Unit 9 Developmental Psychology Flashcards
Teratogens
Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.
Habituation
Decreased responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants get familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they soon look away.
Schema
A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.
Assimilation
Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.
Accommodation
Adapting our current understanding (schemas) to incorporate new information.
Sensorimotor stage
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.
Object Permanence
The awareness that things continue to exist even when they are not perceived.
Preoperational Stage
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.
Conservation
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.
Egocentrism
In Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.
Theory of mind
People’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states– about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behavior these might predict.
Concrete operational stage
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.
Developmental psychology
A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.
Formal Operational Stage
In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about 12) during which people begin to think logicslly about abstract concepts.
Autism
A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficent communication, social interaction, and understanding of others’ states of mind.
Stranger Anxiety
The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.
Critical Period
An optimal period shortly after birth when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development.
Imprinting
The process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.
Basic Trust
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.
Self-concept
Our understanding and evaluation of who we are.
Role
A set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in thr position ought to behave.
Gender role
A set of expected behaviors for males or for females.
Gender Identity
Our sense of being male or female.
Gender Typing
The acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role.
