Unit 3 Vocabulary

Developmental psychology

A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development throughout the lifespan.

Cross-sectional study

Research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time.

Longitudinal study

Research that follows and retests the same people over time.

Teratogens

Agents, such as chemical and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

FAS

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome - physical and cognitive function deficits in children caused by their birth mother’s heavy drinking during pregnancy. In severe cases, symptoms include and small, out-of-proportion head and distinct facial features.

Habituation

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity to a stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.

Maturation

Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relative uninfluenced by experience.

Critical period

An optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development.

Adolescence

The transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence.

Puberty

The period of sexual maturation, during which a person usually becomes capable of reproducing.

Sex

In psychology, the biologically influenced characteristics by which people define male, female, and intersex.

Gender

In psychology, the attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that a given culture associates with a person’s biological sex.

Intersex

Possessing male and female biological sexual characteristics at birth.

Aggeression

Any physical or verbal behavior intended to harm someone physically or emotionally.

Relational aggression

An act of aggression (physical or verbal) intended to harm a person’s relationship or social standing.

X chromosome

The sex chromosome found in females and males. Females typically have two X chromosomes; males typically have one. An X chromosome from each parent produces a female child.

Y chromosome

The sex chromosome typically found only in males. When paired with an X chromosome from the mother, it produces a male child.

Testosterone

The most important male sex hormone. Males and females have it, but the additional testosterone in male stimulates the growth of male sex organs during the fetal period, and the development of male sex characteristics during puberty.

Estrogens

Sex hormones, such as estradiol, that contribute to female sex characteristics and are secreted in greater amounts by females than by males.

Primary sex characteristics

The body structures (ovaries, tests, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible.

Secondary sex characteristics

Nonreproductive sexual traits, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair.

Spermarche

The first ejaculation.

Menarche

First menstrual period.

Role

A set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.

Gender role

A set of expected behaviors, attitudes, and traits for men and for women.

Sexual aggression

Any physical or verbal behavior of a sexual nature that is unwanted or intended to harm someone physically or emotionally. Can be expressed as either sexual harassment or sexual assault.

Gender identity

Our personal sense of being male, female, neither, or some combination of male and female, regardless of whether identity of matches our sex assigned at birth, and the social affiliation that may result from this identity.

Social learning theory

The theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished.

Gender typing

The acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role.

Androgyny

Blending traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine psychological characteristics.

Sexuality

Our thoughts, feelings, and action related to our physical attraction to another.

Asexual

Having no sexual attraction toward others.

Social script

A culturally modeled guide for how to act in various situations.

Sexual orientation

According to the APA (2015), “a person’s sexual and emotional attraction to another person and the behavior and/or social affiliation that may results from this attraction.”

Cognition

All the mental actives associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Schema

A concept or framework that organized and interprets information.

Assimilation

Interpreting our new experiences in term of our existing schemas.

Accommodation

Adapting our current schemas (understandings) to incorporate new information.

Sensorimotor stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from birth to near 2 years of age) at which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.

Object permanence

The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.

Preoperational stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) at which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.

Conservation

The principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects.

Egocentrism

In Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s difficultly taking another’s point of view.

Concrete operational stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 7 to 11 years of age) at which children can perform the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete (a physical) events.

Formal operational stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) at which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.

Scaffold

In Vygotsky’s theory, a framework that offers children temporary supports as they develop higher levels of thinking.

Theory of mind

People’s ideas about their own and other’s mental states about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict.

Language

Our agreed-upon systems of spoken, written, or signed words, and the way we combine them to communicate meaning.

Phoneme

In a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Morpheme

In a language the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as prefix).

Grammar

In a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

Semantics

The language’s set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds.

Syntax

A set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.

UG

Humans’ innate predisposition to understand the principles and rules that govern grammar in all languages.

Babbling stage

The stage in speech development, beginning around 4 months, during which an infant spontaneously utters various sounds that are not all related to the household language.

