Test 1 Flashcards
What is the interactionist model?
The theory that development results from complex reciprocal interactions between multiple personal and environmental factors.
What are norms?
Average ages at which developmental milestones are reached.
What is culture?
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.
What is maturation?
Genetically programmed sequential patterns of change.
What is developmental psychology?
Scientific study of age-related changes in our bodies, behaviour, thinking, emotions, social relationships, and personalities.
What is ageism?
Prejudicial view of older adults characterizing them in negative ways.
What is behaviourism?
The view that defines development in terms of behaviour changes caused by environmental influences.
What is operant conditioning?
Learning to repeat or stop bahaviours because of their consequences.
What is classical conditioning?
Learning that results from the association of stimuli.
What is shaping?
The reinforcement of intermediate steps until an individual learns a complex behaviour.
What is modelling (observational learning)?
Learning that results from seeing a model reinforced or punished for a behaviour.
What are schemes?
In Piaget’s theory, an internal cognitive structure that provides an individual with a procedure to follow in a specific circumstance.
What is assimilation?
The process of using schemes to make sense of events or experiences.
What is accommodation?
Changing a scheme as a result of some new information.
What are polygenic traits?
Traits that are influenced by many genes.
What are teratogens?
Substances such as viruses and drugs that can cause birth defects.
What is anoxia?
Oxygen deprivation experienced by a fetus during labour and/or delivery.
What is meant by cephalocaudal development?
Growth that proceeds from the head downward.
What is meant by proximodistal development?
Growth that proceeds from the middle of the body outward.
What is a cohort?
A group of individuals who share the same historical experiences at the same times in their lives.
What is a critical period?
A specific period in development when an organism is especially sensitive to the presence (or absence) of some particular kind of experience.
What is a sensitive period?
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.
What are the id/ego/superego?
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.
What is punishment?
Any immediate consequence that follows a behaviour and decreases the likelihood that the behaviour will be repeated.
What is the difference between negative and positive reinforcement?
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.
What is a placenta?
Specialized organ that allows substances to be transferred from mother to embryo and from embryo to mother without their blood mixing.
What is a zygote?
A single cell created when sperm and ovum unite.
What is repression?
Freud’s defense mechanism in which the person blocks from consciousness feelings or experiences that cause anxiety.
Describe vulnerability and resiliency.
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.
What is the nature-nurture controversy?
Debate about the relative contributions of biological processes and environmental factors.
