Child Psych Test 1
Terms
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- baby biography
- a detailed record of an infant's growth and development over a period
- benefits-to-risks ratio
- a comparison of the possible benefits of a study for advancing knowledge and optimizing life conditions versus its costs to participants in terms of inconvenience and possible harm
- case study
- a research method in which the investigator gathers extrensive info about the life of an individual and then tests developmental hypotheses by analyzing the events of the person's life history
- clinical method
- a type of interview in which a participant's response to each successive question determines what the investigator will ask next
- cohort effect
- age-related difference among cohorts that is attributable to clultural/historical differences in cohorts' growing-up experiences rather than to true developmental change
- confounding variable
- some factor other than the independent variable that, if not controlled by the experimenter, could explain any differences across treatment conditions in participants' performance on the dependent variable
- correlational design
- a type of research design that indicates the strength of associations among variables' though correlated variables are systematically related, these relationships are not necessarily causal
- cross-cultural comparrison
- a study that compares the behavior or development of people from different cultural or subcultural backgrounds
- cross-generational problem
- the face that longterm changes in the environment may limit conclusions of a longitudinal project to that generation of children who were growing up while the study was in progess
- cross-sectional design
- a research design in which subjects from different age groups are studied at the same point in time
- dependent variable
- the aspect of behavior that is measured in an experiment and assumed to be under the control of the independent variable
- developmental psychology
- branch of psychology devoted to identifying and explaining the continuties and changes taht individuals display over time
- experimental design
- a research design in which the investigator introduces some change in the participant's environment and then measures the effect of that change on tha participant's behavior
- field experiment
- an experiment that takes place in a naturalisitc setting such as a home, school, or playground
- holistic perspective
- a unified view of the developmental process that emphasizes the important interrelationships among the physical, mental, social, and emotional aspects of human development
- informed consent
- the right of research participants to receive an explanation, in language they can understand, of all aspects of research that may affect their willingness to participate
- learning
- a relatively permanent change in behavior that results from one's skills or abilites
- longitudinal design
- a research design in which one group of subjects is studied repeatedly over a period of months or years
- maturation
- developmental changes in the body or behavior that result from the aging process rather than from learning, injury, illness, or some other life experience
- naturalistic observation
- a method in which the scientist tests hypotheses by observing people as they engage in everyday activities in their natural habitats
- nonrepresentative sample
- a subgroup that differs in important ways from the larger group or population to which it belongs
- plasticity
- capactiy for change; a developmental state that has the potential to be shaped by experience
- psychophysiological methods
- methods that measure the relationships between physiological processes and aspects of children's physical, cognitive, social, or emotional behavior and development
- random assignment
- a control technique in which participants are assigned to experimental conditions through an unbiased procedure so that hte members of the groups are not systematically different from one another
- reliability
- the extent to which a measuring instrument yields consistent results, both over time and across observers
- selective attrition
- nonrandom loss of participants during a study that results in nonrepresentative sample
- sequential design
- a research design in which subjects from different age groups are studied repeatedly over a period of months or years
- structured interview/questionnaire
- a technique in which all participants are asked the same questions in precisely the same order so that the responses of different participants can be compared
- structured observation
- an observational method in which the investigator cues the behavior of interest and observes participants' responses in a laboratory
- tabula rasa
- the idea that the mind of an infant is a blank slate and that all knowledge, abilities, begabiors, and motices are acquired through experience
- time-sampling
- a procedure in which the investigator records the frequencies with which individuals display particular behaviors during the brief time intervals each is observed
