Psychology Module 5

Psychological development

The development of a human's cognitive, emotional, intellectual and social capabilities and functioning throughout their life.

Emotional development

The development of a human's ability to experience, express and understand emotions and to cope with them appropriately throughout their life.

Attachment

The emotional bond created between infants and their caregivers; the tendency in adulthood to seek emotionally supportive social relationships.

Strange Situation

A method used by Ainsworth to study the differences in quality of attachment between an infant and a caregiver.

Privation

When attachment never occurs; an infant/child never forms a close relationship with anyone.

Deprivation

The loss of or damage to an existing attachment.

Cognitive development

The development of mental processes and abilities throughout the lifespan.

Schema

(pl. schemata) An organised mental framework about a person, place or thing.

Assimilation

According to Piaget, the process where new experiences are combined with existing schemata.

Accommodation

Piaget's term for when new situations, objects or information are encountered and the person's schema is either modified or a new schema is created.

Object permanence

Realising that an object still exists when it is no longer visible.

Symbolic thinking

The development of symbols to represent objects or events.

Animism

Piaget's term for the preoperational stage where children will believe that inanimate objects are alive.

Egocentrism

Piaget's term for when a person does not make distinctions between their own thoughts, feelings and perceptions and those of others.

Centration

Piaget's term for the preoperational stage where children can only focus on one aspect of a task at a time.

Seriation

Piaget's term for the preoperational stage where children will have difficulty arranging objects according to one dimension.

Conservation

Piaget's term for understanding that one object can take different forms.

Reversibility

Piaget's term for understanding that inversion of (reversing) an action will return it to its original state.

Irreversibility

Children's inability to realise that an action can be done and then undone.

Zone of proximal development

A continuum of cognitive development stretching from solo performance to collaborative cooperation

More knowledgeable other

Another individual with greater knowledge about a particular topic.

Scaffolding

Providing support to a child to help them learn and master a task independently.

Metacognition

An understanding and use of the way one thinks when solving problems, reasoning, planning and making decisions.

Processing speed

The time it takes for an individual to mentally perform a cognitive (or mental) task.

Cognitive strategy

A mental strategy that an individual uses to solve both simple and complex cognitive problems.