AP Psychology development
I. Foundational Concepts & Biology
Nature vs. Nurture: The longstanding debate over the relative contributions that genes (nature) and experience (nurture) make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors.
Teratogens: Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.
Critical Period: An optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development.
Reflexes: Inborn, automatic responses to a particular form of sensory stimulation.
Rooting Reflex: A baby's tendency, when touched on the cheek, to turn toward the touch and open the mouth.
Sucking Reflex: The automatic sucking object placed in the newborn's mouth.
Motor Skills: The learned abilities to move our bodies and manipulate objects.
Gross Motor Skills: Physical abilities involving large body movements, such as walking and jumping.
Visual Cliff: A laboratory device used for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.
Growth Spurt: A rapid increase in growth which occurs during puberty.
II. Cognitive Development (Piaget & Vygotsky)
Schemas: Frameworks that organize and interpret information.
Assimilation: Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.
Accommodation: Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.
Object Permanence: The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived; typical of the Sensorimotor Stage.
Pretend Play: Engaging in activities where children use mental symbols to represent objects or events.
Egocentric: In Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view.
Theory of Mind: People's ideas about their own and others' mental states—about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts.
Concepts of Conservation: The principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects; mastered in the Concrete Operational Stage.
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Formal Operational Stage: The stage (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract reasoning and hypothetical thinking.
Metacognition: "Thinking about thinking"; the ability to evaluate a cognitive task to determine how best to accomplish it.
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): Vygotsky's concept of the difference between what a learner can do without help and what they can do with help.
III. Social & Emotional Development
Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages
Erikson's theory proposes that individuals pass through eight stages, each defined by a specific crisis:
Trust vs. Mistrust: Infancy; developing a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy.
Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt: Toddlerhood; learning to exercise will and do things for themselves.
Initiative vs. Guilt: Preschool; learning to initiate tasks and carry out plans.
Industry vs. Inferiority: Elementary school; learning the pleasure of applying themselves to tasks.
Identity vs. Role Confusion: Adolescence; refining a sense of self by testing roles.
Intimacy vs. Isolation: Young adulthood; forming close relationships and the capacity for intimate love.
Generativity vs. Stagnation: Middle adulthood; discovering a sense of contributing to the world (family or work).
Integrity vs. Despair: Late adulthood; reflecting on life with a sense of satisfaction or failure.
Attachment & Temperament
Temperament: A person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity.
Secure Attachments: Infants comfortably explore in the presence of their caregiver and seek contact upon return.
Insecure Attachments: Infants are less likely to explore and may show Anxious/Ambivalent (distressed), Avoidant (indifferent), or Resistant behaviors upon the caregiver's return.
Separation Anxiety: Emotional distress seen in many infants when they are separated from people with whom they have formed an attachment.
Parenting Styles
Authoritarian: Parents impose strict rules and expect obedience ("Because I said so").
Permissive: Parents submit to their children's desires; they make few demands and use little punishment.
Authoritative: Parents are both demanding and responsive; they exert control by setting rules but explain the reasons behind them.
IV. Language & Adolescence
Phonemes: The smallest distinctive sound unit in language.
Morphemes: The smallest unit that carries meaning (e.g., a prefix or suffix).
Syntax: The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.
Semantics: The set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences.
Language Stages:
Babbling: Begins around 4 months; infant spontaneously utters various sounds.
One-Word (Holophrastic): Child speaks mostly in single words to communicate big ideas.
Two-Word / Telegraphic Speech: Child speaks like a telegram, using mostly nouns and verbs (e.g., "go car").
Overgeneralization / Overregularization: Applying a grammatical rule too widely (e.g., "I goed to the store").
Adolescent Egocentrism:
Imaginary Audience: The belief that others are as interested in them as they themselves are.
Personal Fable: The belief that one's feelings and ideas are special and unique and that one is invulnerable.
V. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems
Microsystem: The immediate environment (family, school, peers).
Mesosystem: Connections between microsystems (e.g., parent-teacher conferences).
Exosystem: External settings that indirectly affect the individual (e.g., a parent’s workplace).
Macrosystem: The larger cultural context (values, laws, customs).
Chronosystem: The dimension of time as it relates to a person's environment (e.g., the timing of a divorce).
Other
I. Foundations & Biological Development
Developmental Psychology: The branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.
Maturation: The internally programmed, biological growth process that enables orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.
Pre-natal Stages of Development: The process of growth before birth, typically divided into the Zygote(conception to 2 weeks), Embryo (2 to 8 weeks), and Fetus (9 weeks to birth).
Biological Aspects (Puberty): The period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing.
Primary Sex Characteristics: The body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible.
Secondary Sex Characteristics: Non-reproductive sexual traits, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair.
Habituation: Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.
II. Key Theoretical Frameworks
Social & Attachment Theories
Ainsworth’s Theory (The Strange Situation): Mary Ainsworth’s research categorized attachment into secure and insecure types based on how infants reacted when a parent left and returned in an unfamiliar setting.
Harlow’s Theory (Contact Comfort): Harry Harlow's research with rhesus monkeys showed that attachment is based on physical touch and "contact comfort" rather than just providing nourishment.
Lorenz’s Theory (Imprinting): Konrad Lorenz's work on the process by which certain animals form strong attachments during an early-life critical period.
Baumrind’s Theory: Defined the three primary parenting styles: Authoritarian, Permissive, and Authoritative.
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Cognitive & Moral Theories
Cognition: All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
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Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development: A four-stage theory (Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, Formal Operational) detailing how children’s thinking changes as they grow.
Kohlberg’s Moral Stages: A theory of moral development divided into three levels:
Preconventional: Self-interest; obey rules to avoid punishment or gain rewards.
Conventional: Uphold laws and rules to gain social approval or maintain social order.
Postconventional: Actions reflect belief in basic rights and self-defined ethical principles.
Gilligan’s Theory: Carol Gilligan critiqued Kohlberg, arguing his stages were male-centric and that women often prioritize a "care perspective" over a "justice perspective."
Mischel’s Theory (The Marshmallow Test): Walter Mischel’s research on delayed gratification, showing that the ability to wait for a larger reward is a predictor of future success.
III. Identity, Language, & Aging
Gender/Role/Identity:
Gender Identity: Our sense of being male or female.
Gender Role: A set of expected behaviors for males or for females.
Self-concept: All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?"
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Adolescence: The transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence.
Emerging Adulthood: For some people in modern cultures, a period from the late teens to mid-twenties, bridging the gap between adolescent dependence and full adult independence.
Language Acquisition:
Critical Period Hypothesis: The theory that there is a window of time (usually before puberty) during which language must be learned, or it will never be fully mastered (often studied via deafness).
Brain Parts: Broca’s Area (speech production) and Wernicke’s Area (language comprehension).
Changes in Aging:
Memory: While Recognition memory remains strong, Recall memory declines as people age.
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Social: Older adults often experience a "social convoy," where social circles narrow but become more meaningful.
Theory of Mind & ASD: The ability to understand others' mental states. Individuals on the Autism Spectrumoften face challenges with this, which can impact social communication and social interaction.