AP PSYCHOLOGY UNIT 6: Developmental Psychology Set I

Developmental Psychology

A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.

Zygote

The fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops an embryo.

Embryo

The developing human organism, from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month.

Fetus

The developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth.

Teratogens

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

Habituation

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation.

Maturation

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

Schema

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Assimilation

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.

Accommodation

Adapting our current understandings to incorporate new information.

Sensorimotor stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage during 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 during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.

Conservation

The principle 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 difficulty taking another’s point of view.

Theory of Mind

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

ASD

A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by significant deficiencies in communication and social interaction, and by rigidly fixated interests and repetitive behaviors.

Concrete operational stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.

Formal operational stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.

Stranger anxiety

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