Comprehensive Psychology Review: Development, Personality, and Social Psychology

A comprehensive vocabulary review covering life span human development, personality assessment and theories, and the dynamics of social psychology.

Developmental psychology

The scientific study of continuity and change across the human life span.

Germinal stage

The $2\text{-week}$ prenatal stage that begins at conception, during which a zygote undergoes rapid cell division and travels through the fallopian tube to implant in the uterus.

Embryonic stage

The period of prenatal development lasting from the $2\text{nd week}$ until the $8\text{th week}$, during which the embryo produces differentiated cells and forms major body systems.

Fetal stage

The prenatal stage lasting from the $9\text{th week}$ until birth, during which the fetus develops axons and dendrites, undergoes rapid growth, and begins myelination.

Myelination

The formation of a fatty sheath around the axons of neurons that insulates them and speeds information transmission.

Teratogen

Any substance that passes from the mother to the unborn child and impairs normal prenatal development.

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)

A developmental disorder caused by heavy maternal alcohol use during pregnancy, characterized by brain abnormalities, cognitive deficits, and distinct facial anomalies including short eye openings, a flat midface, a smooth philtrum, a thin upper lip, and an underdeveloped jaw.

Infancy

The developmental stage that begins at birth and lasts between $18$ and $24\text{ months}$.

Habituation

The tendency for organisms to respond less intensely to a stimulus each time it is presented.

Motor development

The emergence of the ability to execute physical actions.

Motor reflexes

Specific motor responses that are triggered automatically by specific patterns of sensory stimulation, present at birth.

Cephalocaudal rule

The "top-to-bottom" tendency for motor skills to emerge in sequence from the head to the feet.

Proximodistal rule

The "inside-to-outside" tendency for motor skills to emerge in sequence from the center of the body toward the periphery.

Scale error

A developmental error in which a young child attempts to perform an action on a miniature object that is impossible due to the dramatic discrepancy in relative size (such as trying to sit in a doll-sized toy chair).

Cognitive development

The process through which infants and children gain the ability to think, understand, and construct mental models of the world.

Schemas

Theories or mental frameworks about the way the world works.

Assimilation

The process by which infants apply their existing schemas to novel situations.

Accommodation

The process by which infants revise their existing schemas in light of new information that does not fit their previous understanding.

Object permanence

The understanding that physical objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible or detectable to the senses.

Childhood

The developmental period that begins at about $18\text{ to }24\text{ months}$ and lasts until roughly $11\text{ to }14\text{ years}$.

Egocentrism

The failure to understand that the world appears different to different people, hallmarked by the preoperational stage.

Theory of mind

The understanding that the mind produces mental representations of the world, and that these internal representations guide behavior.

Attachment

The deep emotional bond formed between an infant and their primary caregiver.

Attachment styles

Characteristic patterns of reacting to the presence and absence of one's primary caregiver, typically categorized as secure, ambivalent, avoidant, or disorganized.

Secure attachment

An attachment style wherein infants may or may not show distress when the caregiver leaves the room, but acknowledge and respond positively when the caregiver returns.

Ambivalent attachment

An attachment style wherein infants become intensely distressed upon caregiver departure, and upon reunion, react negatively by rebuffing contact or exhibiting anger.

Avoidant attachment

An attachment style characterized by little distress when the caregiver leaves and indifference or lack of response upon the caregiver's return.

Disorganized attachment

An attachment style characterized by an absence of any consistent pattern of response to the caregiver's departure or return.

Temperament

A biologically based pattern of attentional and emotional reactivity, categorizing infants into easy ($40\%$), difficult ($10\%$), slow-to-warm-up ($15\%$), or unclassified ($35\%$).

Internal working model

A cognitive framework comprising a set of beliefs and expectations about the way interpersonal relationships function.

Preconventional stage

A stage of moral development in Lawrence Kohlberg's theory wherein the morality of an action is primarily determined by its physical consequences for the actor.

Conventional stage

A stage of moral development wherein an action's morality is determined primarily by the extent to which it conforms to social rules, laws, and norms.

