AP PSYCH UNIT 6 ESSENTIAL VOCAB

Habituation

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a stimulus, their interest wane

Maturation

Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience

Jean Piaget

Developmental psychologist who spent his life searching how our mind grew, child’s mind grows through 4 stages

Schemas

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

Assimilation

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

Accommodation

Adopting our current understanding (schemas) to incorporate new information

Object Permanence

The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

Conservation

The principle (which Piaget believed to be apart of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the form of objects

Egocentric

In Paige’s theory, the pre operational child’s difficulty taking another point of view

Theory of Mind

People’s ideas about their own and other mental stages — about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors those might predict

Lev Vygotslay

Russian psychologist who studied how children think and learned, emphasized how a child’s mind grows through interaction with the social environment

Scaffold

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

Stranger anxiety

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

Attachment

An emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to their caregiver and showing distress on separation

Harry/Margaret Harlow

Bred monkeys, separated from each other and mother, gave them cheesecloth blankets, took away, and now distressed, contradicted the idea of nourishment

Critical Period

An optimal period early in life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development

Konrad Lopez

Explored imprinting with ducklings

Imprinting

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

Mary Ainsworth

Designed the stranger situation

Stranger Situation

A procedure for studying child caregiving attachment, a child is placed in an unfamiliar environment while their caregiver leaves, then returns, and child’s reactions are observed

Secure Attachment

Demonstrated by infants who comfortably explore environments in the present of their caregiver, show only temporary distress when the caregiver leaves and finds comfort in the caregivers return

Insecure Attachtment

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

Temperament

A person’s characteristic, emotional reactivity and intensity

Erik Erickson

Believed clearly attached children approach life with a sense of basic trust

Basic Trust

According to Erik Erickson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers

Self Concept

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves in answer to the question “who am I”

Diana Baurmrind

Referred to the 4 parenting styles (authoritarian, permissive, negligent, authoritative) as too hard, too soft, too uncaring, and just right

Adolescence

The transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence

Sex

In psychology, the biologically influenced characteristics by which people define male and female

Gender Role

A set of expected behaviors, attributes, and traits for males or for females

Aggression

Any physical or verbal behavior intended to harm someone physically or emotionally

Social Learning Theory

The theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished

Gender Typing

The acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role

Gender

In psychology, the socially influenced characteristics by which people define, boy, girl, man and women

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

Gender Identity

Our sense of being male, female or some combination of the two

Heritability

How much of the variation that exists between a group of individuals is due to genetics

Teratogens

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

Carol Gilligan

Research by her and her colleagues, believe that females tend to differ from males both in being less concerned with viewing themselves as separate individuals and more in making connections

Linguistic Determinism

The strong form of Whorf’s hypothesis— that language controls the way we think and interpret the world around us

Grammar

In a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

Semantics

Language’s set rules for deriving meaning from sounds

Syntax

Set rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences

Phoneme

In a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

Morpheme

In a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word (such as a prefix)

Linguistic Relativism

Language influences the way we think

Alfred Kinsey

Wrote Kinsey reports and developed Kinsey scale, sexual behavior in the human female/male

Benjamin Whorf

Cognitive linguist, idea that language you speak affects the way you view and see the world (linguistic relativism)

Noah Chomsky

Believes language has 3 building blocks

Alice Eagly

Studied the differences between men and women