Unit 3.1

Developmental Psychology

The scientific study of how and why people change over the course of their life (cognitive, social, and physical domains)

Nature & Nurture

How do our genetic inheritance (____) and our life experiences (____) interact to shape our development.

Continuity & Stages

____ refers to developmental changes that are slow and steady, where each step builds directly on the previous ones.
____ propose that development happens in specific sudden shifts that clearly differentiate one phase from another.

Stability & Change

This area of study helps us understand how and why people remain the same in some ways but also evolve and adapt in others as they go through different life stages.

Longitudinal Research

Studying the same individuals over time, allows for direct observation of how behaviors, traits, and abilities change and develop throughout life; long-term trends.

Cross-Sectional Research

Studying different groups of people of various ages at the same point in time; compare differences and similarities across age groups.

Psychosocial Development

Theory that individuals progress through a series of stages, each characterized by a specific conflict that contributes to a major aspect of personality.

Prenatal Development

The process of growth and development within the womb, starting from conception and continuing until birth.

Teratogens

Harmful substances such as drugs, alcohol, or infections that can cause developmental abnormalities or birth defects when a fetus is exposed to them during prenatal development.

Reflexes

Automatic, instinctual responses that newborns are born with, aiding in their survival.

Rooting Reflex

Automatic response in newborns where they turn their head toward a touch on the cheek, helping them to locate and latch onto their mother’s breast for feeding.

Maturation

The biological growth process that leads to orderly changes in behavior, guided by genetics and largely unaffected by experience.

Developmental Milestones

Key shifts or behaviors that most children achieve by specific ages, such as walking, talking, and problem-solving, making significant progress in physical, cognitive, and social development.

Sensitive Period

A critical time in early development when the brain is especially receptive to learning specific skills, such as language or motor skills, making it easier to acquire them during this phase.

Fine Motor Coordination

The ability to control small muscle movements, enabling tasks like writing, buttoning, and using utensils with precision.

Gross Motor Coordination

The ability to control large muscle movements, enabling tasks like walking, jumping, and throwing with balance and strength.

Visual Cliff

An experimental setup used to study depth perception in infants, featuring a clear glass surface that creates the illusion of a drop-off to test whether infants can perceive and avoid the cliff.

Puberty

The period of physical and hormonal changes during adolescence that lead to sexual maturity and the ability to reproduce.

Adolescent Growth Spurt

A rapid increase in height and weight that typically occurs during puberty, driven by hormonal changes and marking the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Menopause

The natural biological process marking the end of a women’s menstrual cycles, typically occurring around the age 50 and hormonal changes and the cessation of fertility.

Sex

The biologically influenced characteristics by which people define male, female, and intersex.

X Chromosome

Sex chromosome that both males and females have. Females typically have two x chromosomes.

Y Chromosomes

Sex chromosomes found only in males. Males typically have one x and on y chromons, which determines male biological sex.

Primary Sex Characteristics

The reproductive organs and structure directly involved in reproduction, such as the ovaries, testes, and external genitalia.

Secondary Sex Characteristics

Physical traits that develop during puberty but are not directly involved in reproduction, like breast development, facial hair, and voice deepening.

Gender

The attitudes, feelings an behaviors that a given culture associate with a person’s biological sex.

Sexual Orientation

A person’s sexual and emotional attraction to another person and the behavior and/or social affiliation that may result from this attraction.

Gender Identity

An individual’s internal sense of being male, female, a blend of both o neither, which may or may not align with their assigned sex at birth.

Gender Roles

Societal expectations and norms for behavior, attitudes, and activities typically associated with being male or female.

Gender Typing

The process by which children learn and adopt behaviors, interests, and roles considered appropriate for their gender according to cultural norms.

Menarch

A girl’s first menstrual period, signaling the beginning of puberty and the ability to reproduce.

Spermarche

A boy’s first production of sperm, marking the start of puberty and the ability to reproduce.

Ecological Systems Theory

A child’s development is influenced by multiple layers of environmental systems. These include the immediate family (microsystem), larger community structures like schools (exosystem), and overarching cultural or societal norms (macrosystem). Each layer interacts to shape the child’s growth.

Authoritarian Parenting Style

A strict parenting approach where parents enforce high expectations and rigid rules. They prioritize obedience and discipline, often relying on punishment with limited warmth of responsiveness to the child’s needs.

Permissive Parenting Style

A relaxed approach to parenting where parents show warmth and responsiveness but have few rules and low expectations. They avoid enforcing strict boundaries, allowing children significant freedom and often indulging their desires.

