Hartmann         sychology 326: Social and Personality Development       Spring '98
QUIZ I, PART B (ESSAY):ANSWER KEY


A.  Brief answer questions.  Answer 4 of 6 questions.  [10 points per question.]

	1. What did Freud mean by the Electra Complex.

1. The female equivalent to the Oedipus Complex;
2. occurs during phallic period.  
3. Once the girl discovers that she lacks a penis, she is thought to blame her 
   mother for this "castrated" condition.  
4. This traumatic discovery results in a transfer of affection from the mother to 
   the father.  
5. Freud believe that a girl envies her father for possessing a penis and chooses 
   him as a sex object in the hope of exerting some control over a person who has 
   the valued organ that she lacks.  
6. Gradually this scenario fades as the girl faces reality and recognizes the 
   impossibility of possessing her father.  (See page 45.)

	[2.5 points for each of 4 of the above components.]

	2. Define a negative reinforcer.

? If a response is strengthened 
? by virtue of it avoiding (also terminating or lessening) a stimulus or event, the 
  stimulus or event is a negative reinforcer.  (See page 81.)
 
	[5 points for each of the two components.]

        3. What factors or dimensions are confounded in a longitudinal study?

Time of assessment and age are completely confounded in a longitudinal study.  
(Longitudinal designs are discussed on pages 28-29, though this material comes 
from the lecture.)

[Full credit pretty much requires just that; if a student defines confound, and gives 
one correct component, give 5 points.]

	4. What is the Rouge test, and why should we care?

? The rouge test involves placing a spot of rouge on an infants nose, and then 
  having them look at themselves in a mirror.  
? If the infant rubs his/her nose or otherwise shows recognition that the spot of 
  rouge in on her/his face, the infant presumably is capable of self recognition.  
? The test is important because it presumably is a method of accessing infants’ 
  sense of themselves.  (See page 213.)

[Full credit require requires explicit or implicit recognition of the three aspects.  
Minus 3 points for each portion omitted.]

	5. What is the discounting principle?

? An attributional heuristic whereby we are less likely to attribute a behavior to 
  any particular cause when other plausible explanations are available.  
? So, for example, we might be unwilling to attribute Sally's raking of Mrs. 
  Smith's leaves to generosity or altruism if she was being paid $15.00 an hour 
  for raking.  (See text, page 127.)

[Full credit essentially requires the first portion, but not necessarily the example.]

	6. What is self efficacy?

? Self-efficacy is one of the "self" concepts (also see self-reinforcement and 
  self-standard setting) in Bandura's cognitive social theory.  
? Self-efficacy is a cognitively based perception of competence stemming 
  from successes (and failures).  
? These beliefs than one can (or cannot) successfully master various 
  challenges contribute in a major way to task persistence, effort, and the 
  maintenance of performance standards.  (See pages 91-93.)

	[5 points for each of 2 of the above aspects.]

B.  Medium-length questions.  Answer 2 of 4 questions.  [15 points each.]
	1. How might strangers establish positive relations with a wary infant?

1. Keep familiar companions available (Morgan & Ricciuti, 1969); 
2. have the caregiver greet the stranger in a warm voice (Feinman, 1992); 
3. make the setting more familiar (Sroufe, Waters, & Matas, 1974); 
4. allow child to habituate to strange setting (Sroufe et al., 1974); 
5. be a less intrusive stranger and allow child to take initiate (Sroufe, 1977); 
6. offer a toy to the child (Bretherton et al., 1981); 
7. "try looking a little less strange to the child" (Kagan, 1972).
   (See Box 5-2, page 164.)

[3 points for each of 5 points; bonus credit for additional points or relevant 
research citations.]

	2. As a new parent, you decide that you want your child to become a 
           high achiever.  What particular childrearing strategies might you use in 
           accomplishing this objective?

1. Provide the child with mastery experiences at an early age (Yarrow et al., 1984); 
2. provide the child with a secure attachment (e.g., Cassidy, 1986);
3. provide a stimulating home environment (Bradley, Caldwell, & Rock, 1988), 
   including a variety of stimulation and age-appropriate play material; 
4. stress independence and achievement training (McClelland et al., 1953; Rosen 
   & D'Andrade, 1959); 
5. engage in authoritative parenting (Baumrind, 1973); 
6. reinforce with social consequence achieving behavior; and
7. demonstrate (model) achievement behavior yourself (Bandura, 1977).
   (See pages 261-270.)
8. 

