Psychology - Chapter 10: Developmental Psychology - important terms

Question 1

What is developmental psychology?

Answer 1

The study of how behaviour changes over the lifespan

Question 2

What is the post hoc fallacy?

Answer 2

False assumption that because one event occurred before another, it must have caused that event.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Question 3

What is a cross-sectional design?

Answer 3

Research design that examines people of different ages at a single point in time.

Question 4

What is a cohort effect?

Answer 4

Confound effect due to the fact that sets of people who lived during a certain time period, called cohorts, differ from other sets of people in a systematic way.

Question 5

What is a longitudinal design?

Answer 5

Research design that examines development in the same group of people on multiple occasions over time.

Question 6

What is a gene-environment interaction?

Answer 6

Situation in which the effects of genes depend on the environment in which they are expressed.

Question 7

What is nature via nurture?

Answer 7

Tendency of individuals with certain genetic predispositions to seek out and create environments that permit expression of those predispositions.

Question 8

What is gene expression?

Answer 8

Activation or deactivation of genes by environmental experiences through development.

Question 9

What is the prenatal period?

Answer 9

Period prior to birth.

Question 10

What is a blastocyst?

Answer 10

Ball of identical cells early in embryonic development (in pregnancy) that haven’t yet begun to take on any specific function in a body part.

Question 11

What is a zygote?

Answer 11

A fertilized egg

Question 12

What is the embryonic stage?

Answer 12

weeks: 2-9 of prenatal development

Limbs, facial features, and major organs of the body take form

Question 13

What is the fetal stage?

Answer 13

Period of prenatal development from ninth week until birth after all major organs are established and physical maturation is the primary change.

Question 14

What is a teratogen?

Answer 14

Environmental factor that can exert a negative impact on prenatal development.

Question 15

What is fetal alcohol spectrum disorder?

Answer 15

Condition resulting from high levels of prenatal alcohol exposure, causing learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavioural disorders.

Question 16

What are motor behaviours?

Answer 16

Bodily motion that occurs as a result of self-initiated force that moves the bones and muscles.

Question 17

What is adolescence?

Answer 17

The transition between childhood and adulthood commonly associated with the teenage years.

Question 18

What is puberty?

Answer 18

Also called sexual maturation.

Results in the potential to reproduce.

Question 19

What are primary sex characteristics?

Answer 19

Physical features, such as the reproductive organs and genetics, that distinguish the sexes

Question 20

What are secondary sex characteristics?

Answer 20

Sex-differentiating character that doesn’t relate directly to reproduction.
ex: breast enlargement, deepening of voices

Question 21

What is menarche?

Answer 21

Onset of menstruation

Question 22

What is spermache?

Answer 22

Boy’s first ejaculation

Question 23

What is menopause?

Answer 23

Termination of menstruation, signaling the end of a woman’s reproductive potential.
Stems in a decrease in estrogen

Question 24

What is the study of cognitive development?

Answer 24

Study of how children acquire the ability to think, learn, reason, communicate and remember.

Question 25

What is assimilation?

Answer 25

Piagetian process of absorbing new experiences into current knowledge structures/schemas.

Question 26

What is accomodation?

Answer 26

Piagetian process of altering a belief to make it more compatible with experience.
(i.e. alter current schema to better fit new information)

Question 27

What is the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 27

Stage in Piaget’s theory characterized by a focus on the here and now, without the ability to represent experiences mentally.
Birth - 2 years
Lack object permanence

Question 28

What is object permanence?

Answer 28

The understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of view.

Question 29

What is the preoperational stage?

Answer 29

Stage in Piaget’s theory characterized by the ability to construct mental representations of experience, but not yet able to perform operations on them.
2-7 years of age
Stage hampered by egocentrism

Question 30

What is egocentrism?

Answer 30

Inability to see the world from other’s perspective

Question 31

What are conservation tasks?

Answer 31

Piagetian task requiring children to understand that despite a transformation in the physical presentation of an amount, the amount stays the same

Question 32

What is the concrete operations stage?

Answer 32

Stage in Piaget’s theory characterized by the ability to perform mental operations on physical events only.
7-11 years of age

Question 33

What is the formal operations stage?

Answer 33

Stage in Piaget’s theory characterized by the ability to perform hypothetical reasoning beyond the here and now.

Question 34

What is scaffolding?

Answer 34

Vygotskian learning mechanism in which parents (or other care givers) provide initial assistance in children’s learning but gradually remove structure as children become more competent

Question 35

What is the zone of proximal development?

Answer 35

Phase of learning during which children can benefit from instruction.
- children are receptive to learning a new skill but aren’t yet successful at it

Question 36

What is the theory of mind?

Answer 36

Ability to reason about what other people know or believe.

ex: ability to understand that someone other than the child may now something, and vice versa

Question 37

What is stranger anxiety?

Answer 37

A fear of strangers developing at 8 or 9 months of age

Question 38

What is temperament?

Answer 38

Basic emotional style that appears early in development and is largely genetic in origin.

Question 39

What is attachment?

Answer 39

The strong emotional connection we share with those whom we feel closest.

Question 40

What is imprinting?

Answer 40

Phenomenon in which an animal, such as a goose, will follow around the first, large moving object they see

Question 41

What is contact comfort?

Answer 41

Positive emotions afforded by touch

Question 42

What is the average expectable environment?

Answer 42

An environment that provides children with the basic needs for affection and appropriate discipline

Question 43

What is self-control?

Answer 43

Ability to inhibit an impulse to act

Question 44

What is gender identity?

Answer 44

People’s sense of being male or female

Question 45

What is gender role?

Answer 45

A set of behaviours that tend to be associate with being male or female

Question 46

What is identity?

Answer 46

Our sense of who we are, and our life goals and priorities.

Question 47

What is emerging adulthood?

Answer 47

Period of life between the ages of 18 and 25 during which many aspects of emotional development, identity, and personality become solidified

Question 48

What is a midlife crisis?

Answer 48

Supposed phase of adulthood characterized by emotional distress about the aging process and an attempt to regain youth.

Question 49

What is empty nest syndrome?

Answer 49

Alleged period of depression in mothers following the departure of their grown children from home.