Postconventional stage

A stage of moral development wherein the morality of an action is determined by a set of general principles that reflect core ethical values and universal human rights.

Adolescence

The developmental period beginning with the onset of sexual maturity ($11\text{ to }14\text{ years old}$) and lasting until the beginning of adulthood ($18\text{ to }21\text{ years old}$).

Puberty

The bodily changes associated with sexual maturity and reproductive capacity.

Primary sex characteristics

Bodily structures that develop and change during puberty and are directly involved in human reproduction.

Secondary sex characteristics

Bodily structures that change during puberty but are not directly involved in reproduction (e.g., facial hair, breast enlargement, voice lowering).

Protracted adolescence

The historical trend in modern societies where the age of biological and physical maturity has decreased while the age of assuming adult economic and social roles has increased.

Adulthood

The stage of life that begins around age $18\text{ to }21$ and extends through the remainder of life.

De-differentiation

The neural aging phenomenon in which brain regions become less functionally specialized, recruiting bilateral networks to work together to compensate for localized decline.

Socioemotional selectivity theory

The theory proposing that younger adults prioritize acquiring useful information for a distant future, whereas older adults prioritize emotional satisfaction and meaningful bonds in the present.

Personality

An individual's characteristic, stable style of behaving, thinking, and feeling, shaped by prior events and anticipated goals.

Self-report

A personality assessment method in which individuals provide subjective information regarding their own thoughts, feelings, or behaviors through questionnaires.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

A well-established clinical questionnaire designed to assess personality structure and diagnose psychological problems.

Projective tests

Personality tests designed to reveal inner aspects of an individual's unconscious mind by analyzing responses to standardized, ambiguous stimuli.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A projective technique in which a respondent's inner feelings and thoughts are interpreted based on their perceptions of unstructured inkblot patterns.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test in which a respondent's underlying motives and social concerns are revealed through stories they invent about ambiguous images of people.

Trait

A relatively stable, enduring disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way across time and situations.

Big Five

The widely accepted five-factor model of personality traits consisting of Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

Heritability estimate

A statistical measure indicating the proportion of observed phenotypic variability in a trait among individuals that can be attributed to genetic differences.

Id

In Freud's psychodynamic theory, the instinctual component of personality present at birth that contains biological drives, needs, wants, and aggressive or sexual impulses operating on the pleasure principle.

Superego

In Freud's psychodynamic theory, the mental system that internalizes cultural morality, social values, and rules learned primarily through parental discipline.

Ego

The conscious component of personality developed through interactions with reality, functioning as a mediator between the desires of the id, the constraints of the superego, and external demands.

Defense mechanisms

Unconscious mental coping strategies deployed by the ego to reduce anxiety caused by threatening or unacceptable internal impulses.

Humanistic approach

A psychological perspective that emphasizes a positive, optimistic view of human nature and highlights an individual's innate potential for personal growth.

Existential approach

A psychological perspective that views an individual as a free agent who creates meaning in life through continuous personal choices while confronting existential realities like death.

Self-actualization tendency

The fundamental human motive toward realizing one's inner potential, achieving full personal vitality, and finding purpose in life.

Flow

A state of energized focus and optimal engagement experienced when an individual's abilities are precisely matched to the challenges of an activity.

Social-cognitive approach

A psychological perspective that views personality in terms of how individuals conceptualize daily situations and behave in response to them.

Person-situation controversy

The ongoing psychological debate concerning whether human behavior is primarily determined by enduring internal personality traits or by situational context.

Outcome expectations

A person's cognitive assumptions about the likely consequences that will follow from specific future behaviors.

Locus of control

A person's tendency to perceive the primary control over life outcomes and rewards as internal (derived from self-effort) or external (controlled by fate, luck, or outside forces).

Self-concept

An explicit body of knowledge that a person possesses regarding their own personal behaviors, traits, and characteristics.

Self-verification

The psychological tendency to seek out and attend to evidence that confirms and validates one's pre-existing self-concept.

Self-esteem

The extent to which an individual likes, values, and accepts the self.

