Chapter 1 - Introduction Flashcards
Context
Refers to the settings in which development occurs.
Culture
Encompasses the behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a specific group of people that are passed on from generation to generation.
Cross-cultural studies
Compare aspects of two or more cultures.
Ethnicity
Is rooted in cultural heritage, nationality, race, religion, and language.
Socioeconomic status (SES)
Refers to a person’s position within society based on occupational, educational, and economic characteristics.
Gender
Is another key dimension of children’s development; refers to the characteristics of people as males and females.
Social policy
Is a government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens.
Biological processes
Produce changes in an individual’s body.
Cognitive processes
Refer to changes in an individual’s thought, intelligence, and language.
Socioemotional processes
Involve changes in an individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotions, and changes in personality.
Prenatal period
Is the time from conception to birth, roughly a nine-month period.
Infancy
Is the development period that extends from birth to about 18-24 months of age.
Early childhood
Is the development period that extends from the end of infancy to about 5 or 6 years of age; preschool years.
Middle and late childhood
Is the development period that extends between about 6 and 11 years of age; elementary school years.
Adolescence
Is the developmental period of transition from childhood to early adulthood, entered at approximately 10 to 12 years of age and ending at about 18 to 19 years of age.
Cohort effects
Are due to a person’s time of birth, era, or generation but not to actual age.
Millennials
Referring to the generation born after 1980 - the first to come of age and enter emerging adulthood in the new millennium.
Nature-nurture issue
Involves the debate about whether development is primarily influenced by nature or by nurture.
Continuity-discontinuity issue
Focuses on the extent to which development involves gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).
Early-later experience issue
Focuses on the degree to which early experiences of later experiences are they key determinants of the child’s development.
Scientific method
A four step process: 1) conceptualize a process or problem to be studied, 2) collect data, 3) analyze data, 4) draw conclusions.
Theory
Is an interrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps to explain and to make predictions.
Hypothesis
Is a specific, testable assumption or prediction.
Psychoanalytic theories
Describe development as primarily unconscious and heavily colored by emotion.