PSYC0313: Developmental Psychology - Lesson 1: The Life-Span Perspective

Vocabulary flashcards based on PSYC0313 Lesson 1 notes, providing definitions for key terms, developmental theories, stages, and research methodologies.

Development

The pattern of change that begins at the prenatal stage and lasts throughout the human life-span, involving both growth and decline.

Life-Span Perspective

A view of development as lifelong, plastic, multidimensional, multidirectional, multidisciplinary, and contextual, involving growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss.

Traditional Approach

An approach to development asserting major changes and growth occur from birth to adolescence, little to no change occurs in adulthood, and decline occurs in old age.

Life-Expectancy

The average number of years that a person is expected to live based on the historical period in which they are born.

Normative Age-Graded Influences

Environmental or biological influences that are similar for every person in a particular age group, such as puberty, menopause, or retirement.

Normative History-Graded Influences

Influences common to a particular generation due to historical circumstances, including major historical events or long-term genetic and cultural makeup shifts.

Nonnormative Life Events

Unusual life experiences that do not happen to everyone but have major personal impacts, such as the early death of parents, teenage pregnancy, or winning the lottery.

Growth

One of the three goals of human development, defined as the improvement of a developmental dimension.

Maintenance

One of the three goals of human development, defined as the adherence to and conservation of current developmental states and dimensions.

Regulation of Loss

One of the three goals of human development, defined as compensation and compromise in response to declining capabilities.

Culture

The behaviors, beliefs, and all other products of a group of people that are passed from generation to generation.

Cross-Cultural Studies

Studies that compare variations between two or more cultures to determine whether development is universal or culture-specific.

Ethnicity

Characteristics based on cultural heritage, national characteristics, race, religion, and language.

Socio-Economic Status (SES)

The grouping of people based on economic, occupational, and educational similarities.

Gender

The characteristics of people as males and females.

Transgender

An umbrella term for individuals whose gender identity is not aligned with their natal sex.

Social Policy

A government's course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens.

Biological Processes

Changes in an individual's physical nature, including genetics, height, weight, brain development, and hormonal changes.

Cognitive Processes

Changes in an individual's thought, intelligence, and language.

Socioemotional Processes

Changes in an individual's relationships with other people, emotions, and personality.

Chronological Age

The number of years that have elapsed since a person's birth.

Biological Age

A measure of age in relation to the functional capabilities of a person's vital organs.

Psychological Age

A person's age characterized by their adaptive capabilities compared to other individuals of the same chronological age.

Social Age

Age characterized by connectedness with others and the social roles individuals adopt.

Nature

The perspective that development is primary influenced by an organism's biological inheritance and genetic foundations.

Nurture

The perspective that development is primarily influenced by environmental experiences, ranging from biological nutrition to social contexts.

Epigenetic View

The view that development reflects an ongoing, bidirectional interchange between genes and the environment.

Continuity

The view that development involves gradual, cumulative quantitative change over time.

Discontinuity

The view that development involves distinct, qualitative stages or sequences.

Theory

A set of related assumptions used to formulate testable hypotheses through logical deductive reasoning.

Hypothesis

Specific assumptions and predictions that can be tested to determine their accuracy.

Psychoanalytic Theories

Theories that describe development as primarily unconscious, heavily colored by emotion, and shaped by early experiences with primary caregivers.

Freud's Psychosexual Theory

A theory postulating five stages of development where fixations occur if pleasure needs are under- or over-gratified at any stage.

Erikson's Psychosocial Theory

A life-span theory proposing eight stages of development, each centered around a specific psychosocial crisis that must be resolved.

Schema

A mental category of knowledge or action involved in understanding and interpreting the world.

Assimilation

The cognitive process of interpreting new information or experiences in terms of existing schemas.

Accommodation

The cognitive process of adjusting existing schemas or knowledge to fit new experiences and information.

Vgotsky's Sociocultural Cognitive Theory

A cognitive theory emphasizing how social interaction and cultural tools guide cognitive development.

Information Processing Theory

A theory proposing that individuals continuously develop capacity to manipulate, monitor, and strategize about information, drawing analogies to computer systems.

Micro-genetic Method

A research approach that details processing mechanisms directly as they occur to discover how knowledge is acquired.

Behaviorism

A theoretical view asserting that development can only be studied scientifically through directly observable and measurable behavior.

Skinner's Operant Conditioning

A behavioral theory stating that the likelihood of a behavior occurring is modified through environmental rewards and punishments.

Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory

A theory holding that behavior, environment, and cognition are key factors in development, highlighting observational learning.

Ethological Theories

Theories stressing that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, tied to evolution, and characterized by critical or sensitive periods.

Imprinting

Konrad Lorenz's concept of rapid innate learning during a critical early period that involves attachment to the first moving object seen.

Attachment Theory

John Bowlby's theory asserting that secure attachment to a primary caregiver during the first year of life is critical for optimal socioemotional development.

Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory

An environmental systems theory outlining five contextual influences: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.

Eclectic Theoretical Orientation

An approach that does not adhere to any single theoretical orientation, but selects the best features from various theories.

Correlation Coefficient

A statistical measure describing the strength and direction of association between two or more variables.

Random Assignment

The practice of assigning participants to experimental or control groups by chance to minimize preexisting differences.

Cross-Sectional Approach

A research strategy that compares individuals of different ages at a single point in time.

Longitudinal Approach

A research strategy in which the same group of individuals is studied over a prolonged period of time.

Cohort Effects

Characteristics or differences attributed to a person's time of birth, historical era, or generation rather than chronological age.

Ethnic Gloss

The overgeneralizing use of an ethnic label in a superficial manner that wrongly portrays a diverse ethnic group as homogenous.