| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Nature | Inherited, biological factors |
| Nurture | What the world provides as a factor |
| Developmental Psychology | a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span |
| Tabula Rasa | Belief that humans enter the world as a blank slate |
| Development | Maturation and the behavioral and mental processes that are due to learning |
| Predispositions | states favorable to something |
| Zygote | A cell formed by the union of an egg and sperm cell |
| Embryo | a developing human, from fertilization through the first 8 weeks of development (the 10th week of pregnancy). |
| Germinal Stage | The first 2 weeks of prenatal development. |
| Embryonic Stage | The period of human development from implantation through 8 weeks of gestation. Gastrulation, neurulation, and organogenesis occur during this time period. The developing baby is known as embryo during this time period. |
| Fetal Stage | The period of human development beginning at 8 weeks of gestation and lasting until birth (38-42 weeks of gestation). During this stage the organs formed in the embryonic stage grow and mature. The developing baby is known as a fetus during this time period. |
| Fetus | The developing baby after about the second month of pregnancy. |
| Placenta | the vascular structure in the uterus of most mammals providing oxygen and nutrients for and transferring wastes from the developing fetus |
| Teratogens | substances causing birth defects |
| Critical Period | the limited time shortly after birth during which an organism must be exposed to certain experiences or influences if it is to develop properly. |
| Fetal Alcohol Syndrome | a medical condition in which body deformation or facial development or mental ability of a fetus is impaired because the mother drank alcohol while pregnant |
| Size Constancy | Objects appearing as the same size despite changes in the size of their image on the eye's retina |
| Depth Perception | Our ability to perceive the distance of objects from us. |
| Reflexes | Swift, automatic movements that occur in response to external stimuli |
| Grasping Reflex | Causes infants to grip tightly onto fingers pressed into their hands |
| Rooting Reflex | Causes infant to turn its mouth towards a nipple (or anything else) that touches its cheek |
| Sucking Reflex | An infant automatically sucks an object placed in the infants mouth. Enables the infant to get nourishment. |
| Cognitive Development | Dramatic shifts in thinking, knowing, and remembering that occur between early infancy later childhood |
| Schemas | Generalizations based on experience that form the basic units of knowledge. |
| Assimilation | The process of trying out existing schemas on objects that fit those schemas. |
| Accommodation | The process of modifying schemas when familiar schemas do not work. |
| Sensorimotor Period | The first of Piaget?s stages of cognitive development, when the infant?s mental activity is confined to sensory perception and motor skills. |
| Mental Representations | In object-relations, an infants perception of important adults in its life. The theory is that these perceptions influence the development of personality throughout life. |
| Object Permanence | The knowledge that objects exist even when they are not in view. |
| Preoperational Period | According to Piaget, the second stage of cognitive development, during which children begin to use symbols to represent things that are not present. |
| Symbols | an object, act or event that conveys meanings to others |
| Animism | Attribution of soul to inanimate objects, seen in toddlers |
| Egocentrism | In Piaget's theory, the inability of the preoperational child to take another's pont of view. |
| Conservation | The ability to recognize that the important properties of a substance remain constant despite changes in shape, length, or position. |
| Reversibility | Physical changes of matter being able to be reversed easily |
| Complementarity | Taller:Narrower Shorter:Wider |
| Concrete Operationsren's thinking is no lo | According to Piaget, the third stage of cognitive development, during which children's thinking is no longer dominated by visual appearances. |
| Formal Operational Period | According to Piaget, the fourth stage in cognitive development, usually beginning around age eleven, when abstract thinking first appears. |
| Information Processing Approach | psychological theory that compares the human brain to a computer. It includes the idea that the brain has a very large capacity to store information in the long-term, but a more limited capacity for information which requires our attention |
| Implicit Memories | memories of skills, preferences, and dispositions. These memories are evidently processed, not by the hippocampus, but by a more primitive part of the brain, the cerebellum. They are also called procedural or nondedara-tive memories, (p. 266) |
