Life Span Development Chap 1 & 2

Front 1

What is the continuity–discontinuity issue?

Back 1

Focuses on the extent to which development involves gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).

Front 2

What is the nature–nurture issue?

Back 2

Refers to the debate about whether development is primarily influenced by what we are born with or what we experience from our environment as we grow.

Front 3

What does the tabula rasa view
discuss?

Back 3

The idea, proposed by John Locke, that children are like "blank tablets" on which their characteristics are drawn as they mature.

Front 4

What does the innate goodness view discuss?

Back 4

The idea, presented by Swiss-born philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that children are inherently good.

Front 5

What are cross-cultural studies?

Back 5

Comparisons of one culture with one or more other cultures

Front 6

Define context

Back 6

The setting in which development occurs. Development is influenced by historical, economic, social, and cultural factors

Front 7

What is the life-span perspective?

Back 7

The perspective that development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual, and involves growth, maintenance, and regulation.

Front 8

What are cognitive processes?

Back 8

Changes in an individual's thought, intelligence, and language.

Front 9

Define culture

Back 9

The behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group that are passed on from generation to generation.

Front 10

Define ethnicity

Back 10

characteristic based on cultural heritage, nationality, race, religion, and language.

Front 11

Define socioeconomic status (SES)

Back 11

The grouping of people with similar occupational, educational, and economic characteristics.

Front 12

What is gender?

Back 12

psychological and sociocultural dimensions of being female or male.

Front 13

What is the original sin view?

Back 13

Advocated during the Middle Ages, the belief that children were basically bad and born into the world as evil beings.

Front 14

What is development?

Back 14

The pattern of change that begins at conception and continues throughout the life span. Most development involves growth, although it also includes decline brought on by aging and dying.

Front 15

What is the traditional approach to development?

Back 15

extensive change from birth to adolescence, little or no change in adulthood and decline in old age

Front 16

What is the life-span approach to development?

Back 16

developmental change throughout adulthood as well as childhood

Front 17

Define plasticity

Back 17

the capacity for change

Front 18

What is the contextual view?

Back 18

regards individuals as changing beings in a changing world

Front 19

What are normative age-graded influences?

Back 19

biological and environmental influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group

Front 20

What are normative history-graded influences?

Back 20

influences common to people of a particular generation because of the historical circumstances they experience

Front 21

What are nonnormative life events?

Back 21

unusual occurences that have a major impact on the individual's life and are usually not applicable to many people

Front 22

What are Baltes three goals of human development?

Back 22

growth, maintenance and regulation

Front 23

Define social policy

Back 23

a national government's course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens

Front 24

What is generational inequity?

Back 24

a social policy concern in which an aging society is being unfair to its younger members

Front 25

Development is the product of which three processes?

Back 25

Biological, cognitive and socioemotional

Front 26

What are biological processes?

Back 26

changes in an individual's physical nature

Front 27

What are cognitive processes?

Back 27

changes in a individual's thought, intelligence, and language

Front 28

What are socioemotional processes?

Back 28

changes in an individual's relationships with other people, emotions and personality

Front 29

What are the 8 periods of development (most widely used)?

Back 29

1.prenatal period2.infancy 3.early childhood4.middle and late childhood5.adolescence 6.early adulthood 7.middle adulthood 8.late adulthood

Front 30

How is development lifelong?

Back 30

early adulthood is not the endpoint of development; no age period dominates development

Front 31

How is development multidimensional?

Back 31

it consists of biological, cognitive and socioemotional dimensions

Front 32

How is lifespan multidirectional?

Back 32

throughout life some dimensions or components of a dimension expand and others shrink. i.e. the capacity to learn a second language diminishes as one grows older, older ones are wiser but slower to process information

Front 33

How is development plastic?

Back 33

plasticity means the capacity for change

Front 34

How is development multidisciplinary?

Back 34

Psychologists, sociologists,anthropologists, neuroscientists, and medical researchers all study human development

Front 35

How is development contextual?

Back 35

the individual continually responds to and acts on contexts, which include biological makeup,physical environment,cognitve processes,historical, social and cultural contexts

Front 36

What is biological age?

Back 36

a person's age in terms of biological health

Front 37

What is chronological age?

Back 37

the number of years that have elapsed since birth

Front 38

What is psychological age?

Back 38

an individual's adaptive capacities compared with those of other individuals of the same chronological age

Front 39

What is social age?

