DEVPSYCH

Development

it is patterned and orderly movement or change that follows a blueprint laid out by our evolutionary history. It begins at conception and continues through the human life span.

Human Development

focuses on the scientific study of the systematic processes of change and stability in people.

Life Expectancy

Refers to the average number of years that a person born in a particular year can expect to live.

Lifespan

The maximum number of years a member of a species can live under ideal conditions

Lifespan Perspective

According to Paul Baltes, development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual; involves growth, maintenance, and regulation; and is constructed through biological, sociocultural, and individual factors working together

Normative age-graded influences

Influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group. It includes biological processes such as puberty and menopause.

Normative history-graded influences

Influences that are common to people of a particular generation because of historical circumstances.

Nonnormative life events

Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on an individual’s life. These events do not happen to everyone, and when they do occur, they can influence people in different ways

Physical Development

A domain of development that is a product of biological process, it produces changes in an individual’s physical nature. Genes inherited from parents, brain development, height and weight gains, changes in motor skills, nutrition, exercise, the hormonal changes of puberty, and cardiovascular decline.

Cognitive Development

A domain of development that is a product of cognitive process, it involves changes in the individual’s thought, intelligence, and language.

Psychosocial Development

A domain of development that is a product of the socioemotional process, it involves changes in the individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotions, and changes in personality.

Maturation

Unfolding of a natural sequence of physical and behavioral changes.

Nuclear Family

Two-generational kinship; a family unit consisting of one or two parents and their biological children, adopted children, or stepchildren.

Extended Family

Multigenerational kinship; a family unit that includes not only parents and their children but also other relatives such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins living together or maintaining close relationships.

Polygamy

a family structure in which one parent (most commonly the father) is married to multiple spouses,

Individualistic Culture

A culture in which people tend to prioritize personal goals ahead of collective goals and to view themselves as dis tinct individuals.

Collectivist Culture

A culture in which people tend to prioritize collaborative social goals ahead of individual goals and to view themselves in the context of their social relationships.

Mechanistic Model

A model that views human development as a series of predictable responses to stimuli. It explains human behavior as a predictable response to external stimuli, much like how a machine reacts when acted upon.

Organismic Model

A model that sees people as active, growing organisms who set their own development in motion They initiate events; they do not just react. Thus, the driving force for change is internal. Environmental influences do not cause development, though they can speed or slow it.

Qualitative Change

It is marked by the emergence of new phenomena that could not be easily predicted on the basis of past functioning. It is associated with discontinuous change because they involve distinct stages

Quantitative Change

Refers to change in number or amount, such as height, weight, or vocabulary size. It is associated with continuous change

Psychoanalytic Theory

It states that development is primarily unconscious (beyond awareness) and heavily colored by emotion. It stresses that early experiences with parents extensively shape development.

Psychosexual Development

It states that h sensual pleasure shifts from one body zone to another—from the mouth to the anus and then to the genitals. At each stage, the behavior that is the chief source of gratification (or frustration) changes—from feeding to elimination and eventually to sexual activity. The first three stages to are crucial for personality development, if children receive too little or too much gratification in any of these stages, they are at risk of fixation, an arrest in development that can show up in adult personality.

Oral Stage

the focus is on the mouth, where babies get pleasure from activities like sucking, biting, and chewing. If a person becomes stuck or fixated at this stage, they may develop habits later in life such as smoking, nail-biting, or overeating.

Anal Stage

Zone of gratification is anal region, and toilet training is important activity. Child derives sensual gratification from withholding and expelling feces. If fixation occurs at this stage, the person may grow up to be either very neat and organized (anal retentive) or messy and careless (anal expulsive).

Phallic Stage

Zone of gratification shifts to genital region. Children become aware of their own bodies as well as the differences between boys and girls. During this stage, boys experience the Oedipus complex and Electra complex. Fixation at this stage may result in difficulties with authority or relationships in adulthood.

Oedipus Complex

unconscious desire for their mother and rivalry with their father

Electra Complex

unconscious desire for their father and rivalry toward their mother.

Latency Stage

A period of emotional calm and intellectual and social exploration. They redirect their sexual energies into other pursuits, such as schoolwork, relationships, and hobbies.

Genital Stage

The sexual urges repressed during latency now resurface to flow in socially approved channels, which Freud defined as heterosexual relations with persons outside the family of origin.

Psychosocial Development

It emphasizes the influence of society on the developing personality. In each stage of development an individual encounter opposing crisis that must be resolved. This crisis is not a catastrophe but a turning point marked by both increased vulnerability and enhanced potential. The more successfully an individual resolves each crisis, the healthier development will be.

