Unit 9 Developmental Psychology

Question 1

Teratogens

Answer 1

Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

Question 2

Habituation

Answer 2

Decreased responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants get familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they soon look away.

Question 3

Schema

Answer 3

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Question 4

Assimilation

Answer 4

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.

Question 5

Accommodation

Answer 5

Adapting our current understanding (schemas) to incorporate new information.

Question 6

Sensorimotor stage

Answer 6

In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressins and motor activities.

Question 7

Object Permanence

Answer 7

The awareness that things continue to exist even when they are not perceived.

Question 8

Preoperational Stage

Answer 8

In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from 2 to about 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.

Question 9

Conservation

Answer 9

The principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects.

Question 10

Egocentrism

Answer 10

In Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.

Question 11

Theory of mind

Answer 11

People’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states– about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behavior these might predict.

Question 12

Concrete operational stage

Answer 12

In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.

Question 13

Developmental psychology

Answer 13

A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.

Question 14

Formal Operational Stage

Answer 14

In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about 12) during which people begin to think logicslly about abstract concepts.

Question 15

Autism

Answer 15

A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficent communication, social interaction, and understanding of others’ states of mind.

Question 16

Stranger Anxiety

Answer 16

The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.

Question 17

Critical Period

Answer 17

An optimal period shortly after birth when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development.

Question 18

Imprinting

Answer 18

The process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.

Question 19

Basic Trust

Answer 19

According to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy, said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers.

Question 20

Self-concept

Answer 20

Our understanding and evaluation of who we are.

Question 21

Role

Answer 21

A set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in thr position ought to behave.

Question 22

Gender role

Answer 22

A set of expected behaviors for males or for females.

Question 23

Gender Identity

Answer 23

Our sense of being male or female.

Question 24

Gender Typing

Answer 24

The acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role.

Question 25

Social Learning Theory

Answer 25

The theory that we lewrn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished.

Question 26

Primary Sex Characteristics

Answer 26

The body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that makes sexual reproduction possible.

Question 27

Secondary Sex Characteristics

Answer 27

Nonreproductive sexual characteristics, such ss female brests and hips, male voice quality, and body hair.

Question 28

Intimacy

Answer 28

In Erikson’s theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in late adolescence and early adulthood.

Question 29

Emerging Adulthood

Answer 29

For some people in modern cultures, a period from the late teens to mid-twenties, bridging the gap between adolescent dependence and full indepenence and responsible adulthood.

Question 30

Cross-sectional Study

Answer 30

A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another.

Question 31

Longitudinal Study

Answer 31

Research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period.

Question 32

Crystallized intelligence

Answer 32

Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Question 33

Fluid Intelligence

Answer 33

Our ability to reason speediy and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood.

Question 34

Social Clock

Answer 34

The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, perenthood, and retirement.