Midterm 1 Flashcards
(124 cards)
1
Q
What Stage of Piaget’s Theory is considered birth-2 yrs
A
Sensorimotor
2
Q
development
A
systematic continuities and changes in the individual over the course of life.
3
Q
developmental continuities
A
ways in which we remain stable over time or continue to reflect our past.
4
Q
developmental psychology
A
branch of psychology devoted to identifying and explaining the continuities and changes that individuals display over time.
5
Q
developmentalist
A
any scholar, regardless of discipline (e.g., psychologist, biologist, sociologist, anthropologist, educator), who seeks to understand the developmental process.
6
Q
maturation
A
developmental changes in the body or behaviour that result from the aging process rather than from learning, injury, illness, or some other life experience.
7
Q
learning
A
a relatively permanent change in behaviour (or behavioural potential) that results from one’s experiences or practice.
8
Q
normative development
A
developmental changes that characterize most or all members of a species; typical patterns of development.
9
Q
ideographic development
A
individual variations in the rate, extent, or direction of development.
10
Q
holistic perspective
A
unified view of the developmental process that emphasizes the important interrelationships among the physical, mental, social, and emotional aspects of human development.
11
Q
plasticity
A
capacity for change; a developmental state that has the potential to be shaped by experience.
12
Q
original sin
A
idea that children are inherently negative creatures who must be taught to rechannel their selfish interests into socially acceptable outlets.
13
Q
innate purity
A
idea that infants are born with an intuitive sense of right and wrong that is often misdirected by the demands and restrictions of society.
14
Q
tabula rasa
A
the idea that the mind of an infant is a “blank slate” and that all knowledge, abilities, behaviours, and motives are acquired through experience.
15
Q
baby biographies
A
a detailed record of an infant’s growth and development over a period of time.
16
Q
scientific method
A
the use of objective and replicable methods to gather data for the purpose of testing a theory or hypothesis. It dictates that, above all, investigators must be objective and must allow their data to decide the merits of their thinking.
17
Q
theory
A
a set of concepts and propositions designed to organize, describe, and explain an existing set of observations.
18
Q
hypotheses
A
a theoretical prediction about some aspect of experience.
19
Q
reliability
A
the extent to which a measuring instrument yields consistent results, both over time and across observers.
20
Q
validity
A
the extent to which a measuring instrument accurately reflects what the researchers intended to measure.
21
Q
structured interview or structured questionnaire
A
a technique in which all participants are asked the same questions in precisely the same order so that the responses of different participants can be compared.
22
Q
clinical method
A
a type of interview in which a participant’s response to each successive question (or problem) determines what the investigator will ask next.
23
Q
naturalistic observation
A
a method in which the scientist tests hypotheses by observing people as they engage in everyday activities in their natural habitats (e.g., at home, at school, or on the playground).
24
Q
correlational design
A
a type of research design that indicates the strength of associations among variables; though correlated variables are systematically related, these relationships are not necessarily causal.
25
correlation coefficient
numerical index, ranging from 21.00 to 11.00, of the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables.
26
experimental design
a research design in which the investigator introduces some change in the participant’s environment and then measures the effect of that change on the participant’s behaviour.
27
independent variable
the aspect of the environment that an experimenter modifies or manipulates in order to measure its impact on behaviour.
28
dependent variable
the aspect of behaviour that is measured in an experiment and assumed to be under the control of the independent variable.
29
confounding variable
some factor other than the independent variable that, if not controlled by the experimenter, could explain any differences across treatment conditions in participants’ performance on the dependent variable.
30
experimental control
steps taken by an experimenter to ensure that all extraneous factors that could influence the dependent variable are roughly equivalent in each experimental condition; these precautions must be taken before an experimenter can be reasonably certain that observed changes in the dependent variable were caused by manipulation of the independent variable.
31
random assignment
control technique in which participants are assigned to experimental conditions through an unbiased procedure so that the members of the groups are not systematically different from one another.
32
ecological validity
state of affairs in which the findings of one’s research are an accurate representation of processes that occur in the natural environment.
33
field experiment
an experiment that takes place in a naturalistic setting such as home, school, or playground.
34
natural (or quasi-) experiment
a study in which the investigator measures the impact of some naturally occurring event that is assumed to affect people’s lives.
35
cross-sectional design
a research design in which subjects from different age groups are studied at the same point in time.
36
cohort
a group of people of the same age who are exposed to similar cultural environments and historical events as they are growing up.
37
cohort effect
age-related difference among cohorts that is attributable to cultural/historical differences in cohorts’ growing-up experiences rather than to true developmental change.
38
longitudinal design
a research design in which one group of subjects is studied repeatedly over a period of months or years.
39
practice effects
changes in participants’ natural responses as a result of repeated testing.
40
selective attrition
nonrandom loss of participants during a study that results in a nonrepresentative sample.
41
nonrepresentative sample
a subgroup that differs in important ways from the larger group (or population) to which it belongs.
