Chapter 4 Vocab part 1

Question 0

Zygote

Answer 0

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

Question 1

Developmental Psychology

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Embryo

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Fetus

Answer 3

The developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth

Question 4

Teratogens

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Rooting reflex

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Habituation

Answer 7

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 8

Maturation

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Jean Piaget

Answer 9

Best known for studying the cognitive development in children, using careful observation

Question 10

Schemas

Answer 10

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

Question 11

Assimilation

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Accommodation

Answer 12

Adapting one’s current understandings to incorporate new information

Question 13

Cognition

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Sensorimotor Stage

Answer 14

In Piaget’s theory, the stage during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities

Question 15

Object Permanence

Answer 15

The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

Question 16

Preoperational Stage

Answer 16

The stage during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic

Question 17

Conservation

Answer 17

The principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects

Question 18

Egocentrism

Answer 18

The preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view

Question 19

Theory of mind

Answer 19

Peoples ideas about their own and others’ mental states- about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behavior these might predict

Question 20

Autism

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Concrete operational stage

Answer 21

The stage of cognitive development during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events

Question 22

Formal operational stage

Answer 22

The stage of cognitive development during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts

Question 23

Harry Harlow

Answer 23

Studied attachment and nourishment with monkeys

Question 24

Stranger Anxiety

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Mary Ainsworth

Answer 25

Studied attachment differences by observing mother-infant pairs at home during their first 6 months

Question 26

Attachment

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Secure Attachement

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Insecure Attachement

Answer 28

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