Daylen and Daven Had Totally Different Childhoods

question 31

Multiple Choice

Daylen and Daven had totally different childhoods. Daylen was raised in a supportive environment, and Daven was raised in an abusive, neglectful environment. Daylen always scored about fifty points higher than Daven on cognitive ability tests when they were in school. After graduation, they both were hired by the same company for the same occupation. Now, five years later, what would be the most likely result if they both took a cognitive ability test?

• A) Daven would outscore Daylen because adult cognitive ability is inverse to childhood cognitive ability.
• B) Daylen would still score about fifty points higher than Daven because ability remains relatively stable over time.
• C) Daylen would score less than Daven because cognitive ability test scores are based on improvement over previous scores.
• D) Daven would narrow the scoring gap with Daylen because environmental influences on cognitive ability tend to decrease as people age.
• E) Daven would score more than fifty points less than Daylen because the test would remind him of the last time he took the test and his abusive childhood.

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Definitions:

Nomothetic Approach

A research approach that seeks general laws and principles through the study of groups of people.

Continuum

A continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, but the extremes are quite distinct.

Cardinal Trait

A dominant personality trait that defines a person's actions, attitudes, and behaviors consistently across different situations.

Dominant Traits

Characteristics in an organism that are expressed when at least one dominant allele is present in the genotype.