Chapter 13: Development Over The Life Span

Front 1

Developmental psychologist

Back 1

Study physiological and cognitive changes across the lifespan and how these are affected by a person's genetic predisposition's, culture, circumstances, and experiences.

Front 2

Socialization

Back 2

The process by which children learn the behaviors, attitudes, and expectations required of them by their society or culture.

Front 3

Maturation

Back 3

The sequential unfolding of genetically influence behavior and physical characteristics.

Front 4

Zygote

Back 4

When the male sperm unites with the female ovum to form a single celled egg.

Front 5

Embryo

Back 5

The inner portion of the zygote.

Front 6

Fetus

Back 6

What the embryo is called after eight weeks; it now begins to further develop organs and systems that existed in rudimentary form in the embryonic stage.

Front 7

Fetal alcohol syndrome

Back 7

What a baby can be diagnosed with if the mother drank during pregnancy; is associated with low birth weight, smaller brain, facial deformations, lack of coordination, and mental retardation.

Front 8

Motor reflexes

Back 8

Automatic behaviors that are necessary for survival.

Front 9

Contact comfort

Back 9

In primates, the innate pleasure derived from close physical contact; it is the basis of the infants first attachment.

Front 10

Separation anxiety

Back 10

The distress that most children develop, at about 6 to 8 months of age, when their primary caregivers temporarily leave them with strangers.

Front 11

Strange situation

Back 11

An experiment designed to study the nature of attachment between mothers and babies. They move the baby into several different rooms, some with mom in it and some just with toys and take note of different reactions.

Front 12

Secure, avoidant, anxious- ambivalent attachment

Back 12

Securely-they cried or protested when the mother left the room. They welcomed her back and then played happily again.

Avoidant-not caring if the mother left the room, making little effort to seek contact with her on her return.

Anxious or ambivalent-resisting contact with the mother at reunion but protesting loudly if she left.

Front 13

Language

Back 13

A system that combines meaningless elements such as sounds or gestures to form structured utterances that convey meaning.

Front 14

Noam Chomsky

Back 14

A linguist who argued that language was far too complex to be learned bit by bit.

Front 15

Universal grammar

Back 15

An innate mental module that allows young children to develop language if they are exposed to an adequate sampling of conversation.

Front 16

Computer neural networks

Back 16

A computer program that adjusted the connections among hypothetical neurons in response to incoming data, such as repetition of a word and it's past tense form.

Front 17

Parentese

Back 17

When adults talk to infants by speaking baby talk.

Front 18

Telegraphic speech

Back 18

A child's first word combinations, which omit unnecessary words.

Front 19

Jean Piaget

Back 19

A Swiss psychologist who proposed that children's cognitive abilities unfold naturally, like the blooming of a flower, almost independent of what else is happening in their lives.

Front 20

Assimilation

Back 20

Pairing previous knowledge with new information and putting it into mental categories.

Front 21

Accommodation

Back 21

Changing mental categories to understand a new experience.

Front 22

Sensorimotor stage

Back 22

Age 2, when the infant learns through concrete actions.

Front 23

Object permanence

Back 23

The understanding, which develops throughout the first year, that an object continues to exist even when you cannot see it or touch it.

Front 24

Preoperational stage

Back 24

Ages 2 to 7, the child use of symbols in language accelerates; they still lack the cognitive abilities necessary for understanding abstract principles however.

Front 25

Egocentric thinking

Back 25

When a child cannot take another persons point of view because all they can think of is their own.

Front 26

Conservation

Back 26

The understanding that the physical properties of objects, such as the number of items in a cluster or the amount of liquid and a glass, can remain the same even when their form or appearance changes.

Front 27

Concrete operations stage

Back 27

Ages 7 to 12, children increasingly become able to take other peoples perspective and they make fewer logical errors.

Front 28

Formal operations stage

Back 28

Beginning at about age 12 or 13 and continuing into adulthood, when people become capable of abstract reasoning and think about future possibilities.

Front 29

Theory of mind

Back 29

A system of believes about the way one's own mind and the minds of others work, and of how individuals are affected by their beliefs and feelings.

Front 30

Lev Vygotsky

Back 30

A Russian psychologist who believed that children develop mental representations of the world through culture, language, and the environment, and that adults play a major role in this process by guiding their children.

Front 31

Power assertion

Back 31

A method of child rearing in which the parent uses punishment and authority to correct the child to misbehavior.

Front 32

Induction

Back 32

A method of child rearing in which the parent appeals to the child's own abilities, sense of responsibility, and feelings for others in correcting the child misbehavior.

Front 33

Delay of gratification

Back 33

Learning to gain benefits later than the moment they are in.

Front 34

Gender identity

Back 34

The fundamental sense of being male or female; it is independent of whether the person conforms to the social and cultural rules of gender.

Front 35

Gender typing

Back 35

The process by which children learn the abilities, interest, and behaviors associated with being masculine or feminine in their culture.

Front 36

Intersex conditions (hermaphroditism)

Back 36

Conditions in which chromosomal or hormonal anomalies cause a child to be born with ambiguous genitals, or genitals that conflict with the infants chromosomes.

Front 37

Transgender

Back 37

A term describing a broad category of people who do not fit comfortably into the usual categories of male and female, masculine and feminine.

Front 38

Transsexual

Back 38

Describing people who are not intersexed yet who feel they are a male in a female body or vice versa.

Front 39

Gender schema

Back 39

A cognitive schema or mental network of knowledge, beliefs, metaphors, and expectations about what it means to be male or female.

Front 40

Adrenarche

Back 40

A time in middle childhood when the adrenal gland's begin producing the adrenal hormone DHEA and other hormones that affect cognitive and social development.

Front 41

Puberty

Back 41

The age at which a person becomes capable of sexual reproduction.

Front 42

Menarche

Back 42

The onset of menstruation during puberty.

Front 43

Secondary sex characteristics

Back 43

Deepened voice and facial and chest hair in boys and pubic hair in both sexes.

Front 44

Erik Erikson

Back 44

A psychoanalyst that said that all individuals go through eight stages in their life; each stage is characterized by what he called a crisis.

Front 45

Identity crisis

Back 45

What is considered to be the primary conflict of adolescence; when they must decide who they are, what they are going to do, and what they hope to make of their lives.

Front 46

Emerging adulthood

Back 46

Between ages of 18 and 25 when young people are in college and at least partly dependent financially on their parents.

Front 47

Menopause

Back 47

The cessation of menstruation and of the production of ova; it is usually a gradual process lasting up to several years.

Front 48

Gerontologists

Back 48

Researchers who study aging and the old, have been investigating the likely consequences of a massive demographic that the Census Bureau projects that there may be as many as 19 million people 85 years of age or older in 2050.

Front 49

Fluid intelligence

Back 49

The capacity for deductive reasoning and the ability to use new information to solve problems; it is relatively independent of education intends to decline in old age.

Front 50

Crystallized intelligence

Back 50

Cognitive skills and specific knowledge of information acquired over a lifetime; it is heavily dependent on education and tends to remain stable over the lifetime.