- validity
- the extrent to which a measuring instrument accurately reflects what the researchers intended to measure
- accomodation
- piaget's term for the process by which children modify their existing schemes in order to incorporate or adapt to new experiences
- activity/passivity issue
- a debate among developmental theorists about whether children are active contributors to their own development or, rather, passive recipients of environmental influence
- assimilation
- pieaget's term for the process by which children interpret new experiences by incorporating them into their existing schemes
- behaviorism
- a school of thinking in psychology that holds that conclusions about human development should be based on controlled observations of overt behavior rather than speculation about unconscious motives or other unobservable phenomena' the philopshical underpinning for the early theories of learning
- cognitive development
- age-related changes that occur in mental activities such as attending, perceiving, learning, thrinking, and remembering
- continuity/discontinuity issue
- a debate among theorists about whether developmental changes are quantitative and continueous or qualitative and discontinuous (ie statelike)
- developmental stages
- a distinct phase within a larger sequence of development; a period characterized by a particular set of abilites, motices, behaviors, or emotions that occur together and form a coherent pattern
- disequilibriums
- imbalances or contradicitons between one's thought processes and environmental events
- eclectics
- those who borrow from many theories in their attempts to predict and explain human development
- ecological systems theory
- bronfenbrenner's model emphasizing that the developming person is embedded in a series of environmental systems that interact with one another and iwth the person to influence development
- ethology
- the study of the bioevoluntionary bases of behavior and development
- falsifiablity
-
a criterion for evaluating the scientific merit of theories
a theory is falsifiable when it is capable of generating predictions that could be disconfirmed - fixation
- arrested development at a particular psychosexual stage that can prevent movement to higher stages
- id
- psychoanalytic term for the inforn component of the personality that is driven by the instincts
- ego
- psychoanalytical term for the rational component of the personality
- superego
- psychoanalytic term for the component of the personality that consists of one's internatlized moral standards
- psychosexual theory
- freud's theory that states that maturation of the sex instinct underlies stages of personality development and that the manner in which parents manage children's instictual impulses determines the traits that children display
- heuristic value
- a criterion for evatluating the scientific merit of theories. a heuristic theory is one that constinues to stimulate new research and new discoveries
- information-processing theory
- a perspective that views the human mind as a contuniously developing, symbol-manipulating system, similar to a computer, into which information flows, is operated on, and is converted to output
- mechanistic model
- view of children as passive entities whose developmental paths are primarily determined by external influences
- observational learning
- learning that results from observing the behavior of others
- operant learnign
- a form of learning in which voluntary acts or operants become either more or less probable, depending on the conseqences they produce
- organismic model
- view of children as active entities whose developmental paths are primarily determined by forces from withing themselves
- parsimony
- a criterion for evaluating the scientific merit of theories; a parsimonious theory is one that uses relatively few explanatory principles to explain a broad set of observations
- reciprocal determinism
- the notion that the flow of influence btween children and their environments is a twoway street; the environment may afffect the child, but the child's behavior also influences the environment
- scheme
- an organized pattern of throught or action that one constructs to interpret some aspect of one's experience
- sensitive period
- period that is optimal for the development of particular capacities, or behaviors, and in which the individual is particularly sensitive to environmental influences that would foster these attribtues
- unconsious motives
- frued's term for feelings, experiences, and conflicts that influence a person's thinking and behavior, but lie outside the person's awareness
- active genotype/environment correlations
- the notion that our genotypes affect the types of environments that we prefer and seek out
- aging ova hypothesis
- the hypothesis that an older mother is more likely to have children with chromosomal abnormalities because her ova are degenerating as she nears the end of her reproductive years
- amnicentesis
- a method of extracting amniotic fluid from a pregnant woman so that fetal body cells within the fluid can be tested for chromosomal abnormalities and other genetic defects
