AP PYSC
Stability vs. Change: Do personality traits and cognitive abilities stay the same (stable) or change over time?
Nature vs. Nurture: Is development influenced more by genetics (nature) or environmental factors (nurture)?
Continuity vs. Stages: Does development occur in a smooth, continuous progression, or in distinct stages?
Cross-sectional: Research comparing different age groups at one point in time.
Longitudinal: Research that follows and tests the same group of individuals over a long period.
Teratogens: Environmental agents (like drugs, alcohol) that can cause harm during prenatal development.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS): A condition resulting from alcohol exposure during pregnancy, causing physical and cognitive impairments.
Maturation: Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, mostly uninfluenced by experience.
Fine Motor Skills: Small muscle movements (e.g., grasping).
Gross Motor Skills: Large muscle movements (e.g., walking).
Infant Reflexes: Automatic responses (e.g., rooting, grasping) present at birth.
Visual Cliff & Depth Perception: A tool used to study infants’ depth perception, often involving a glass-covered drop-off.
Critical Periods: Specific time frames when certain experiences are most impactful for development (e.g., language acquisition).
Language Stages:
Cooing: Vocalizing vowel sounds (~2 months).
Babbling: Repetitive consonant-vowel combinations (~6 months).
One-word Stage: Single words represent whole phrases (~12 months).
Telegraphic Speech: Two-word phrases (e.g., "want cookie").
Phonemes: The smallest units of sound in language.
Morphemes: The smallest units of meaning (e.g., prefixes, suffixes).
Grammar: Rules for combining words:
Syntax: Word order.
Semantics: Meaning of words.
Overgeneralization: Applying language rules too broadly (e.g., "goed" instead of "went").
Schemas: Mental frameworks to organize information.
Assimilation: Incorporating new information into existing schemas.
Accommodation: Adjusting schemas for new information.
Stages of Cognitive Development:
Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years): Understanding the world through senses and actions. Object permanence develops.
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years): Symbolic thinking, egocentrism, but lacks logical reasoning.
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years): Logical thinking about concrete events; conservation develops.
Formal Operational Stage (12+ years): Abstract, hypothetical reasoning.
Conservation: Understanding that quantity doesn’t change despite changes in shape or appearance.
Ecological Systems Theory: Focuses on the social environment's impact on development (e.g., family, school).
Attachment Theory (Harry Harlow): Infants bond with caregivers due to the comfort and security they provide (Harlow’s monkey experiments).
Strange Situation & Attachment Styles (Mary Ainsworth):
Secure Attachment: Infant feels safe exploring when the caregiver is present.
Insecure Attachment: Can be anxious or avoidant of the caregiver.
Temperament: A person's characteristic emotional reactivity.
Parenting Styles (Diana Baumrind):
Authoritarian: Strict rules and expectations.
Permissive: Few rules, indulgent.
Authoritative: Balanced; rules with reasoning.
Uninvolved: Indifferent or neglectful.
Gender & Sexuality: Concepts of gender identity, gender roles, and sexual orientation.
James Marcia's Identity Statuses:
Identity Diffusion: No exploration or commitment.
Identity Foreclosure: Commitment without exploration.
Identity Moratorium: Exploration without commitment.
Identity Achievement: Exploration followed by commitment.
Erikson’s 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development:
Trust vs. Mistrust (Infancy): Virtue of Hope.
Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Toddlerhood): Virtue of Will.
Initiative vs. Guilt (Preschool years): Virtue of Purpose.
Industry vs. Inferiority (School age): Virtue of Competence.
Identity vs. Role Confusion (Adolescence): Virtue of Fidelity.
Intimacy vs. Isolation (Young adulthood): Virtue of Love.
Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle adulthood): Virtue of Care.
Integrity vs. Despair (Older adulthood): Virtue of Wisdom.
Social Clock: Culturally preferred timing for major life events (e.g., marriage, parenthood).
Puberty: Period of sexual maturation.
Primary Sex Characteristics: Body structures related to reproduction (e.g., ovaries, testes).
Secondary Sex Characteristics: Non-reproductive traits (e.g., breasts, voice changes).
Menarche: First menstrual period.
Spermarche: First ejaculation.
Synaptic Pruning: Process where unused neurons are eliminated during adolescence.
Menopause: The end of menstruation and reproductive capacity in women.
Changes in mobility, flexibility, reaction time: Decrease with age.
Sensory Changes: Vision and hearing decline.
Crystallized Intelligence: Accumulated knowledge that increases with age.
Fluid Intelligence: Ability to reason quickly and abstractly; declines in late adulthood.
Neurocognitive Disorders:
Dementia: A broad category of cognitive decline.
Alzheimer’s Disease: A specific neurodegenerative disorder causing memory loss and cognitive decline.
Focuses on observable behaviors and their environmental causes.
Associative Learning: Learning that certain events occur together.
Acquisition: The initial stage of learning/conditioning.
Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): Naturally triggers a response.
Unconditioned Response (UCR): Unlearned, natural response to the UCS.
