Lifespan Development: Chapter 1 Flashcards
Normative Age-Graded Influences
These are influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group.
Normative History-Graded Influences
Influences that are common to people of a particular generation because of historical circumstances.
Nonnormative Life Events
Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on an individual’s life.
Culture
The behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group that are passed on from generation to generation.
Cross-Cultural Studies
Comparison of one culture with one or more other cultures. These provide information about the degree to which development is similar, or universal, across cultures, and the degree to which it is culture-specific.
Ethnicity
A characteristic based on cultural heritage, nationality characteristics, race, religion, and language.
Socioeconomic Status
Refers to the grouping of people with similar occupational, educational, and economic characteristics.
Gender
The characteristics of people as males or females.
Social Policy
A national government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens.
Biological Processes
Changes in an individual’s physical nature.
Cognitive Processes
Changes in an individual’s thought, intelligence, and language.
Socioemotional Processes
Changes in an individual’s relationships with other people, emotions, and personality.
First Age
Childhood & adolescence.
Second Age
Prime adulthood, 20s through 50s.
Third Age
Approximately 60 to 79 years of age.
Fourth Age
Approximately 80 years and older.
Nature-Nurture Issue
Refers to the debate about whether development is primarily influenced by nature or nurture. Nature refers to an organism’s biological inheritance, nurture to its environmental experiences. The “nature proponents” claim biological inheritance is the most important influence on development; the “nurture proponents” claim that environmental experiences are the most important.
Stability-Change Issue
Involves the degree to which we become older renditions of our early experience (stability) or whether we develop into someone different from who we were at an earlier point in development (change).
Continuity-Discontinuity Issue
Focuses on the extent to which development involves gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).
Scientific Method
An approach that can be used to obtain accurate information. It includes these steps: (1) conceptualize the problem,
(2) collect data, (3) draw conclusions, and
(4) revise research conclusions and theory.
Theory
An interrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps to explain and make predictions.
Hypotheses
Specific assumptions and predictions that can be tested to determine their accuracy.
Psychoanalytic Theories
Describe development as primarily unconscious and heavily colored
by emotion. Behavior is merely a surface characteristic, and the symbolic workings of the mind have to be analyzed to understand behavior. Early experiences with parents are emphasized.
Erikson’s Theory
Includes eight stages of human development. Each stage consists of a unique developmental task that confronts individuals with a crisis that must be resolved.