Unit 3 Exam Study Guide: Developmental Psychology, Motivation, Emotion, and Personality

Vocabulary practice flashcards for Unit 3 covering major developmental theories, motivation and emotion concepts, and personality models across Chapters 8, 9, and 10.

Nature vs Nurture

The psychological debate examining the relative influence of biological inheritance and genetic factors (nature) versus environmental experiences and surroundings (nurture) on human development.

Genotype vs Phenotype

The distinction between an organism's actual underlying genetic heritage or DNA sequence (genotype) and the observable physical and behavioral traits expressed from that code (phenotype).

Resilience

The psychological capacity of an individual to successfully adapt, recover, and function effectively despite facing significant adversity, trauma, or developmental obstacles.

Teratogens

Environmental substances or agents, such as alcohol, drugs, viruses, or chemical toxins, that can penetrate the womb and cause birth defects or developmental abnormalities during prenatal growth.

Synaptic Pruning

The neurodevelopmental process wherein redundant, unused, or extra neural connections and synapses are systematically eliminated to streamline and enhance neural efficiency.

Neurogenesis

The biological and neurological process of generating and developing new functional neurons within the brain.

Conservation

Jean Piaget's cognitive principle describing a child's understanding that basic physical attributes such as volume, mass, or quantity remain constant despite alterations in physical shape or container appearance.

Scaffolding

Lev Vygotsky's instructional concept where a teacher, mentor, or parent adjusts the level of temporary guidance provided to support a learner's progression through their zone of proximal development.

Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation

A standardized laboratory procedure involving brief separations and reunions with a caregiver and stranger, used to assess and categorize infant attachment styles.

Contact Comfort (Harlow’s Monkey Studies)

The innate preference for tactile reassurance, warmth, and physical closeness over mere food provision, demonstrated using infant rhesus monkeys and surrogate wire and cloth mothers.

Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages

An eight-stage lifespan theory of development proposing that each phase of life requires the resolution of a specific psychosocial conflict (such as trust vs. mistrust or identity vs. role confusion).

Baumrind’s Parenting Styles

A developmental classification categorizing child-rearing patterns into four distinct approaches based on parental demandingness and responsiveness: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful.

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

A stage-based model proposing that individuals advance through preconventional, conventional, and postconventional levels of moral reasoning when evaluating ethical dilemmas.

Kubler-Ross’s Stages of Dying

A five-stage psychological framework identifying the typical emotional progression experienced by individuals facing terminal illness: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Drive Reduction Theory

A motivational theory proposing that physiological deficits create an internal tension or drive that organisms are motivated to reduce in order to reestablish biological homeostasis.

Optimal Arousal Theory

A perspective stating that organisms are motivated to achieve and maintain their own preferred, intermediate baseline of physiological alertness, seeking stimulation when bored and resting when overstimulated.

Self Determination Theory

A macro-theory of human motivation highlighting that healthy development and psychological flourishing depend upon fulfilling three universal needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation

The distinction between pursuing an activity purely for its own inherent joy, challenge, and satisfaction (intrinsic) versus engaging in a task to obtain outside rewards or avoid penalties (extrinsic).

James-Lange Theory

A theory of emotion stating that physiological and visceral reactions occur first in response to a stimulus, and the conscious subjective feeling of emotion arises from interpreting those bodily changes.

Cannon-Bard Theory

A theory of emotion stating that physiological arousal and conscious emotional experience take place simultaneously and independently when an emotional stimulus triggers the thalamus.

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

The principle that facial muscle movements directly inform emotional experience, such that deliberately altering one's facial expression can produce or amplify the corresponding emotion.

Cultural Display Rules

Societal and cultural norms that dictate the appropriateness, timing, and intensity with which specific emotions may be openly exhibited or suppressed in social contexts.

Paul Ekman’s 7 Universal Emotions

A cross-cultural theory demonstrating that seven primary emotional facial expressions—happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt—are universally recognized across human cultures.

Flow

A state identified in positive psychology characterized by complete absorption, deep engagement, and peak performance in an activity where high personal skill is matched with a demanding challenge.

Freud’s Structure of the Mind

Sigmund Freud's triarchic personality architecture consisting of the instinctual, pleasure-seeking Id; the realistic, mediating Ego; and the moral, judgmental Superego.

Projection

A psychoanalytic defense mechanism wherein an individual unconsciously masks their own unacceptable traits, urges, or impulses by attributing them to other people.

Repression

The fundamental psychoanalytic defense mechanism of pushing unacceptable desires, painful memories, or anxiety-inducing thoughts out of conscious awareness into the unconscious.

Inferiority Complex

Alfred Adler's term describing chronic, unconscious feelings of personal inadequacy and deficiency that drive an individual to overcompensate through striving for superiority.

Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of an inherited, universal layer of the human mind containing common ancestral memories, instinctual patterns, and archetypes shared across all people.

Unconditional Positive Regard

Carl Rogers's humanistic principle describing total, nonjudgmental acceptance, valuing, and warmth extended to an individual regardless of their behaviors or flaws.

Locus of Control (Internal vs External)

Julian Rotter's concept measuring whether a person attributes life events and rewards to their own efforts and personal control (internal) or to outside fate, chance, and powerful others (external).

Self-Efficacy

Albert Bandura's concept referring to an individual's personal conviction and confidence in their capability to execute courses of action required to manage future situations.

Reciprocal Determinism

Albert Bandura's social-cognitive model asserting that personality is formed through the dynamic, reciprocal interaction between personal cognitive factors, observable behavior, and environmental context.

Surface Traits vs Source Traits

Raymond Cattell's trait distinction separating observable, everyday behavioral tendencies (surface traits) from the underlying, fundamental core dimensions that produce them (source traits).

The Big Five / Five Factor Model

A widely accepted dimensional trait theory organizing human personality into five broad factors: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN).

Projective Personality Tests

Personality assessments, such as the Rorschach Inkblot Test and Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), that use ambiguous stimuli to prompt individuals to project their unconscious motives and conflicts.