One-word stage

The stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Two-word stage

The stage in speech development, beginning about age 2, during which a child speaks mostly in two-word sentences.

Telegraphic speech

Teh early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram go car, using mostly nouns and verbs.

Aphasia

Impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke’s area (impairing understanding).

Broca’s area

A frontal lobe brain area, usually in the left hemispheres, that helps control language expression but directing the muscle movements involved in speech.

Wernicke’s area

A brainarea, usually in the left temporal lobe, invlved in language comprehension and expression.

Linguistic determinism

Whorf’s hypotheses that language determines the way we think.

Linguistic relativism

The idea that language influences the way we think.

Ecological systems theory

A theory of the social environment’s influence on human development, using five nested systems (microsystem; mesosystem; exosystem; marcosystem; chronosystem) ranging from direct to indirect influences.

Strange anxiety

The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.

Attachment

An emotional tie with others; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to caregivers and showing distress on separation.

Imprinting

The process by which certain animal form strong attachments during early life.

Strange situation

A procedure for studying child-caregiver attachment; a child is place in an unfamiliar environment while their caregiver leaves and then returns, and the child’s reactions are observed.

Secure attachment

Demonstrated by infants who comfortably explore environments in the presence of their caregivers, show only temporary distress when the caregiver leaves, and find comfort in the caregiver’s return.

Insecure attachment

Demonstrated by infants who display a clinging, anxious attachment; an avoidant attachment that resists closeness; or a disorganized attachment with no consistent behavior when separated from or reunited with caregivers.

Temperament

A person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity.

Basic trust

According to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers.

Self-concept

All our thoughts and feeling about ourselves, in answer to the question, “Who am I?”

Identity

Our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent’s task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles.

Social identity

The “we aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer “Who am I?” that comes from our group memberships.

Intimacy

In Erikson’s theory, the ability to form close loving relations; a primary developmental task in young adulthood.

Emerging adulthood

A period from about age 18 to the mid-twenties when, many persons in prosperous Western cultures are no longer adolescents but have not yet achieved full independence as adults.

Social clock

The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.

Learning

The process of acquiring through experience new and relatively enduring information or behavior.

Habituation

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation.

Associative learning

Learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning).

Stimulus

Any event or situation that evokes a response.

Respondent behavior

Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimuli

Operant behavior

Behavior that operates on the environment producing a consequence.

Cognitive learning

The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events by watching others, or through language.

Classical conditioning

A typer of learning in which we link two or more stimuli; as a result, to illustrate with Pavlov’s classic experiment, the first stimulus (a tone) comes to elicit behavior (drooling) in anticipation of the second stimulus (food).

Behaviorism

The view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2).

NS

Neutral stimulus - In classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning.

UCR

Unconditional response - In classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salivations) to an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) (such as food in the mouth).

UCS

Unconditioned stimulus - In classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditioned naturally and automatically triggers and unconditioned response. UCR

CR

Conditioned Response - In classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned stimulus CS).

CS

Conditioned stimulus - In classical conditioning, an originally neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), comes trigger a conditioned response (CR).

Acquisition

In classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. (In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response.)

Higher-order conditioning

A procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus. For example, an animal that has learned that a tone predicts the tone and begin responding to the light alone. (Also called second-order conditioning.)

Extinction

In classical conditioning, the diminishing of a conditioned response when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus. (In operant conditioning, when a response is no longer reinforced.)

Spontaneous recovery

The reappearance, after a pause, of a weakened conditioned response.

Generalization

(also called stimulus generalization) in classical conditioning, the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses. (In operant conditioning, when response learned in one situation occur in other, similar situations.)

Discrimination

In classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conitioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been associated with a conditioned stimulus. (In operant conditioning, the ability to distinguish responses that are reinforced form similar responses that are not responses that are nor reinforced.)

Preparedness

A biological predisposition to learn associations, such as between taste and nausea, that have survival value.

Operant conditioning

a type of learning in which a behavior becomes more likely to recur if followed by a reinforcer or less likely to recur if followed by a punisher.