Chapter 5a Flashcards
A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.
Developmental Psychology
The fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo.
Zygote
The developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month.
Embryo
The developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth.
Fetus
Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, than can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.
teratogens
Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking. In severe cases, signs include a small, out-of-proportion head and abnormal facial features.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.
Habituation
Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.
Maturation
A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.
Schema
Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.
assimilation
In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from birth to nearly 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.
Sensorimotor Stage
The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.
Object Permanence
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.
Preoperational Stage
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.
conservation
In Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.
Egocentrism
People’s ideas about their own and other’s mental states - about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict.
Theory of Mind
In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.
Concrete operational stage
In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.
Formal Operational stage
In Vygotsky’s theory, a framework that offers children temporary support as they develop higher levels of thinking.
Scaffold
A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by significant deficiencies in communication and social interaction, and by rigidly fixated interests and repetitive behaviors.
Autism Spectrum Disorder
The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.
Stranger Anxiety
An emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to their caregiver and showing distress on separation.
Attachment
An optimal period early in the life of the organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development.
Critical Period
The process by which certain animals form strong attachments during early life.
Imprinting