- autosomes
- the 22 pairs of human chromosomes that are identical in males and females
- carrier
- a heterozygous individual who displays no sign of a recessive allele in his or her own phenotype but can pass this gene to offspring
- chorionic villus sampling
-
an alternative to amniocentesis in which fetal cells are extracted from the chorion for prenatal tests
cvs can be performed earlier in pregnancy than is possible with anmiocentesis - chromosome
- a threadlike structure made up of genes; in humans there are 46 chromosomes in the nucleus of each body cell
- conception
- the moment of fertilization, when a sperm penetrates an ovum, forming a zygote
- concordance rate
- the percentage of cases in which a particular attribute is present for one member of a twin pair if it is present for the other
- dizygote twins
-
fraternal twins
twins that result when a mother releases two ova at roughly the same time and each is fertilized by a different sperm, producing two zygotes that are genetically different - dna
- deoxyribonucleic acid; long, souble stranded molecules that make up chromosomes
- dominant allele
- a relatively powerful gene that is expressed phenotypically and masks the effect of a less powerful gene
- down syndrome
- a chromosomal abnormality caused by the presence of an extra twentyfirst chromosome; people with this syndrome have a distinctive physical appearance and are moderately to severely retarded
- evocative genotypel/environment correlations
- the notion that our heritable attributes affect others' behavior otward us and thus influence the social environment in which development takes place
- genes
- hereditary blueprints for development that are transmitted unchanged from generation to geneeration
- genetic counseling
- a service designed to inform prospective parents about genetic diseasses and to help them determine the likelihood that they would trnsmit such disorders to their children
- genotype
- the genetic endowment that an individual inherits
- heritability coefficient
- a numerical extimate, ranging from .00 to +1.00, of the amount of variation in an attribute that is the result of hereditary facots
- heterozygous
- having inherited two allels for an attribute that have different effects
- homozygous
- having inherited two alleles for an attribute that are identical in their effects
- huntington's disease
- a genetic disease, caused by a dominant allele, that typically appears later in life and causes the nervous system to degenerate
- in vitro fertilization
- a method of conception in which ova are fertilized in a petri dish and one or more of the resulting embryos are transferred to the woman's uterus
- independent assortment
- the priciple stating that each pair of chromosomes segregates independently of all other chromosome pairs during meiosis
- introversion/extroversion
- the opposite poles of a personality dimension: introverts are shy, anxious around others, and tend to withdraw from social situations; extroverts are highly sociable and enjoy being with others
- meiosis
- the process in which a germ cell divides, producing gametes (sperm or ova) that each contain half of the parent cell's original complement of chromosomes; in humans, the products of meiosis contain 23 chromosomes
- mitosis
- the process in which a cell duplicates its chromosomes and then divides into two genetically identical daughter cells
- monozygotic twins
-
identical twins
twins who develop from a single zygote that later divides to form two genetically identical individuals - mutation
- a change in the chemical structure or arrangement of one or more genes that has the effect of producing a new phenotype
- phenotype
- the ways in which a person's genotype is expressed in observable or measurable characteristics
- phenylketonuria
-
pku
a genetic disease in which the child is unable to metabolize phenylalanine; if left untreated, it sonn causes hyperactivity and mental retardation - polygenic trait
- a characteristic that is influenced by the action of many genes rather than a single pair
- range-of-reaction principle
- the idea that genotype sets limits on the range of possible phenotypes that a person might display in response to different environments
- recessive allele
- a less powerful gene that is not expressed phenotypically when paired with a dominant allele
- schizophrenia
- a serious form of mental illness characterized by disturbances in logical thinking, emotional expression, and interpersonal behavior
- selective breeding experiment
- a method of sutdying genetic influences by determining whether traits can be bred in animals through selective mating
- sex-linked characteristics
- an attribute determined by a recessive gene that appears on the X chromosome; more likely to characterize males
- simple dominant-recessive inheritance
- apattern of inheritance in which one allele dominates another so that only its phenotype is expressed
- twin design
- study in which sets of twins that differ in zygosity (kinship) are compared to determine the heritability of an attribute
