CHAPTER 2: BASIC CONCEPTS AND ISSUES ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

A set of vocabulary flashcards defining key concepts, approaches, and processes in human development based on the lecture notes.

Development

The pattern of biological, cognitive, and socioemotional changes that begins at conception and continues throughout the lifespan; it includes both growth and decay.

Growth

Refers to physical changes that occur from conception to maturity; quantitative changes in an individual as he progresses in chronological age, and it may refer to increases in size, height or weight.

Aging

In a biological sense, is the deterioration of organisms (including human beings) that leads inevitably to death.

Maturation

Is the biological unfolding of an individual according to a plan contained in the genes (the hereditary characteristics passed from parents to child at conception); developmental changes that comes with age.

Learning

Is the process through which experience brings about relatively permanent changes in thoughts, feelings, or behavior.

Environment

Refers to all the external, physical, and social conditions and events that can affect us, from crowded living quarters to stimulating social interactions.

Traditional approach

An approach to human development that emphasizes extensive change from birth to adolescence, little or no change in adulthood, and decline in late old age.

Life-span approach

An approach to human development that emphasizes developmental change during adulthood as well as childhood.

Paul Baltes

An expert in life-span development.

Plasticity

Refers to the potential for change.

Biological processes

Involve changes in the individual's physical nature.

Cognitive processes

Involve changes in the individual's thought, intelligence, and language.

Socio-emotional processes

Include changes in the individual's relationships with other people, changes in emotions, and changes in personality.