AP Psych Unit 3 Part I

Stability and Change

Which of our triats persist through life? How do we change as we age?

Cross-Sectional Research

Research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time

Longitudinal Research

Research that dollows and retests the same people over time

Teratogens

Agents, such as chemicals adn viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause potential harm

Genetic Mutations

Permanent change in an organisms DNA sequence

Critical Periods

Time during someone’s development in which a particular skill or characteristic is believed to be most readilt acquired, and if not acquired by a certain time, it may be impossible to learn

Imprinting

Process by which certaiin animals form strong attackments during early life

Primary Sex Characteristics

Body structures that make reproduction possible

Secondary Sex Characteristics

Non-reproductive sexual traits - side effects of puberty

Menopause

Time of natural cessation of menstruation

Sex

Biological status defined by your chromosomes and anatomy

Gender

Socially influenced characteristics by which people define boy, girl, and woman

Jean Piaget

Studied children’s cognition - all the mental activites associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Sensorimotor Stage

Babies take in the world through their senses and actions - through looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping

Object Permancence

Awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceieved

Preoperation Stage

Able to represent things with words and images but too young to preform mental operations

Conservation

Principle that properties such as mass, volume, adn number remain that same despite changes in form

Egocentrism

Child’s difficulty in seeing another’s point of view

Theory of Mind

People’s ideas about their own and other’s mental states adn the behaviors these might predict

Concrete Operational Stage

Given concrete materials, they begin to grasp operations such as conservation.

Formal Operational Stage

Reasoning expands from the prely concrete to encompass abstract thinking. Although full-blown logic and reasoning await adolescence, the rudiments of formal operational thinking begin earlier than Piaget realized.

Lev Vygotsky

Emphasived how the child’s mind grows through interaction with the social environment

Scaffold

Framework that offers children temporary support as they develop higher levels of thinking

Zone of Proximal Development

Space between what a learner can do independently and then with guidance

Crystalized Intelligence

Accumulated knowledge, skills, and understanding that a person has acquired throughout their life

Dementia

Neurocognitive disorders

Fluid Intelligences

Ability to solve new problems and reason abstractly

Language

Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

Phonemes

Any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified lanuguage that distinguish one word from another

Morphemes

Meaningful unit of language that cannot be futher divided

Semantics

Study of meaning in language, docusing on how words and phrases acquire their meaning adn how we interpret them within a given context

Grammar

Set of rules that govern how words are combined to form sentences in a language

Syntax

Set o rules that govern the structure of a lanuguage, determing how words and phrases are arranged to form grammatically correct sentences

One-Word Stage

Understanding and beginning to say many nouns

Telegraphic Speech

Two-word phrases

Overgeneralization

Cognitive distortion where someone draws someone draws broad conclusionws based on limited evidence, essentially assuming that a single negative experiences will apple to all similar situations, leading to a belief that a pattern of failure or negatively is inevitable

Ecological Systems Theory

Framework developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner that explains how a person’s developement is influenced by various interconnected environment systems.

Microsystem

Immediate family

Mesosystem

Immediate Influences

Exosystem

Wider community

Macrosystem

Societal norms

Chronosystem

Time

Attachment

Emotional tie with another person, shown in children by seeking closeness to their caregiver adn showing distess on separation

Authoritarian Parenting

are Coercive, Impose rules and expect obedience

Authoritative Parenting

are Confrontive, demanding and responsive, exert control by setting rules, but especially with older children

Permissive Parenting

are un-restraining, make few demands, set few limits, and use little punishment

Secure Attachment

demonstrated by infants who comfortabvly explore environments in the presence of their cargiver, show only temporary distress in their absense, and find comfort in their return

Insecure Attachment

demonstrated by infants who display either a clinging, anxious attachment or an avoidant attachment that resists closeness

Avoidant Attachment

Individuals tend to avoid closeness or emotional connections with others

Anxious Attachment

Insecure attachment where individual crave closeness but also fear rejection or abandonment

Disorganized Attachment

Form of insecure attachment in which infants show no coherent or consistent behavior during seperation from and reunion with their parents

Seperation Anxiety

Developmental stage characterized by excessive fear or distress experienced by children when separated from their primary caregiver or attachment figure