- ultrasound
- method of detecting gross physical abnormalities by scanning the womb with sound waves, thereby producing a visual outline of the fetus
- X chromosome
- the longer of the two sex chromosomes; normal females have two X chromosomes, whereas normal males have only one
- Y chromosomes
- the shorter of the two sex chromosomes; normal males have one Y chromosome, whereas females have none
- zygote
- a single cell formed at conception from the union of a sperm and an ovum
- age of viability
- a point between the twentysecond and twentyeighth prenatal weeks when survival outside the uterus is possible
- alternative birth center
- a hospital birthing room or other independent facility that provides a homelike atmosphere for childbirth but still makes medical technology available
- apgar test
- a quick assessment of the newborn's heart rate, respiration, color, muscle tone, and reflexes that is used to gauge perinatal stress and to determine whether a neonate requires immediate medical assistance
- autostimulation theory
- a theory proposing that REM sleep in infancy is a form of selfstimulation that helps the central nervous system to develop
- cesarian section
- surgical delivery of a baby through an incision made in the mother's abdomen and uterus
- embryo
- name given to the prenatal organism from the third through the eighth week after conception
- emotional bonding
- term used to describe the strong affectionate ties that parents may feel toward their infant; some theorists believe that hte strongest bonding occurs shortly after birth, during a sensitive period
- engrossment
- paternal analogue of maternal emotional bonding; term used to describe fathers' fascination with their neonates, including their desire to touch, hold, caress, and talk to the newborn baby
- fetal alcohol syndrome
- a group of serious congenital problems commonly observed in the offspring of mothers who abuse alcohol during pregnancy
- fetus
- name given to the prenatal organism from the night week of pregnany until birth
- first stage of labor
- the period of the birth process lasting from the first regular uterine contractions until the cervix is fully dilated
- germinal period
- first phase of prenatal development, lasting from conception until the developing organism becomes firmly attached to the wall of the uterus
- implantation
- the burrowing of the blastocyst into the lining of the uterus
- infant states
- levels of sleep and wakefulness that young infants display
- neonate
- a newborn infant from birth to approximately 1 month
- neural tube
- the primitive spinal cord that develops from the extoderm and becomes the central nervous system
- placenta
- an organ, formed from the lining of the uterus and the chorion, that provies for respiration and nourishment of the unborn child and the elimination of its metabolic wastes
- postpartum depression
- strong feelings of sadness, resentment, and despair that may appear shortly after childbirth and can linger for months
- prenatal development
- development that occurs between the moment of conception and the beginning of the birth process
- preterm babies
- infants born more than 3 weeks before thei rnormal due dates
- primitive reflexes
- reflexes controlled by subcortical areas of the brain that gradually disappear over the first year of lie
- reflex
- an unlearned and automatic response to a stimulus or class of stimuli
- REM sleep
- a state of active or irregular sleep in which the eys move rapidly beneath the eyelids and brainwave activity is similar to the pattern displayed when awake
- second stage of labor
- the priod of the birth process during which the fetus moves through the birth canal and emerges from the mother's body
- small-for-date babies
- infants whose birth weight is far below normal, even when born close to their normal due dates
- spina bifida
- a bulding of the spinal cord through a gap in the spinal column
- survival reflexes
- inforn responses such as breathing, sucking, and swallowing that enable the newborn to adapt to the evironment
- teratogen
- extrenal agents wuhch as viruses, drugs, chemicals, and radiation that can harm a developing embryo or fetus
- thalidomide
- a mild tranquilizer that, taken early in pregnancy, can produce a variety of malformations of the limbs, eyes, ears, and heart
- third stage of labor
- explusion of the placenta
- umbilical cord
- a soft tube containing blood vessels that connects the embryo to the placenta
- adolescent growth spurt
- the rapid increase in phsyical growth that marks the beginning of adolescence
- bulimia
- a life threatening eating disorder characterized by recurrent eating binges followed by such purging activites as heavy use of laxatives or vomiting
- cephalocaudal development
- a sequence of physical maturation and growth that proceeds from the head to the tail
- cerebral cortex
- the outer layer of the brain's cerebrum that is involved in voluntary body movements, perception, and higher intellectual functions such as learning, thinking, and speaking
- cerebral lateralization
