Lesson 3.1.5

3.1.5 Individual and developmental differences in biological psychology Quiz: Pearson Edexcel Psychology, Unit 3

20 questions

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Lesson 3.1.5, Individual and developmental differences in biological psychology: 20 multiple choice questions for the Pearson Edexcel Psychology (9PS0), Unit 3: Biological psychology, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. Case studies of brain-damaged patients often assume that brain organisation is the same in everyone. Why is this assumption a problem?

    • Because brain damage always produces identical effects in every person, so case studies can never reveal anything of use
    • Because case studies only use women, whose brain organisation differs so much from men's that results cannot be compared
    • Because brain organisation is set entirely by the environment after birth, so it cannot be compared between any two people
    • Because brain organisation varies between people, the same damage may have different effects on each

  2. Which factor is an example of an individual difference that may affect how a brain-damaged patient recovers?

    • The day of the week on which the injury occurred, which determines permanently the functions that will later be lost
    • The patient's height, which directly controls the number of neurons that remain available after a brain injury occurs
    • The patient's age, handedness and pre-existing brain organisation, which can influence the extent of recovery after injury
    • The colour of the patient's eyes, which has been shown to predict the location of language functions in the brain

  3. Freud's view of personality suggests that individual differences arise because:

    • the balance between id, ego and superego develops differently in each person, depending on early experiences and parenting
    • the superego is inherited unchanged from parents, so all children develop an identical moral code from birth onwards
    • the ego is fully formed at birth and does not change with age, experience or the environment in which a child grows up
    • the id is identical in all people, so differences in behaviour come only from differences in the strength of conscious intelligence

  4. Which statement best describes the role of evolution in human development, as applied in biological psychology?

    • Development is shaped by traits that were selected because they supported survival and reproduction in ancestral environments
    • Development is controlled entirely by conscious choice, and evolution has no influence on childhood growth or behaviour
    • Development is determined only by the parents' social class, which evolved independently of any biological pressures
    • Development is entirely random, so evolution plays no role in explaining why certain behaviours appear at certain ages

  5. Which of these is an example of the role of hormones in human development?

    • Speaking a second language, which depends mainly on the age at which a child is first exposed to a new vocabulary
    • Learning to read, when a child begins to receive formal instruction from teachers in a classroom with other pupils
    • Puberty, when rising sex hormones drive growth spurts and secondary sex characteristics
    • Forming friendships, which depends mainly on the number of hours a child spends playing with peers after school

  6. A brain-damaged patient recovers more fully than expected. Which individual difference is the most plausible explanation for this?

    • The patient's memory of the injury was faulty, which meant the damage was never actually present in the brain at all
    • The patient's family refused to allow any treatment, which caused the brain to reorganise itself in a spontaneous manner
    • The patient's damage was smaller than the original estimate, which proves that brain plasticity never occurs in any individual
    • The patient had brain plasticity that allowed other regions to take over some lost functions, for example because of age

  7. Why might a child recover more from brain injury than an adult with a similar injury?

    • Children have greater brain plasticity, so their developing neural networks can reorganise more readily after damage
    • Children have no brain plasticity at all, so recovery depends entirely on the child's wider social environment and support
    • Children have the same plasticity as adults, so age makes no difference to the extent of recovery after brain injury
    • Children have less brain plasticity, so their neural networks are less able to reorganise after damage occurs to them

  8. Which best describes an individual difference in Freud's account of aggression?

    • Aggression is caused by the id in all people equally, so no individual differences exist in aggressive tendencies at all
    • Every person develops an identical superego, so all individuals feel the same degree of guilt after acting aggressively
    • People with different early experiences of parenting may develop different superegos, leading to different levels of guilt
    • The ego is absent in children, so every child is equally likely to show aggression regardless of their upbringing and care

  9. Which evaluation point about individual differences in biological psychology is most accurate?

    • Because brain organisation varies, studies that ignore individual differences risk generalising results that do not apply to everyone
    • Because individual differences are caused only by the environment, biological research cannot contribute to understanding them at all
    • Because individual differences are always the same across people, researchers need not measure them in their own samples at all
    • Because individual differences are never found in biological psychology, all studies can safely generalise to the whole population

  10. A study uses a single patient with lesion damage to the left temporal lobe and concludes that a language function is located there in everyone. Which criticism is most valid?

