Developmental Psychology

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developmental psychology

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Study of how behaviour changes over the life span.

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post hoc fallacy

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False assumption that because one event occurs before another event, it must have caused that event.

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cross-sectional design

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research design that examines people at different ages at a singe point in time

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cohort effect

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effect observed in a sample of participants that results from individuals in the sample growing up at the same time.

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longitudinal design

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research design that examines development in the same group of people on multiple occasions over time.

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gene-environment interaction

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situation in which the effects of genes depend on the environment in which they are expressed.

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nature via nurture

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tendancy of individuals with certain genetic genetic predispositions to seek out and create environments that permit the expression of those predispositions.

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cognitive development

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Study of how children acquire the ability to learn, think, reason, communicate and remember.

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assimilation

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Piagetian process of absorbing new experiences into current knowledge structures.

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accommodation

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Piagetian process of altering a belief to make it more compatible wit experience.

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sensorimotor stage

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stage in Piaget's theory characterised by a focus on the here and now without the ability to represent experiences mentally.

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object permanence

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the understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of view.

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preoperational stage

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Stage in Piaget's theory characterised by the ability to construct mental representations of experience, but not yet perform operations on them.

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egocentrism

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inability to see the world from other's perspectives.

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conservation

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Piagetian task requiring children to understand that despite a transformation in the physical presentation of an amount, the amount remains the same.

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concrete operations stage

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stage in Piaget's theory characterised by the ability to perform mental operations on physical events only.

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formal operations stage

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stage in Piaget's theory characterised by the ability to perform hypothetical reasoning beyond the here and now.

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scaffolding

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Vygotskian learning mechanism in which parents provide initial assistance in children's learning but gradually remove structure as children become more competent.

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zone of proximal development

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phase of learning during which children can benefit from instruction.

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theory of mind

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ability to reason about what other people know or believe.