- the specilization of brain fuctions in the left and the right cerbral hemispheres
- corpus callosum
- the bundle of neural fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain and transmits information from one hemisphere to the other
- double standard
- the view that sexual behavior that is appropriate for members of one gender is less appropriate for the other
- estrogen
- female sex hormone, produced by the ovaries, that is responsible for feale sexual maturation
- marasmus
- a groth retarding disease affecting infants who receive insufficient protein and too few calories
- myelinization
- the process by which neurons are enclosed in waxy myelin sheaths that facilitate the transmission of neural impulses
- neurons
- nerve cells that receive and transmit neural impluses
- nonorganic failure to thrive
- an infacnt groth disorder, caused by lack of attention and affection that causes growth to slow dramatically or stop
- pituitary
- a master gland located at the base of the brain that regulates the endocrine grlands and produces growth hormone
- proximodistal development
- a sequence of physical maturation and growth that proceeds from the center of the body to the extremities
- puberty
- the point at which a person reaches sexual maturity and is physically capable of fathering or conceiving a child
- rites of passage
- rituals that signify the passage from one period of life to another
- secular trend
- a trend in industrialized societies toward earlier maturation and greater body size now than in the past
- synapse
- the connective space between one nerve cell and another
- testosterone
- male sex tranquilizer that, taken early in pregnancy, can produce a variety of malformations of the limbs, eyes, ears, and heart
- categorical perception
- a person's classification of the self along socially significant dimensions such as age and sex
- classical conditioning
- a type of learning in which an initially neutral simulus is repeatedly paired with a meaningful noneutral situmulus so that the neutral stimulus comes to elicit the response originally made only to the noneutral stimulus
- conditioned response
- a learned response to a stimulus that was not originially capable of producing the response
- conditioned stimulus
- an initially neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a particular response after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus that always elicits the response
- counterconditioning
- a treatment based on classical conditioning in which the goal is to extringuish an undesirable response and replace it with a new and more adaptive one
- deferred imitation
- the ability to reproduce a modeled activity that has been witnessed at some point in the past
- differentiation theory
- a theory specifying that perception involves detecting distintive features or cues that are contained in the sensory stimulation we receive
- dishabituation
- increase in responsiveness that occurs when stimulation changes
- distinctive features
- characteristics of a stimulus that remain constant; dimensions on which two or more objects differ and can be discriminated
- dyslexia
- serious difficulties in learning to read among children who have normal intellectual ability and no sensory impairments or emotional difficultues that could account for their reading disabilites
- encoding
- the process by which extrenal stimulation is converted to a mental representation
- enrichment theory
- a theory specifying that we must "add to" sensory stimulation by drawing on stored knowledge in order to perceive a meaningful world
- evoked potential
- a change in patterning of the brain waves that indicates that an individual detects a stimulus
- extinction
- gradual weakening and disappearance of a learned response that occurs because the conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with the unconditioned stimulus (in classical conditioning or the response is no longer reinforced (in operant conditioning)
- habituation
- a decrease in one's response to a stimulus that has become familiar through repetition
- high-amplitude sucking method
- a method of assessing infants' perceptual capabilities that capitalizes on the ability of infants to make interesting events last by varying the rate at which they suck on a special pacifier
- intermodal perception
- the ability to use one sensory modality to identify a stimulus or pattern of stimuli that is already familiar through another modality
- kinetic cues
- cues created by movements of objects or movements of hte body; provide important information for the perception of forms and spatial relations
- operant conditioning
- a form of learning in which voluntary acts become either more or less probable, depending on the consequences they produce
- perception
- the process by which we categorize and interpret sensory input
- perceptual learning
- changes in one's ability to extract information from sensory stimulation that occur as a result of experience
- phonemes
- the basic units of sound that are used in a spoken language
- pictoral cues
