History, Theories, and Methods in Child Development

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing major theories, key terms, and developmental models covered in the lecture on child and adolescent development history, theories, and methods.

Growth

Changes in size and quantity in an organism.

Development

The process by which organisms unfold, features and traits grow, and become more complex and specialized in structure and function.

Theory of Psychosexual Development

Sigmund Freud's stage theory proposing that child development occurs through five psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital) driven by the interaction of the Id, Ego, and Superego.

Psychosocial Development Theory

Erik Erikson's theory consisting of $8$ stages of development across the lifespan, characterized by continuous active growth, identity crises, and life crises.

Classical Conditioning

A learning mechanism, studied by Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson, that pairs unconditioned and conditioned stimuli and responses.

Operant Conditioning

B.F. Skinner's theory of learning based on positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, shaping, time out, and punishment.

Scheme

A mental structure involved in the acquisition and organization of knowledge, as described in Jean Piaget's cognitive theory.

Assimilation

According to Jean Piaget, the process of fitting new knowledge or events into existing mental schemes.

Accommodation

The modification of existing mental schemes to incorporate novel events or new information.

Equilibration

The state of cognitive balance achieved between assimilation and accommodation.

Sensorimotor Stage

Piaget's cognitive developmental stage from birth to $2$ years, during which infants develop object permanence.

Preoperational Stage

Piaget's cognitive stage spanning $2$ to $7$ years, characterized by egocentrism, classification abilities, and an inability to solve conservation tasks.

Concrete Operational Stage

Piaget's cognitive stage spanning $7$ to $12$ years, marked by hierarchical classification and reversibility.

Formal Operational Stage

Piaget's final stage of cognitive development ($12$ years and older), characterized by abstract thinking and logical reasoning.

Reciprocal Determinism

Albert Bandura's concept that behavior is determined by continuous interaction among personal factors (thinking and beliefs), environmental factors, and the behavior itself.

Sociocultural Theory

Lev Vygotsky's perspective asserting that children are social beings whose development is shaped by the transmission of cultural knowledge, customs, traditions, and language.

Zone of Proximal Development

The range of tasks that a learner can accomplish with guidance from a More Knowledgeable Other, situated between what they can do independently and what is beyond their abilities.

Scaffolding

Temporary support provided to a learner in the Zone of Proximal Development through techniques such as prompting, open-ended questioning, and modeling.

Ethnic Group

A group of people distinguished by cultural heritage, race, language, and common history.

Gender

The psychological state of being male or female, as influenced by cultural concepts of appropriate behavior.

Socioeconomic Status

A person's social position determined mainly by their level of income.

Ecology

The biology concerned with the relationships between living organisms and their environment.

Ecological Systems Theory

Urie Bronfenbrenner's framework explaining child development through the interaction between children and nested environmental settings (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem).

Microsystem

The immediate setting where a child directly interacts and spends daily life, such as home with parents or school with peers.

Mesosystem

Interactions or connections between two or more of a child's immediate environments, such as a parent-teacher conference or a school field trip to a library.

Exosystem

An external environment where a child does not actively participate, but which indirectly influences their daily life and growth, such as a parent's workplace.

Macrosystem

The overarching cultural, legal, political, and economic values and ideologies of a society that shape a child's environment.

Chronosystem

The dimension of time in Bronfenbrenner's model, encompassing historical events, normative life transitions, and socio-economic changes across a child's lifespan.

Ethology

The study of animal behavior, specifically instinctive or inborn behavior patterns within natural environments.

Imprinting

A process studied in ethology involving rapid learning during a specific period of early life, forming an instinctual attachment pattern.

Attachment Theory

A theoretical framework by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (supported by Harry Harlow) detailing patterns of emotional bonding between children and caregivers (secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-ambivalent/resistant, and disorganized).