AP Psychology Unit 3 - Development and Learning

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Developmental Psychology

a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change 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 chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)

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

habituation

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

maturation

biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively 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.

menopause

the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines.

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.

aggression

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.

Carol Gilligan

developmental psychologist who argued that traditional theories of moral development undervalued women’s moral reasoning, emphasizing an ethic of care rather than justice

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 males stimulates the growth of the 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, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible.

secondary sex characteristics

non-reproductive sexual traits, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair.

spermarche

the first ejaculation

menarche

the 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 this identity 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

displaying traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine psychological characteristics.

Sexuality

our thoughts, feelings, and actions related to our physical attraction to another.

asexual

having no sexual attraction toward others.

Alfred Kinsey

Kinsey Scale, showing sexual orientation exists on a continuum.

social script

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

Alice Eagly

social role theory

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.

Jean Piaget

proposed the four stages of cognitive development; children learn through schemas, assimilation, and accommodation

Cognition

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Schema

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Assimilation

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.

accommodation

in developmental psychology, adapting our current schemas (understandings) to incorporate new information.

sensorimotor stage

in Piaget’s theory, the stage (from birth to nearly 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 difficulty 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 (actual, 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.

Lev Vygotsky

social interaction and culture; introduced the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and scaffolding

scaffold

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

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.

language

our agreed-upon systems of spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

Noam Chomsky

universal grammar; humans are born with an innate language acquisition device (LAD)

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 a prefix).

grammar

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. Semantics is the language’s set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds, and syntax is its set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.

universal grammar (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

beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements

telegraphic speech

the 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).

Paul Broca

Broca’s area; speech production.

Broca’s area

a frontal lobe brain area, usually in the left hemisphere, that helps control language expression by directing the muscle movements involved in speech.

Carl Wernicke

Identified Wernicke’s Area

Wernicke’s area

a brain area, usually in the left temporal lobe, involved in language comprehension and expression.

linguistic determinism

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

Benjamin Lee Whorf

Proposed that language influences thought and perception (linguistic relativity)

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; macrosystem; chronosystem) ranging from direct to indirect influences.

stranger 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.

Harry Harlow

Showed through monkey studies that attachment depends more on comfort than feeding.

Margaret Harlow

Collaborated in attachment research demonstrating the importance of early emotional bonding

imprinting

the process by which certain animals form strong attachments during early life.

Konrad Lorenz

Discovered imprinting, showing early critical periods shape attachment in animals

Mary Ainsworth

Developed the Strange Situation to study and classify infant attachment styles

strange situation

a procedure for studying child-caregiver attachment; a child is placed 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 caregiver, show only temporary distress when the caregiver leaves, and find comfort in the caregiver’s return.

insecure attachment

demonstrated by infants who display either a clinging, anxious attachment or an avoidant attachment that resists closeness.

temperament

a person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity.

Erik Erikson

Created the psychosocial stages of development emphasizing identity and social challenges across life

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 feelings about ourselves in answer to the question, “Who am I?”

Diana Baumrind

Created the psychosocial stages of development emphasizing identity and social challenges across life

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 to “Who am I?” that comes from our group memberships.

intimacy

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

emerging adulthood

a period from about age 18 to the mid-twenties, when many persons in 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 behaviors

associative learning

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

stimulus

any event or situation that evokes a response.

respondent behavior

behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus.

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

Ivan Pavlov

Physiologist who discovered classical conditioning through experiments with dogs, showing how learning occurs through associations between stimuli.

classical conditioning

A learning process that creates an association between a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response.