42
cross-generational problem
the fact that long-term changes in the environment may limit the conclusions of a longitudinal project to that generation of children who were growing up while the study was in progress.
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Sequential designs
a research design in which subjects from different age groups are studied repeatedly over a period of months or years
44
microgenetic studies
a research design in which participants are studied intensively over a short period of time as developmental changes occur; attempts to specify how or why those changes occur.
45
cross-cultural comparison
a study that compares the behaviour and/or development of people from different cultural or subcultural backgrounds.
46
informed consent
he right of research participants to receive an explanation in language they can understand, of all aspects of all aspects of research that may affect their willingness to participate.
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protected from harm
the right of research participants to be protected from physical or psychological harm.
48
minimal risk
term used when assessing risk in ethics reviews that refers to risks that are no greater than those one would encounter in daily life.
49
benefits-to-risks ratio
a comparison of the possible benefits of a study for advancing knowledge and optimizing life conditions versus its costs to participants in terms of inconvenience and possible harm.
50
parsimony
a criterion for evaluating the scientific merit of theories; a parsimonious theory is one that uses relatively few explanatory principles to explain a broad set of observations.
51
falsifiable
a criterion for evaluating the scientific merit of theories. A theory is falsifiable when it is capable of generating predictions that could be disconfirmed.
52
heuristic value
a criterion for evaluating the scientific merit of theories. A heuristic theory is one that continues to stimulate new research and discoveries.
53
psychosexual theory
Freud’s theory states maturation of the sex instinct underlies stages of personality development, and that the manner in which parents manage children’s instinctual impulses determines the traits that children display.
54
unconscious motives
Freud’s term for feelings, experiences, and conflicts that influence a person’s thinking and behaviour but lie outside the person’s awareness.
55
repressed
a type of motivated forgetting in which anxiety-provoking thoughts and conflicts are forced out of conscious awareness.
56
drives
an inborn biological force that motivates a particular response or class of responses.
57
id
psychoanalytic term for the inborn component of the personality that is compelled by the drives.
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ego
psychoanalytic term for the rational component of the personality.
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superego
psychoanalytic term for the component of personality that consists of one’s internalized moral standards.
60
fixate
arrested development at a particular psychosexual stage that can prevent movement to higher stages.
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psychosocial theory
Erikson’s revision of Freud’s theory, which emphasizes sociocultural (rather than sexual) determinants of development and posits a series of eight psychosocial conflicts that people must resolve successfully to display healthy psychological adjustments.
62
behaviourism
a school of thinking in psychology that holds that conclusions about human development should be based on controlled observations of overt behaviour rather than speculation about unconscious motives or other unobservable phenomena; the philosophical underpinning for the early theories of learning.
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habits
well-learned associations between stimuli and responses that represent the stable aspects of one’s personality.
64
reinforcer
any consequence of an act that increases the probability that the act will recur.
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punisher
any consequence of an act that suppresses that act and/or decreases the probability that it will recur.
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operant learning
a form of learning in which voluntary acts (or operants) become either more or less probable, depending on the consequences they produce.
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observational learning
learning that results from observing the behaviour of others.
68
cognitive development
age-related changes that occur in mental activities such as attending, perceiving, learning, thinking, and remembering.
69
scheme
an organized pattern of thought or action that a child constructs to make sense of some aspect of his or her experience; Piaget sometimes used the term cognitive structures as a synonym for schemes.
70
information-processing theory
a perspective that views the human mind as a continuously developing symbol-manipulating system, similar to a computer, into which information flows, is operated on, and is converted into output (answers, inferences, or solutions to problems).
71
assimilation
Piaget’s term for the process by which children interpret new experiences by incorporating them into their existing schemes.
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accommodation
Piaget’s term for the process by which children modify their existing schemes in order to incorporate or adapt to new experiences.
73
disequilibriums
imbalances or contradictions between an individual’s thought processes and environmental events. On the other hand, equilibrium refers to a balanced, harmonious relationship between an individual’s cognitive structures and the environment.
74
invariant developmental sequence
a series of developments that occur in one particular order because each development in the sequence is a prerequisite for the next.
75
sociocultural theory
Vygotsky’s perspective on cognitive development, in which children acquire their culture’s values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through collaborative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society.
76
zone of proximal development
Vygotsky’s term for the range of tasks that are too complex to be mastered alone but can be accomplished with guidance and encouragement from a more skillful partner.
77
ethology
the study of the bioevolutionary bases of behaviour and development.
78
natural selection
an evolutionary process, proposed by Charles Darwin, stating that individuals with characteristics that promote adaptation to the environment will survive, reproduce, and pass these adaptive characteristics to offspring; those lacking these adaptive characteristics will eventually die out.
79
sensitive period
period of time that is optimal for the development of particular capacities or behaviours and in which the individual is particularly sensitive to environmental influences that would foster these attributes.
80
evolutionary theory
the study of the bioevolutionary basis of behaviour and development, with a focus on survival of the genes.