Authoritative Parenting Style

A balanced approach to parenting, combining high expectations with warmth and support. Parents enforce clear rules and encourage independence while being responsive and open to their children’s needs and opinions.

Temperament

The innate traits that influence how children respond to their environment, including their activity level, emotional reactivity, and adaptability. These early-emerging characteristics are thought to form the bias for later personality development.

Imprinting

A rapid and instinctive form of early learning where certain animals, particularly birds, form strong attachments to the first moving object they see shortly after birth or hatching.

Contact Comfort

The sense of security and emotional relief derived from physical touch, particularly between infants and caregivers.

Separation Anxiety

A distress response is experienced by infants or young children when separated from their primary caregivers.
Phase typically emerges around 8 to 14 months of age and demonstrates the child’s growing attachment.

Attachment Styles

Patterns of behavior that describe how children form emotional bonds with caregivers, influencing relationships later in life.
Childhood attachment styles can affect how adults form attachments to others.

Secure Attachment

A pattern where children feel confident and trust that their caregiver will meet their needs
They explored their environment comfortably an reassurance when distressed.

Avoidant Attachment

A pattern where children exhibit independence and avoid seeking comfort from their caregiver, often resulting from caregivers who are emotionally unresponsive.
Child is indifferent to separation.

Anxious Attachment

A pattern where children are overly clingy and anxious about separation from their caregiver, stemming from inconsistent caregiving.
Show distress when the caregiver leaves but may resist comfort when older.

Disorganized Attachment

A pattern characterized by inconsistent or confused behaviors toward a caregiver, often resulting from trauma or abuse.
Children display contradictory responses like seeking closeness yet showing fear.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Potentially traumatic events or conditions, such as abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction, that occur before age 18 and can have long-term impacts on health and well-being.

Social Clock

Cultural timeline that sets expected ages for key life events, like starting a career, getting marries, or having children, shaping social expectations for individuals.

Emerging Adulthood

Traditional life stage from late teens to mid-20s, marked by exploration and self discovery as individuals navigate career paths, relationships, and personal identity.

Adolescent Egocentrism

Stage in teenage development marked by an increased self-focus, leading to beliefs that one’s experiences are unique and that others are always observing them.

Imaginary Audience

Phenomenon in adolescence where individuals believes others are constantly watching and judging their behavior, making them highly self-conscious.

Personal Fable

Adolescent belief that one’s experiences are unique and special, often leading to feelings of invulnerability and an underestimation of potential risk.

Possible Selves

The various versions of who individuals might become in the future, including ideal selves they hope to achieve and feared selves they wish to avoid.

Social Identity

The individual’s sense of who they are based on their membership in social group, like nationality, religion, or professions.

Identity diffusion

A state where individuals have not yet explored or committed to life choices regarding beliefs, goals, or values, often leading to uncertainty about their sense of self.

Identity Foreclosure

Stage where individuals commit to goals, beliefs, or values without exploring alternatives, often adapting the expectations of parents or society.

Identity Moratorium

A stage in which individuals actively explore different life paths, beliefs, and values but have not yet made a final commitment, often leading to a period of uncertainty and experimentation.

Identity Achievement

The stage where individuals have explored various life paths and made firm decisions about their beliefs, values, and goals, resulting in a lear and stable sense of self.

Jean Piaget

He studied Children’s developing cognition - all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating,

Schemas

Cognitive frameworks that help individuals organize and interpret information by categorizing experiences based on prior knowledge and expectations.

Assimilation

The process of incorporating new information into existing schemas, fitting new experiences into familiar categories to understand them better.

Accomodation

The process of altering existing schemas or creating new ones to adapt to new information that doesn’t fit existing categories.

Sensorimotor Stage (1)

The first stage of piaget’s stages of cognitive development (birth to age 2) when infants learn about the world though sensory experiences and motor actions.

Object Permanence

The understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched developing during piaget’s sensorimotor stage.

Preoperational Stage (2)

Stage of cognitive development (age 2 to 7), where children develop language, symbolic thinking, and imagination but struggle with logical reasoning and understanding other’s perspective.

Pretend Play

Involved children acting out scenarios, roles, or situations using their imagination, developing creativity, social skills, and symbolic thinking.

Parallel Play

Stage in early childhood when children play alongside each other without directly interacting, each focused on their own activity but observing and imitating others.

