PSY 250 Chapt 1-1.webm - Google Drive

What three areas of study make up lifespan development?

Child development, gerontology, and adult development.

Normative transition

A life transition that everyone goes through at about the same time and in about the same way, such as adolescents learning to drive.

Non-normative transition

A life transition that not everyone goes through, usually caused by an unexpected event, such as a spouse burying a child.

Cohort

A group consisting of all the people who were born at the same time.

Baby boomers

The largest cohort in the United States, born between 1946 and 1964.

Emerging adulthood

A carved-out lifespan stage lasting from about 18 to 25 or 30, focused on tasks like discovering identity, choosing a job, and deciding where to live.

Young-old vs. Old-old

Young-old refers to people between the ages of 60 and their 70s, while old-old refers to people over the age of 80.

Developed world vs. Developing world

Developed nations have good healthcare, education, higher income, and many workers; developing nations have scarce resources, less education, and less wealth.

Collectivist cultures vs. Individualistic cultures

Collectivist cultures (such as Japan) focus on the good of the whole, while individualistic cultures (such as America) focus on individual desires.

Life expectancy trends by group

Women consistently outlive men, with Hispanic women having the highest life expectancy and Black men having the lowest.

Nature vs. Nurture

Nature refers to the biological or genetic causes of development, whereas nurture refers to the environmental causes of development.

G. Stanley Hall

The individual who established the first institute in the United States devoted to studying child development in the 1860s.

Freud's personality structures

The id (natural desires), the ego (the integration of the id and superego), and the superego (moral development and 'could/shoulds').

Bulby (Bowlby) attachment theory

A theory centered on species survival through close connection to a caregiver in early childhood, combining both nature and nurture.

Twin adoption studies

Studies that combine genetic and environmental analysis by placing one twin with one family and the other twin with a different family to compare outcomes.

Eric Ericson's psychosocial theory

An age-linked theory focusing on social motivation and self, consisting of psychosocial tasks from infancy to late adulthood.

PJ's stages of intellectual growth

Four developmental stages focused on cognitive adaptation: sensory motor, pre-operations, concrete operations, and formal operations.

Developmental systems approach

A perspective holding that nature co-enacts with nurture in interacting processes, recognizing that behavior is complex and has many causes.

Correlation study

A study that measures the co-relationship between two ideas or variables, which does not prove causality.

Naturalistic observation

A research strategy that involves directly watching and coding behaviors in their natural context.

True experiment

A research method using control and experimental groups that can clearly prove cause-and-effect relationships.

Cross-sectional study

A research design that observes people of different age groups at a single point in time.

Longitudinal study

A research design where the same group of individuals is tested or observed repeatedly over a period of time.

Quantitative research

A research trend that gathers numerical data and uses statistics to analyze testing groups.

Qualitative research

A data collection strategy involving personal interviews to gather non-numerical, explanatory details.