Chapter 4 - Developmental Psychology

Question 1

Developmental Psychology

Answer 1

a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.

Question 2

Zygote

Answer 2

The fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo.

Question 3

Embryo

Answer 3

The developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month.

Question 4

Fetus

Answer 4

The developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth.

Question 5

Teratogens

Answer 5

Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

Question 6

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)

Answer 6

Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking. In severe cases, symptoms include noticeable facial misproportions.

Question 7

Rooting Reflex

Answer 7

A baby’s tendency, when touched on the cheek to turn toward the touch, open the mouth, and search for the nipple.

Question 8

Habituation

Answer 8

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.

Question 9

Maturation

Answer 9

Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.

Question 10

Jean Piaget

Answer 10

Revolutionized our understanding of children’s minds. Until Piaget, most people–forgetting their own preschool days–assumed children ‘simply knew less, not differently, than adults.’ Thanks partly to his work, we now understand that ‘children reason in wildly illogical ways about problems whose solutions are self-evident to adults’.

Question 11

Schema

Answer 11

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Question 12

Assimilation

Answer 12

Interpreting one’s new experience in terms of one’s existing schemas.

Question 13

Accommodation

Answer 13

Adapting one’s current understanding (schemas) to incorporate new information.

Question 14

Cognition

Answer 14

All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Question 15

Sensorimotor Stage

Answer 15

In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.

Question 16

Object Permanence

Answer 16

The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.

Question 17

Preoperational Stage

Answer 17

In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.

Question 18

Conservation

Answer 18

The principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects.

Question 19

Egocentrism

Answer 19

in Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.

Question 20

Theory of Mind

Answer 20

People’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states–about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behavior these might predict.

Question 21

Autism

Answer 21

A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others’ states of mind.

Question 22

Concrete Operational Stage

Answer 22

In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.

Question 23

Formal Operational Stage

Answer 23

In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning at age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.

Question 24

Stranger Anxiety

Answer 24

The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.

Question 25

Attachment

Answer 25

An emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation.

Question 26

Harry Harlow

Answer 26

Showed that infants bond with surrogate mothers because of bodily contact and not because of nourishment.

Question 27

Mary Ainsworth

Answer 27

Studied attachment differences by observing mother-infant pairs at home during their first 6 months. Later, she observes the 1-year-old in a strange situation without their mothers. (secure attachment/insecure attachment)

Question 28

Secure Attachment

Answer 28

Children play and explore comfortably in the mother’s presence, are distressed when she leaves, and seek contact when she returns.

Question 29

Insecure Attachment

Answer 29

Children explore less in the mother’s pretense and may cling to her, cry loudly when she leaves, and remain upset or act indifferent when she returns.

Question 30

Critical Period

Answer 30

An optimal period shortly after birth when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development.

Question 31

Imprinting

Answer 31

The process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.

Question 32

Basic Trust

Answer 32

according to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers.

Question 33

Self-concept

Answer 33

A sense of one’s identity and personal worth.

Question 34

Adolescence

Answer 34

The transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence.

Question 35

Puberty

Answer 35

The period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing.

Question 36

Primary Sex Traits

Answer 36

The body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible.

Question 37

Secondary Sex Traits

Answer 37

Nonreproductive sexual characteristics such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality and body hair.

Question 38

Lawrence Kohlberg

Answer 38

Sought to describe the development of moral reasoning, the thinking that occurs as we consider right and wrong. Kohlberg posted moral dilemmas (for example: whether a person should steal medicine to save a love one’s life) and asked children, adolescents and adults if the action was right or wrong. He then analyzed their answers for evidence of stages of moral thinking.

Question 39

Preconventional Morality

Answer 39

Before age 9, most children have a pre conventional morality of self-interest: They obey either to avoid punishment or to gain concrete rewards.

Question 40

Conventional Morality

Answer 40

By early adolescence, morality usually evolves to a more conventional level that cares for others and upholds laws and social rules simply because they are the laws and rules.

Question 41

Postconventional Morality

Answer 41

Some of those who develop the abstract reasoning of formal operational thought may come to a third level. Post conventional morality affirms people’s agreed-upon rights or follows what one personality perceives as basic ethical principles.

Question 42

Menarche

Answer 42

The first menstrual period.

Question 43

Erik Erikson

Answer 43

Theorist that contended that each stage of life has its own psychosocial task, a crisis that needs resolution.

Question 44

Identity

Answer 44

One’s sense of self; according to Erickson, the adolescent’s task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles.

Question 45

Intimacy

Answer 45

In Erickson’s theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in late adolescence and early adulthood.

Question 46

Menopause

Answer 46

The time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences her ability to reproduce declines

Question 47

Alzheimer’s Disease

Answer 47

A progressive and irreversible brain disorder characterized by gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language and finally, physical functioning.

Question 48

Cross-Sectional Study

Answer 48

A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another.

Question 49

Longitudinal Study

Answer 49

Research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period.

Question 50

Crystallized Intelligence

Answer 50

One’s accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Question 51

Fluid Intelligence

Answer 51

One’s ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood.

Question 52

Social Clock

Answer 52

The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.