- depth and distance cues, including linear perspective, texture gradients, sizing, interposition, and shading, that are monocular--that is, detectable with only one eye
- preference method
- a method used to gain information about infants' perceptual abilities by presenting two or more stimuli and observing which stimulus the infant prefers
- punisher
- any consequence of an act that suppresses the response and decreases the probability that it will recur
- reinforcers
- any consequence of an act that increases the probability that the act will recur
- sensation
- detection of stimuli by the sensory receptors and transmission of this information to the brain
- size constancy
- the tendency to perceive an object as the same size from different distances despite changes in the size of its retinal image
- stereopsis
- fusion of two flat images to produce a single image that has depth
- unconditioned response
- the unlearned response elicited by an unconditioned stimulus
- unconditioned stimulus
- a stimulus that elicits a particular response without any prior learning
- visual acuity
- a person's ability to see small objects and fine detail
- visual cliff
- an elevated platform that creates an illusion of depth; used to test the depth perception of infants
- visual contour/contrast
- the amount of light/dark transition in a visual stimulus
- visual looming
- the expansion of the image of an object to take up the entire visual field as it draws very close to the face
- adaptation
- an inborn tendency to adust to the demands of the environment
- A-notB- error
- tendency of 8- to 12-month-olds to search for a hidden object where they previously found it even after they have seen it moved to a new location
- cognition
- the activity of knowing and the processes through which knowledge is acquired
- cognitive equilibrium
- piaget's term for the state of affairs in which there is a balanes, or harmonious, relationship between one's throught processes and the environment
- concrete operational
- piaget's third stage of cognitive development, lasting from about age 7 to age 11, when children are acwuiring cognitive operations and thinking more logically about real objects and experiences
- constructivists
- one who gains knowledge by acting or otherwise operating on objects and events to discover their properties
- deffered imitation
- the ability to reproduce a modeled activity that has been witnessed at some point in the past
- egocentric speech
- piaget's term for the subset of a young child's utterances that are nonsocial--that is, neither directed to others nor expressed in ways that listeners might understand
- egocentrism
- the tendency to view the world from one's own persepctive while failing to recognize that others may have different points of view
- formal operational
- piaget's fourth and final stage of cognitive development, from age 11 or 12 and beyond, when the individual begins to think more rationally and systematically about abstract concepts and hypothetical events
- genetic epistemology
- the experimental study of the development of knowledge, developed by piaget
- intelligence
- in piaget's theory, a basic life function that enables an organism to adapt to its environment
- invariant developmental sequence
- a series of developments that occur in one particular order because each development in the sequence is a prerequisite for the next
- object permanence
- the realization that objects continue to exist when they are no longer visible or detectable through the other senses
- organization
- an inborn tendency to combine and integrate avaiblable schems into coherent systems or bodies of knowledge
- parallel play
- largely noninteractive play in which players are in close proximity but do not often attempt to influence each other
- preoperational
- piaget's second stage of cognitive development, lasting from about age 2 to age 7, when children are thinking at a symbolic level but are not yet using cognitive operations
- behavioral schemes
- organized patterns of behavior that are used to represent and respond to bjects and experiences
- symbolic schemes
- internal mental sumbols such as images or verbal codes that one uses to represent aspects of experience
- sensorimotor
- piaget's first intellectual stage, from birth to 2 years, when infants are relying on behavioral schemes as a means of exploring and understanding the environment
- reflex activity
- first substage of piaget's sensorimotor stage; infants' actions are confines to expercising innate reflexes, assimilating new objects into these reflexive schemes, and accommodating their reflexes to these novel objects
- primary cingular reactions
- second substage of piaget's sensorimotor stage; a pleasurable response, centered on the infant's own body, that is discovered by chance and performed over and over
- secondary cingular reactions
- third substage of piaget's sensorimotor stage; a pleasurable response, centered on an external object, that is discovered by chance and performed over and over
- coordination of secondary circular reactions
