Chapter 1 Key Terms

Question 1

Human Development

Answer 1

The multidisciplinary study of how people change and how they remain the same over time.

Question 2

Nature vs. Nurture Issue

Answer 2

The degree to which genetic or hereditary influences (nature) and experiential or environmental influences (nurture) determine the kind of person you are.

Question 3

Continuity–Discontinuity Issue

Answer 3

Whether a particular developmental phenomenon represents a smooth progression throughout the life span (continuity) or a series of abrupt shifts (discontinuity).

Question 4

Universal and Context-Specific Development Issue

Answer 4

Whether there is one path of development or several paths.

Question 5

Biological Forces

Answer 5

All genetic and health-related factors that affect development.

Question 6

Psychological Forces

Answer 6

All internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and personality factors that affect development.

Question 7

Sociocultural Forces

Answer 7

Interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors that affect development.

Question 8

Life-Cycle Forces

Answer 8

Differences in how the same event affects people of different ages.

Question 9

Biopsychosocial Framework

Answer 9

A useful way to organize the biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces on human development.

Question 10

Neuroscience

Answer 10

The study of the brain and nervous system, especially in terms of brain–behavior relationships.

Question 11

Theory

Answer 11

An organized set of ideas that is designed to explain development.

Question 12

Psychodynamic Theories

Answer 12

Theories proposing that development is largely determined by how well people resolve conflicts they face at different ages.

Question 13

Psychosocial Theory

Answer 13

Erikson’s proposal that personality development is determined by the interaction of an internal maturational plan and external societal demands.

Question 14

Epigenetic Principle

Answer 14

In Erikson’s theory, the idea that each psychosocial strength has its own special period of particular importance.

Question 15

Operant Conditioning

Answer 15

Learning paradigm proposed by B. F. Skinner in which the consequences of a behavior determine whether a behavior is repeated.

Question 16

Reinforcement

Answer 16

Consequence that increases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated in the future.

Question 17

Punishment

Answer 17

A consequence that decreases the likelihood of the behavior that it follows.

Question 18

Imitation or Observational Learning

Answer 18

Learning that occurs by simply watching how others behave.

Question 19

Self-Efficacy

Answer 19

People’s beliefs about their own abilities and talents.

Question 20

Information-Processing Theory

Answer 20

Theory proposing that human cognition consists of mental hardware and mental software.

Question 21

Ecological Theory

Answer 21

Theory based on idea that human development is inseparable from the environmental contexts in which a person develops.

Question 22

Microsystem

Answer 22

The people and objects in an individual’s immediate environment.

Question 23

Mesosystem

Answer 23

Provides connections across microsystems.

Question 24

Exosystem

Answer 24

Social settings that a person may not experience firsthand but that still influence development.

Question 25

Macrosystem

Answer 25

The cultures and subcultures in which the microsystem, mesosystem, and exosystem are embedded.

Question 26

Competence

Answer 26

Upper limit of a person’s ability to function in five domains: physical health, sensory-perceptual skills, motor skills, cognitive skills, and ego strength

Question 27

Environmental Press

Answer 27

Physical, interpersonal, or social demands that environments put on people.

Question 28

Life-Span Perspective

Answer 28

View that human development is multiply determined and cannot be understood within the scope of a single framework.

Question 29

selective optimization with compensation (SOC) model

Answer 29

Model in which three processes (selection, optimization, and compensation) form a system of behavioral action that generates and regulates development and aging.

Question 30

life-course perspective

Answer 30

Description of how various generations experience the biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces of development in their respective historical contexts

Question 31

systematic observation

Answer 31

Watching people and carefully recording what they do or say.

Question 32

naturalistic observation

Answer 32

Technique in which people are observed as they behave spontaneously in a real-life situation.

Question 33

structured observations

Answer 33

Technique in which a researcher creates a setting that is likely to elicit the behavior of interest.

Question 34

self-reports

Answer 34

People’s answers to questions about the topic of interest.

Question 35

reliability

Answer 35

The extent to which a measure provides a consistent index of a characteristic.

Question 36

validity

Answer 36

Extent to which a measure actually assesses what researchers think it does.

Question 37

populations

Answer 37

Broad groups of people that are of interest to researchers.

Question 38

sample

Answer 38

A subset of the population

Question 39

correlational study

Answer 39

Investigation looking at relations between variables as they exist naturally in the world.

Question 40

correlation coefficient

Answer 40

An expression of the strength and direction of a relation between two variables.

Question 41

experiment

Answer 41

A systematic way of manipulating the key factor(s) that the investigator thinks causes a particular behavior.

Question 42

independent variable

Answer 42

The factor being manipulated in an experiment.

Question 43

dependent variable

Answer 43

The behavior being observed in an experiment.

Question 44

qualitative research

Answer 44

Method that involves gaining in-depth understanding of human behavior and what governs it.

Question 45

longitudinal study

Answer 45

A research design in which the same individuals are observed or tested repeatedly at different points in their lives.

Question 46

cross-sectional study

Answer 46

Study in which developmental differences are identified by testing people of different ages.

Question 47

cohort effects

Answer 47

Problem with cross-sectional designs in which differences between age groups (cohorts) may result as much from environmental events as from developmental processes.

Question 48

sequential design

Answer 48

Developmental research design based on cross-sectional and longitudinal designs

Question 49

meta-analysis

Answer 49

A tool that enables researchers to synthesize the results of many studies to estimate relations between variables.