Back 39

refers to social roles and expectations related to a person's age

Front 40

What is the stability-change issue?

Back 40

involves the degree to which we become older renditions of our early experience(stability) or whether we become something different(change)

Front 41

What are some contibutions of psychoanalytic theories?

Back 41

Early experiences important,family relationships,personality better understood developmentally,mind not all conscious,changes throughout life

Front 42

What are some criticisms of psychoanalytic theories?

Back 42

concepts difficult to test;much comes from reconstruction of past, sexual underpinnings;image too negative,culture and gender biased

Front 43

What did Piaget's theory state?

Back 43

that children actively construct their understanding of the world and go through 4 stages of cognitive development

Front 44

Explain the difference between assimilation and accomodation.

Back 44

Piaget. assimilation occurs when we incorporate new information into our existing knowledge. accomodation is when we adjust to new info

Front 45

What was Vygotsky's Sociocultural Cognitve Theory?

Back 45

believed children actively construct knowledge;gave social interaction and culture more roles in cog. dev.

Front 46

What are some contributions of the cognitve theories?

Back 46

present positive view of dev.;empasize ind. active contruction of understanding;importance of evaluating children

Front 47

What are some criticisms of the cognitive theories?

Back 47

skepticism about pureness of Piaget's stages;not enough attention to individual variations;information theory does not describe dev. changes in cognition,not enough credit to unconcious thought

Front 48

What was Pavlov's theory of classical conditioning?

Back 48

a neutral stimulus(ringing a bell) acquires the ability to produce a response originally produced by another stimulus(meat,food)

Front 49

What was Skinner's Operant Conditioning?

Back 49

the consequences of a behavior produce change in the probability of the behavior's occurence;reward/punishment

Front 50

What was Bandura's Social Cognitve theory?

Back 50

the view of emphasizing behavior, environment and cognition as key factors in development

Front 51

What are some contributions of the Behavioral and Social Cognitive theories?

Back 51

importance of scientific research;environmental determinants of behavior;observational learning(Bandura);person/cognitve factors

Front 52

What are some criticisms of the Behavioral and Social Cognitive theories?

Back 52

too little emphasis on cognition(Pavlov,Skinner);too much emphasis on environment;inadequate attn. to dev. changes;too mechanical

Front 53

What is the Ethological theory?

Back 53

stresses that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, is tied to evolution and is characterized by critical or sensitive periods

Front 54

What is imprinting?

Back 54

rapid, innate learning that involves attachment to the first moving object seen(lorenz)

Front 55

Who developed the theory of attachment?

Back 55

John Bowlby (1969,1989)

Front 56

What are some contributions of the ethological theory?

Back 56

increased focus on biological and evolutionary dev.;use of careful observations;emphasis on critical periods of development

Front 57

What are some criticisms of the ethological theory?

Back 57

concepts too rigid about critical and sensitive periods;inadequate attn. to cognition;better with animal research than humans

Front 58

What is the Ecological theory?

Back 58

Bronfenbrenner's environment system of development that focused on 5 systems:microsystem,mesosystem,exosystem,macrosystem,chronosystem

Front 59

What is the microsystem?

Back 59

The setting in which the individual lives;family;peers;school and neighborhood

Front 60

What is the mesosystem?

Back 60

relationships between microsysytems or connections between contexts; family-school;church-family

Front 61

What is the exosystem?

Back 61

when experiences in another social setting influence what the person experiences in the immediate context

Front 62

What is the macrosystem?

Back 62

The culture in which individuals live

Front 63

What is the chronosystem?

Back 63

The patterning of environmental events and transitions over the life course

Front 64

What are the contributions of the Ecological theory?

Back 64

systematic exam. of micro and macro environmental systems;attn to connections between setting(meso)attn to sociohistorical influences(chrono)

Front 65

What is eclectic theoretical orientation?

Back 65

does not follow any one approach-selects from each theory whatever is considered the best in it

Front 66

What is desciptive research?

Back 66

observing and recording behavior

Front 67

What is a standardized test?

Back 67

a test with uniform procedures for administration and scoring

Front 68

What are the criticisms of the Ecological theory?

Back 68

too little attn. to biological foundations of dev.;inadequate attn. to cognitive processes

Front 69

What is the sequential approach?

Back 69

combined cross-sectional and longitudinal

Front 70

What are cohort effects?

Back 70

due to a person's time of birth, era or generation (similar experiences)

Front 71

What is debriefing?

Back 71

after the study-informing participants of purpose and methods used