- fourth substage of piaget's sensorimotor stage; infacnts begin to coordinate two or more actions to achieve simple objectives
- tertiary circluar reactions
- fifth substage of piaget's sensorimotor stage; an exploratory scheme in which the infant devises a new method of acting on objects to reproduce interesting results
- symbolic function
- the ability to use symbols to represent objects and experiences
- amae
- japanese concept; refers to an infant's feeling of total dependence on his or her mother and presumption of mother's love and indulgence
- attachment
- a close emotional relationship between two persons, characterized by mutual affection and a desire to maintain proximity
- attachment Q-set
- alternative method of assessing attachment secuirty that is based on observations of the child's attachment-related behaviors at home; can be used with infants, toddlers,a nd preschool children
- caregiving hypothesis
- ainsworth's notion that the type of attachment that an infant develops with a particular caregiver depends primarily on the kind of caregiving he has received from that person
- emotional self-regulation
- strategies for managing emotions or adjusting emotional arousal to an appropriate level of intensity
- empathy
- the ability to experience the same emotions that someone else is experiencing
- goodness-of-fit model
- thomas and chess's notion that development is likely to be optimized when parents' child-rearing practices are sensitvely adapted to the child's temperamental characeristics
- internal working models
- cognitive representations of self, others,a nd relatiomships that infants construct from their interactions with caregivers
- kewpie doll effect
- the notion that infantlike facial features are perceived as cute and lovable and elicit favorable responses from others
- learned helplessness
- the failure to learn how to respond appropriately in a situation because of previous exposures to uncontrollable events in the same or similar situations
- maternal deprivation hypothesis
- the notion that socially deprived infants devlop abnormally because they have failed to establish attachments to a primary caregiver
- asocial
-
phase of attachment
approximately the first 6 weeks of life, in which infants respond in an equally favorable way to interesting social and nonsocial stimuli - primary basic emotions
- the set of emotions present at birth or emerging early in the first year that some theorists believe to be biologically programmed
- reactive attachment disorder
- inability to form secure attachment bonds with other people; characterizes many victims of early social deprivation or abuse
- secondary complex emotions
- selfconscious or self-evaluative emotions that emerge in the second year and depend, in part, on cognitive development
- secondary reinforcer
- an initially neutral stimulus that acquires reinforcement value by virtue of its repeated association with other reinforcing stimuli
- secure base
- use of a caregiver as a base from which to explore the environment and to which to reutrn for emotional support
- seperation anxiety
- a wary or fretful reaction that infants and toddlers often display when seperated from the persons to whome they are attached
- social referencing
- the use of others' emotional expressions to infer the meaning of otherwise ambigious situations
- social stimulation hypothesis
- the notion that socially deprived infants develop abnormally because they have had little contact with companions who respond contingently to their social overtures
- strange situation test
- a series of eight seperation and reunion episodes to which infants are exposed in order to determind the quiality of their attachments
- stranger anxiety
- a wary or fretful reaction that infants and toddlers often display when approached by an unfamiliar person
- synchronized routine
- generally harmonious interactions between two persons in which participants adjust their behaviour in response to the partner's feelings and behaviors
- temperament hypothesis
- kagan's view that the strange situation measures individual differences in infants' temperaments rather than the quiality of their attachments
- temperament
- a person's characeristic modes of responding meotionally and behaviorally to environmental events, including such attributes as activity level, irritability, fearfulness, and sociability
- secure attachment
- an infant-caregiver bond in which the child welcomes contact with a close companion and uses this person as a secure base from which to explore the environment
- resistant attachment
- an insecure infant-caregiver bond, characerized by strong seperation protest and a tendency of the child to remain near but resist contact initiated by the caregiver, particularly after a separation
- avoidant attachment
- an insecure infant-caregiver bond, characterized by little separation protest and a tendency of the child to avoid or ignore the caregiver
- disorganized/disoriented attachment
- an insecure infant-caregiver bond, characerized by the infant's dazed appearance on reuinion or a tendency to first seek and them abruptly avoid the caregiver