AP Psychology — Unit 3: Development and Learning
Practice questions, answers, and key terms for Unit 3, aligned to the College Board CED.
Exam weighting: Unit 3 is 13-17% of the AP Psychology exam.
What AP Psychology Unit 3 covers
The College Board Course and Exam Description breaks Unit 3 into 6 topics:
- 3.1 Physical Development Across the Lifespan
- 3.2 Social Development Across the Lifespan
- 3.3 Cognitive Development Across the Lifespan
- 3.4 Classical Conditioning
- 3.5 Operant Conditioning
- 3.6 Observational and Cognitive Learning
AP Psychology Unit 3 practice questions
A researcher tracks the same 100 children from birth to age 18. Another researcher tests 5-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and 15-year-olds all at once. What are these designs, and what's the key tradeoff between them?
Longitudinal (same people over time) vs. cross-sectional (different age groups at one time). Longitudinal tracks true change but takes years; cross-sectional is faster but confounds age with cohort effects.
A pregnant woman drinks alcohol regularly during the first trimester. Her baby is born with characteristic facial features, impaired growth, and cognitive delays. What caused this, and what is the general term for such agents?
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, caused by alcohol acting as a teratogen. Teratogens cross the placenta and disrupt prenatal development.
Newborns emerge with rooting and grasping reflexes that disappear within months. Meanwhile, voluntary reaching and sitting skills emerge on a predictable schedule across all cultures. What does this developmental consistency suggest?
Motor development is maturationally driven, following a universal biological sequence. It appears across cultures regardless of environment.
Adolescents show impulsive risk-taking even when they can articulate the consequences clearly. Brain scans show their prefrontal cortex is less active than adults' during risky decisions. What explains the gap between knowing better and acting better?
The prefrontal cortex — impulse control and reasoning — isn't mature until mid-20s. Meanwhile the limbic reward drive outpaces executive control.
Erikson proposed that every life stage presents a central conflict that must be resolved. A toddler who successfully develops autonomy over bowel and feeding control gains what long-term psychological benefit?
Autonomy versus shame and doubt — success builds lasting will and self-reliance. Failure leaves shame and self-doubt later.
Harry Harlow separated infant monkeys from their mothers and gave them access to two wire 'mothers' — one with food, one covered in soft cloth but providing no food. The infants clung overwhelmingly to the cloth mother. What did this overturn?
The drive-reduction theory of attachment — that infants bond mainly to get food. Harlow showed contact comfort, not food, drives attachment.
In Ainsworth's Strange Situation, one infant clings to the mother, cries intensely when she leaves, but pushes her away angrily when she returns. Another infant barely reacts to the mother's departure or return. What attachment styles are these?
Anxious-ambivalent attachment versus avoidant attachment. Ambivalent: distress plus angry rejection; avoidant: minimal distress.
A 15-year-old is convinced that everyone at school is watching and judging their every move, and that their personal problems are uniquely intense and misunderstood by anyone who hasn't experienced them. What developmental concepts describe these two beliefs?
Imaginary audience (everyone's watching you) and personal fable (experience is unique). Both are forms of adolescent egocentrism.
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Key terms in Unit 3
These 12 terms show up in the Unit 3 cards. Each one links to its definition in the AP Psychology key-term reference.
Drill all of Unit 3 with spaced repetition
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