Developmental Psychology

Developmental Psychology

a branch of psychology that studies physical, social, and cognitive change throughout life

Teratogens

chemicals/viruses that harm the fetus

Habituation

decreasing responsiveness with repeated exposure to a stimulus

Maturation

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

Schemas

a concept that organizes and interprets info

Assimilate

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

Accommodate

adapting current understandings to incorporate new info

Sensorimotor stage

(birth-2) the stage where infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities

Object Permanence

The awareness that things continue to exists even when not perceived

Preoperational Stage

(2-6/7) The stage during which a child learns to use language but does not comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic

Conservation

the principal that properties such as mass/volume remain the same despite changes in the form of objects

Egocentric

the preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s POV

Theory of Mind

people’s ideas about their own and other’s mental states

Concrete Operational Stage

(7-11) children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events

Formal Operation

(12+) people begin to think logically about abstract concepts

Scaffold

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

Stranger Anxiety

the fear of strangers infants commonly display

Attachment

Emotional tie to other people

Critical Period

an optimal period early in life when exposure to certain stimuli produces normal development

Imprinting

the process by which certain animals form strong attachments in early life

Strange Situation

a child is placed in an unfamiliar environment without their caregiver and their reaction is observed

Secure Attachment

children who temporarily freak out during a strange situation, but then calm down and explore their environment

Insecure Attachment

infants who display a clingy or anxious attachment or an avoidant attachment

Basic Trust

the world is predictable and trustworthy

Self-Concept

all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves (answers the question “Who am I?")

Social Learning Theory

We learn social behavior by observation and reward or punishment

Gender Typing

the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role

Social Identity

The “we” aspect of our self-concept

Neurocognitive Disorder

acquired disorders marked by cognitive deficits

Social Clock

the culturally preferred timing of events

Jean Piaget

studied children’s cognition and their development

Lev Vygotsky

studied how children develop socially

Harry/Margaret Harlow

studied children’s attachments

Konrad Lorenz

studied imprinting on ducks

Mary Ainsworth

designed the strange situation experiment

Erik Erikson

believed in the sense of basic trust

Diana Baumrind

developed the different parenting styles

Carol Gilligan

did research on the social connectedness for humans

Albert Bandura

did the bobo doll experiment

Lawrence Kohlberg

Proposed mental reasoning guides moral actions