Cumulative Flashcards
Activity
Staying busy with physical, mental, and social
Adaptive Logic
Logic learned through experience; the interaction between abstract, objective forms of problem solving that are related to the context of the problem
Adolescence
The transitional stage between childhood and adulthood
Ageism
An attitude towards old age characterized by fear and avoidance
Age of viability
The age at which the baby has a possibility of surviving outside the womb, usually around 6 or 7 months
Affiliation
Meaningful social interaction
Alzheimer’s Disease
A common form of dementia
Amniotic Sac
The sac of liquid within the uterus that protects the developing baby
Awareness of Self
As pertains to memory, the ability to be aware of one’s own memory abilities
Awareness of Strategies
As pertains to memory, developing strategies to help remember things
Biological Clock
The awareness that time is running out (physically) for some activities
Blastula
The hollow sphere of cells that forms several days after conception
Centration
Being able to only focus on one aspect of a thing at a time
Cephalocaudal
The path of physical development in infants with the quickest development being at the head and then more slowly at the feet
Childbearing
The human act of reproducing
Chorion
The protective outer sac that develops from tissue surrounding the embryo
Classification
The ability to group things according to similarities
Cleavage
The division of the zygote into multiple cells
Critical period
In fetal development, the time when a certain limb or organ is in danger from a teratogen
Climacteric
A period of life in which a great change takes place
Cognitive
The combination of perceptual, intellectual, and language abilities
Cognitive Maturity
The maturity gained through life experience
Concrete
The inability to think in abstractions
Conservation Experiments
Piaget’s experiments that observe the aspects of preoperational thought
Conservation of Liquids
The realization that the amount of liquid doesn’t change when it is poured into a container of a different shape
Conservation of Mass
The realization that the mass of an object doesn’t change when the shape changes
Conservation of Number
The realization that the number of objects doesn’t change, even when the objects are spread further apart
Crystallized Intelligence
The accumulation of facts, information, and learning strategies over time
Decentering
The ability to think of things outside of just one perspective
Deferred Imitation
Imitating a behavior, but not right away
Dementia
A condition characterized by forgetfulness, a limited ability to understand abstractions, repeating statements, thinking slowly, lacking ideas, and having difficulty paying attention
Despair
A hopeless feeling of not having time to rectify the things you should have done better in your life
Dialectical Thought
The thinking that integrates belief and experience, holds them up to faith or commitments, and deciding one can live with them all
Diffusion
A lack of decision or avoidance of decision-making
Dizygotic twins
Simultaneously born offspring who develop from two separate ova and sperm
Early maturing
An adolescent who reaches adult size and physical proportions earlier than most of his peers
Ectoderm
The outer layer of the embryo’s cells which forms the skin and nervous system
Egocentricity
A self-centered view of the world: viewing everything in relationship to oneself
Embryo
The baby from about two to eight weeks after conception
Empty nest syndrome
A term for the feelings of loss that accompany a home from which all of the children have grown up and left
Endoderm
The inner layer of the embryo’s cells, which becomes the digestive system, lungs, and glands
Estrogen
The hormone, produced mostly by the ovaries, that is capable of developing and maintaining the female secondary sex characteristics
Fallopian tubes
Two passages that connect the ovaries to the uterus
Fetal alcohol syndrome
Abnormalities resulting from the mother’s consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. These include low birth weight, certain facial anomalies, and possible intellectual disability.
Fetus
The unborn baby during the final stage of development, from the beginning of the third month until birth.
Five to seven shift
The time, usually between ages five and seven, when preoperational children shift into high gear cognitively
Fitting strategies to tasks
Choosing a strategy that will work best on various memory or learning tasks
Foreclosure
A commitment made without going through a decision-making period
Formal operational thought
Piaget’s cognitive stage in which a person can speculate, hypothesize, and fantasize on a much larger and deeper scale than do children
Full object permanence
Knowing that objects still exist, even when they cannot be seen
Generativity
The need to achieve and be productive
Generativity vs Stagnation
Erikson’s stage of middle adulthood in which the person needs to feel productive
Germinal period
The period immediately following conception and lasting through implantation
Grandparenting
Investing in the next generation of one’s family
Group inclusion
The ability to group things into more than one category
Growth spurt
A period of rapid growth
Homeostasis
The body’s ability to maintain balance or equilibrium
Identity
In cognitive development, the knowledge that a thing is always that thing and its content remains the same even if it changes shape
Identity crisis
A time when a person makes choices and then decides whether to stick with them or try something new
Identity vs. Role Confusion
Erikson’s stage in which a person needs to understand and accept his own uniqueness, as well as place in society
Implantation
The process whereby the blastula burrows into the uterine lining
Individuation process
The process of separating your identity from that of your parents
Industry vs. Inferiority
Erikson’s stage in which children work to figure out what they are “best” at
Initiative vs. Guilt
Erikson’s stage when children are starting to explore the world and discover themselves. They show initiative in exploring, but may feel guilt when the exploration is squelched
Innate
Inborn trait
Integrity
A feeling of satisfaction about what you have done in your life
Integrity vs. Despair
Erikson’s stage when older adults take stock of their lives; if they feel good about it, they experience integrity, if not they feel despair
Intimacy vs. Isolation
Erikson’s stage in which young adults choose either to establish an intimate relationship with someone or experience aloneness
IQ tests
Tests designed to measure intelligence (Intelligence Quotient)
Lanugo
Downy hair that covers babies in the womb and falls off shortly before or after birth
Late maturing
An adolescent who reaches adult size and physical proportions later than most of his peers
Learning
The process of acquiring knowledge
Logic
The ability to see problems as changing and consisting of many interrelated factors
Long-term memory
Can hold information indefinitely
Maturation
The natural process of what a brain can learn and when
Memory control processes
A process that helps a person remember things
Menarche
The “period” for a female
Menopause
The time when a woman’s menstrual cycle stops
Mental Imagery
Imagining things that need to be memorized or accomplished
Mesoderm
The middle layer of the embryo’s cells, which develops into muscle, blood, and excretory system
Metacognition
The process of monitoring one’s own thinking, memory, knowledge, goals, and activities
Middle Adulthood
The years from forty to sixty
Midlife Crisis
A panicky series of behaviors that a middle-ager uses to escape stagnation
Monozygotic twins
Two offspring who began development as a single zygote, which split into two zygotes during cleavage
Moral realism
The view that rules and laws are real and can never be changed
Moral relativism
The view that morals, rules, and laws are agreements and can be changed if necessary
Moratorium
A period when teens try on several “hats” to decide on their identity
Motherese
A special language used to communicate with infants
Motor skills
The ability to control movements of various parts of the body
Myelination
The process of myelin coat formation on the neurons. Myelin is a fatty substance that helps neural signals move more quickly and efficiently. Myelination occurs from birth through adolescence.
