Developmental Psych Flashcards
Age Graded Influences
Events that are strongly related to age and therefore fairly predictable in when they occur and how long they last
History Graded Influences
Explain why people born around the same time, called cohort, tend to be alike in ways that set them apart from people born at other times
Non-Normative Influences
Events that are irregular, happen to just one person or a few people and do not follow a predictable timetable
Sensitive Period
A time that is optimal for certain capacities to emerge and in which the individual is especially responsive to environmental influences
Normative Approach
Measures of behavior are taken on large numbers of individuals, and age-related averages are computed to represent typical development
Psychoanalytic Perspective
People move through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations. How these conflicts are resolved determines the person’s ability to learn, to get along with others, and to cope with anxiety
Psychosexual Theory
Emphasizes that how parents manage their child’s sexual and aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for healthy personality development
Psychosocial Theory
Erikson emphasized that in addition to mediating between id impulses and superego demands, the ego makes a positive contribution to development, acquiring attitudes and skills that make the individual an active, contributing member of society
Behaviorism
Directly observable events, stimuli are responses, are the appropriate focus of study
Social Learning Theory
Devised by Albert Bandura, emphasizes modeling as a powerful source of development
Behavior Modification
Consists of procedures that combine conditioning and modeling to eliminate undesirable behaviors and increase desirable responses
Cognitive-Developmental Theory
Children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
Brings together researchers from psych, biology, neuroscience, and medicine to study the relationship between changes in the brain and the developing person’s cognitive processing and behavior patterns
Sociocultural Theory
Focuses on how culture, the values, beliefs, customs, and skills of a social group are transmitted to the next generation. According to Vygotsky, social interaction in particular cooperative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society is necessary for children to acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up a community’s culture
Ecological Systems Theory
Views the person as developing within a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment
Ethology
Is concerned with the adaptive, or survival, value of behavior and its evolutionary history
Microsystem
The innermost level of the environment, consists of activities and interaction patterns in the person’s immediate surroundings
Mesosytem
Encompasses connections between Microsystems
Exosystem
Consists of social settings that do not contain the developing person but nevertheless affect experiences in immediate settings
Macrosystem
Consists of cultural values, laws, customs, and resources
Prenatal
Conception to birth
Infancy and toddlerhood
Birth to 2 years
Early childhood
2-6 years
Middle childhood
6-11 years
Adolescence
11-18 years
Early adulthood
18-40
Middle adulthood
40-65
Late adulthood
65-death
