Developmental Psychology quizes

Last updated 13 November 2025

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Developmental Psychology Practice Questions

If you’re preparing for the AP® Psychology exam, you can also review practice questions from the Test Bank for Myers’ Psychology for the AP Course, 4th Edition, to strengthen your understanding before tackling the FRQs.”

Question 1

Preschoolers sometimes apply the rules of grammar even when they shouldn’t. This tendency is called:

Selected Answer: A. overregularization
Answers:
A. overregularization
B. literal language
C. practical usage
D. single-mindedness

Score: 1 out of 1 point

Question 2

Through the process of fast-mapping, children:

Selected Answer: A. quickly and easily learn new words by making connections between the new words and concepts that they already know
Answers:
A. quickly and easily learn new words by making connections between the new words and concepts that they already know
B. acquire the concept of conservation at an earlier age than Piaget believed
C. are able to move beyond egocentric thinking
D. become skilled in the practical use of language

Score: 1 out of 1 point

Question 3

Piaget believed that preoperational children fail conservation of liquid tests because of:

Answers:
A. their tendency to overregularize
B. centration
C. irreversibility
D. both b and c

Score: 0 out of 1 point

Test yourself further using this valuable AP Psychology Test Bank. The test bank has hundreds of questions covering nearly everything examined in Advanced Placement (AP) psychology.

Question 4

The zone of proximal development represents the:

Selected Answer: C. tasks that a child cannot do on their own but can do with assistance
Answers:
A. influence of a child’s peers on cognitive development
B. explosive period of language development during the play years
C. tasks that a child cannot do on their own but can do with assistance
D. normal variations in children’s language proficiency

Score: 1 out of 1 point

Question 5

Authoritative parents are accepting and loving, but they also normally:

Selected Answer: A. set limits and enforce rules
Answers:
A. set limits and enforce rules
B. have difficulty communicating
C. withhold praise and affection
D. encourage aggressive behavior

Score: 1 out of 1 point

Question 6

Freud proposed that during early childhood, children develop feelings of sexual attraction for the opposite sex parent. For boys this is called _____________________ whereas for girls this is called ______________________.

Selected Answer: A. the Oedipus Complex; the Electra Complex
Answers:
A. the Oedipus Complex; the Electra Complex
B. the Electra Complex; the Oedipus Complex
C. the anal stage; the oral stage
D. the oral stage; the anal stage

Score: 1 out of 1 point

Question 7

Joey has been getting in trouble in school, so his parents take away his video games in an attempt to decrease his problematic behavior. Joey’s parents are using _________________________.

Selected Answer: D. negative punishment
Answers:
A. positive reinforcement
B. negative reinforcement
C. positive punishment
D. negative punishment

Score: 1 out of 1 point

Question 8

Adam, who is four years old, is trying to help his dad buy a birthday present for his mother. When his dad asks him what he thinks his mom would want, Adam says that he thinks that she would want a Spiderman figure. This is likely because of:

Answers:
A. centration
B. egocentrism
C. animism
D. irreversibility

Correct Answer: B. egocentrism
Score: 0 out of 1 point

Question 9

A 4-year-old tells the teacher that a clown should not be allowed to visit the class because “Pat is afraid of clowns.” The 4-year-old thus shows that he can anticipate how another person will feel. This is evidence of the beginnings of:

Selected Answer: C. a theory of mind
Answers:
A. egocentrism
B. deception
C. a theory of mind
D. conservation

Score: 1 out of 1 point

Question 10

Which of the following tasks has been used to assess a child’s ability to engage in self-control and delay gratification?

Selected Answer: C. the Marshmallow Test
Answers:
A. the false belief task
B. conservation tasks
C. the Marshmallow Test
D. the class-inclusion task

Score: 1 out of 1 point

Psychology Free-Response Questions and Answers

Question 1: Gavin’s parents took him to his favorite science museum, and he explored all of the exhibits. One of the interactive exhibits featured glass marbles. He grabbed a large marble and tried to bounce it on the ground. At one point during the visit, he became separated from his parents, and it took a few minutes for them to find him. Later that night, he drew a colorful picture of the exhibits at the museum. The next day, Gavin brought his picture with him to preschool. While his grandmother drove, Gavin talked to her about the picture.

Part A

Explain how Jean Piaget’s concept of assimilation could relate to Gavin’s experience with the glass marble.
Explain how egocentrism could relate to how Gavin interacted with his grandmother in the car.
Explain how avoidant attachment could relate to Gavin when he was separated from his parents.

