Psyc-130 Ch9-10

Achievement motivation

Refers to whether children are motivated by competence or by others' views of their success.

Entity/helpless orientation

A tendency to attribute success and failure to enduring aspects of the self and to give up in the face of failure.

Incremental/mastery orientation

A general tendency to attribute success and failure to the amount of effort expended and to persist in the face of failure.

Entity theory

(or fixed mindset) A theory that a person's level of intelligence is fixed and unchangeable.

Erogenous zones

In Freud's theory, areas of the body that become erotically sensitive in successive stages of development.

Id

In psychoanalytic theory, the earliest and most primitive personality structure. It is unconscious and operates with the goal of seeking pleasure.

Oral stage

The first stage in Freud's theory, occurring in the first year, in which the primary source of satisfaction and pleasure is oral activity.

Ego

In psychoanalytic theory, the second personality structure to develop. It is the rational, logical, problem-solving component of personality.

Anal stage

The second stage in Freud's theory, lasting from the second year through the third year, in which the primary source of pleasure comes from defecation.

Phallic stage

The third stage in Freud's theory, lasting from age 3 to age 6, in which sexual pleasure is focused on the genitalia.

Superego

In psychoanalytic theory, the third personality structure, consisting of internalized moral standards.

Latency period

The fourth stage in Freud's theory, lasting from age 6 to age 12, in which sexual energy gets channeled into socially acceptable activities.

Genital stage

The final stage in Freud's theory, beginning in adolescence, in which sexual maturation is complete.

Intermittent reinforcement

Inconsistent response to a behavior; for example, sometimes punishing unacceptable behaviors, and other times ignoring it.

Behavior modification

A form of therapy based on principles of operant conditioning in which reinforcement contingencies are changed to encourage more adaptive behavior.

Reciprocal determinism

Child-environment influences operate in both directions; children are both affected by and influence aspects of their environment.

Self-socialization

The idea that children play a very active role in their own socialization through their activity preferences, friendship choices, and so on.

Role taking

Being aware of the perspective of another person.

Hostile attributional bias

In Dodge's theory, the tendency to assume that other people's ambiguous actions stem from hostile intent.

Ethology

The study of the evolutionary bases of behavior.

Imprinting

A form of learning in which the newborns of some species become attached to and follow adult members of the species.

Parental-investment theory

A theory that stresses the evolutionary basis of many aspects of parental behavior that benefit their offspring.

Microsystem

The immediate environment that an individual child experiences and participates in.

Mesosystem

The interconnections among immediate, or microsystem, settings.

Exosystem

Environmental settings that a child does not directly experience but that can affect the child indirectly.

Macrosystem

The larger cultural and social context within which the other systems are embedded.

Chronosystem

Historical changes that influence the other systems.

Emotions

Neural and physiological responses to the environment, subjective feelings, cognitions related to those feelings, and the desire to take action.

Discrete emotions theory

A theory in which emotions are viewed as innate, and each emotion has a specific and distinctive set of bodily and facial reactions.

Functionalist perspective

Theory which argues that the basic function of emotions is to promote action toward achieving a goal; in this view, emotions are not discrete from one another and vary somewhat based on the social environment.

Social smiles

Smiles that are directed at people; they first emerge around the 3rd month of life.

Separation anxiety

Feelings of distress that children, especially infants and toddlers, experience when they are separated, or expect to be separated, from individuals to whom they are emotionally attached.

Self-conscious emotions

Emotions such as guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride that relate to our sense of self and our consciousness of others' reactions to us.

Social referencing

The use of a parent's or another adult's facial expression or vocal cues to decide how to deal with novel, ambiguous, or possibly threatening situations.

Display rules

A social group's informal norms about when, where, and how much one should show emotions and when and where displays of emotion should be suppressed or masked by displays of other emotions.

Emotion regulation

A set of both conscious and unconscious processes used to both monitor and modulate emotional experiences and expressions.

Co-regulation

The process by which a caregiver provides the needed comfort or distraction to help a child reduce their distress.

Self-comforting behaviors

Repetitive actions that regulate arousal by providing a mildly positive physical sensation.

Self-distraction

Looking away from an upsetting stimulus in order to regulate one's level of arousal.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

Treatment that helps people recognize their own negative thoughts and thought patterns and learn ways to adjust those thoughts and related behaviors.

Social competence

The ability to achieve personal goals in social interactions while simultaneously maintaining positive relationships with others.

Emotion socialization

The process through which children acquire the values, standards, skills, knowledge, and behaviors that are regarded as appropriate for their present and future roles in their particular culture.

Emotion coaching

The use of discussion and other forms of instruction to teach children how to cope with and properly express emotions.

Temperament

Individual differences in emotion, activity level, and attention that are exhibited across contexts and that are present from infancy and thus thought to be genetically based.

Goodness of fit

The degree to which an individual's temperament is compatible with the demands and expectations of their social environment.

Differential susceptibility

A circumstance in which the same temperament characteristic that puts some children at high risk for negative outcomes when exposed to a harsh home environment also causes them to blossom when their home environment is positive.

Mental health

Children's sense of well-being both internally, such as in their emotions and stress levels, and externally, such as in their relationships with family members and peers.

Stress

A physiological reaction to some change or threat in the environment.

Mental disorder

A state of having problems with emotional reactions to the environment and with social relationships in ways that affect daily life.

Equifinality

The concept that various causes can lead to the same mental disorder.

Multifinality

The concept that certain risk factors do not always lead to a mental disorder.

Depression

A mental disorder that involves a sad or irritable mood along with physical and cognitive changes that interfere with daily life.

Anxiety disorders

A set of mental disorders that involve the inability to regulate fear and worry.