Trust vs. Mistrust (Infancy, 0–1 year)

Infants develop a sense of trust when caregivers provide reliable care and affection resulting to virtue of hope; lack of this leads to mistrust.

Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Early Childhood, 1–3 years)

Toddlers learn to exercise personal control and independence, which results in virtue of will; failure results in feelings of shame and doubt.

Initiative vs. Guilt (Preschool, 3–6 years)

Children begin to assert power through initiating activities which results to virtue of purpose; too much disapproval can lead to guilt.

Industry vs. Inferiority (School Age, 6–12 years)

Children strive to master tasks and develop a sense of competence which results to virtue of competence; repeated failure may cause feelings of inferiority.

Identity vs. Role Confusion (Adolescence, 12–18 years)

Teens explore personal identity and sense of self which helps adolescents gain the virtue of fidelity; confusion arises if they fail to establish a stable identity.

Intimacy vs. Isolation(Young Adulthood, 18–40 years)

young adults seek deep relationships and emotional intimacy which leads to virtue of the virtue of love; failure can lead to loneliness and isolation.

Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle Adulthood, 40–65 years)

Adults aim to contribute to society and support future generations which results to virtue of the virtue of care; without this, they may feel unproductive or stagnant.

Ego Integrity vs. Despair (Late Adulthood, 65+ years)

Reflecting on life with a sense of fulfillment brings ego integrity and the virtue of wisdom; regret leads to despair.

Cognitive Developmental Theory

states that children go through four stages of cognitive development as they actively construct their understanding of the world. Two processes underlie this cognitive construction of the world: organization and adaptation.

Sensorimotor Stage

lasts from birth to about 2 years of age, is the first Piagetian stage. In this stage, infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences (such as seeing and hearing) with physical, motoric actions

Preoperational Stage

lasts from approximately 2 to 7 years of age, is Piaget’s second stage. In this stage, children begin to go beyond simply connecting sensory information with physical action and represent the world with words, images, and drawings. They form stable concepts and begin to reason. At the same time, the young child’s cognitive world is dominated by egocentrism and magical beliefs.

Operations

reversible mental actions that allow children to do mentally what they formerly did physically.

Symbolic Function Substage

the first sub stage of preoperational thought, occurring roughly between the ages of 2 and 4. During this substage, the young child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present.

Intuitive Thought Substage

the second sub stage of preoperational thought, occurring between approximately 4 and 7 years of age. In this substage, children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions.

Animism

the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action. A young child might show animism by saying, “That tree pushed the leaf off, and it fell down,” or “The sidewalk made me mad; it made me fall down.”

Concrete Operational Stage

lasts from approximately 7 to 11 years of age, is the third Piagetian stage. In this stage, children can perform operations that involve objects, and think logically about concrete events, understand concepts like conservation, reversibility, and cause and effect, but still struggle with abstract or hypothetical ideas.

Formal Operational Stage

appears between the ages of 11 and 15 and continues through adulthood, is Piaget’s fourth and final stage. In this stage, individuals move beyond concrete experiences and begin to think in abstractly, logically, and systematically, allowing them to solve hypothetical problems and engage in deductive reasoning.

Adaptation

Piaget’s term for how children handle new information in light of what they already know.

Assimilation

taking in new information and incorporating it into existing cognitive structures.

Accommodation

adjusting one’s cognitive structures to fit the new information.

Organization

the tendency to create categories, by observing the characteristics that individual members of a category have in common.

Schemas

ways of organizing information about the world, can be either motor or mental in nature.

Object Permanence

Understanding that objects continue to exist even when they can’t be seen or heard (develops in the sensorimotor stage).

Centration

Focusing on only one aspect of a situation while ignoring others (common in the preoperational stage).

Conservation

Knowing that quantity stays the same even if appearance changes (develops in the concrete operational stage).

Egocentrism

The difficulty young children have in seeing things from others’ perspectives because the child assumes others see and experience the world exactly as they do.

Decentering

the ability to look at more than one aspect of the two objects at once, developing during the concrete operational stage.

Sociocultural Theory (Lev Semenovich Vygotsky)

focused on the social and cultural processes that guide children’s cognitive development, suggesting that learning is largely driven by communication with more knowledgeable others (like parents, teachers, or peers) within a cultural framework.

Zone of Proximal Development

the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but can be learned with guidance and assistance from adults or more-skilled children.

Scaffolding

Temporary support given to help a child master a task

Information-Processing Theory

It seeks to explain cognitive development by analyzing the processes involved in making sense of incoming information and performing tasks effectively. Individuals can manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it. Individuals develop a gradually increasing capacity for processing information, which allows them to acquire increasingly complex knowledge and skills.