Part B

Explain how each of the following terms could relate to Gavin in this scenario.

Serial position effect
Motor cortex
Cognitive map
Cones in the retina

Solution

Question 1

Part A

Assimilation (Jean Piaget)
Assimilation occurs when a child interprets new experiences using existing schemas. In Gavin’s case, he might have a schema that round objects, like balls, can bounce. When he grabbed the large glass marble and tried to bounce it, he was assimilating this new object (the marble) into his existing “bouncing ball” schema despite the fact that a marble behaves differently.

Egocentrism
Egocentrism, according to Piaget’s preoperational stage, refers to a child’s inability to see a situation from another person’s perspective. When Gavin talked to his grandmother about his museum picture, he might have assumed she saw everything he saw, using phrases like “Look, that’s the big marble!” without realizing his grandmother didn’t experience the museum visit. This shows his egocentric thinking.

Avoidant Attachment
Avoidant attachment describes children who show little distress when their caregiver leaves and avoid contact when they return. When Gavin was separated from his parents at the museum, if he appeared calm and didn’t seek comfort when they found him, that would demonstrate avoidant attachment thus indicating emotional independence or detachment.

Part B

Serial Position Effect

If Gavin later tried to recall the exhibits he saw at the museum, he might remember the first and last exhibits better than the ones in the middle. This demonstrates the serial position effect, which includes both primacy and recency effects in memory.

Motor Cortex

When Gavin drew the colorful picture of the museum, his motor cortex which is the brain area responsible for voluntary movement, controlled the fine motor skills in his hands and fingers as he used crayons or markers.

Cognitive Map

A cognitive map refers to a mental representation of physical locations. Gavin likely developed a cognitive map of the museum layout, allowing him to recall and organize where different exhibits were located when drawing his picture.

Cones in the Retina

Cones are photoreceptor cells in the retina that detect color. Gavin’s ability to draw a colorful picture and accurately represent the bright exhibits in the museum depended on his cones processing the colors he saw during the visit.

Question 2: Professor Gonzalez hypothesizes that students will remember more information from his detailed course description if it is printed on yellow paper than if it is printed on standard white paper. To test this hypothesis, he put the names of all his students into a bowl, then drew out names to assign them to two different groups. He gave one group of the students in his class a course description printed on white paper, and gave the other group of students a course description printed on yellow paper. Students were instructed to thoroughly read the description outside of class in preparation for their next class. In the next class, he gave all students a ten-question quiz asking them about the information found on the course description. Professor Gonzalez then compared the number of correct answers for each group of students. The statistically significant results are depicted in the graph.

Part A

State the operational definition of the dependent variable.
Identify the experimental group.
In addition to the manipulation of an independent variable, identify the procedure Professor Gonzalez used to make this study a true experiment.
Explain how the data as presented in the graph do or do not support Professor Gonzalez’s hypothesis. Part B

Explain how each of the following might relate to a student’s performance on any quiz.

Context-dependent memory
Yerkes-Dodson law
Low level of the Big Five trait of conscientiousness

Solution

Question 2

Part A

Operational Definition of the Dependent Variable
The dependent variable is the number of correct answers students scored on the ten-question quiz about the course description.

Experimental Group
The experimental group consisted of the students who received the course description printed on yellow paper.

Procedure Making It a True Experiment
Professor Gonzalez used random assignment, drawing student names from a bowl to assign participants to groups. Random assignment ensures each participant has an equal chance of being in either group, controlling for confounding variables.

Do the Data Support the Hypothesis?
If the graph showed that students who received the yellow paper scored significantly higher than those with white paper, then the data support Professor Gonzalez’s hypothesis. However, if there was no meaningful difference, or if the white paper group performed better, the data would not support his hypothesis.

Part B

Context-Dependent Memory
Students may perform better on the quiz if they take it in the same environment where they studied the material, because similar environmental cues help trigger retrieval which is an example of context-dependent memory.

Yerkes-Dodson Law
This law suggests that moderate arousal improves performance, while too little or too much stress impairs it. A student who feels a manageable amount of pressure might perform best, while one who is overly anxious or uninterested might score lower.

Low Level of Conscientiousness (Big Five Trait)
Students low in conscientiousness may be less organized, disciplined, or motivated to study the course description thoroughly. As a result, they might perform worse on the quiz compared to students high in conscientiousness.