Animism

A belief in early childhood, common during piaget’s preoperational stage, where children attribute lifelike qualities like feelings and intentions, to inanimate objects.

Egocentrism

A characteristic of the preoperational stage where children struggle to see things from another person’s point of view, believing others share their perspective.

Theory of Mind

The ability to understand that others have thoughts, feelings, and perspectives different from one’s own, typically developing around age 4 to 5.

Concrete Operational Stage (3)

Piaget’s third stage of cognitive development (ages 7 to 11) where children develop logical thinking about concrete objects and understanding concepts like conversations and reversibility.

Conservation

The understanding that certain properties of objects, such as volume or mass, remain consistent despite changes in form or appearance, typically developing in Piaget’s concrete operational stage.

Reversibility

The ability to mentally reverse and action or operation, understanding that objects can be returned to their original state, typically developing in Piaget’s concrete operational stage.

Formal Operational Stage (4)

Piaget’s final stage of cognitive development (beginning at 12) where individuals develop the ability to think abstractly solve hypothetical problems, and use deductive reasoning.

Les Vygotsky

Developmental psychologist known for his theory that social interaction plays a critical role in cognitive development, emphasizing the importance of culture, language, and the “zone of proximal development” in learning.

Scaffolding

Teaching method where a knowledgeable person provides tailored support to help a learned achieve new skills, gradually reducing assistance as the learner becomes more proficient.

Zone of Proximal Development

The range between what a learner can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance, emphasizing the importance of social interaction in learning.

Crystallized Intelligence

Refers to the knowledge and skills accumulated over time through education and experience improving with age and usual for problem-solving on facts and prior learning.

Fluid Intelligence

The capacity to reason, solve novel problems, and think abstractly without relying on prior knowledge, generally peaking in early adulthood and gradually declining with age.

Dementia

Decline in cognitive functioning that interferes with daily life, characterized by memory loss, impaired judgement, and difficulties in communication and reasoning, often seen in older adults.

Language

A system of communication using symbols, sounds, and grammar to convey thoughts, feelings, and meaning.

Critical Period

A specific time frame in early childhood when the brain is most receptive to learning language, making it easier to fluency.

Phonems

The smallest distinct units of sound in a language that can change the meaning of a word.

Morphemes

The smallest unit of meaning in a language, such as prefixes, suffixes, and root words.

Semantics

The study of meaning in language, focusing on how words, phrases, and sentences convey meaning.

Grammar

The set of rules that govern how words are combined to form sentences, enabling clear and meaningful communication in a language.

Syntax

The set f rules that determines the arrangement of words, and phrases to form sentences in a language, affecting sentence structure and meaning.

Cooling

Early stage of learning development where infants produce repetitive, soft vowel sounds like “oo” and “ah.” Usually starting around two months of age.

Babbling Stage

Phase in language development, usually starting around 4-6 months, where infants produce repetitive consonant-vowel combinations like “ba-ba” and “da-da.”

One-Word Stage

Phase in language development, typically around age one, where children use single words to represent whole sentences or ideas.

Two-Word Stage

Phrase in language development, around age two, where children start combining two words to form simple sentences.
Telegraphic Speech → Involves using short, concise phrases, that omit less essential words.

Overgeneralization

Common error in language development where children apply grammatical rules too broadly, resulting in mistakes like “goed” instead of “went” or “tooths” instead of “teeth.”

Nonverbal Manual Gestures

Manual gestures like hand or arms movements are used to communicate without speaking, such as pointing, waving, or making signs, and often convey emotions, intentions, or directions.

Behavioral Perspective

Examines how observable behaviors are learned and reinforced through interactions with the environment.

Associative Learning

A process of learning in which an individual forms connections between evnets that occur together
Classical Conditioning (Association)
Operant Conditioning (Reinforcement + Punishment)

Habituation (non-associative learning)

Occurs when organisms grow accustomed to and exhibit a diminished response to a repeated or enduring stimulus.
Getting used to something overtime.

Classical Conditioning

A learning method where we associate two stimuli, enabling us to anticipate events.

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without any learning needed.
Stimulus → trigger, signal, thing.

Unconditional Response (UR)

A natural and automatic reaction to a stimulus that occurs without any prior learning or conditioning.
No association yet

Conditioned Stimulus

A previously natural stimulus that, after being repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus, evokes a conditioned response.

Conitioned Response

A learned response that occurs when a conditioned stimulus is presented, resulting from the association with an unconditioned stimulus.