Chapter 2 Flashcards
Hormones
Powerful chemicals secreted by the endocrine glands and carried through the body by the bloodstream.
Puberty
A period of rapid physical maturation involving hormonal and bodily changes that take place primarily in early adolescence.
Androgens
The main class of male sex hormones.
Estrogens
The main class of female sex hormones.
Adrenarche
Puberty phase involving hormonal changes in the adrenal glands, which are located just above the kidneys. These changes occur from about 6 to 9 years of age in girls and about one year later in boys, before what is generally considered the beginning of puberty.
Gonadarche
Puberty phase involving the maturation of primary sexual characteristics (ovaries in females, and testes in males) and secondary sexual characteristics (pubic hair, breast, and genital development). This period follows adrenarche by about two years and is what most people think of as puberty.
Menarche
A girl’s first menstrual period.
Spermarche
A boy’s first ejaculation of semen.
Precocious puberty
The very early onset and rapid progression of puberty.
Secular trends
Patterns of the onset of puberty over historical time, especially across generations.
Female athlete triad
A combination of disordered eating, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis that may develop in female adolescents and college students.
Adaptive behavior
A modification of behavior that promotes an organism’s survival in the natural habitat.
Evolutionary psychology
An approach that emphasizes the importance of adaptation, reproduction, and “survival of the fittest” in explaining behavior.
Chromosomes
Threadlike structures that contain deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.
DNA
A complex molecule that contains genetic information.
Genes
The units of hereditary information, which are short segments composed of DNA.
Genotype
A person’s genetic heritage; the actual genetic material.
Phenotype
The way am individual’s genotype is expressed in observed and measurable characteristics.
Behavior genetics
The field that seeks to discover the influence of heredity and environment on individual differences in human traits and development.
Twin study
A study in which the behavioral similarity of identical twins is compared with the behavioral of fraternal twins.
Adoption study
A study in which investigators seek to discover whether the behavior and psychological characteristics of adopted children are more like their adoptive parents, who have provided a home environment, or more like those of their biological parents, who have contributed their heredity. Another form of adoption study involves comparing adopted and biological siblings.
Passive genotype-environment correlations
Correlations that occur because biological parents, who are genetically related to the child, provide a rearing environment for the child.
Evocative genotype-environment correlations
Correlations that occur because an adolescent’s genetically shaped characteristics elicit certain types of physical and social environments.
Active (niche-picking) genotype-environment
Correlations that occur when children seek out environments that they find compatible and stimulating.
Shared environmental experienced
Siblings’ common experiences such as their parents’ personalities and intellectual orientation, the family’s socioeconomic status, and the neighborhood in which they live.
Nonshared environmental experiences
The adolescent’s own unique experiences, both within a family and outside the family, that are not shared by a sibling.
Epigenetic view
Belief that development is the result of an ongoing bidirectional interchange between heredity and environment.
Gene 3 environment (G 3 E) interaction
The interaction of a specific measured variation in the DNA and a specific measured aspect if the environment.