Neutral Stimulus (NS): A stimulus that initially does not elicit a response.
Conditioned Stimulus (CS): Previously neutral stimulus that triggers a response after association with UCS.
Conditioned Response (CR): The learned response to the CS.
Extinction: The diminishing of a conditioned response.
Spontaneous Recovery: The reappearance of a weakened conditioned response after a pause.
Stimulus Discrimination: Learning to respond only to the original stimulus.
Stimulus Generalization: The tendency for similar stimuli to elicit the same response.
Higher-order Conditioning: When a CS is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second CS.
Aversion: Learning to avoid a certain stimulus after an unpleasant experience.
Habituation: Decreasing responsiveness to repeated stimuli.
John Watson’s Research: Founder of behaviorism; famous for the "Little Albert" experiment.
Ivan Pavlov’s Research: Discovered classical conditioning through experiments with dogs.
Reinforcement: Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.
Positive Reinforcement: Adding something desirable (e.g., reward).
Negative Reinforcement: Removing something undesirable (e.g., turning off an alarm).
Punishment: Decreases the likelihood of a behavior.
Positive Punishment: Adding something undesirable (e.g., extra chores).
Negative Punishment: Removing something desirable (e.g., taking away phone).
Primary Reinforcer: Naturally satisfying (e.g., food).
Secondary Reinforcer: Gains power through association with primary reinforcers (e.g., money).
E.L. Thorndike’s Law of Effect: Behaviors followed by favorable outcomes are more likely to be repeated.
Shaping: Gradually reinforcing behaviors that lead up to the desired behavior.
Instinctive Drift: Tendency of an organism to revert to instinctual behaviors.
Martin Seligman’s Learned Helplessness: When an organism gives up trying to avoid negative stimuli after repeated failure.
Schedules of Reinforcement: Patterns that define how often a behavior will be reinforced.
Fixed-ratio: Reinforcement after a set number of responses.
Variable-ratio: Reinforcement after an unpredictable number of responses.
Fixed-interval: Reinforcement after a specific time has passed.
Variable-interval: Reinforcement after unpredictable time intervals.
Observational Learning: Learning by observing others.
Modeling: Imitating the behavior of others.
Albert Bandura’s Research: Known for the Bobo Doll experiment, which demonstrated observational learning.
Vicarious Conditioning: Learning through observing the consequences of another's behavior.
Latent Learning: Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.
Cognitive Maps: Mental representations of the layout of one’s environment.
Edward Tolman’s Research: Demonstrated latent learning with rats in mazes.
Stability vs. Change: Do personality traits and cognitive abilities stay the same (stable) or change over time?
Nature vs. Nurture: Is development influenced more by genetics (nature) or environmental factors (nurture)?
Continuity vs. Stages: Does development occur in a smooth, continuous progression, or in distinct stages?
Cross-sectional: Research comparing different age groups at one point in time.
Longitudinal: Research that follows and tests the same group of individuals over a long period.
Teratogens: Environmental agents (like drugs, alcohol) that can cause harm during prenatal development.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS): A condition resulting from alcohol exposure during pregnancy, causing physical and cognitive impairments.
Maturation: Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, mostly uninfluenced by experience.
Fine Motor Skills: Small muscle movements (e.g., grasping).
Gross Motor Skills: Large muscle movements (e.g., walking).
Infant Reflexes: Automatic responses (e.g., rooting, grasping) present at birth.
Visual Cliff & Depth Perception: A tool used to study infants’ depth perception, often involving a glass-covered drop-off.
Critical Periods: Specific time frames when certain experiences are most impactful for development (e.g., language acquisition).
Language Stages:
Cooing: Vocalizing vowel sounds (~2 months).
Babbling: Repetitive consonant-vowel combinations (~6 months).
One-word Stage: Single words represent whole phrases (~12 months).
Telegraphic Speech: Two-word phrases (e.g., "want cookie").
Phonemes: The smallest units of sound in language.
Morphemes: The smallest units of meaning (e.g., prefixes, suffixes).
Grammar: Rules for combining words:
Syntax: Word order.
Semantics: Meaning of words.
Overgeneralization: Applying language rules too broadly (e.g., "goed" instead of "went").
Schemas: Mental frameworks to organize information.
Assimilation: Incorporating new information into existing schemas.
Accommodation: Adjusting schemas for new information.
Stages of Cognitive Development:
Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years): Understanding the world through senses and actions. Object permanence develops.
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years): Symbolic thinking, egocentrism, but lacks logical reasoning.
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years): Logical thinking about concrete events; conservation develops.
Formal Operational Stage (12+ years): Abstract, hypothetical reasoning.
Conservation: Understanding that quantity doesn’t change despite changes in shape or appearance.
Ecological Systems Theory: Focuses on the social environment's impact on development (e.g., family, school).
Attachment Theory (Harry Harlow): Infants bond with caregivers due to the comfort and security they provide (Harlow’s monkey experiments).
Strange Situation & Attachment Styles (Mary Ainsworth):
Secure Attachment: Infant feels safe exploring when the caregiver is present.
