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Developmental psychology
A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development throughout the lifespan.
Stability
The concept that we retain many of the traits that shape our identities throughout our lives.
Change
The concept that the traits that shape our identities evolve over our lifetimes.
Nature
The idea that our behaviors and thoughts are a result of inborn factors like our genetic makeup.
Nurture
The idea that our behaviors and thoughts are a result of our sensations of the world around us.
Continuity
The concept that sees maturation as a gradual process where changes happen steadily over time.
Discontinuity
The concept that emphasizes distinct steps in the maturation process, with significant changes happening between those stages.
Cross-sectional study
Research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time.
Longitudinal study
Research that follows and retests the same people over time.
Teratogens
Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.
Maternal illnesses
Illnesses, or symptoms of illness like severe fever, that affect the fetal environment and can impact prenatal development.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Physical and cognitive function deficits in children caused by their birth mothers’ heavy drinking during pregnancy.
Genetic mutations
A permanent change in an organism's DNA sequence that can alter genetic information and affect fetal development.
Maturation
Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.
Rooting
A reflex movement in newborns where stimulation of the cheek leads the baby to turn its head in search of food.
Critical period
An optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli produces normal development.
Sensitive period
A time during which exposure to a specific environmental condition has the potential for the greatest influence.
Gross motor skills
Movements involving large muscle body structures like hips and legs.
Fine motor skills
Movements involving the small muscles like fingertips.
Adolescence
The transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence.
Puberty
The period of sexual maturation when a person becomes capable of reproducing.
Primary sex characteristics
Body structures that make sexual reproduction possible, such as ovaries and testes.
Secondary sex characteristics
Nonreproductive sexual characteristics, such as female breasts and male body hair.
Menarche
The first menstrual period.
Spermarche
The start of sperm production.
Menopause
The time of natural cessation of menstruation and biological changes in a woman as reproductive ability declines.
Sex
Biologically influenced characteristics by which people define male, female, and intersex.
Intersex
Possessing male and female sexual characteristics at birth.
Gender
The attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that a culture associates with a person’s biological sex.
Gender role
A set of expected behaviors, attitudes, and traits for men and women.
Gender identity
Our personal sense of being male, female, neither, or some combination alone, regardless of birth sex.
Androgyny
Blending traditional masculine and feminine psychological characteristics.
Transgender
When a person’s personal identity of gender does not correspond with their birth sex.
Sexual orientation
A person’s sexual and emotional attraction to another person and the associated behaviors.
Cognition
All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Jean Piaget
Swiss psychologist who proposed theories of children's cognitive stage development.
Schema
A concept developed through experience that helps to organize and interpret unfamiliar information.
Assimilation
Interpreting new experiences in terms of existing schemas.
Accommodation
Adapting current schemas to incorporate new knowledge.
Sensorimotor stage
The stage (from birth to about 2 years) when infants know the world mostly through sensory impressions and motor activities.
Object permanence
The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.
Preoperational stage
The stage (from 2 to about 6 or 7 years) during which a child learns to use language but does not comprehend mental operations.
Conservation
The principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in form.
Reversibility
A mental operation that restores a changed state of affairs to the original condition.
Egocentrism
The preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.
Theory of mind
Ideas about one’s own and others’ mental states and the behaviors these might predict.
Concrete operational stage
The stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years) when children think logically about concrete events.
Formal operational stage
The stage of cognitive development (normally beginning at age 12) when people think logically about abstract concepts.
Lev Vygotsky
Russian psychologist who emphasized cognitive development through social-cultural interaction.
Scaffold
A framework that offers temporary support as children develop higher levels of learning.
Zone of proximal development
The gap between what a learner can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance.
Fluid intelligence (Gf)
The ability to reason speedily and abstractly with new information; tends to decrease with age.
Crystallized intelligence (Gc)
Accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.
Dementia
A chronic disorder that deteriorates parts of the brain responsible for thinking, memory, and behavior.