Self-serving bias

The cognitive tendency for individuals to attribute successes to their own dispositions and efforts while attributing failures to external circumstances.

Narcissism

A grandiose, inflated view of the self combined with an intense need for admiration from others and a propensity to exploit interpersonal relationships.

Social psychology

The scientific study of the causes and consequences of sociality, social interactions, and human relationships.

Aggression

Any physical or verbal behavior whose intended purpose is to harm another individual.

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

A psychological hypothesis proposing that aggression is primarily elicited when an organism's goal-directed behavior is blocked or thwarted.

Proactive aggression

Aggressive behavior that is planned, calculated, and purposeful rather than emotionally charged.

Reactive aggression

Aggressive behavior that occurs impulsively and spontaneously in response to an emotional provocation or negative affective state.

Cooperation

Behavior carried out by two or more individuals that results in mutual benefit.

Group

A collection of people who have something in common that distinguishes them from non-members.

Common knowledge effect

The tendency for group discussions to focus disproportionately on information that all members already share, while neglecting unshared, individual insights.

Group polarization

The tendency for a group's collective decision to become more extreme than the initial inclinations of its individual members.

Groupthink

The tendency for group members to maintain consensus and harmony at the expense of critical evaluation and sound decision-making.

Deindividuation

A psychological state in which immersion within a group leads to decreased self-awareness and diminished concern for personal values and moral restraints.

Diffusion of responsibility

The phenomenon where individuals feel a decreased sense of personal accountability for their actions or inactions when embedded in a crowd or group.

Social loafing

The tendency for people to exert less effort when working collectively as part of a group than when working alone.

Bystander intervention

The act of helping a stranger in an emergency situation, the likelihood of which decreases as the number of passive onlookers increases.

Altruism

Intentional behavior carried out to benefit another individual at a potential cost to oneself without expecting personal gain.

Kin selection

An evolutionary strategy whereby natural selection favors altruistic behaviors that enhance the reproductive survival of biological relatives.

Reciprocal altruism

Cooperative behavior that benefits another individual with the explicit evolutionary expectation that the favor will be repaid in the future.

Mere exposure effect

The tendency for individuals to develop a stronger liking for a person, object, or stimulus simply by being repeatedly exposed to it.

Homophily

The tendency for individuals to bond with and prefer others who share similar levels of attractiveness, personality traits, and behaviors.

Passionate love

An experience characterized by intense feelings of euphoria, intimacy, absorption, and powerful sexual attraction, which peaks early in a relationship.

Companionate love

An experience characterized by deep affection, mutual trust, emotional security, and steady concern for a partner's well-being that grows over time.

Comparison level for alternatives

The cost-benefit ratio that an individual believes they could realistically attain in an alternate relationship.

Stereotyping

The cognitive process of drawing inferences and making assumptions about individuals based purely on their perceived group membership.

Behavioral confirmation

The tendency of targets of stereotypes to behave in ways that confirm the expectations of observers (a self-fulfilling prophecy).

Stereotype threat

A target's disruptive fear of confirming an observer's negative cultural stereotype regarding their group, which often results in impaired performance.

Perceptual confirmation

The tendency of observers to perceive what they expect to see when evaluating individuals from a stereotyped group.

Subtyping

The tendency for observers to preserve an existing stereotype by regarding individuals who disconfirm the stereotype as rare exceptions to the general rule.

Attribution

An inference drawn about the underlying cause of an individual's behavior.

Situational attribution

An inference that attributes a person's actions to temporary, external environmental aspects of the situation.

Dispositional attribution

An inference that attributes an individual's actions to their internal, enduring personality traits, motivations, or behavioral tendencies.

Correspondence bias

The tendency to make a dispositional attribution about a person's behavior while failing to adequately account for situational forces (also known as the fundamental attribution error).

Actor-observer effect

The tendency to make situational attributions for one's own behaviors while generating dispositional attributions for identical behaviors performed by other people.

Overjustification effect

The phenomenon in which the introduction of an external reward undermines and decreases an individual's intrinsic motivation to perform an activity.