3.1.3.2.5 Hughes' policeman doll study Quiz: AQA Psychology, Unit 3

The 20 questions

1. What did Hughes' policeman doll study show?

   • Children could take another viewpoint when the task made more sense to them
   • Children took another viewpoint equally well in every version of the task
   • Children took another viewpoint only after reaching formal operations
   • Children could never take another viewpoint at any age

2. In Hughes' policeman doll study, what was the child asked to do?

   • Hide a doll so that a policeman doll could not see it
   • Count the number of counters in a row on the table
   • Name the colours of several blocks in order from left to right
   • Describe a picture from the other side of a table

3. How did Hughes' policeman doll study differ from Piaget's three mountains task?

   • It used only the same three mountain model for all children in every condition tested
   • It used a task that was meaningful and easy for children to understand
   • It used adults instead of children as participants, so the findings came from older people
   • It removed the need for any viewpoints at all by asking children to describe the room

4. What does Hughes' study suggest about Piaget's view of egocentrism?

   • Piaget may have underestimated young children's ability to take another viewpoint
   • Egocentrism is caused by a lack of language skills and nothing else at all
   • Piaget was correct that children never see from another viewpoint at any age
   • Egocentrism is only found in adults and not in children of any age group

5. Which children were typically tested in the policeman doll study?

   • Adults who had finished school
   • Adolescents in the formal operational stage
   • Babies in the sensorimotor stage
   • Children aged about three and a half to five

6. In the policeman doll study, what did the child's success show?

   • They could work out what the policeman could and could not see
   • They could name the colours of the blocks on the table in the order they were placed
   • They could count the number of dolls that were placed around the room during the task
   • They could draw a map of the room from memory after the task had finished being set up

7. Which idea is the policeman doll task most closely connected to?

   • Object permanence in infancy, when babies first learn that hidden objects still exist
   • Reversibility in the concrete operational stage, when children undo changes mentally
   • Schema accommodation in adolescence, when teenagers revise their ideas about the world
   • Egocentrism and the ability to see from another perspective

8. Which statement about the policeman doll study is most accurate?

   • It suggested that children can show perspective-taking earlier than Piaget's tasks indicated
   • It showed that children only succeed at perspective-taking tasks once they are adults
   • It showed that children's perspective-taking never develops, whatever their age or experience
   • It showed that perspective-taking is unrelated to age and depends only on the task used

9. What did the policeman doll study change about how researchers interpret children's answers?

   • Failure on a task may depend on how it is presented, not just on the child's ability
   • Failure on a task proves the child is not yet able to think about the problem
   • Failure on a task has no meaning for understanding how children develop over time
   • Failure on a task always shows the child is in the sensorimotor stage of thinking

10. Which change to the policeman doll task would be most likely to make it harder for a child?

    • Letting the child practise the task before the test so that they know what to expect
    • Making the policeman's viewpoint different from the child's in a more confusing way
    • Making the doll more colourful and attractive so the child is more interested in it
    • Making the task clearer and more familiar to the child by using a known character

11. Which factor was central to the success of children in the policeman doll study?

    • A meaningful, familiar scenario that made the task understandable
    • A long test with many repeated questions asked in exactly the same order each time
    • A large number of counters laid out in an unfamiliar pattern on the table in front of them
    • A requirement to write down the answer in full sentences after the task was complete

12. A child in the policeman doll task places the doll behind a wall where the policeman cannot see. What does this show?

    • The child is in the sensorimotor stage and only acts by trial and error
    • The child can reason about what another person can see
    • The child has reversibility of quantity
    • The child has accommodated a new rule about counting

13. Why did Hughes' results matter for the wider idea of egocentrism?

    • They proved egocentrism is fixed for life and never depends on context
    • They showed that egocentrism is absent in all children at every age
    • They suggested egocentrism may depend on the task and context
    • They showed that egocentrism is only found in adults and not in children

14. Which conclusion from the policeman doll study would be too strong?

    • Children's perspective-taking depends on how the task is presented
    • Children are never egocentric in any task
    • Piaget's tasks may have underestimated children's abilities
    • Children may be less egocentric in a meaningful task

15. Which kind of design would best test whether Hughes' results hold across children?

    • Test one child in detail and assume the result applies to every child of the same age
    • Repeat the task with a large, varied sample of children and compare their results
    • Test only adults and assume the same result applies to children of every age group
    • Test only children who already succeeded in the task and report their results alone

16. What is the main criticism of Piaget's view that Hughes' study offered?

    • Piaget's tasks may have been too abstract to show children's real abilities
    • Piaget's tasks never involved any viewpoints, so they could not test perspective at all
    • Piaget's tasks were too easy for children to understand and so gave them no challenge
    • Piaget's tasks used only adults as participants, so children were never tested at all

17. Which description best matches the policeman doll task?

    • A task where a child pours liquid into different shaped containers
    • A task where a child names objects in a row from left to right
    • A task where a child builds a tower of blocks and then knocks it over
    • A task where a child places a doll so that another doll cannot see it

18. Which result from the policeman doll study would support Hughes' claim?

    • Children did equally well in both versions
    • More children succeeded in the meaningful version than in the abstract version
    • More children succeeded in the abstract version than in the meaningful version
    • No children succeeded in either version

19. What is the best reason to repeat the policeman doll task with children of different ages?

    • To see whether children can draw an accurate picture of the room from memory after the test
    • To see how perspective-taking changes with age and experience
    • To test whether children can name the basic colours in the set of cards used
    • To check whether children can count to ten accurately when they are given a simple task

20. Which statement best links the policeman doll study to Piaget's stage theory?

    • It showed that the stage theory has no real link to how children actually think about things
    • It confirmed that the pre-operational stage is completely limited in every task
    • It showed that children move straight to the formal operational stage of thinking
    • It questioned whether the pre-operational stage is as limited as Piaget's tasks suggested

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