81
ecological systems theory
Bronfenbrenner’s model emphasizing that the developing person is embedded in a series of environmental systems that interact with one another and with the person to influence development.
82
microsystem
the immediate settings (including role relationships and activities) that the person actually encounters; the innermost of Bronfenbrenner’s environmental layers or contexts.
83
mesosystem
the interconnections among an individual’s immediate settings or microsystems; the second of Bronfenbrenner’s environmental layers or contexts.
84
exosystem
social systems that children and adolescents do not directly experience but that may nonetheless influence their development; the third of Bronfenbrenner’s environmental layers or contexts.
85
macrosystem
the larger cultural or subcultural context in which development occurs; Bronfenbrenner’s outermost environmental layer or context.
86
chronosystem
in ecological systems theory, changes in the individual or the environment that occur over time and influence the direction development takes.
87
nature/nurture issue
the debate among developmental theorists about the relative importance of biological predispositions (nature) and environmental influences (nurture) as determinants of human development.
88
continuity/discontinuity issue
a debate among theorists about whether developmental changes are quantitative and continuous, or qualitative and discontinuous (i.e., stagelike).
89
positional stability
stability of an individual’s relative position in a group of people with regard to a psychological characteristic.
90
absolute stability
no change in a person’s attribute over the course of development.
91
Quantitative changes
ncremental change in degree without sudden transformations; for example, some view the small yearly increases in height and weight that 2- to 11-year-olds display as quantitative developmental changes.
92
Qualitative changes
a change in kind that makes individuals fundamentally different than they were before; the transformation of a prelinguistic infant into a language user is viewed by many as a qualitative change in communication skills.
93
developmental stage
distinct phase within a larger sequence of development; a period characterized by a particular set of abilities, motives, behaviours, or emotions that occur together and form a coherent pattern.
94
holistic nature of development
awareness that development is a holistic process even when being studied as a segmented, separate process.
95
mechanistic model
view of children as passive entities whose developmental paths are primarily determined by external (environmental) influences.
96
organismic model
view of children as active entities whose developmental paths are primarily determined by forces from within themselves.
97
contextual model
view of children as active entities whose developmental paths represent a continuous, dynamic interplay between internal forces (nature) and external influences (nurture).
98
developmental systems view
view that the developmental process results from continuing interactions between biological, psychological, and social factors.
99
genotype
genetic endowment that an individual inherits.
100
phenotype
the ways in which a person’s genotype is expressed in observable or measurable characteristics.
101
epigenetics
dynamic operation that changes a gene without altering the DNA sequence
102
conception
the moment of fertilization, when a sperm penetrates an ovum, forming a zygote.
103
chromosomes
a threadlike structure of DNA that is made up of genes; in humans there are 46 chromosomes (23 pairs) in the nucleus of each body cell.
104
genes
hereditary instruction(s) for development that are transmitted from generation to generation.
105
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
long, double-stranded molecules that make up chromosomes.
106
base pairs
complementary bases found on opposing sides or rungs of the double helix.
107
mitosis
the process in which a cell duplicates its chromosomes and then divides into two genetically identical daughter cells.
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chromatid
an original or a duplicate of a chromosome.
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gonads
sexual organs that produce germ cells; testes in males and ovaries in females.
110
meiosis
the process in which a germ cell divides, producing gametes (sperm or ova) that each contain half of the parent cell’s original complement of chromosomes; in humans, the products of meiosis contain 23 chromosomes.
111
crossing-over
a process in which genetic material is exchanged between maternal and paternal homologues during meiosis.
112
homologue
an equivalent chromosome that is inherited from a mother and a father; in humans, we have 22 homologues and one X-Y pair.
113
independent assortment
the principle stating that each maternal and paternal pair of chromosomes independently segregates from all other chromosome pairs during meiosis.
114
gamete
germ cells; sperm in males, ova in females.
115
monozygotic (or identical) twins
twins who develop from a single zygote that later divides to form two genetically identical individuals.
116
dizygotic (or fraternal) twins
twins that result when a mother releases two ova at roughly the same time and each is fertilized by a different sperm, producing two zygotes that are genetically different.
117
autosomes
the 22 pairs of human chromosomes that are identical in males and females.
118
X chromosome
the longer of the two sex chromosomes; most females have two X chromosomes, whereas most males have but one.
119
Y chromosome
the shorter of the two sex chromosomes; most males have one Y chromosome, whereas most females have none.
120
genome
the complete set of our genes; the Human Genome Project sought to map and understand all the genes of human beings.
121
alleles
alternative forms of a gene at a particular site on a chromosome.
122
simple dominant-recessive inheritance
a pattern of inheritance in which one allele dominates another so that only the dominant phenotype is expressed.
123
dominant allele
a gene that is expressed phenotypically and masks the effect of a less powerful gene.
124
recessive allele
a less powerful gene that is not expressed phenotypically when paired with a dominant allele.
