Human Development: A Life-span view Ch. 5

Hope

According to Erikson, an openness to new experience tempered by wariness that occurs when trust and mistrust are in balance.

Will

According to Erikson, a young child's understanding that he or she can act on the world intentionally; this occurs when autonomy, shame, and doubt are in balance.

Purpose

According to Erikson, balance between individual initiative and the willingness to cooperate with others.

Evolutionary psychology

Theoretical view that many human behaviors represent successful adaptations to the environment.

Attachment

Enduring socioemotional relationship between infants and their caregivers.

Secure attachment

Relationship in which infants have come to trust and depend on their mothers.

Avoidant attachment

Relationship in which infants turn away from their mothers when they are reunited following a brief separation.

Resistant attachment

Relationship in which, after a brief separation, infants want to be held but are difficult to console.

Disorganized (disoriented) attachmentR

elationship in which infants don't seem to understand what's happening when they are separated and later reunited with their mothers.

Internal working model

Infant's understanding of how responsive and dependable the mother is; thought to influence close relationships throughout the child's life.

Basic emotions

Emotions experienced by humankind and that consist of three elements; a subjective feeling, a physiological change, and an overt behavior.

Social smiles

Smile that infants produce when they see a human face.

Stranger wariness

First distinct signs of fear that emerge around 6 months of age when infants become wary in the presence of unfamiliar adults.

Social referencing

Behaviors in which infants in unfamiliar or ambiguous environments look at an adult for cues to help them interpret the situation.

Parallel play

When children play alone but are aware of an interested in what another child is doing.

Simple social play

Play that begins at about 15 to 18 months; toddlers engage in similar activities as well as talk and smile at each other.

cooperative play

Play that is organized around a theme, with each child taking on a different role; begins at about 2 years of age.

Enabling actions

Individuals' actions and remarks that tend to support others and sustain the interaction.

Constricting actions

Interaction in which one partner tries to emerge as the victor by threatening or contradicting the other.

Prosocial behavior

Any behavior that benefits another person.

Altruism

Prosocial behavior such as helping and sharing in which the individual does not benefit directly form his or her behavior.

Empathy

Experiencing another person's feelings.

Social role

Set of cultural guidelines about how one should behave, especially with other people.

Gender stereotypes

Beliefs and images about males and females that are not necessarily true.

Relational aggression

Aggression used to hurt others by undermining their social relationships.

Gender identity

Sense of oneself as male or female.

Gender labeling

Young children's understanding that they are either boys or girls and naming themselves accordingly.

Gender stability

Understanding in preschool children that boys become men and girls become women.

Gender constancy

Understanding that maleness and femaleness do not change over situations or personal wishes.

Gender-schema theory

Theory that states that children want to learn more about an activity only after first deciding whether it is masculine or feminine.