Ch 1. The Lifespan Perspective Flashcards
Development
The pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the life span. Most development involves growth, although it also includes decline brought on by aging and dying.
Life-span perspective
The perspective that development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual; involves growth, maintenance, and regulation; and is constructed through biological, sociocultural, and individual factors working together.
Normative age-graded influences
Influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group.
Nonnormative life events
Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on an individual’s life. Ex: Winning the lottery.
Normative history-graded influences
Influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group.
Culture
The behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group that are passed on from generation to generation.
Cross-cultural studies
Comparison of one culture with one or more other cultures. These provide information about the degree to which development is similar, or universal, across cultures, and the degree to which it is culture-specific.
Ethnicity
A characteristic based on cultural heritage, nationality characteristics, race, religion, and language.
Socioeconomic status (SES)
Refers to the grouping of people with similar occupational, educational, and economic characteristics.
Gender
The characteristics of people as males or females.
Social policy
A national government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens.
Biological processes
Changes in an individual’s physical nature.
Cognitive Processes
Changes in an individual’s thought, intelligence, and language.
Socioemotional Processes
Changes in an individual’s relationships with other people, emotions, and personality.
Nature-Nurture Issue
Debate about whether development is primarily influenced by nature or nurture. Nature refers to an organism’s biological inheritance, nurture to its environmental experiences.
Stability-Change Issue
Debate about whether we become older renditions of our early experience (stability) or whether we develop into someone different from who we were at an earlier point in development (change).
Continuity-Discontinuity Issue
Debate about the extent to which development involves gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).
Scientific Method
An approach that can be used to obtain accurate information. It includes the following steps: (1) conceptualize the problem, (2) collect data, (3) draw conclusions, and (4) revise research conclusions and theory.
Theory
An interrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps to explain phenomena and facilitate predictions.
Hypotheses
Specific assumptions and predictions that can be tested to determine their accuracy.
Psychoanalytic Theories
Theories that describe development as primarily unconscious and heavily colored by emotion. Behavior is merely a surface characteristic, and the symbolic workings of the mind have to be analyzed to understand behavior. Early experiences with parents are emphasized.
Vygotsky’s Theory
A sociocultural cognitive theory that emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide cognitive development.
Information-processing theory
Emphasizes that individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it. Central to this theory are the processes of memory and thinking.
Behaviorism
We can study scientifically only what can be directly observed and measured
Social Cognitive Theory
The view of psychologists who emphasize behavior, environment, and cognition as the key factors in development.
Ethology
Stresses that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, is tied to evolution, and is characterized by critical or sensitive periods.
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory
Bronfenbrenner’s environmental systems theory that focuses on five environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.
Microsystem
The setting in which the individual lives. These contexts include the person’s family, peers, school, and neighborhood. It is in the microsystem that the most direct interactions with social agents take place—with parents, peers, and teachers, for example. The individual is not a passive recipient of experiences in these settings, but someone who helps to construct the settings.
Mesosystem
Involves relations between microsystems or connections between contexts. Examples are the relation of family experiences to school experiences, school experiences to religious experiences, and family experiences to peer experiences. For example, children whose parents have rejected them may have difficulty developing positive relations with teachers.
Exosystem
Consists of links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role and the individual’s immediate context. For example, a husband’s or child’s experience at home may be influenced by a mother’s experiences at work. The mother might receive a promotion that requires more travel, which might increase conflict with the husband and change patterns of interaction with the child.
Macrosystem
Involves the culture in which individuals live. Remember from earlier in the chapter that culture refers to the behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group of people that are passed on from generation to generation. Remember also that cross-cultural studies—the comparison of one culture with one or more other cultures—provide information about the generality of development.
Chronosystem
The patterning of environmental events and transitions over the life course, as well as sociohistorical circumstances. For example, divorce is one transition. Researchers have found that the negative effects of divorce on children often peak in the first year after the divorce (Hetherington, 1993, 2006). By two years after the divorce, family interaction has become more stable. As an example of sociohistorical circumstances, consider how career opportunities for women have increased since the 1960s.
Eclectic Theoretical Orientation
An orientation that does not follow any one theoretical approach but rather selects from each theory whatever is considered the best in it.
Correlation Coefficient
A number based on statistical analysis that is used to describe the degree of association between two variables.
Cross-Sectional Approach
A research strategy in which individuals of different ages are compared at one time.
Longitudinal Approach
A research strategy in which the same individuals are studied over a period of time, usually several years or more.
Cohort Effect
Effects due to a person’s time of birth, era, or generation rather than the person’s actual age.
Cohort
A group of people who are born at a similar point in history and share similar experiences as a result, such as living through the Vietnam War or growing up in the same city around the same time.
Ethnic Gloss
Using an ethnic label such as African American or Latino in a superficial way that portrays an ethnic group as being more homogeneous than it really is.
