Chapter 2 Flashcards
What is developmental psychology?
The study of how behaviour changes over the lifespan.
What is gene environment interaction?
Situation in which the effects of genes depend on the environment in which they are expressed.
What is nature via nurture?
Tendency of individuals with certain genetic predisposition’s to seek out and create environments that permit the expression of those predispositions.
What is gene expression?
Activation or deactivation of jeans by environmental experiences throughout development
What is epi-genetics?
Whether genes are active is regulated day by day and moment by moment environmental conditions.
What is cross-sectional design?
Research design that examines people of different ages of a single point in time
What is cohort effect?
Effect observed in a sample of participants that result from individuals in the sample growing up at the same time
What is longitudinal design?
Research design that examine development in the same group of people on multiple occasions over time.
Define prenatal.
Prior to birth.
What is a zygote?
A fertilized egg
What is a blastocyst?
Ball of identical cells early in pregnancy but haven’t yet begun to take on any specific function in a body part.
What is an embryo?
Second to 8th week of prenatal development during which limbs facial features and major organs of the body take form.
What is a fetus?
A period of prenatal development from ninth week until birth after all major organs are established and physical maturation is the primary change
What are the four ways fetal development can be disrupted?
Premature birth, low birth weight, exposure to hazardous environmental influences, biological influences resulting from genetic disorders or errors in cell duplication during cell division.
What is a teratogen?
An environmental factor that can exert a negative impact on prenatal development
What is fetal alcohol syndrome?
Condition resulting from high levels of prenatal alcohol exposure causing learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations and behavioural disorders.
What is a motor behavior?
bodily motion that occurs as a result of self initiated force that moves the bones and muscles
What is adolescence?
The transition between childhood and adulthood commonly associated with the teenage years
What is puberty?
The achievement of sexual maturation resulting in the potential to reproduce.
What is a primary sex characteristics?
A physical feature such as the reproductive organs and genitals that distinguish the sexes
What are secondary sex characteristics?
A sex differentiating characteristic that doesn’t relate directly to reproduction, such as breast enlargement in women and deepening voices in men
What is menarche?
Start of menstruation
What is spermarche?
Boys first ejaculation
What is menopause?
The termination of menstruation marking the end of a woman’s reproductive potential
What is cognitive development?
The study of how children acquire the ability to learn, think, reason, communicate and remember
Who is Jean Piaget?
The first person to present a comprehensive account of cognitive development. He attempted to identify the stages that children passed through on their way to adult like thinking his theory led to the formation of cognitive development as a distinct discipline.
His ideas rested on the assumption that children’s thinking was not just an immature form of adult thinking but was fundamentally different from that of adults
What is assimilation?
Piagetrian process of absorbing new experience into current knowledge structure.
What is accommodation?
Piagetian process of altering a belief to make it more compatible with experience
