Ch 3 - Human Development Flashcards
The study of the normal changes in behaviour that occur across the lifespan.
What is developmental psychology?
The transmission of physical and psychological characteristics from parents to offspring through genes.
What is heredity (“nature”)?
A molecular structure that contains coded genetic information.
What is deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)?
Rodlike structures in the cell nucleus that house an individual’s genes.
What are chromosomes?
Areas on a strand of DNA that carry hereditary information.
What are genes?
Problems caused by defects in the genes or by inherited characteristics.
What are genetic disorders?
A gene whose influence will be expressed each time that the gene is present.
What is a dominant gene?
A gene whose influence will be expressed only when it is paired with a second recessive gene of the same type.
What is a recessive gene?
Personal traits or physical properties that are influenced by many genes working in combination.
What are polygenic characteristics?
The sum of all external conditions affecting development, including especially the effects of learning.
What is environment (“nurture”)?
A harmful substance that can cause birth defects.
What is teratogen?
Defects that originate during prenatal development in the womb.
What are congenital problems?
A collection of conditions occurring in children whose mothers consumed alcohol during pregnancy.
What is fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD)?
During development, a period of increased sensitivity to environmental influences. It also is a time during which certain events must take place for normal development to occur.
What is the sensitive period?
In development, the loss or withholding of normal stimulation, nutrition, comfort, love, and so forth; a condition of absence.
What is deprivation?
In development, deliberately making an environment more stimulating, nutritional, comforting, loving, and so forth.
What is enrichment?
The study of changes in organisms that are caused by modifications to gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself.
What is epigenetics?
The physical growth and development of the body, brain, and nervous system.
What is maturation?
Biologically defined period during which a person matures sexually and becomes capable of reproduction.
What is puberty?
The culturally defined period between childhood and adulthood.
What is adolescence?
Area of psychology concerned with changes in emotions and social relationships.
What is socioemotional development?
Smiling elicited by a social stimulus, such as seeing a parent’s face.
What is a social smile?
A conflict between personal impulses and the social world.
What is a psychosocial dilemma?
Emotional needs for care, love, and positive relationships with others.
What are affectional needs?
A substitute mother (in animal research, often an inanimate object or a dummy).
What is a surrogate mother?
A pleasant and reassuring feeling that human and animal infants get from touching or clinging to something soft and warm, usually their mothers.
What is contact comfort?
Distress displayed by infants when they are separated from their parents or principal caregivers.
What is separation anxiety?
General pattern of attention, arousal, and mood that is evident from birth.
What is temperament?
Emotional bonding between an infant and its caregivers that results from infants’ feelings of security with the caregiver in times of stress or uncertainty.
What is attachment?
A stable and positive emotional bond.
What is secure attachment?
An anxious emotional bond marked by a tendency to avoid reunion with a parent or caregiver.
What is insecure-avoidant attachment?
An anxious emotional bond marked by both a desire to be with a parent or caregiver and some resistance to being reunited.
What is insecure-ambivalent attachment?
Identifiable patterns of parental caretaking and interaction with children.
What are parental styles?
Parents who enforce rigid rules and demand strict obedience to authority.
What are authoritarian parents?
The use of physical punishment or coercion to enforce child discipline.
What is power assertion?
Withholding affection to enforce child discipline.
What is withdrawal of love?
Regarding oneself as a worthwhile person; a positive evaluation of oneself.
What is self-esteem?
Parents who give little guidance, allow too much freedom, or do not require the child to take responsibility.
What are permissive parents?
Parents who supply firm and consistent guidance combined with love and affection.
What are authoritative parents?
A socially accepted period of extended adolescence that is now quite common in Western and Westernized societies.
What is emerging adulthood?
The resumed hereditary readiness of humans to learn certain skills, such as how to use language or a readiness to behave in particular ways.
What is a biological predisposition?
In early language development, behaviours, such as touching, vocalizing, gazing, or smiling, that allow nonverbal interaction and turn-taking between parent and child.
What are signals?
A pattern of speech used when talking to infants, marked by a higher-pitched voice; short, simple sentences; repetition; slower speech; and exaggerated voice inflections.
What is motherese (parentese)?
A mental structure composed of an organized learned body of knowledge or skills about a particular topic, according to Piaget.
What is a schema?
The application of established schema to new objects or problems, according to Piaget.
What is assimilation?
Modification of an established schema to fit a new object or problem, according to Piaget.
What is accommodation (learning)?
Piaget’s initial stage of development, when the infant’s mental activity is only sensory perception and motor skills.
What is the sensorimotor stage?
Recognizing that physical things continue to exist, even when they are no longer visible.
What is object permanence?
Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development, characterized by the use of symbols and illogical thought.
What is the preoperational stage?
The mental ability to change the shape or form of a substance (such as clay or water) and to perceive that its volume remains the same.
What is transformation (Piagetian)?
The belief that everyone sees exactly what you see in the physical world, or that they think about the world in the same way that you do.
What is egocentrism?
The understanding that people have mental states, such as thoughts, beliefs, and intentions and that other people’s mental states can be different from one’s own.
What is theory of mind?
Piaget’s third stage of cognitive development, characterized by logical thought.
What is the concrete operational stage?
Piaget’s term for the awareness that physical quantities stay constant despite changes in shape or appearance.
What is conservation?
Piaget’s fourth stage of cognitive development, characterized by the ability to engage in thinking that includes abstract, theoretical, and hypothetical ideas.
What is the formal operational stage?
A term referring to the range of tasks that a child cannot yet master alone, but that she or he can accomplish with the guidance of a more capable partner.
What is the zone of proximal develeopment?
The process of adjusting instruction so that it is responsive to a beginner’s behaviour and supports the beginner’s efforts to understand a problem or gain a mental skill.
What is scaffolding?
The development of values that, along with appropriate emotions and cognitions, guide responsible behaviour.
What is moral development?
Moral thinking based on the consequences of one’s choices and actions (punishment, reward, or an exchange of favours).
What is preconventional moral reasoning?
Moral thinking based on a desire to please others or to follow accepted rules and values.
What is conventional moral reasoning?
Moral thinking based on carefully examined and self-chosen moral principles.
What is postconventional moral reasoning?
