Ap Psychology Chapter Nine

Front 1

Critical period

Back 1

A period of special sensitivity to specific types of learning that shapes the capacity for future development

Front 2

Cross-Sectional method

Back 2

Measures individuals of various ages at one point in time and gives information about age differences

Front 3

Longitudinal method

Back 3

Measures a single individual or group of individuals over an extended period and gives information about age changes

Front 4

Maturation

Back 4

Development governed by automatic, genetically predetermined signals

Front 5

Ageism

Back 5

Prejudice or discrimination based on physical age

Front 6

Embryonic period

Back 6

Second stage of prenatal development, which begins after uterine implantation and lasts through the eighth week

Front 7

Fetal alcohol syndrome

Back 7

Combination of birth defects, including organ deformities and mental, motor, and/or growth retardation, that results from maternal alcohol abuse

Front 8

Fetal period

Back 8

Third, and final, stage of prenatal development (eight weeks to birth), which is characterized by rapid weight gain in the fetus and the fine detailing of bodily organs and systems

Front 9

Germinal period

Back 9

First stage of prenatal development, which begins with conception and ends with implantation in the uterus (the first two weeks)

Front 10

Puberty

Back 10

Biological changes during adolescence that lead to an adult-sized body and sexual maturity

Front 11

Teratogen

Back 11

Environmental agent that causes damage during prenatal development; the term comes from the Greek word teras, meaning "malformation"

Front 12

Accommodation

Back 12

In Piaget's theory, adjusting old schemas or developing new ones to better fit with new information

Front 13

Assimilation

Back 13

In Piaget's theory, absorbing new information into existing schemas

Front 14

Concrete operational stage

Back 14

Piaget's third stage (roughly age 7 to 11); the child can perform mental operations on concrete objects and understand reversibility and conservation, but abstract thinking is not yet present

Front 15

Conservation

Back 15

Understanding that certain physical characteristics (such as volume) remain unchanged, even when their outward appearance changes

Front 16

Egocentrism

Back 16

The inability to consider another's point of view, which Piaget considered a hallmark of the preoperational stage

Front 17

Formal operational stage

Back 17

Piaget's fourth stage (around age 11 and beyond), characterized by abstract and hypothetical thinking

Front 18

Object permanence

Back 18

Piagetian term for an infant's understanding that objects (or people) continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched directly

Front 19

Preoperational stage

Back 19

Piaget's second stage (roughly age 2 to 7), characterized by the ability to employ significant language and to think symbolically, but the child lacks operations (reversible mental processes), and thinking is egocentric and animistic

Front 20

Schema

Back 20

Cognitive structures or patterns consisting of a number of organized ideas that grow and differentiate with experience

Front 21

Sensorimotor stage

Back 21

Piaget's first stage (birth to approximately 2 years of age), in which schemas are developed through sensory and motor activities

Front 22

Attachment

Back 22

Strong affectional bond with special others that endures over time

Front 23

Imprinting

Back 23

Innate form of learning within a critical period that involves attachment to the first large moving object seen