Chapter 1: Introduction to Life-Span Development

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering key definitions, theories, and research methodologies introduced in Chapter 1 of Life-Span Development.

Normative Age-Graded Influences

Biological and environmental influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group, such as beginning formal education, puberty, or menopause.

Normative History-Graded Influences

Common generational experiences resulting from historical events, such as the Great Depression in the 1930s, the civil rights and women's rights movements in the 1960s and 1970s, or the attacks on 9/11 in 2001.

Nonnormative Life Events

Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on an individual's life and do not happen to all people, such as early pregnancy, the loss of a parent in childhood, or winning the lottery.

Cross-Cultural Studies

The comparison of one culture with one or more other cultures to gather information about developmental similarities and differences.

Socioeconomic Status (SES)

A grouping of people with similar occupational, educational, and economic characteristics.

Social Policy

A national government's course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens, shaped by values, economics, and politics.

Centenarians

Individuals who are $100$ years of age or older; currently recognized as the fastest-growing age group in the United States.

Cognitive Processes

Processes that produce changes in an individual's thought, intelligence, and language.

Socioemotional Processes

Processes that involve changes in an individual's relationships with other people, emotions, and personality.

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

An emerging field of study that explores links between development, cognitive processes, and the brain.

Developmental Social Neuroscience

An emerging field of study that examines connections between socioemotional processes, development, and the brain.

Biological Age

A person's age measured in terms of biological health and the functional capacity of their vital organs.

Psychological Age

An individual's adaptive capacities compared with those of other individuals of the same chronological age.

Social Age

Connectedness with others and the social roles individuals adopt within society.

Normal Aging

A developmental pattern describing most individuals, where psychological functioning peaks in early middle age and remains relatively stable until the late fifties.

Pathological Aging

A developmental pattern characterizing individuals who show above-average decline as they age, including conditions leading to mild cognitive impairment or chronic disease that impairs daily functioning.

Successful Aging

A developmental pattern describing individuals who maintain positive physical, cognitive, and socioemotional functioning longer across life.

Nature-Nurture Issue

The debate regarding whether human development is primarily influenced by biological inheritance (nature) or environmental experiences (nurture).

Stability-Change Issue

The debate about the degree to which early traits and characteristics persist through life or change into different characteristics.

Continuity-Discontinuity Issue

The debate concerning whether development involves gradual, cumulative quantitative change (continuity) or a series of distinct, qualitative stages (discontinuity).

Psychoanalytic Theories

Theories that describe development as primarily unconscious, heavily colored by emotion, and shaped by early experiences with parents.

Erikson's Psychosocial Theory

A psychoanalytic theory identifying eight life-span stages, asserting that the primary motivation for human behavior is social rather than sexual, and emphasizing the importance of both early and later experiences.

Piaget's Cognitive Developmental Theory

A cognitive theory proposing that children actively construct their understanding of the world across four distinct qualitative stages.

Sensorimotor Stage

Piaget's first stage (birth to $2$ years of age) where infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical motor actions.

Preoperational Stage

Piaget's second stage ($2$ to $7$ years of age) in which children begin to represent the world using words, images, and drawings, reflecting symbolic thinking beyond sensory-motor connections.

Concrete Operational Stage

Piaget's third stage ($7$ to $11$ years of age) where children can reason logically about concrete events and classify objects into different sets.

Formal Operational Stage

Piaget's fourth stage ($11$ years through adulthood) where individuals develop abstract, idealistic, and logical reasoning.

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Cognitive Theory

A cognitive theory emphasizing that children actively construct knowledge through social interaction and the cultural tools/inventions of their society.

Information-Processing Theory

A theory emphasizing that individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it, using processes of memory and thinking analogous to computer hardware and software.

Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory

A theoretical model emphasizing reciprocal interactions between behavior, person/cognitive factors, and the environment as the key determinants of development.

Ethology

The study of behavior that stresses strong biological roots, ties to evolution, and characterization by critical or sensitive periods.

Critical Period

A fixed, very early time window in development during which the presence or absence of certain experiences produces a permanent impact, such as imprinting.

Sensitive Period

A developmental stage during which an individual is particularly responsive to environmental experiences, such as attachment to a caregiver in the first year of life.

Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory

An environmental theory identifying five systems that influence human development: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.

Microsystem

The innermost environmental system in Bronfenbrenner's theory comprising the immediate setting in which the individual directly interacts and lives (e.g., family, peers, school).

Mesosystem

Relations or connections between different microsystems or contexts, such as the relation of family experiences to school experiences.

Exosystem

Links between a social setting in which an individual has a passive role and their immediate context (e.g., parental workplace experiences affecting a child at home).

Macrosystem

The broader culture, subculture, values, and socioeconomic conditions in which individuals live within the ecological model.

Chronosystem

The patterning of environmental events, transitions, and sociohistorical conditions over the life course.

Eclectic Theoretical Orientation

An approach that does not follow any single theoretical system but rather selects and integrates the best features from each theory.

Naturalistic Observation

Observing behavior in real-world settings without making any effort to manipulate or control the situation.

Cross-Sectional Approach

A research strategy that compares individuals of different chronological ages simultaneously at a single point in time.

Longitudinal Approach

A research strategy in which the same individuals are observed and studied repeatedly over a period of time, usually several years or more.

Sequential Method

A developmental research design that integrates cross-sectional and longitudinal strategies by studying multiple different-aged cohorts over time.

Cohort Effects

Characteristics and differences between groups attributable to an individual's era, generation, or time of birth rather than actual chronological age.

Ethnic Gloss

The superficial use of an ethnic label that portrays an ethnic group as being more homogeneous than it really is.

Life-span perspective

the perspective that development is

lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic,

multidisciplinary, and contextual.