Chapter 4 Flashcards
Human Development
Accommodation
One of two ways of acquiring knowledge, defined by Piaget as the alteration of pre-existing mental frameworks to take new information.
Allele
Variation of a gene
Assimilation
The inclusion of new information or experiences into pre-existing schemes.
Attachment
A significant emotional connection to another person, such as a baby to a primary caregiver.
Cellular Clock Theory
Theory suggesting that we age because our cells have built-in limits on their ability to reproduce.
Cephalocaudal Pattern
A pattern in which growth and development proceed from top to bottom.
Chromosomes
Strands of DNA; each human has them distributed in pairs (XX or XY)
Codominance
What occurs when in a heterozygous combination of alleles, both traits are expressed in the offspring.
Cognitive Development
Changes in thinking that occur over he course of time.
Cohort-sequential design
Blended cross-sectional and longitudinal research, designed to look at two individuals from different age groups compare to one another and to follow them over time.
Concrete Operational Stage
3rd Piagetian stage during which children are able to talk about complex relationships, such as categorization and cause and effect, but are still limited to understanding ideas in terms of real-world relationships.
Conservation
The understanding that certain properties of an object (such as volume and number) remain the same despite changes in the object’s outward appearance.
Critical Periods
Point in development when an organism is extremely sensitive to environmental input, making it easier for the organism to acquire certain brain functions and behaviours.
Cross-sectional Design
A research approach that compares groups of different-aged people tp one another.
Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA)
Molecules in which genetic information is enclosed.
Developmental Psycology
The study of changes and behavior and mental processes over time and the factors that influence the course of those constancies and changes.
Discrete Trait
A trait that results as a product of a single gene pairing
Dominant trait
A trait that is expressed in a phenotype, no matter whether the genotype is homozygous or heterozygous for the trait.
Egocentrism
Flaws in children’s reasoning based on their inability to take another person’s perspective.
Epigenetic
Changes in gene expression that are independent of the DNA sequence of the gene.
Equilibrium
Balance in a mental framework.
Formal Operational Stage
4th and final Piaget stage of the cognitive development when children achieve hypothetical deductive reasoning and the ability to think abstractly.
Free-radical Theory
Theory suggesting we age because special negatively-charged oxygen molecules become more prevalent in our body as we get older, destabilizing cellular structures and causing the effects of aging.
Genes
Basic building blocks of biological inheritance.