[3 points for each of 5 elaborated points.]

	3. How might one improve the attachment relationships of "difficult" 
           parents?

1. What caregivers need to provide is a responsive, caregiving, nurturant, and 
   syncronous interpersonal environment for their infants.  Parents who lack these 
   characteristics -- such as depressed moms -- might be provided with training 
   experiences that will help them develop these characteristics.  
2. So how does one train a parent to be responsive, caregiving, etc.?  One such 
   training program has been implemented by Lyons-ruth et al. (see p. 154) in 
   which mothers establish a supportive relationship with a paraprofessional aid, 
   are taught how to elicit more favorable responses from their babies, and become 
   members of a support group concerned with improving their parenting.  
3. Other programs might be effective with parents having different hang-ups (e.g., 
   programs that alert unloved parents to the fact that a fussy infant does not signal 
   rejection of them).  
4. Still other programs use Brazelton training (see Box 5-1).  
5. One could also speculate about other possibly worthwhile experiences 
   involving modeling, supervised caregiving, reinfor cement and the like that 
   would aid inexperienced and inept parents.  (See pages 153-156.)
 
 [Grading: 5 points for each of 3 components.]
 
	4. Describe how parents might make separations more tolerable for 
           their young children.

1. The work by Weinraub & Lewis indicates that separation is eased by having 
   the parent take time to explain briefly to the child that the parent was leaving 
   and would soon return.
2. The presence of stimuli associated with security, such as a favorite blanket, 
   can also make things easier for the child.
3. The person who will attend to the child during separation can also be helpful by
   acting as a playmate for the child -- but don't be too much in the infant's face.  
4. The material given in Box 5-2 is also relevant: Making the new situation more
   familiar; and having the substitute caregiver be unintrusive and less strange.
   (See pages 166-168.)
 
[Grading: 5 points for each of 3 of the above.]

C. Long answers.  Answer 1 of the following 2 questions. [30 points.]
	1. Describe the evidence suggesting that fathers play an important role 
           in the social and emotional development of infants and toddlers.

1. According to the text fathers spend nearly an hour a day with their infants 
   (Ninio & Rinott, 1988) and contribute to their infant/toddlers social, 
   emotional, and cognitive development: 
2. fathers are more likely than mothers to provide playful physical stimulation 
   and to initiate unusual or unpredictable games and fathers are preferred as 
   playmates (Lamb, 1981);
3. fathers may serve as a secure base (Lamb, 1981);
4. children whose fathers were highly involved with them scored higher on infant 
   intelligence tests (Clarke-Stewart, 1980);
5. infants who have a secure attachment relationship to father were more secure 
   and less emotionally conflicted (Main & Weston, 1981).  [See pages 184-186.]

[10 points for each of 3 elaborated reasons.]

	2. In terms of Scar and McCartney's (1983) theory of genotype-environment
           interactions, why should all siblings other than identical twins become
           increasingly dissimilar to one another over time?  Or should they?

1. Genotype-environment interactions refer to the fact that genotypes and 
   environments are NOT independent, and in fact, one’s genotype helps 
   determine the kind of environments to which one is exposed.  
2. Scarr and McCartney (1983) describe three forms of 
   genotype/environment interacts: Passive (e.g., physically active parents 
   provide both the genes and the environments that support physical 
   activity), evocative (smiley infants are likely to provide support for 
   increased social interactions with them), and active (niche, not nose, 
   picking: we chose the environments that support our genetic 
   predisposition -- e.g., smart kids chose libraries).  
3. Except for identical twins, all children should become increasingly 
   dissimilar over time as they emerge from the relatively similar rearing 
   environments parents impose during the early years and begin to 
   actively select different environmental niches for themselves.  
4. Support for this notion is provided by the changes in similarity of 
   genetically unrelated adoptees who live the same home (Scarr & McCartney, 1983);
   similar results have been reported for fraternal twins. [See pages 66-68.]

[10 points for each of 3 of the above elaborated points.]

Psychology 326 (Hartmann), Quiz 1B: Key, p. 2 of 5