Exam 3

Question 1

Concepts of puberty and adolescence

Answer 1

Puberty: period that was once considered late adolescence (from age 18 to adulthood); Now considered a separate period called emerging adulthood; Puberty: Time between the first onrush of hormones and full adult physical development; Usually lasting three to five years; Requires many more years are required to achieve psychosocial maturity.

Question 2

Physical changes and timing in puberty

Answer 2

Hormone: Organic chemical substance that is produced by one body tissue and conveyed via the bloodstream to another to affect some physiological function; Various hormones influence thoughts, urges, emotions, and behavior.

Question 3

Menarche

Answer 3

Girl’s first menstrual period, signaling that she has begun ovulation; pregnancy is biologically possible, but ovulation and menstruation are often irregular for years after menarche.

Question 4

HPA axis

Answer 4

Sequence of a chain reaction of hormone production, originating in the hypothalamus and moving to the pituitary and then to the adrenal glands.

Question 5

HPG axis

Answer 5

Sequence of hormone production that originates in the hypothalamus, moves to the pituitary, and then to the gonads.

Question 6

Testosterone

Answer 6

Sex hormone, the best known of the androgens (male hormones); secreted in far greater amounts by males than by females.

Question 7

Estradiol

Answer 7

Sex hormone, considered the chief estrogen; females produce more estradiol than males do.

Question 8

Circadian rhythm

Answer 8

Day–night cycle of biological activity occurs approximately every 24 hours (circadian means “about a day”); hormones of the HPA axis at puberty cause a phase delay in sleep–wake cycles; biology (circadian rhythms) and culture (parties and technology) work to make teenagers increasingly sleep-deprived with each year of high school.

Question 9

Primary sex characteristic

Answer 9

Parts of the body that are directly involved in reproduction, including the vagina, uterus, ovaries, testicles, and penis.

Question 10

Secondary sex characteristics

Answer 10

Physical traits that are not directly involved in reproduction but that indicate sexual maturity, such as a man’s beard and a woman’s breasts.

Question 11

Anorexia

Answer 11

Eating disorder characterized by severe calorie restriction and the fear of being fat; affected individuals voluntarily under eat, or over eat and then overexercise or purge, depriving their vital organs of nutrition; anorexia can be fatal.

Question 12

Bulimia

Answer 12

Eating disorder characterized by binge eating and subsequent purging, usually by induced vomiting and/or use of laxatives.

Question 13

Adolescent egocentrism

Answer 13

Characteristic of adolescent thinking that leads young people (ages 10 to 14) to focus on themselves to the exclusion of others.

Question 14

Personal fable

Answer 14

Aspect of adolescent egocentrism characterized by an adolescent’s belief that his or her thoughts, feelings, or experiences are unique, more wonderful or awful than anyone else’s.

Question 15

Invincibility fable

Answer 15

Adolescent’s egocentric conviction that he or she cannot be overcome or even harmed by anything that might defeat a normal mortal, such as unprotected sex, drug abuse, or high-speed driving.

Question 16

Imaginary audience

Answer 16

Other people who, in an adolescent’s egocentric belief, are watching and taking note of his or her appearance, ideas, and behavior. This belief makes many teenagers self-conscious.

Question 17

Formal operational thought

Answer 17

Fourth and final stage of cognitive development; characterized by more systematic logic and the ability to think about abstract ideas.

Question 18

Hypothetical reasoning

Answer 18

Reasoning that includes propositions and possibilities that may not reflect reality.

Question 19

Deductive reasoning

Answer 19

Reasoning from a general statement, premise, or principle, through logical steps, to figure out (deduce) specifics; sometimes called top-down reasoning.

Question 20

Intuitive thought

Answer 20

Reasoning from one or more specific experiences or facts to a general conclusion; may be less cognitively advanced than deduction; sometimes called bottom-up reasoning; notions that adolescents find it much easier and quicker to forget about logic and follow their impulses; thought that arises from an emotion or a hunch, beyond rational explanation, and is influenced by past experiences and cultural assumptions.

Question 21

Dual-process model

Answer 21

Notion that two networks exist within the human brain, one for emotional and one for analytical processing of stimuli.

Question 22

Analytic thought

Answer 22

Thought that results from analysis, such as a systematic ranking of pros and cons, risks and consequences, possibilities and facts; analytic thought depends on logic and rationality.

Question 23

Identity achievement

Answer 23

Erikson’s term for attainment of identity, or the point at which a person understands who he or she is as a unique individual, in accord with past experiences and future plans.

