3.5-3.8

Language

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

Phonemes

The smallest distinctive sound unit in a language.

Morphemes

The smallest unit in a language that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word (such as a prefix).

Grammar

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

Universal grammar (UG)

Humans’ innate predisposition to understand the principles and rules that govern grammar in all languages.

Babbling stage

The stage in speech development, beginning around 4 months, during which an infant spontaneously utters various sounds.

One word stage

The stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, where a child speaks mostly in single words.

Two word stage

Beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development where a child speaks mostly in two-word statements.

Telegraphic speech

The early speech stage where a child speaks like a telegram using mostly nouns and verbs.

Aphasia

Impairment of language caused by left hemisphere damage, affecting speaking or understanding.

Broca’s area

A frontal lobe brain area that helps control language expression by directing muscle movements involved in speech.

Wernicke’s area

A brain area involved in language comprehension and expression.

Linguistic determinism

Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think.

Linguistic relativism

The idea that language influences the way we think.

Ecological systems theory

A theory describing how the social environment influences human development using five nested systems.

Stranger anxiety

The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.

Attachment

An emotional tie with others, shown in young children by seeking closeness to caregivers.

Imprinting

The process by which certain animals form strong attachments during early life.

Strange situation

A procedure for studying child-caregiver attachment through observing a child's reactions in an unfamiliar environment.

Secure attachment

Demonstrated by infants who explore environments comfortably in the presence of a caregiver.

Insecure attachment

Demonstrated by infants who show either clinging, anxious attachment or avoidant attachment.

Temperament

A person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity.

Self-concept

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves in response to the question, 'Who am I?'

Identity

Our sense of self; Erikson defined it as solidifying a sense of self by testing various roles.

Social identity

The aspect of our self-concept that comes from our group memberships.

Intimacy

The ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary development task in young adulthood.

Emerging adulthood

A period from about age 18 to the mid-twenties when individuals have not yet achieved full independence.

Social clock

The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.

Learning

The process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviors through experience.

Habituation

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation, leading to diminished interest.

Associative learning

Learning that certain events occur together, including classical and operant conditioning.

Stimulus

Any event or situation that evokes a response.

Respondent behavior

Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to a stimulus.

Operant behavior

Behavior that operates on the environment, producing a consequence.

Cognitive learning

The acquisition of mental information by observing events, watching others, or through language.

Classical conditioning

A type of learning where two or more stimuli are linked to elicit behavior.

Behaviorism

The view that psychology should be an objective science studying behavior without reference to mental processes.

Neutral stimulus

A stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning.

Unconditioned response

An unlearned response that occurs naturally to an unconditioned stimulus.

Unconditioned stimulus

A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers an unconditioned response.

Conditioned response

A learned response to a previously neutral stimulus that has been conditioned.

Conditioned stimulus

An originally neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus, triggers a conditioned response.

Acquisition

The initial stage in classical conditioning where a neutral stimulus links with an unconditioned stimulus.

Extinction

The diminishing of a conditioned response when the unconditioned stimulus does not follow the conditioned stimulus.

Spontaneous recovery

The reappearance of a weakened conditioned response after a pause.

Generalization

The tendency for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses.

Discrimination

The learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been associated.

Preparedness

A biological predisposition to learn associations that have survival value.

Operant conditioning

A type of learning where behavior is influenced by consequences, increasing or decreasing its likelihood.

Law of effect

Thorndike’s principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences are more likely to recur.

Operant chamber

A chamber used in operant conditioning research where animals manipulate devices to obtain reinforcers.

Reinforcement

Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.

Shaping

An operant conditioning procedure guiding behavior toward closer approximations of the desired behavior.

Discriminative stimulus

A stimulus that elicits a response after association with reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement

Increasing behaviors by presenting a pleasurable stimulus.

Negative reinforcement

Increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing an aversive stimulus.

Primary reinforcers

An innately reinforcing stimulus that satisfies a biological need.

Conditioned reinforcers

Stimuli that gain reinforcing power through their association with primary reinforcers.

Reinforcement schedules

Patterns that define how often a desired response will be reinforced.

Continuous reinforcement schedule

Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs.

Partial (intermittent) reinforcement schedules

Reinforcing a response only part of the time, leading to greater resistance to extinction.

Fixed ratio schedules

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses.

Variable ratio schedules

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.

Fixed interval schedules

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time interval.

Variable interval schedules

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.

Punishment

An event tending to decrease the behavior that it follows.

Instinctive drift

The tendency of learned behavior to gradually revert to biologically predisposed patterns.