Psychology Chapter 1 Review

Human Development

• Scientific study of human development: focuses on change and stability throughout the human lifespan
• Life-span development: concept of human development as a lifelong process that can be studied scientifically

Human Developmental Theories

• Psychosocial development: pattern of change in emotions, personality, and social relationships
  • Erikson's eight-stage theory: socially and culturally influenced process of development of the ego or self
• Cognitive development: pattern of change in mental abilities, such as learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, and creativity
• Psychoanalytic perspective: view of human development as shaped by unconscious forces that motivate human behavior

Learning and Development

• Classical conditioning: learning based on associating a stimulus that does not ordinarily elicit a response with another stimulus that does elicit a response
• Operant conditioning: learning based on the association of behavior with its consequences
• Social learning theory: behaviors are learned by observing and imitating models
• Reciprocal determinism: bidirectional forces that affect development

Research Methods

• Quantitative research: deals with objectively measurable data
• Qualitative research: focuses on nonnumerical data, such as subjective experiences, feelings, or beliefs
• Random selection: selection of a sample in such a way that every individual in the population has an equal and independent chance of being chosen
• Random assignment: assignment of participants in an experiment to groups in such a way that each person has an equal chance of being placed in any group

Genetics

• Genotype: genetic makeup of a person, containing both expressed and unexpressed characteristics
• Multifactorial transmission: combination of genetic and environmental factors to produce certain complex traits
• Epigenesis: mechanism that turns genes on or off and determines functions of body cells
• Genetic counseling: clinical service that advises prospective parents of their probable risk of having children with hereditary defects

Heredity and Environment

• Heritability: statistical estimate of the contribution of heredity to individual differences in a specific trait within a given population
• Reaction range: potential variability in the expression of a hereditary trait depending on environmental conditions
• Canalization: limitation on variance of expression of certain inherited characteristics
• Genotype-environment interaction: the portion of phenotypic variation that results from the reactions of genetically different individuals to similar environmental conditions### Pregnancy and Childbirth
• Pregnancy lasts from the first day of an expectant mother’s last menstrual cycle to birth
• Cephalocaudal Principle: development proceeds in a head-to-tail direction
• Proximodistal Principle: development proceeds from within to without
• Germinal Stage: first 2 weeks of prenatal development, characterized by rapid cell division, blastocyst formation, and implantation in the uterus
• Embryonic Stage: 2-8 weeks, characterized by rapid growth and development of major body systems and organs
• Fetal Stage: final stage of gestation (from 8 weeks to birth), characterized by increased differentiation of body parts and greatly enlarged body size
• Neonatal Period: first 4 weeks of life, a time of transition from intrauterine dependency to independent existence
• Neonate: newborn baby, up to 4 weeks old

Developmental Abnormalities

• Teratogen: environmental agent that can interfere with normal prenatal development and cause developmental abnormalities
• Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS): combination of mental, motor, and developmental abnormalities affecting offspring of women who drink heavily during pregnancy
• Low-Birth-Weight Babies (LBW): weight of less than 5½ pounds (2500 grams) at birth due to prematurity or being small-for-date
• Small-For-Date (Small-For Gestational Age) Infants: infants whose birth weight is less than 90% of babies of the same gestational age, as a result of slow fetal growth
• Postmature: fetus not yet born as of 2 weeks after the due date or 42 weeks after the mother’s last menstrual period
• Stillbirth: death of a fetus at or after the 20th week of gestation

Brain Development

• Central Nervous System: brain and spinal cord
• Lateralization: tendency of each of the brain’s hemispheres to have specialized functions
• Neurons: nerve cells
• Integration: process by which neurons coordinate the activities of muscle groups
• Differentiation: process by which cells acquire specialized structures and functions
• Cell Death: normal elimination of excess brain cells to achieve more efficient functioning
• Myelination: coating neural pathways with a fatty substance called myelin, enabling faster communication between cells
• Reflex Behaviors: automatic, involuntary, innate responses to stimulation
• Plasticity: modifiability of the brain through experience

Cognitive Development

• Sensorimotor Stage: Piaget’s first stage in cognitive development, in which infants learn through senses and motor activity
• Object Permanence: understanding that a person or object still exists when out of sight
• Deferred Imitation: reproduction of an observed behavior after the passage of time by calling up a stored symbol of it
• Habituation: type of learning in which familiarity with a stimulus reduces, slows, or stops a response
• Dishabituation: increase in responsiveness after presentation of a new stimulus
• Violation-Of-Expectations: research method in which dishabituation to a stimulus that conflicts with experience is taken as evidence that an infant recognizes the new stimulus as surprising

Language Development

• Language Acquisition Device (LAD): in Chomsky’s terminology, an inborn mechanism that enables children to infer linguistic rules from the language they hear
• Prelinguistic Speech: forerunner of linguistic speech; includes crying, cooing, babbling, and accidental and deliberate imitation of sounds without understanding their meaning
• Linguistic Speech: verbal expression designed to convey meaning
• Telegraphic Speech: early form of sentence use consisting of only a few essential words
• Code Mixing: use of elements of two languages, sometimes in the same utterance, by young children in households where both languages are spoken
• Code Switching: changing one’s speech to match the situation, as in people who are bilingual### Child Development and Psychology
• Committed Compliance: wholehearted obedience of a parent's orders without reminders or lapses.
• Strange Situation: a laboratory technique used to study infant attachment.

Human Brain Development

• Corpus Callosum: connects the brain's left and right hemispheres, thickens in adolescence, and improves adolescents' ability to process information.
• Prefrontal Cortex: involved in reasoning, decision making, and self-control; doesn't finish maturing until emerging adulthood (18-25 years).
• The Limbic System: the seat of emotions, matures much earlier than the prefrontal cortex, and is almost completely developed in early adolescence.

Abuse and Neglect

• Physical Abuse: action taken deliberately to endanger another person, involving potential bodily injury.
• Neglect: failure to meet a dependent's basic needs.
• Sexual Abuse: physically or psychologically harmful sexual activity involving a child and an older person.
• Emotional Maltreatment: rejection, terrorization, isolation, exploitation, degradation, ridicule, or failure to provide emotional support, love, and affection.

Adolescent Development

• Adolescent Sexuality: a time of sexual exploration and experimentation, incorporating sexuality into one's identity.
• Developing a Sexual Identity: mastering emerging sexual feelings and forming a sense of sexual identity, a lengthy process.
• Dual-Processing Model: humans have two distinct networks for processing information.
• Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning: Piaget's formal operational concept, where adolescents develop hypotheses to solve problems.

Cognitive Development

• Executive Function: an umbrella concept consisting of higher-level cognitive processes linked to the development of the prefrontal cortex.
• Metacognition: thinking about thinking, or awareness of one's own mental processes.
• Metamemory: understanding of memory processes.

Memory and Learning

• Sensory Memory: initial, brief, temporary storage of sensory information.
• Working Memory: short-term storage of information being actively processed.
• Long-Term Memory: storage of virtually unlimited capacity that holds information for long periods.
• Recognition: ability to identify a previously encountered stimulus.
• Recall: ability to reproduce material from memory.
• Episodic Memory: long-term memory of specific experiences or events, linked to time and place.

Emerging Adulthood

• Emerging Adulthood: the transition from adolescence to adulthood (approximately 18-25 years), characterized by experimentation and exploration.
• Instability: residential changes peak during early adulthood, a time of instability in love, work, and education.
• Identity Exploration: especially in love and work, emerging adulthood is a time of key changes in identity.

Review questions for Chapter 1 of a Psychology course, covering topics such as human development and cultural influences.