DEVPSY (PAPALIA)

Human Development

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

Developmental Scientists (or developmentalists)

Individuals engaged in the professional study of human development.

Life-span development

Concept of human development as a lifelong process, which can be studied scientifically.

Description Goal of Human Development

Observe large groups of children and establish norms, or averages, for behavior at various ages.

Explanation Goal of Human Development

Attempt to explain how children acquire language and why some children learn to speak later than usual.

Prediction Goal of Human Development

Make it possible to predict future behavior, such as the likelihood that a child will have serious speech problems.

Intervention Goal of Human Development

Used to intervene in development, for example, by giving a child speech therapy.

Physical Development

Growth of the body and brain, sensory capacities, motor skills, and health.

Cognitive Development

Learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity.

Psychosocial Development

Emotions, personality, and social relationships.

Social construction

A concept or practice that is an invention of a particular culture or society.

Individual Differences

Differences in characteristics, influences, or developmental outcomes.

Developmental Trajectory

Every person has a unique developmental trajectory, an individual path to follow.

Heredity

Inborn traits or characteristics inherited from the biological parents.

Environment

Totality of nonhereditary, or experiential, influences on development.

Maturation

Unfolding of a natural sequence of physical and behavioral changes.

Nuclear Family

Two-generational kinship, economic, and household unit consisting of one or two parents and their biological children, adopted children, or stepchildren.

Extended Family

Multigenerational kinship network of parents, children, and other relatives, sometimes living together in an extended- family household.

Socioeconomic status (SES)

Combination of economic and social factors describing an individual or family, including income, education, and occupation.

Risk factors

Conditions that increase the likelihood of a negative developmental outcome.

Culture

A society’s or group’s total way of life, including customs, traditions, beliefs, values, language, and physical products—all learned behavior, passed on from parents to children.

Ethnic group

A group united by ancestry, race, religion, language, or national origins, which contribute to a sense of shared identity.

Ethnic gloss

Overgeneralization about an ethnic or cultural group that obscures differences within the group.

Normative

Characteristic of an event that occurs in a similar way for most people in a group.

Normative age-graded influences

Are highly similar for people in a particular age group.

Normative history-graded influences

Are significant events (such as the Great Depression or World War II) that shape the behavior and attitudes of a historical generation: a group of people who experience the event at a formative time in their lives.

Historical generation

A group of people strongly influenced by a major historical event during their formative period.

Cohort

A group of people born at about the same time.

Nonnormative

Characteristic of an unusual event that happens to a particular person or a typical event that happens at an unusual time of life.

Imprinting

Instinctive form of learning in which, during a critical period in early development, a young animal forms an attachment to the first moving object it sees, usually the mother.

Critical period

Specific time when a given event or its absence has a specific impact on development.

Plasticity

Range of modifiability of performance.

Sensitive periods

Times in development when a person is particularly open to certain kinds of experiences.

Development is lifelong

Development is a lifelong process of change. Each period of the life span is affected by what happened before and will affect what is to come.

Development is multidimensional

It occurs along multiple interacting dimensions— biological, psychological, and social—each of which may develop at varying rates.

Development is multidirectional

As people gain in one area, they may lose in another, sometimes at the same time.

Development involves changing resource allocations

Individuals choose to invest their resources of time, energy, talent, money, and social support in varying ways.

Development shows plasticity

Many abilities, such as memory, strength, and endurance, can be improved significantly with training and practice, even late in life.

Development is influenced by the historical and cultural context

Each person develops within multiple contexts— circumstances or conditions defined in part by maturation and in part by time and place. Human beings not only influence but also are influenced by their historical- cultural context.

Scientific theory of development

A set of logically related concepts or statements that seek to describe and explain development and to predict the kinds of behavior that might occur under certain conditions.

Mechanistic model

Model that views human development as a series of predictable responses to stimuli.

Organismic model

Model that views human development as internally initiated by an active organism and as occurring in a sequence of qualitatively different stages.

Quantitative change

A change in number or amount, such as height, weight, or vocabulary size.

Qualitative change

A change in kind, structure, or organization, not just in number.

Psychoanalytic Perspective

View of human development as shaped by unconscious forces that motivate human behavior.

Psychosexual development

In Freudian theory, an unvarying sequence of stages of childhood personality development in which gratification shifts from the mouth to the anus and then to the genitals.

Psychosocial development

In Erikson’s eight-stage theory, the socially and culturally influenced process of development of the ego, or self.

