Child Development Chapters 1-6

Cognitive development

Changes in the way children think, understand, and reason as they grow older.

Culture

The system of behaviors, norms, beliefs, and traditions that form to promote the survival of a group that lives in a particular environmental niche.

Developmental psychopathology

An approach that sees mental and behavioral problems as distortions of normal developmental processes rather than as illnesses.

Equifinality

The principle by which different developmental pathways may result in the same outcome.

Incremental theories

Theories in which development is a result of continuous quantitative changes.

Intersectionality

A theoretical framework that examines the effects of the overlap of social identities, such as race, gender, sexuality and socioeconomic status on development.

Multifinality

The principle by which the same pathways may lead to different developmental outcomes.

Nature

The influence of genetic inheritance on development.

Niche picking

The process by which people express their genetic tendencies by finding environments that match and enhance those tendencies.

Nuture

The influence of learning and the environment on children’s development.

Parental ethnotheories

The belief system that guides parents on the best practices for raising children in a given cultural context.

Peer review

A process by which professional peers critique research and make suggestions for improvement prior to its publication or dissemination.

Perceptual bias

The tendency to see and understand something in the way you expect it to be.

Physical development

Biological changes that occur in the body and brain, including changes in size and strength, integration of sensory and motor activities, and development of fine and gross motor skills.

Positive youth development

An approach to finding ways to help all young people reach their full potential.

Qualitative changes

Changes in the overall nature of what you are examining.

Quantitative changes

Changes in the amount or quantity of what you are measuring.

Social policy

Policies that are intended to promote the welfare of individuals in a society.

Social-emotional development

Changes in the ways we connect to other individuals, and express and understand emotions.

Socialization

The process of instilling the norms, attitudes, and beliefs of a culture in its children.

Socioeconomic status (SES)

A person’s social standing based on a combined measure of income, education, and occupation.

Stage theories

Theories of development in which each stage in life is seen as qualitatively different from the ones that come before and after.

Accommodation

Changing mental schemas so they fit new experiences.

Anal stage

Freud’s second stage during which toddlers’ sexual energy is focused on the anus.

Applied behavior analysis (ABA)

Application of operant conditioning techniques to change behavior of individuals with a range of difficulties, including autism spectrum disorder.

Assimilation

Fitting new experiences into existing mental schemas.

Behaviorism

The theory developed by John B. Watson that focuses on environmental control of observable behavior.

Chronosystem

In ecological systems theory, the dimension of time, including one’s age and the time in history in which one lives.

Classical conditioning

The process by which a stimulus (the unconditioned stimulus) that naturally evokes a certain response (the unconditioned response) is paired repeatedly with a neutral stimulus. Eventually the neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus and evokes the same response, now called the conditioned response.

Connectionist or neural network model

In this model the cognitive process is envisioned as a neural network that consists of concept nodes interconnected by links that process information simultaneously.

Constructivism

The idea that humans actively construct their understanding of the world, rather than passively receiving knowledge.

Developmental cognitive neuroscience

The study of the relation between cognitive development and the development of the brain.

Developmental theory

A model of development based on observations that allows us to make predictions.

Dynamic assessment

A testing procedure that uses a test-intervene-test procedure to assess the examinee’s potential to change.

Dynamic systems theory

The theory that all aspects of development interact and affect each other in a dynamic process over time.

Ego

The part of the personality that contends with the reality of the world and controls the basic drives.

Embodied cognition

The concept that cognition is a product of a complex interaction of the brain, bodily activity, and environmental experience.

Equilibration

An attempt to resolve uncertainty to return to a comfortable cognitive state.

Ethology

The study of the adaptive value of animal and human behavior in the natural environment.

Exosystem

Settings that the child never enters but that affect the child’s development nevertheless, such as the parents’ place of work.

Extinction

In operant conditioning, the process by which a behavior stops when it receives no response from the environment.

Genital stage

Freud’s fifth and final stage in which people 12 and older develop adult sexuality.

Id

According to psychoanalytic theory, the part of personality that consists of the basic drives, such as sex and hunger.

Imprinting

In ethology, the automatic process by which animals attach to their mothers.

Latency stage

Freud’s fourth stage, involving children ages 6 to 12, when the sex drive goes underground.

Macrosystem

Cultural norms that guide the nature of the organizations and places that make up one’s everyday life.

Mesosystem

The interaction among the various settings in the microsystem, such as a child’s school and home.

Microsystem

In ecological theory, the face-to-face interaction of the person in her immediate settings, such as home, school, or friendship groups.

Negative reinforcement

In operant conditioning, a response that makes a behavior more likely to happen again because an unpleasant stimulus is removed following the behavior.