Operant Conditioning

the consequences of a behavior produce changes in the probability of the behavior’s occurrence. A behavior followed by a rewarding stimulus is more likely to recur, whereas a behavior followed by a punishing stimulus is less likely to recur.

Classical Conditioning

Learning based on associating a stimulus that does not ordinarily elicit a response with another stimulus that does elicit the response

Social Cognitive Theory (Albert Bandura)

states that people learn by observing others and by seeing the consequences of others’ behaviors, a process called observational learning or modeling. It emphasizes that learning doesn’t always require direct experience or rewards.

A key part of this theory is the role of cognition—Bandura believed that people don’t just copy what they see; instead, they think, evaluate, and decide whether or not to imitate a behavior.

Ecological Theory (Urie Bronfenbrenner)

It states that development reflects the influence of several environ mental systems. The theory identifies five environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem

Microsystem

consists of the everyday environment of home, work, school, or neighborhood. It includes face-to-face interactions with siblings, parents, friends, class mates, or later in life, spouses, work colleagues, or employers.

Mesosystem

involves relations between microsystems or connections between contexts. For example, a parent’s bad day at work may affect interactions with a child later that evening in a negative way. Despite never having actually gone to the workplace, a child is still affected by it.

Exosystem

consists of interactions between a microsystem and an outside system or institution. It refers to the social settings that indirectly influence a person's development because of its impact on someone close to them.

Macrosystem

It involves the culture in which individuals live.

Chronosystem

It includes life events and changes over time that influence person’s development.

Ethology

the study of the adaptive behaviors of animal species in natural contexts.

Imprinting

According to Konrad Lorenz, it is a form of rapid and irreversible learning that occurs in a specific, critical period early in an animal's life

Critical Period

a specific time when a given event, or its absence, has a specific impact on development. If a necessary event does not occur during a critical period of maturation, normal development will not occur, and the resulting abnormal patterns may be irreversible

Sensitive Periods

times when a developing person is especially responsive to certain kinds of experiences

Natural Selection

the evolutionary process by which those individuals of a species that are best adapted are the ones that survive and leave the most fit offspring.

Adaptive behavior

The behavior that promotes an organism’s survival in its natural habitat

Evolutionary Psychology

emphasizes the importance of adaptation, reproduction, and “survival of the fittest” in shaping behavior

Chromosomes

threadlike structures made up of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). It comes with 23 pairs, with one member of each pair coming from each parent

DNA

a complex molecule that has a double helix shape, containing genetic information

Genes

The units of hereditary information, are short segments of DNA. They help cells to reproduce themselves and to assemble proteins.

Mitosis

the process by which a cell divides to produce two identical daughter cells, each with 46 chromosomes (in humans), the same number as the original cell—used for growth, repair, and asexual reproduction.

Meiosis

the type of cell division that creates sex cells (sperm and egg), each with 23 chromosomes (in humans), which is half the number of the original cell—ensuring genetic variation and maintaining the chromosome number in reproduction.

Fertilization

A stage in reproduction when an egg and a sperm fuse to create a single cell, called a zygote

Zygote

A single cell made through fusion of egg and sperm

Mutation

permanent alterations in genetic material.

Genotype

A person’s genetic heritage; the actual genetic material.

Phenotype

The way an individual’s genotype is expressed in observed and measurable characteristics.

Alleles

Two or more alternative forms of a gene that occupy the same position on paired chromosomes and affect the same trait.

Homozygous

Possessing two identical alleles for a trait.

Heterozygous

Possessing differing alleles for a trait.

Autosomes

chromosomes that are not related to sexual expression.

Dominant Inheritance

Pattern of inheritance in which, when a child receives different alleles, only the dominant one is expressed

Recessive Inheritance

Pattern of inheritance in which a child receives identical recessive alleles, resulting in expression of a nondominant trait.

Polygenetic Inheritance

Pattern of inheritance in which multiple genes at different sites on chromosomes affect a complex trait.

Multifactorial Transmission

Combination of genetic and environ mental factors to produce certain com plex traits

Epigenesis

the process by which an organism develops from a simple, undifferentiated state (like a fertilized egg) into a complex, organized being through gradual and continuous changes.

Down syndrome

also called trisomy 21; An extra chromosome causes mild to severe intellectual disability and physical abnormalities.

Klinefelter syndrome (XXY)

An extra X chromosome causes physical abnormalities.

Fragile X syndrome

An abnormality in the X chromosome can cause intellectual disability, learning disabilities, or short attention span.