Modules 13-16 (Lecture 5) Flashcards
Developmental Psychology
A branch of Psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social development throughout the lifespan
Cross-sectional Study
Research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time.
Longitudinal Study
Research that follow and retests the same people over time.
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 and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)
Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking. In severe cases, signs include a small out-of-proportion head and abnormal facial features.
Habituation
Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a 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 our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas
Accommodation
Adapting our current understandings to incorporate new information.
Sensorimotor stage
In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from birth to nearly 2 years) at which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities. (1)
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) at which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic. (2)
Conservation
The principle (which Piaget believed to be part of operation reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite the changes in the forms of objects.
Egocentrism
In Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view
Concrete Operational Stage
In Piaget’s theory; the stage of cognitive development (from about 7 to 11 years) at which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events. (3)
Formal Operational Stage
In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about 12) at which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts. (4)
Scaffold
In Vygotsky’s theory, a framework that offers children temporary support as they develop higher levels of thinking.
Theory of Mind
People’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states–about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict.
Stranger Anxiety
The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.