Operant conditioning

The process that happens when the response that follows a behavior causes that behavior to happen more.

Oral stage

Freud’s first stage in which the infant’s sexual drive is centered on the mouth area.

Phallic stage

Freud’s third stage in which children 3 to 6 years of age overcome their attraction to the opposite-sex parent and begin to identify with the same-sex parent.

Phobia

An irrational fear of something specific that is so severe that it interferes with day-to-day functioning.

Positive reinforcement

In operant conditioning, a response that makes a behavior more likely to happen again because a pleasant experience follows the behavior.

Psychoanalytic theory

Freud’s theory in which the way we deal with biological urges moves us through a series of stages that shape our personalities.

Psychosexual stages

Freud’s idea that at each stage sexual energy is invested in a different part of the body.

Psychosocial stages

Erikson’s stages based on a central conflict to be resolved involving the social world and the development of identity.

Punishment

Administering a negative consequence or taking away a positive reinforcement to reduce the likelihood of an undesirable behavior occurring.

Reinforcement

A response to a behavior that causes that behavior to happen more.

Scaffolding

The idea that more knowledgeable adults and children support a child’s learning by providing help to move the child just beyond his current level of capability.

Schema

A cognitive framework that places concepts, objects, or experiences into categories or groups of associations.

Self-efficacy

A belief in our ability to influence our own functioning and life circumstances.

Shaping behavior

Reinforcing behaviors to become progressively more like the desired behavior.

Social cognitive theory

The theory that individuals learn by observing others and imitating their behavior.

Stores model

The idea that information is processed through a series of mental locations (sensory to short-term to long-term memory “stores”).

Superego

Freud’s concept of the conscience or sense of right and wrong.

Unconscious mind

The part of the mind that contains thoughts and feelings about which we are unaware.

Zone of proximal development

According to Vygotsky, this is what a child cannot do on her own but can do with a little help from someone more skilled or knowledgeable.

Applied research

Research that has the primary goal of solving problems or improving the human condition.

Attrition

The loss of participants over the course of a longitudinal study.

Basic research

Research that has the primary goal of adding to our body of knowledge rather than having immediate direct application.

Case study

An in-depth study of a single individual or small group of individuals that uses multiple methods of study.

Clinical interview

An interview strategy in which the interviewer can deviate from a standard set of questions to gather additional information.

Cohort effect

Differences between groups in a crosssectional or sequential study that are attributable to the fact that the participants have had different life experiences.

Control group

The group in an experiment that does not get the special treatment and provides a baseline against which the experimental group can be compared.

Correlational research design

Research design that measures the strength and direction of the relationship between two or more variables that are not created by the experimenter.

Cross-sectional design

A research design that uses multiple groups of participants who represent the age span of interest to the researcher.

Dependent variable

The outcome of interest to the researcher that is measured at the end of an experiment.

Effect size

A statistical measure of how large the difference is between groups being compared.

Ethnography

A qualitative research technique in which a researcher lives with a group of people as a participant observer, taking part in the group’s everyday life while observing and interviewing people in the group.

Experimental group

The group in an experiment that gets the special treatment that is of interest to the researcher.

Experimental research design

A research design in which an experimental group is administered a treatment and the outcome is compared with a control group that does not receive the treatment.

Generalize

To draw inferences from the findings of research on a specific sample about a larger group or population.

Hypothesis

A prediction, often based on theoretical ideas or observations, that is tested by the scientific method.

Independent variable

The variable in an experiment that the researcher manipulates.

Interview

A data collection technique in which an interviewer poses questions to a respondent.

Longitudinal design

A research design that follows one group of individuals and gathers data from them at several points in time.

Meta-analysis

A statistical procedure that combines data from different studies to determine whether there is a consistent pattern of findings across studies.

Microgenetic design

A research design that involves frequent observations of participants during a time of change or transition.

Natural or “quasi” experiment

Research in which the members of the groups are selected because they represent different “treatment” conditions.

Negative correlation

A correlation in which increases in one variable are associated with decreases in another variable.

Norm

The average or typical performance of an individual of a given age on a test.

Observer bias

The tendency for an observer to notice and report events that the observer is expecting to see.

Operationalize

To define a concept in a way that allows it to be measured.

Population

A set that includes everyone in a category of individuals that researchers are interested in studying (for example, all toddlers, all teenagers with learning disabilities).

Positive correlation

A correlation in which increases in one variable are associated with increases in another variable.

Questionnaire

A written form of a survey.

Random assignment

Assigning participants to the experimental and control groups by chance so that the groups will not systematically differ from each other.