developing through the life span
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41 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Zygote | the fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo |
| Embryo | the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month |
| Fetus | the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth. |
| Teratogens | Agents, such as chemicals or viruses, that can reach the embryo and or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm |
| Fetal Alcohol Syndrome | physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases, symptoms include noticeable facial misproportions |
| Habituation | decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner |
| Maturation | biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience. |
| Cognition | all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating |
| Schema | a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information |
| Assimilation | interpreting one's new experience in terms of one's existing schemas |
| Accommodation | the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina |
| 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 impressions and motor activities |
| Object Permanence | the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived |
| Preoperational Stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to 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 |
| Formal Operational Stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts |
| Autism | a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient 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 |
| Attachment | an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation |
| 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 | central to the person's behavior, consists of a person's beliefs/feelings about himself at any given time |
| Adolescence | the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence |
| Puberty | the period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing |
| Primary sex characteristics | the body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible |
| Secondary sex characteristics | nonreproductive sexual characteristics, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair |
| Menarche | the first menstrual period |
| Identity | one's sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent's task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles |
| Social Identity | the "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships. |
| Intimacy | in Erikson's theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in late adolescence and early adulthood. |
| Emerging adulthood | For some people in modern cultures, a period from the late teens to early twenties, bridging the gap between adolescent dependence and full independence and responsible adulthood |
| Menopause | the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines |
| Cross-Sectional Stage | A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another. |
| Longitudinal Study | research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period |
| Crystallized intelligence | one's accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age. |
| Fluid intelligence | one's ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood |
| Social Clock | The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement. |
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