All Free Psychology MCQs with Answers

• A. permissive
• B. Authoritarian
• C. authoritative
• D. rejecting-neglecting

Explanation: Authoritative parents combine warmth and responsiveness with clear, reasonable limits, which tends to foster confidence and self-esteem.

• A. environmental
• B. physical
• C. biological
• D. all of these

Explanation: In the nature/nurture distinction, nature refers to biological influences such as genes, maturation, and physiology.

• A. attachment
• B. imprinting
• C. egocentrism
• D. conservation

Explanation: Attachment is the infant's emotional bond and survival-based drive to remain close to a caregiver.

• A. Sigmund Freud
• B. Anna Freud
• C. Erik Erikson
• D. Jean Piaget

Explanation: Erik Erikson proposed psychosocial development across the entire lifespan, with a distinct developmental conflict at each stage.

• A. accommodation
• B. assimilation
• C. operations
• D. function autonomy

Explanation: Accommodation occurs when existing schemata are changed or new ones are created to fit information that does not match them.

• A. a phenotype
• B. a zygote
• C. an allele
• D. a clone

Explanation: Fertilisation, the union of sperm and egg, forms a zygote, which is the first single cell of a new organism.

• A. overextending the word
• B. babbling
• C. exhibiting developmental dysphasia
• D. exhibiting weak attachment to the father

Explanation: Overextension occurs when a child applies a word too broadly, such as using “daddy” for every bearded man.

• A. genotyping
• B. crossing over
• C. mitosis
• D. meiosis

Explanation: Mitosis produces genetically matching body cells, preserving the original genetic material in each daughter cell.

• A. paternal genes and maternal care
• B. genes and environment
• C. genotype and phenotype
• D. genotype and karyotype

Explanation: The nature-nurture debate concerns how heredity, represented by genes, and experience or environment jointly influence development and…

• A. accommodation
• B. object prominence
• C. conservation
• D. assimilation

Explanation: Assimilation occurs when a child interprets a new object using an existing schema, here treating the unfamiliar cow as a familiar dog.

• A. motor
• B. social
• C. emotional
• D. cognitive

Explanation: Piaget is best known for explaining cognitive development, including how children's reasoning changes through stages.

• A. a recessive gene
• B. a missing sex chromosome
• C. an extra autosome or part of one
• D. an extra sex chromosome or part of one

Explanation: Down syndrome usually results from trisomy 21, meaning an extra copy of an autosome.

• A. identity and independence
• B. intimacy and identity
• C. intimacy and generativity
• D. independence and generativity

Explanation: Erikson linked young adulthood with intimacy and middle adulthood with generativity, making these the two major adult concerns.

• A. chromosomes
• B. phenotypes
• C. genotypes
• D. zygotes

Explanation: Chromosomes are DNA-containing structures that organize and carry genetic information.

• A. mistrust
• B. guilt
• C. inferiority
• D. identity

Explanation: Erikson's opposite outcomes are isolation versus intimacy in young adulthood and role confusion versus identity in adolescence.

• A. egocentric thought
• B. preoperational stage
• C. sensorimotor stage
• D. formal stage

Explanation: Piaget called ages roughly two to seven the preoperational stage, when language and symbolic thought expand but logical operations are not…

• A. Horney
• B. Piaget
• C. Erikson
• D. Freud

Explanation: Erikson described adolescence as the stage of identity versus role confusion, making identity crisis a central adolescent problem.

• A. dominant
• B. co-dominant
• C. incompletely dominant
• D. recessive

Explanation: A dominant characteristic can be expressed when only one copy of the relevant allele is present.

• A. hypothetical reasoning
• B. deductive thinking
• C. concrete operations
• D. egocentric thinking

Explanation: Middle childhood corresponds to Piaget's concrete operational stage, when children become capable of logical reasoning about tangible…

• A. primary sex characteristic
• B. secondary sex characteristic
• C. latent stage trait
• D. sex-linked trait

Explanation: Facial hair is a secondary sex characteristic because it appears at puberty and helps distinguish physical sexual maturation without being…