| developmental psychology | study of how behaviour changes over the lifespan |
| post hoc fallacy | false assumption that because one event occurred before another event, it must have caused that event |
| cohort effects | effect observed in a sample of participants that results from individuals in the sample growing up at the same time |
| cross-sectional design | research design that examines people of different ages at a single point in time |
| longitudinal design | research design that examines development in the same group of people on multiple occasions over time |
| attrition | participants dropping out of the study before it is completed |
| gene-environment interaction | situation in which the effects of genes depend on the environment in which they are expressed |
| nature via nurture | tendency of individuals with certain genetic predispositions to seek out and create environments that permit the expression of those predispositions |
| gene expression | activation or deactivation of genes by environmental experiences throughout development, nature affects how we react to nurture |
| zygote | fertilised egg |
| in how many stages unfolds prenatal physical developments of a zygote> | - germinal stage
- embryonic stage
- fetal stage |
| germinal stage | - the zygote divides and doubles, forming a blastocyst
- around the middle of week 2, the cells begin to differentiate |
| blastocyst | a ball of identical cells that have not yet begun to take on any specific function in a body part |
| embryonic stage | the blastocyst becomes an embryo |
| embryo | second to eighth week of prenatal development, during which limbs, facial features and major organs of the body take form |
| fetal stage | - major organs are established, the heart begins to beat
- the embryo becomes a foetus |
| foetus | period of prenatal development from ninth week until birth after all major organs are established and physical maturation is the primary change |
| what are obstacles to normal foetal development? | - hazardous environmental influences
- genetic disorders (or random errors in cell division)
- premature birth |
| teratogen | an environmental factor that can exert a negative impact on prenatal development |
| foetal alcohol syndrome | condition resulting from high levels of prenatal alcohol exposure, causing learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations and behavioural disorders |
| motor behaviours | bodily motion that occurs as a result of self-initiated force that moves the bones and muscles |
| adolescence | the transition between childhood and adulthood commonly associated with the teenage years |
| what helps the body mature to an adult body? | androgens (testosterone / oestrogens) |
| puberty (sexual maturation) | the achievement of sexual maturation resulting in the potential to reproduce |
| primary sex characteristics | a physical feature such as the reproductive organs and genitals that distinguish the sexes |
| secondary sex characteristics | a sex-differentiating characteristic that does not relate directly to reproduction, such as breast enlargement in women and deepening voices in men |
| menarche | start of menstruation |
| spermarche | boy's first ejaculation |
| physical changes in middle adulthood? | - decline in muscle tone and increase in body fat
- hearing decline
- sense of smell becomes less sensitive
- women see a decline in fertility and the menopause
- men see a decline in sperm production and testosterone levels, and maintaining an erection and achieving ejaculation becomes difficult |
| menopause | the termination of menstruation, marking the end of a woman's reproductive potential |
| changes in agility and physical coordination with age? | - individual and task-specific differences in the effects of aging on motor coordination
- complex tasks show greater effects of decline
- many changes can also be due to disease (of age) |
| cognitive development | study of how children acquire the ability to learn, think, reason, communicate and remember |
| cognitive theories differ in how many ways? | three |
| how do cognitive theories differ in three ways? | 1. stage-like changes in understanding (spurts of knowledge) vs. continuous changes in understanding (gradual incremental changes in understanding)
2. domain-general account of development vs. a domain-specific account of development
3. sources of learning: physical, biological, or social interaction |
| domain-general account of development | kids' cognitive skills affect almost all areas of cognitive function |
| domain-specific account of development | kids' cognitive skills develop indepedently |
| piaget's theory | piaget attempted to identify the stages that children pass through on their way to adult-like thinking and his biggest contribution was the realisation that children are not mini-adults |
| equilibration | maintaining a balance between their experience world knowledge and their understanding of it |
| assimilation | piagetian process of absorbing new experience into current knowledge structures |
| accomodation | piagetian process of altering a belief to make it more compatible with experience |
| what are piaget's stages of development? | 1. sensorimotor stage
2. pre-operational stage
3. concrete operational stage
4. formal operations stage |
| sensorimotor stage | stage in piaget's theory characterised by a focus on the here and now without the ability to represent experiences mentally |
| mental representation | milestone of sensorimotor stage in which children gain the ability to think about things that are absent from immediate surroundings |
| object permanence | the understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of view |
| deferred imitation | the ability to perform an action observed earlier |
| pre-operational stage | stage in piaget's theory characterised by the ability to construct mental representations of experience but not yet perform operations on them |
| egocentrism | inability to see the world from other's perspectives |
| conservation tasks | piaget task requiring children to understand that despite a transformation in the physical presentation of an amount, the amount remains the same |
| concrete operational stage | stage in piaget's theory characterised by the ability to perform mental operations on physical events only |
| formal operations stage | stage in piaget's theory characterised by the ability to perform hypothetical reasoning beyond the here and now |
| pros of piaget's theory? | - helped us understand how childish thinking turns into adult thinking |
| what have psychologists learned from piaget? | 1. children are different from adults
2. learning is active, rather than passive
3. cognitive processes may cut across multiple domains of knowledge |
| cons of piaget's theory? | - research proves that it is more continuous than stage-like
- developmental change is less domain-general
- he underestimated children's abilities
- culturally biased methodologies
- biased tests on his own children |
| vygotsky's theory | social and cultural influences on learning |
| scaffolding | vygotskian learning mechanism in which parents provide initial assistance in children's learning but gradually remove structure as children become more competent |
| zone of proximal development | vygotsky's most influential notion of a phase of learning during which children can benefit from instruction |
| general cognitive accounts | emphasise that general cognitive abilities are acquired rather than innate knowledge |
| socio-cultural accounts | emohasise that social context and interaction guide children's understanding of the world |
| modular accounts | emphasises the idea of domain-specific learning |
| when do infants show signs of object permanence? | 5 months old |
| at what age do the parietal and left temporal lobe junction let infants name and recognise themselves? | 2 years |
| theory of mind | ability to reason about what other people know or believe |
| stranger anxiety | a fear of strangers developing at 8/9 months, declines at 16 months |
| temperament | basic emotional style that appears early in development and is largely genetic in origin |
| behavioural inhibition | becoming frightened when seeing new stimuli |
| attachment | the strong emotional connection we share with those to whom we feel closest |
| imprinting | attaching to the first moving object one sees |
| contact comfort | positive emotions afforded by touch |
| strange situation | a laboratory procedure designed to evaluate attachment style by observing 1-year-old's reactions to being separated from and then reunited with their primary caregivers (moms) |
| average expectable environment | environment that provides children with basic needs for affection and discipline |
| identity | our sense of who we are, as well as our life goals and priorities |
| psychosocial crisis | dilemma concerning an individual's relation to other people |
| emerging adulthood | period of life between the ages of 18 and 25 when many aspects of emotional development, identity, and personality become solidified |
| role experimentation | trying one different hats in an effort to see which one fits best |
| how many stages of thinking in the heinz moral dilemma? | 1. pre-conventional morality
2. conventional morality
3. post-conventional morality |
| midlife crisis | supposed phase of adulthood characterised by emotional distress about the aging process and an attempt to regain youth |
| empty-nest syndrome | alleged period of depression in mothers following the departure of their grown children from the home |
| four ways to measure age other than chronological? | 1. biological
2. psychological
3. functional
4. social |