    • The study is valid only if the patient was a child, because adult brains are never organised in a way that supports language
    • The study is valid because one case is always enough to establish a universal location of a function in the human brain
    • The study is invalid because language functions cannot be located in the brain by any method, including brain scanning
    • The study has ignored individual differences, since brain organisation may differ, so the finding may not generalise to others

  11. Which of the following is a developmental application of the biological account of aggression?

    • Explaining why testosterone rises at puberty may contribute to changes in dominance and aggression during adolescence
    • Explaining why children prefer certain foods because of a learned association with the colour and taste of the food
    • Explaining why adults form strong attachments to their partners because of conscious decisions made in early adulthood
    • Explaining why children learn to read at a particular age through the reinforcement of correct answers in school

  12. An evolutionary developmental account proposes that a childhood behaviour is an adaptation. Which feature would support this view?

    • The behaviour is found only in one small family and was learned from a single individual who had unusual experiences
    • The behaviour disappears completely in adulthood and has no function in the survival of individuals or their groups
    • The behaviour depends entirely on conscious choice and has no biological basis at any stage of the child's development
    • The behaviour appears across many different cultures and is linked to survival or reproductive problems faced by ancestors

  13. A researcher argues that individual differences in aggression might be partly due to genes and partly due to hormone levels. Which is the best description of this view?

    • An interactionist account in which biological factors contribute to individual differences, though environment may also shape them
    • A purely environmental account in which hormones and genes are irrelevant, so differences come only from learned behaviour
    • A purely Freudian account in which the superego alone determines all differences in aggression between individuals
    • A cognitive account in which differences in aggression are caused by different beliefs about the value of violence in society

  14. Which statement about individual and developmental differences is an accurate criticism of biological explanations?

    • They tend to deny that any differences exist between children and adults, so they cannot account for development at all
    • They tend to focus entirely on the social environment and ignore the role of genes and hormones in any aspect of behaviour
    • They tend to overlook how environmental and social experiences can change biological processes across development
    • They tend to accept that every person is biologically identical, which removes any need to study differences in behaviour

  15. In a study of brain-damaged patients, which design feature would best help to address individual differences?

    • Testing only patients who share the same type of injury and background, so that all differences between them are removed
    • Using a single very unusual patient, so that the results are highly specific to one individual and clearly described
    • Including several patients with different ages and backgrounds, and comparing their outcomes to see whether results are consistent
    • Relying on the memories of family members about the patient's abilities before the injury, since these are always accurate

  16. A researcher concludes from a study of puberty that all adolescents become more aggressive once testosterone rises. What is the main weakness of this conclusion?

    • It is irrelevant, because adolescence is a period in which hormones have no measurable effect on behaviour of any kind
    • It ignores individual differences, since not all adolescents respond to hormones in the same way, and environment also matters
    • It is unfalsifiable, because no study of puberty can ever measure testosterone accurately enough to produce any usable data
    • It is correct, because hormones always cause aggression in every adolescent regardless of their upbringing or social setting

  17. Which is the strongest reason developmental research in biological psychology uses longitudinal designs?

    • Longitudinal designs are cheaper than any other design, so they allow researchers to study many more children at one time
    • Longitudinal designs track the same individuals over time, so changes in hormones and behaviour can be linked within each person
    • Longitudinal designs avoid all ethical issues, because participants are never asked to give informed consent in any study
    • Longitudinal designs always produce results that match the average, so they remove all individual variation from the data

  18. Why might a biological explanation of individual differences in aggression be considered reductionist?

    • Because it reduces the importance of hormones, which means that the research cannot explain why puberty ever occurs in people
    • Because it reduces the amount of brain tissue in the sample, which means that the research cannot measure any individual person
    • Because it reduces the number of participants needed in a study, so the results are based on too few cases to be reliable
    • Because it reduces the complex variation in aggression to a small number of physiological factors and ignores social context

  19. Which statement about developmental plasticity of the brain is most accurate?

    • Plasticity is greatest in early development, but it continues in adults to a more limited extent, varying between individuals
    • Plasticity does not exist, since the brain is fixed at birth and cannot reorganise in response to any damage that occurs later
    • Plasticity is the same at every age, so a child and an adult with the same damage always recover at the same rate
    • Plasticity is found only in the spinal cord and never in the brain, so it cannot affect recovery from any form of injury

  20. A psychologist designs a study on developmental differences in biological psychology. Which ethical concern is most relevant when studying children with brain damage?

    • The need to obtain informed consent from a parent or guardian, and to protect the child's wellbeing throughout the study
    • The need to avoid any use of scanning, since children never have brains that are capable of producing usable scan images
    • The need to conduct the study only in a laboratory, since children with brain damage should never be seen in any real setting
    • The need to pay children in sweets for taking part, since this is the only legal form of compensation for participants

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