
Howard Gardner proposed that intelligence is one general ability best captured by a single test score.
Correct Answer
False
False. Gardner proposed multiple intelligences, including linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial and interpersonal, among others. His theory has been criticized for lacking strong empirical support.
Category: Intelligence and Creativity
Question 11
Lewis Terman, a Stanford professor, adapted Binet's test into the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale.
Correct Answer
True
True. Terman revised and standardized Binet's test for use in the United States, publishing the Stanford-Binet in 1916. Updated versions are still in use.
Category: Intelligence Testing
Question 12
Modern IQ tests are scored so that the mean is 100 and the standard deviation is 25 points.
Correct Answer
False
False. Modern IQ tests set the mean at 100 and the standard deviation at 15 points. This places about 68% of people between 85 and 115.
Category: Intelligence Testing
Question 13
Norming a test involves giving it to a large, representative group of people to create comparison scores.
Correct Answer
True
True. Norms show how a typical group actually performs, so an individual's score can be interpreted relative to others. A representative sample is needed for the norms to be meaningful.
Category: Intelligence Testing
Question 14
A test is considered reliable when it measures what it claims to measure.
Correct Answer
False
False. Reliability means a test gives consistent results across repeated testing. Measuring what a test claims to measure is validity.
Category: Intelligence Testing
Question 15
A diagnosis of intellectual disability requires only an IQ score below about 70, regardless of everyday functioning.
Correct Answer
False
False. Diagnosis also requires significant deficits in adaptive functioning, the practical skills of daily life, with onset during the developmental period. A low score alone is not enough.
Category: Intellectual Disability and Giftedness
Question 16
Most people diagnosed with intellectual disability fall in the profound category.
Correct Answer
False
False. The large majority of cases are classified as mild. Profound intellectual disability is the least common category.
Category: Intellectual Disability and Giftedness
Question 17
Terman's long-term study of gifted children found that they tended to become poorly adjusted adults.
Correct Answer
False
False. Terman's participants with very high IQs generally grew into successful, well-adjusted adults. This contradicted the popular belief that highly intelligent people tend to be socially maladjusted.
Category: Intellectual Disability and Giftedness
Question 18
Identical twins raised together show more similar IQ scores than fraternal twins raised together.
Correct Answer
True
True. Identical twins share all of their genes while fraternal twins share about half, and identical twins raised in the same home correlate more strongly on IQ than fraternal twins raised in the same home. Because the home environments are comparable, this difference points to a genetic contribution to intelligence.
Category: Sources of Intelligence
Question 19
Dyslexia is a learning disability that makes it physically difficult to write legibly.
Correct Answer
False
False. Dyslexia involves difficulty processing letters and sounds, which makes reading hard. Physical difficulty producing legible writing is dysgraphia.
Category: Sources of Intelligence
Question 20
The Flynn effect refers to a decline in average IQ test scores across successive generations.
Correct Answer
False
False. The Flynn effect is the rise in average IQ test scores from one generation to the next. Flynn argued the rise does not necessarily mean younger generations are more intelligent.
Category: Sources of Intelligence