Question 24

Moratorium

Answer 24

An adolescent’s choice of a socially acceptable way to postpone making identity-achievement decisions. Going to college is a common example.

Question 25

Bickering

Answer 25

Petty, peevish arguing, usually repeated and outgoing.

Question 26

Parental monitoring

Answer 26

Parents’ ongoing awareness of what their children are doing, where, and with whom.

Question 27

Clique

Answer 27

Group of adolescents made up of close friends who are loyal to one another while excluding outsiders.

Question 28

Crowd

Answer 28

Larger group of adolescents who have something in common but who are not necessarily friends.

Question 29

Instructor’s views on adolescent “limit-seeking” behaviors

Answer 29

Adolescents have a tendency to engage in riskier and riskier behavior until an adult steps in to set a limit (which is what the adolescent wanted in the first place, even if they wont admit it or even know it).

Question 30

Deviancy training

Answer 30

Destructive peer support in which one person shows another how to rebel against authority or social norms.

Question 31

STIs

Answer 31

Sexually transmitted Infections. An infection spread by sexual contact (i.e. syphillis, gonorrhea, genital herpes, chlamydia, HIV).

Question 32

Suicidal ideation

Answer 32

Thinking about suicide, usually with some serious emotional and intellectual or cognitive overtones; adolescent suicidal ideation is common, completed suicides are not; adolescents are less likely to kill themselves than adults are.

Question 33

Parasuicide

Answer 33

Any potentially lethal action against the self that does not result in death; parasuicide is common, completed suicide is not.

Question 34

Life-course persistent offender

Answer 34

A person whose criminal activity typically begins in early adolescence and continues throughout life; a career criminal.

Question 35

Adolescent-limited offender

Answer 35

Person whose criminal activity stops by age 21.

Question 36

Postfromal thought

Answer 36

Proposed adult stage of cognitive development, following Piaget’s four stages; postformal thought goes beyond adolescent thinking by being more practical, more flexible, and more dialectical. Postformal thinkers use formal analysis to learn science, distill principles, develop arguments, and resolve the world’s problems; are less impulsive than adolescents;
do not wait for someone to present a problem to solve or for circumstances to require a reaction.

Question 37

Massification

Answer 37

Idea that establishing higher learning institutions and encouraging college enrollment could benefit everyone (the masses), leading to marked increases in the number of emerging adults in college.

Question 38

Holland’s codes and their relative order

Answer 38

Job Charts. Starts with

Question 39

Eridson’s 6th stage

Answer 39

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Question 40

Senescence

Answer 40

Gradual physical decline that is related to aging and during which the body becomes less strong and efficient.

Question 41

Organ reserve

Answer 41

Extra capacity built into each organ, such as the heart and lungs, and allows a person to cope with extraordinary demands or to withstand organ strain.

Question 42

Homeostasis

Answer 42

Adjustment of all the body’s systems to keep physiological functions in a state of equilibrium, moment by moment.

Question 43

Allostasis

Answer 43

Dynamic body adjustment, related to homeostasis, that over time affects overall physiology.

Question 44

Infertility

Answer 44

Infertility is most common in nations where medical care is scarce and STIs are common; United States: 15% of all couples are infertile, partly because many postpone childbearing; when couples in their 40s try to conceive, about half are infertile and the other half risk various complications.

Question 45

In vitro fertilization

Answer 45

A technique in which ova (egg cells) are surgically removed from a woman and fertilized with sperm in a laboratory; after the original fertilized cells (the zygotes) have divided several times, they are inserted into the woman’s uterus.

Question 46

Factors related to the aging brain

Answer 46

Poor circulation: Everything that protects the circulatory system (e.g., exercise, a healthy diet, and low blood pressure) also protects the brain; viruses: Some viruses and infections cross the blood-brain barrier and harm the brain (e.g., HIV and the prion that causes mad cow disease); Important: Past education, current intellectual activity, exercise, and overall health all promote brain function; Skin: Skin becomes dryer and rougher, Collagen decreases by about 1 percent every year after age skin becomes thinner and less flexible the cells just beneath the surface are more variable wrinkles appear, particularly around the eyes. Hair: Begins to turn grey and thin.

Question 47

Changes in vision and hearing over adulthood

Answer 47

Peripheral vision: Narrows faster than frontal vision; color vision: Shifts from vivid to faded more quickly than does black and white; Nearsightedness: Increases gradually beginning in one’s 20s; Farsightedness: Lens of the eye less elastic and cornea flattens by middle age; Hearing: rarely problematic before age 65; High-frequency sounds become less audible sooner.