Insecure Attachment: Can be anxious or avoidant of the caregiver.
Temperament: A person's characteristic emotional reactivity.
Parenting Styles (Diana Baumrind):
Authoritarian: Strict rules and expectations.
Permissive: Few rules, indulgent.
Authoritative: Balanced; rules with reasoning.
Uninvolved: Indifferent or neglectful.
Gender & Sexuality: Concepts of gender identity, gender roles, and sexual orientation.
James Marcia's Identity Statuses:
Identity Diffusion: No exploration or commitment.
Identity Foreclosure: Commitment without exploration.
Identity Moratorium: Exploration without commitment.
Identity Achievement: Exploration followed by commitment.
Erikson’s 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development:
Trust vs. Mistrust (Infancy): Virtue of Hope.
Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Toddlerhood): Virtue of Will.
Initiative vs. Guilt (Preschool years): Virtue of Purpose.
Industry vs. Inferiority (School age): Virtue of Competence.
Identity vs. Role Confusion (Adolescence): Virtue of Fidelity.
Intimacy vs. Isolation (Young adulthood): Virtue of Love.
Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle adulthood): Virtue of Care.
Integrity vs. Despair (Older adulthood): Virtue of Wisdom.
Social Clock: Culturally preferred timing for major life events (e.g., marriage, parenthood).
Puberty: Period of sexual maturation.
Primary Sex Characteristics: Body structures related to reproduction (e.g., ovaries, testes).
Secondary Sex Characteristics: Non-reproductive traits (e.g., breasts, voice changes).
Menarche: First menstrual period.
Spermarche: First ejaculation.
Synaptic Pruning: Process where unused neurons are eliminated during adolescence.
Menopause: The end of menstruation and reproductive capacity in women.
Changes in mobility, flexibility, reaction time: Decrease with age.
Sensory Changes: Vision and hearing decline.
Crystallized Intelligence: Accumulated knowledge that increases with age.
Fluid Intelligence: Ability to reason quickly and abstractly; declines in late adulthood.
Neurocognitive Disorders:
Dementia: A broad category of cognitive decline.
Alzheimer’s Disease: A specific neurodegenerative disorder causing memory loss and cognitive decline.
Focuses on observable behaviors and their environmental causes.
Associative Learning: Learning that certain events occur together.
Acquisition: The initial stage of learning/conditioning.
Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): Naturally triggers a response.
Unconditioned Response (UCR): Unlearned, natural response to the UCS.
Neutral Stimulus (NS): A stimulus that initially does not elicit a response.
Conditioned Stimulus (CS): Previously neutral stimulus that triggers a response after association with UCS.
Conditioned Response (CR): The learned response to the CS.
Extinction: The diminishing of a conditioned response.
Spontaneous Recovery: The reappearance of a weakened conditioned response after a pause.
Stimulus Discrimination: Learning to respond only to the original stimulus.
Stimulus Generalization: The tendency for similar stimuli to elicit the same response.
Higher-order Conditioning: When a CS is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second CS.
Aversion: Learning to avoid a certain stimulus after an unpleasant experience.
Habituation: Decreasing responsiveness to repeated stimuli.
John Watson’s Research: Founder of behaviorism; famous for the "Little Albert" experiment.
Ivan Pavlov’s Research: Discovered classical conditioning through experiments with dogs.
Reinforcement: Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.
Positive Reinforcement: Adding something desirable (e.g., reward).
Negative Reinforcement: Removing something undesirable (e.g., turning off an alarm).
Punishment: Decreases the likelihood of a behavior.
Positive Punishment: Adding something undesirable (e.g., extra chores).
Negative Punishment: Removing something desirable (e.g., taking away phone).
Primary Reinforcer: Naturally satisfying (e.g., food).
Secondary Reinforcer: Gains power through association with primary reinforcers (e.g., money).
E.L. Thorndike’s Law of Effect: Behaviors followed by favorable outcomes are more likely to be repeated.
Shaping: Gradually reinforcing behaviors that lead up to the desired behavior.
Instinctive Drift: Tendency of an organism to revert to instinctual behaviors.
Martin Seligman’s Learned Helplessness: When an organism gives up trying to avoid negative stimuli after repeated failure.
Schedules of Reinforcement: Patterns that define how often a behavior will be reinforced.
Fixed-ratio: Reinforcement after a set number of responses.
Variable-ratio: Reinforcement after an unpredictable number of responses.
Fixed-interval: Reinforcement after a specific time has passed.
Variable-interval: Reinforcement after unpredictable time intervals.
Observational Learning: Learning by observing others.
Modeling: Imitating the behavior of others.
Albert Bandura’s Research: Known for the Bobo Doll experiment, which demonstrated observational learning.
Vicarious Conditioning: Learning through observing the consequences of another's behavior.
Latent Learning: Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.
Cognitive Maps: Mental representations of the layout of one’s environment.
Edward Tolman’s Research: Demonstrated latent learning with rats in mazes.