Myelin sheath
The sheath around neurons that aids in transmission of neural signals
Negative Identity
Choosing the opposite of what one’s parents value
Neonate
The newborn baby
Norms
The behavior and attitudes which are considered acceptable by a society
Object Permanence
The realization that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen
Organization
As related to memory, the process of categorizing things in order to remember
Overregulation of rules
Applying rules to a greater extent than they should be
Palmar grasp
Picking up objects using the middle of the palm and the middle fingers
Pincer grasp
Picking up objects using the thumb and the forefinger
Placenta
The organ formed within the womb during pregnancy to nourish the baby and remove its wastes
Postformal Thought
The changes in the thinking processes that occur after reaching formal operational thought
Prenatal
The entire time of the baby’s development from conception through birth
Preoperational Stage
The ability to think about something that is not present and to use something else to represent the absent thing
Pretending
Mimicking something that has been seen or experienced, using a symbolic object
Primary Sexual Characteristics
The development of the sex organs such that they have the ability to reproduce
Proximodistal
The pattern of growth that is center-outward
Puberty
The period of physical growth that ends childhood and brings the young person into adult size, shape, and sexual potential
Radial Grasp
Picking up objects using the index finger and the side of the palm
Reciprocity
Changes in one dimension will have an effect on another dimension
Reflexes
An automatic response, such as eye blinks or knee jerks when tapped
Rehearsal
As related to memory, the process of saying things over and over again in order to remember
Representation
Thinking about something with the imagination
Retrieval
As related to memory, the ability to retrieve information
Reversibility
The idea that some things can change and then return to their original form
Rite of Passage
An event or ritual that marks the move from one stage of life to another stage
Schema
The methods a person uses to think and interact with the environment
Scientific Reasoning
The ability to hypothesize general laws based on observation and logic
Scripts
A strategy used to remember steps in events
Secondary Sexual Characteristics
The outward appearance of characteristics specific to a gender
Selective Attention
The ability to concentrate and screen out distractions
Self-image
How a person views himself
Semantic elaboration
The ability to make inferences
Sensory Register
The information picked up by the senses
Sensorimotor stage
Piaget’s periods of typical cognitive behavior
Seration
To group things in a series, such as from smallest to largest
Short-term memory
Stores information for about a minute
Socialization
The process of learning the norms and values of a society
Stagnation
The feeling of uselessness and failure
Surfactant
The fatty substance that helps the lungs inflate after a baby’s birth
Symbolic thought
Thinking about things using symbols
Synchrony
The ability to watch a child’s facial expressions and respond accordingly
Teratogen
A toxic agent which causes abnormalities or birth defects
Testosterone
The hormone, secreted by the testes, that stimulates the development of male secondary sex characteristics and sperm
The game of thinking
According to Flavell, the ability to stop immediate judgments and think playfully and widely before answering a problem
Toddler
A baby who is walking unassisted, but is still wobbly
Trimester
The three divisions (first through third month; fourth through sixth month; seventh till birth) of fetal development
Type A personality
A personality style in which the person is high-strung, always moving and eating rapidly, talks in machine-gun bursts or explosively accents words when there is no need, feels impatient most of the time, frequently tries to do more than one thing at once, feels guilty relaxing, and has difficulty talking about things in which he is not interested
Ulnar grasp
Picking up objects using most of the hand, especially the palm and fourth and fifth fingers
Umbilical cord
The tubes of tissue connecting the placenta to the baby. These are blood vessels carrying food to the baby and waste products away from the baby
Uterus
The womb, the mother’s organ which provides the environment for the baby to develop
Values
The principles a person believes in
Vestibular System
The system that helps the body detect changes in gravity and in the position of the head
Young Adulthood
The time period between ages twenty and forty
Zygote
A fertilized ovum