Question 48

Menopause

Answer 48

Time in middle age (around age 50) when a woman’s menstrual periods cease completely and the production of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone drops considerably; menopause is dated to one year after a woman’s last menstrual period.

Question 49

Hormone replacement therapy

Answer 49

Treatment to compensate for hormone reduction at menopause or following surgical removal of the ovaries; such treatment, which usually involves estrogen and progesterone, minimizes menopausal symptoms and diminishes the risk of osteoporosis in later adulthood; HRT may involve health risks.

Question 50

Andropause

Answer 50

A term coined to signify a drop in testosterone levels in older men, which normally results in a reduction in sexual desire, erections, and muscle mass; Effectiveness of HRT are questionable.

Question 51

Stressor

Answer 51

Any situation, event, experience, or other stimulus that causes a person to feel stressed; Some stressors, such as serious illness or unexpected job loss, are major; Others are minor, but ongoing hassles, such as traffic on the daily commute or the added work of raising twins; Physiological reactions take a toll, and past stressors make it more likely that a new stressor will have an impact.

Question 52

Problem-focused coping

Answer 52

Strategy often used by younger adults to deal with stress in which they tackle a stressful issue directly.

Question 53

Emotion-focused coping

Answer 53

Strategy often used by older adults to deal with stress in which they change their feelings about the stressor rather than changing the stressor itself.

Question 54

General intelligence (g)

Answer 54

Construct based on the idea that intelligence is one basic trait that involves all cognitive abilities, which people possess in varying amounts; Cannot be measured directly but be inferred from various abilities (e.g. vocabulary, memory, and reasoning); Many scientists are trying to find one common factor (genes, early brain development, or some specific aspect of health) underlies IQ.

Question 55

Seattle longitudinal study

Answer 55

Cross-sequential study of adult intelligence; Schaie began this study in 1956; the most recent testing was conducted in 2005; 500 adults, aged 20 to 50, were tested on five primary mental abilities; New cohort was added and followed every 7 years. Measures include: Verbal meaning (comprehension), Spatial orientation, Inductive reasoning, Number ability, and Word fluency (rapid associations).

Question 56

Flynn effect

Answer 56

The rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the decades in many nations; It is unfair—and scientifically invalid—to compare IQ scores of a cross section of adults of various ages; Older adults will score lower, but that does not mean they have lost intellectual power.

Question 57

Fluid intelligence

Answer 57

Those types of basic intelligence that make learning of all sorts quick and thorough; Abilities such as working memory, abstract thought, and speed of thinking are usually considered aspects of fluid intelligence.

Question 58

Crystallized intelligence

Answer 58

Those types of intellectual ability that reflect accumulated learning; Vocabulary and general information are examples.

Question 59

Selective optimization with compensation

Answer 59

People try to maintain a balance in their lives by looking for the best way to compensate for physical and cognitive losses and to become more proficient in activities they can already do well (Paul and Margaret Baltes, 1990).

Question 60

Automatic processing

Answer 60

Thinking that occurs without deliberate, conscious thought. Experts process most tasks automatically, saving conscious thought for unfamiliar challenges.

Question 61

Expert and characteristics of expert thought

Answer 61

Experts are more skilled, proficient, and knowledgeable at a particular task than the average person, especially a novice (literally, “a new person”) who has not practiced that skill; Culture and context guide expertise; Experts do not necessarily have extraordinary intellectual ability. Expertise is intuitive: Experts rely on their past experiences and on immediate contexts and their actions are more intuitive and less stereotypic, Novices follow formal procedures and rules. Expertise is automatic: Experts process incoming information more quickly and analyze it more efficiently than non-experts; then they act in well-rehearsed ways that appear unconscious. Expertise is strategic: Experts have more and better strategies, especially when problems are unexpected. Expertise is flexible: Experts are creative and curious, deliberately experimenting and enjoying the challenge when things do not go according to plan.

Question 62

Analytic intelligence

Answer 62

Is valuable in high school and college, as students are expected to remember and analyze various ideas.

Question 63

Creative intelligence

Answer 63

Allows people to find a better match to their skills, values, or desires.

Question 64

Hypothetic thought

Answer 64

Reasoning that includes propositions and possibilities that may not reflect reality.

Question 65

Pituitary gland

Answer 65

Gland in the brain that responds to a signal from the hypothalamus by producing many hormones, including those that regulate growth and control other glands, among them the adrenal and sex glands.

Question 66

Adrenal glands

Answer 66

Two glands, located above the kidneys, that produce hormones (including the “stress hormones” epinephrine [adrenaline] and norepinephrine).