| Scripts | mental representations of the way things occur in specific settings .rules expectations or traditions that describe how events should happen. |
| Bond | A social or emotional tie |
| Social Referencing | reading emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in a particular situation |
| Temperament | An individual's basic disposition, which is evident from infancy. |
| Easy Babies | Babies that get hungry and sleep at predictable times, react to new situations cheerfully, and seldom fuss. |
| Difficult Babies | Babies that are irregular and irritable |
| Slow-To-Warm Babies | Babies that react warily to new situations but eventually come to enjoy them |
| Attachment | A deep and enduring relationship with the person with whom a baby has shared many experiences. |
| Strange Situation | An observational measure of infant attachment that requires the infant to move through a series of introducions, separations, and reunions with the caregiver and an adult stranger in a prescribed order |
| Secure Attachment | Infants use the mother as a home base from which to explore when all is well, but seek physical comfort and consolation from her if frightened or threatened |
| Insecure Attachment | Infants are wary of exploring the environment and resist or avoid the mother when she attempts to offer comfort or consolation |
| Ambivalent Relationship | Greet their mothers when they return, but then act angry and reject the mothers' efforts at contact. |
| Avoidant Relationship | Avoiding or ignoring mothers when they return after their brief seperation |
| Disorganized Relationship | Behavior of child to mother is inconsistent, disturbed, and disturbing. |
| Socialization | Parents' attempt to channel childrens' impulses into socially accepted outlets and teach them the skills and rules needed to function in society. |
| Authoritarian Parents | Firm, punitive, and unsympathetic parents who value obedience from the child and authority for themselves. |
| Permissive Parents | Parents who give their child great freedom and lax discipline. |
| Authoritative Parents | Parents who reason with the child, encourage give-and-take, are firm but understanding. |
| Social Skills | Abilities that help to perform in a socially acceptable manner |
| Empathy | ability to identify with another's feelings |
| Self-Regulation | The ability to control one's emotions and behavior. |
| Gender Roles | Patterns of work, appearance, and behavior that a society associates with being male or female. |
| Gender Schemas | The generalizations children develop about what toys, activities, and occupations are ?appropriate? for males versus females. |
| Resilience | A quality allowing children to develop normally in spite of severe environmental risk factors. |
| Puberty | The condition of being able, for the first time, to reproduce. |
| Early Adolescence | age 11 to age 14 |
| Self-Esteem | one's feelings of high or low self-worth |
| Ethnic Identity | The part of a person?s identity associated with the racial, religious, or cultural group to which the person belongs. |
| Identity Crisis | A phase during which an adolescent attempts to develop an integrated self-image. |
| Preconventional Moral Reasoning | Reasoning that is not yet based on the conventions or rules that guide social interactions in society. |
| Conventional Moral Reasoning | Reasoning that reflects the belief that morality consists of following rules and conventions. |
| Postconventional Moral Reasoning | Reasoning that reflects moral judgments based on personal standards or universal principles of justice, equality, and respect for human life. |
| Early Adulthood | Age 20 to age 39 |
| Middle Adulthood | Age 40 to age 65 |
| Menopause | The process whereby a woman's reproductive capacity ceases. |
| Late Adulthood | Older than age 65 |
| Dialetical | Knowledge is relative, not absolute |
| Wisdom | the trait of utilizing knowledge and experience with common sense and insight |
| Episodic Memory | more personal, storyline, opinion based memories |
| Semantic Memory | your memory for meanings and general (impersonal) facts |
| Alzheimer's Disease | disease that results in the progressive loss of an individual's memory and mental capacity. |
| In Vitro Fertilization | The process of fertilization in a glass laboratory dish. |
| Midlife Transition | A point at around age forty when adults take stock of their lives. |
| Generativity | Adult concerns about producing or generating something. |
| Terminal Drop | A sharp decline in mental functioning that tends to occur in late adulthood, a few years or months before death. |
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