CH 4: Development Through the Life Span Flashcards
Developmental Psychology
A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.
What three (3) major issues does Developmental Psychology focus on?
1) Nature and Nurture:
How does our genetic inheritance (our nature) interact with our experiences (our nurture) to influence our development? How have your nature and your nurture influenced your life story?
2) Continuity and Stages:
What parts of development are gradual and continuous, like riding an escalator? What parts change abruptly in separate stages, like climbing rungs on a ladder?
3) Stability and Change:
Which of our traits persist through life? How do we change as we age?
Zygotes
The fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo.
Embryo
The developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilizing through the second month.
Fetus
the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth.
Teratogens
(Literally, “Monster Makers”)
Agents such as Chemicals and Viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)
Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking. In severe cases, signs include small, out-of-proportion head and abnormal facial features.
Habituation
Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.
Maturation
Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relative uninfluenced by experience.
(PS. Personally: I do NOT Agree)
Critical Period
An optimal period early in the life of a organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development.
Cognitive Development
All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Who is Jean Piaget?
A Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development in the 1920s.
Assimilation
Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemes.
Schemas
A concept of framework that organizes and interprets information.
Accommodation
In developmental psychology, adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.
Sensorimotor Stage
In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from birth to nearly 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.
Object Permanence
The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.
What is Baby Physics?
Like adults staring in disbelief at a magic trick (the “Whoa!” look), infants look longer at and explore an unexpected, impossible, or unfamiliar scene.
Preoperational Stage
In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from about 2 to about 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.
Conservation
The principal (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects.
Egocentrism
in Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.
Theory of Mind
People’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states - about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict.
Concrete Operational Stage
In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.
Formal Operational Stage
in Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by significant deficiencies in communication and social interaction, and by rigidly fixated interests and repetitive behaviors.
What does Theory of Mind have to do with autism spectrum disorder?
Theory of mind focuses on our ability to understand our own and others’ mental states. Those with autism spectrum disorder struggle with this ability.
Stranger Anxiety
The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.
Attachment
An emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation.
Imprinting
The process by which certain animals form strong attachments during early life.
What distinguishes Imprinting from Attachment?
Attachment is the normal process by which we form emotional ties with important others. Imprinting occurs only in certain animals that have a critical period very early in their development during which they must form their attachments, and they do so in an inflexible manner.
Temperament
A person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity.
Basic Truth
According to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers.
What are three parenting styles, and how do children’s traits relate to them?
- Authoritarian: Parents are corrective - they impose rules and expect obedience.
- Permissive: Parents are restraining - they make few demands and use little punishment.
- Authoritative: Parents are confrontive - they are both demanding and responsive. They exert control by setting rules, but encourage open discussion and allow exceptions.
How does childhood neglect or abuse affect children’s attachments?
Children are very resilient, but those who are severely neglected by their parents, or otherwise prevented from forming attachments at an early age, may be at risk for attachment problems.
Why can’t we consciously recall how we learned to walk when we were infants?
We have no conscious memories of events occurring before about age 3½, in part because major brain areas have not yet matured.
Adolescence
The transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence.
Puberty
The period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing.
Fill in the Blank.
According to Kohlberg, _____ morality focuses on self-interest, ______ morality focuses on self-defined ethical principals, and _____ morality focuses on upholding laws and social rules.
Preconventional; Postconventional; Conventional.
Identity
Our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent’s task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles.
Social Identity
The “we” aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to “Who am I?” that comes from our group membership.
Intimacy
In Erikson’s theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in young adulthood.
What is the Selection Effect, and how might it affect a teen’s decision to join sports teams at school?
Adolescence tends to select similar others to sort themselves into like-minded groups. For an athletic teen, this could lead to finding other athletic teens and joining school teems together.
Emerging Adulthood
A period from about age 18 to the mid-twenties, when many in Western cultures are no longer adolescents but have not yet achieved full independence as adults.
Menopause
The time of natural cessation of mensturation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines.
Cross-Sectional Study
A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another.
Longitudinal Study
Research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period.
Social Clock
The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.
Fill in the Blank:
Freud defined the healthy adult as one who is able to _____ and to ______.
Love; Work
What are some of the most significant challenges and rewards of growing old?
CHALLENGES:
* Decline of muscular strength, reaction times, stamina, sensory keenness, cardiac output, and immune system functioning. Risk of cognitive decline increases.
REWARDS:
* Positive feelings tend to grow; negative emotions are less intense; and anger, stress, worry, and social-relationship problems decrease.
Fill in the Blank:
Erikson agreed with Freud, observing that the adult struggles to attain intimacy and _____.
Generativity
