Test 1

Question 1

What is the interactionist model?

Answer 1

The theory that development results from complex reciprocal interactions between multiple personal and environmental factors.

Question 2

What are norms?

Answer 2

Average ages at which developmental milestones are reached.

Question 3

What is culture?

Answer 3

Describes some system of meaning and customs, including values, attitudes, goals, laws, beliefs, etc…shared by some identifiable group and influences ideas about what normal development is.

Question 4

What is maturation?

Answer 4

Genetically programmed sequential patterns of change.

Question 5

What is developmental psychology?

Answer 5

Scientific study of age-related changes in our bodies, behaviour, thinking, emotions, social relationships, and personalities.

Question 6

What is ageism?

Answer 6

Prejudicial view of older adults characterizing them in negative ways.

Question 7

What is behaviourism?

Answer 7

The view that defines development in terms of behaviour changes caused by environmental influences.

Question 8

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 8

Learning to repeat or stop bahaviours because of their consequences.

Question 9

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 9

Learning that results from the association of stimuli.

Question 10

What is shaping?

Answer 10

The reinforcement of intermediate steps until an individual learns a complex behaviour.

Question 11

What is modelling (observational learning)?

Answer 11

Learning that results from seeing a model reinforced or punished for a behaviour.

Question 12

What are schemes?

Answer 12

In Piaget’s theory, an internal cognitive structure that provides an individual with a procedure to follow in a specific circumstance.

Question 13

What is assimilation?

Answer 13

The process of using schemes to make sense of events or experiences.

Question 14

What is accommodation?

Answer 14

Changing a scheme as a result of some new information.

Question 15

What are polygenic traits?

Answer 15

Traits that are influenced by many genes.

Question 16

What are teratogens?

Answer 16

Substances such as viruses and drugs that can cause birth defects.

Question 17

What is anoxia?

Answer 17

Oxygen deprivation experienced by a fetus during labour and/or delivery.

Question 18

What is meant by cephalocaudal development?

Answer 18

Growth that proceeds from the head downward.

Question 19

What is meant by proximodistal development?

Answer 19

Growth that proceeds from the middle of the body outward.

Question 20

What is a cohort?

Answer 20

A group of individuals who share the same historical experiences at the same times in their lives.

Question 21

What is a critical period?

Answer 21

A specific period in development when an organism is especially sensitive to the presence (or absence) of some particular kind of experience.

Question 22

What is a sensitive period?

Answer 22

A span of months or years during which a child may be particularly responsive to specific forms of experience or particularly influenced by their absence.

Question 23

What are the id/ego/superego?

Answer 23

Part of Freud’s theory. Id: The part of the personality that comprises a person’s basic sexual and aggressive impulses; it contains the libido and motivates a person to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
Ego: According to Freud, the thinking element of personality.
Superego: Term for the part of personality that is the moral judge.

Question 24

What is punishment?

Answer 24

Any immediate consequence that follows a behaviour and decreases the likelihood that the behaviour will be repeated.

Question 25

What is the difference between negative and positive reinforcement?

Answer 25

Negative: Taking away a condition (usually unpleasant) that follows a behaviour and increases the likelihood that the behaviour will be repeated. Positive: Adding a pleasant consequence that follows a behaviour and increases the chances that the behaviour will occur again.

Question 26

What is a placenta?

Answer 26

Specialized organ that allows substances to be transferred from mother to embryo and from embryo to mother without their blood mixing.

Question 27

What is a zygote?

Answer 27

A single cell created when sperm and ovum unite.

Question 28

What is repression?

Answer 28

Freud’s defense mechanism in which the person blocks from consciousness feelings or experiences that cause anxiety.

Question 29

Describe vulnerability and resiliency.

Answer 29

Each child is born with predetermined vulnerabilities and protective factors which interact with the child’s environment. The worst outcome is a vulnerable child in a poor environment. One or the other alone can be overcome.

Question 30

What is the nature-nurture controversy?

Answer 30

Debate about the relative contributions of biological processes and environmental factors.