Chapter 4: human development Flashcards
the Romanian Adoption Project to study the progress of adopted Romanian children in British Columbia
- The developmental problems encountered included a refusal to eat solid food, while other children did not seem to know when to stop eating as they had never been given more than they could eat at a single meal before.
- longer than usual to develop basic social skills
- indiscriminately friendly behaviour toward strangers
accommodation
one of two ways of acquiring knowledge, defined by Piaget as the alteration of pre-existing mental frameworks to take in new information.
allele
variation of a gene.
assimilation
one of two ways of acquiring knowledge, defined by Piaget as 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 being has 46 chromosomes, distributed in pairs.
codominance
in a heterozygous combination of alleles, both traits are expressed in the offspring.
cognitive development
changes in thinking that occur over the course of time.
cohort-sequential design
blended cross-sectional and longitudinal research, designed to look at how individuals from different age groups compare to one another and to follow them over time.
concrete operational stage
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 realization that physical properties don’t change even when the appearance does
critical periods
points 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 to one another.
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
molecules in which genetic information is enclosed.
developmental psychology
the study of changes in behaviour and mental processes over time and the factors that influence the course of those constancies and changes.
discrete trait
a trait that results as the 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.
formal operational stage
Piaget’s final stage of cognitive development; children become capable of reasoning and hypothetical thinking
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.
genotype
a person’s genetic inheritance.
habituation
the process of habituating, in which individuals pay less attention to a stimulus after it is presented to them over and over again.
heterozygous
having parents contribute two different alleles to offspring.
homozygous
having both parents contribute the same genetic material for a particular trait.