AP Psychology Vocabs 3.1-3.5

Continuous Development

it sees our development as a cumulative process: changes are gradual.

Developmental Psychology

a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development throughout lifespan.

Discontinuous Development

it sees our development as taking place in specific steps or stages: changes are sudden.

Lifespan Development

this explores human growth and changes from conception, childhood, and adolescence through to adulthood and, ultimately, death.

Nature and Nurture

The issue over the relative contributions of hereditary and constitutional factors and environmental factors to the development of an individual.

Stability and Change

In developmental psychology, this issue concerns the extent to which personal factors (e.g., personality, intelligence, skills) remain constant across the lifespan or change as people age.

Cross-sectional Research

A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another.

Longitudinal Study

A research approach that follows a group of people over time to determine change or stability in behavior.

Adolescence

the period in human development that starts with puberty (10-12 years of age) and ends with physiological maturity (approximately 19 years of age), although the exact age span varies across individuals.

Critical Periods

specific time windows during development where experiences are absolutely required for normal brain development, and lack of these experiences can lead to irreversible changes

Developmental Milestone

these are things most children can do by a certain age.

Fine Motor Coordination

Activities or skills that require coordination of small muscles to control small, precise movements, particularly in the hands and face. Examples include handwriting, drawing, cutting, and manipulating small objects.

Gross Motor Coordination

Activities or skills that use large muscles to move the trunk or limbs and control posture to maintain balance. Examples include waving an arm, walking, hopping, and running.

Growth Spurt

a period when a child’s height rapidly increases.

Imprinting

The process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.

Maturation

Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.

Menarche

The first incidence of menstruation in a female, marking the onset of puberty.

Menopause

The time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines.

Prenatal Influence

this is the influence that genetic and environmental factors give.

Primary Sex Characteristics

The body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible.

Puberty

Period of sexual maturation in which one is capable of reproducing.

Reflexes

an involuntary response that happens without conscious effort.

Rooting Reflex

A baby's tendency, when touched on the cheek, to turn toward the touch, open the mouth, and search for the nipple.

Secondary Sex Characteristics

Nonreproductive sexual characteristics, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair.

Sensitive Periods

time windows where experiences have a particularly strong impact on brain development, but missing them doesn't necessarily mean normal development is permanently compromised

Spermarche

A male's first ejaculation of semen.

Teratogens

An agent that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

Visual Cliff

An apparatus to investigate the development of depth perception in nonverbal human infants and in nonhuman animals.

Gender

A social construct and generally based on the norms, behaviors, and societal roles expected of individuals based primarily on their sex.

Sex

the biologically influenced characteristics by which people define male, female, and intersex.

Sexual Orientation

One's enduring sexual attraction to male partners, female partners, both, or otherwise.

Abstract Thinking

the ability to consider concepts beyond what we observe physically.

Accommodation

Adapting our current understanding (schemas) to incorporate new information.

Animism

The belief that natural phenomena or inanimate objects are alive or possess lifelike characteristics, such as intentions, desires, and feelings.

Assimilation

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.

Concrete Operational Stage

Piaget's theory - cognitive development during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about objective events (6-7 to 11).

Conservation

The principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects.

Crystallized Intelligence

Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Dementia

A chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders, personality changes, and impaired reasoning.

Egocentrism

In Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view.

Fluid Intelligence

Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood.

Formal Operational Stage

Piaget's theory - cognitive development during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts (begins around 12).

Hypothetical Thinking

imagining possibilities and exploring their consequences through a process of mental simulation.

Mental Symbols

A stage when a child is able to mentally represent an object that is not present, and a dependence on perception in problem solving.

Object Permanence

The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.

Preoperational Stage

Piaget's theory - a child learns language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations involving objective logic (2 to 6-7).

Pretend Play

make-believe play that includes an "as-if" orientation to actions, objects, and peers. It often involves playing a distinct role (e.g., mother/father, teacher, etc.).

Reversibility

In Piagetian theory, a mental operation that reverses a sequence of events or restores a changed state of affairs to the original condition. For example, understanding that a glass of milk poured into a bottle can be poured back into the glass and remain unchanged.

Scaffolding

According to Vgotsky, a framework that offers children temporary support as they develop higher levels of thinking.

Schema

Concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Sensorimotor Stage

Piaget's theory - infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and physical activities (birth - 2).

Theory of Mind

People's ideas about their own and other's mental states - about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict.

Zone of Proximal Development

According to Vygotsky, the difference between what children can do with assistance and what they can do alone.

Babbling

an infant spontaneously uttering various sounds that are not all related to the household language.

Cooing

a spontaneous vocalization behavior that infants typically engage in when they are in a comfortable state, and is also used by infants as a non-crying means to communicate to caregivers.

Grammar

a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

Language

our agreed-upon systems of spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Morphemes

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word.

One-word Stage

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Overgeneralization

a cognitive distortion that involves viewing something in isolation, or that is not as common, as being part of a common pattern and associating it with a more broad assumption.

Phonemes

in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Semantics

the language’s set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds

Syntax

the set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.

Telegraphic Speech

the early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram - “go car” - using mostly nouns and verbs.