Chapter 12: Development over the Life Span

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Major Issues and methods

• Nature vs. Nurture: To what extent is our development the product of heredity (nature) and the product of environment (nurture)? How do nature and nurture interact?
• Sensitive Period:  is an optimal age range for certain experiences, but if those experiences occur at another time, normal development is still possible.
• Critical Period:  is an age range during which certain experiences must occur for development to proceed normally or along a certain path.
• Continuity vs. Discontinuity: Is development continuous and gradual, as when a sapling slowly grows into a tree or is it discontinuous, progressing through qualitatively distinct stages, as when a creeping caterpillar emerges from its cocoon as a soaring butterfly?
• Stability vs. Change: Do our characteristics remain consistent as we age?
• Cross-Sectional Design: we would compare people of different ages at the same point in time
• Longitudinal Design: repeatedly tests the same cohort as it grows older
• Sequential Design: which combines the cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches

Prenatal Development

• Zygote: fertilized egg
• Embryo: develops from the end of week 2 through week 8 after conception
• Fetus: develops from week 9 after conception until birth
• Teratogens:  are external agents that cause abnormal prenatal development
• Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders(FASD):  involve a range of mild to severe cognitive, behavioral, and/or physical deficits caused by prenatal exposure to alcohol
• Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: involves a cluster of severe developmental abnormalities

Infancy

• Reflexes: automatic, inborn behaviors that occur in response to specific stimuli
• Cephalocaudal principle: reflects the tendency for development to proceed in a head-to-foot direction.
• Proximodistal principle: states that development begins along the innermost parts of the body and continues toward the outermost parts
• Schemas: which are organized patterns of thought and action
• Assimilation: is the process by which new experiences are incorporated into existing schemas
• Accommodation: is the process by which new experiences cause existing schemas to change
• Sensorimotor Stage:  understand their world primarily through sensory experiences and physical (motor) interactions with objects
• Object Permanence: the understanding that an object continues to exist even when it no longer can be seen
• Preoperational Stage: in which they represent the world symbolically through words and mental images but do not yet understand basic mental operations or rules
• Conservation: the principle that basic properties of objects, such as their volume, mass, or quantity, stay the same (are “conserved”) even though their outward appearance may change
• Egocentrism: difficulty in viewing the world from someone else’s perspective
• Concrete Operational Stage:  can perform basic mental operations concerning problems that involve tangible (i.e., “concrete”) objects and situations
• Formal Operational Stage: in which individuals can think logically about concrete and abstract problems, form hypotheses, and systematically test them
• Zone of Proximal Development: the difference between what a child can do independently and what the child can do with assistance from adults or more advanced peers
• Theory of Mind: refers to a person’s beliefs about the “mind” and the ability to understand other people’s mental states
• Emotion regulation: the processes by which we evaluate and modify our emotional reactions
• Stranger Anxiety: distress over contact with unfamiliar people
• Separation Anxiety: distress over being separated from a primary caregiver
• Strange Situation: a standardized procedure for examining infant attachment
• Authoritative Parents: are controlling but warm
• Authoritarian Parents:  also exert control but do so within a cold, unresponsive, or rejecting relationship.
• Indulgent Parents: have warm, caring relationships with their children but do not provide the guidance and discipline that help children learn responsibility and concern for others.
• Neglectful Parents:  provide neither warmth nor rules nor guidance
• Gender Identity:  a sense of “femaleness” or “maleness” that becomes a central aspect of one’s personal identity
• Gender Constancy: which is the understanding that being male or female is a permanent part of a person
• Sex-typing: involves treating others differently based on whether they are female or male
• Preconventional Moral Reasoning: is based on anticipated punishments or rewards
• Conventional Moral Reasoning: is based on conformity to social expectations, laws, and duties
• Postconventional Moral Reasoning:  is based on well-thought-out, general moral principles

Adolescence and Adulthood

• Adolescence: the period of development and gradual transition between childhood and adulthood

• Puberty: a period of rapid maturation in which the person becomes capable of sexual reproduction

• Adolescent Egocentrism: a self-absorbed and distorted view of one’s uniqueness and importance

• Senile Dementia: refers to dementia that begins after age 65

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