Learning perspective

Maintains that development results from learning, a long lasting change in behavior based on experience or adaptation to the environment.

Behaviorism

Learning theory that emphasizes the predictable role of environment in causing observable behavior.

Classical conditioning (Ivan Pavlov)

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

Operant conditioning (B.F. SKINNER)

Learning based on association of behavior with its consequences

Reinforcement

The process by which a behavior is strengthened, increasing the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated.

Punishment

The process by which a behavior is weakened, decreasing the likelihood of repetition.

Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura)

Behaviors are learned by observing and imitating models. Also called social cognitive theory.

reciprocal determinism

The person acts on the world as the world acts on the person.

Observational learning, or modeling

People learn appropriate social behavior chiefly by observing and imitating models—that is, by watching other people.

Self-efficacy

The confidence that they have what it takes to succeed.

Cognitive Perspective

Focuses on thought processes and the behavior that reflects those processes.

Cognitive-stage theory

Piaget’s theory that children’s cognitive development advances in a series of four stages involving qualitatively distinct types of mental operations.

Organization

Piaget’s term for the creation of categories or systems of knowledge.

Schemes

Piaget’s term for organized patterns of thought and behavior used in particular situations.

Adaptation

Piaget’s term for adjustment to new information about the environment, achieved through processes of assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation

Piaget’s term for incorporation of new information into an existing cognitive structure.

Accommodation

Piaget’s term for changes in a cognitive structure to include new information.

Equilibration

Piaget’s term for the tendency to seek a stable balance among cognitive elements; achieved through a balance between assimilation and accommodation

Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

Stresses children’s active engagement with their environment, and sees cognitive growth as a collaborative process.

Zone of proximal development (ZPD)

Vygotsky’s term for the difference between what a child can do alone and what the child can do with help.

Scaffolding

Temporary support to help a child master a task.

The Information-Processing Approach

Seeks to explain cognitive development by analyzing the processes involved in making sense of incoming information and performing tasks effectively: such processes as attention, memory, planning strategies, decision making, and goal setting.

Contextual Perspective

Development can be understood only in its social context.

Evolutionary/sociobiological perspective

Proposed by E. O. Wilson (1975) focuses on evolutionary and biological bases of behavior.

Evolutionary/Sociobiology Perspective

Focuses on evolutionary and biological bases of behavior.

Ethology

Adaptive behaviors of animal species in natural contexts.

Evolved mechanisms

Behaviors that developed to solve problems in adapting to an earlier environment.

Quantitative research

Deals with objectively measurable data.

Qualitative research

Focuses on nonnumerical data, such as subjective experiences, feelings, or beliefs.

Quantitative Research

Research that deals with objectively measurable data.

Scientific method

Scientific method system of established principles and processes of scientific inquiry, which includes identifying a problem to be studied, formulating a hypothesis to be tested by research, collecting data, analyzing the data, forming tentative conclusions, and disseminating findings.

Experimental group

In an experiment, the group receiving the treatment under study.

Control group

In an experiment, a group of people, similar to those in the experimental group, who do not receive the treatment under study.

Independent variable

In an experiment, the condition over which the experimenter has direct control.

Dependent variable

In an experiment, the condition that may or may not change as a result of changes in the independent variable.

Random assignment

Assignment of participants in an experiment to groups in such a way that each person has an equal chance of being placed in any group.

Fertilization

Union of sperm and ovum to produce a zygote; also called conception.

Zygote

One-celled organism resulting from fertilization.

Dizygotic twins

Twins conceived by the union of two different ova (or a single ovum that has split) with two different sperm cells; also called fraternal twins; they are no more alike genetically than any other siblings.

Monozygotic twins

Twins resulting from the division of a single zygote after fertilization; also called identical twins ; they are genetically similar

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)

Chemical that carries inherited instructions for the development of all cellular forms of life.

Genetic code

Sequence of bases within the DNA molecule; governs the formation of proteins that determine the structure and functions of living cells.

Chromosomes

Coils of DNA that consist of genes.

Genes

Small segments of DNA located in definite positions on particular chromosomes; functional units of heredity.

Human genome

Complete sequence of genes in the human body.

Mutation

Permanent alterations in genes or chromosomes that may produce harmful characteristics

Autosomes

In humans, the 22 pairs of chromosomes not related to sexual expression.

Sex chromosomes

Pair of chromosomes that determines sex: XX in the normal human female, XY in the normal human male.

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.

Dominant inheritance

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

Phenotype

Observable characteristics of a person.