Chapter 4 AP Psych Test
Terms
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- Developmental psychology
- a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span
- Zygote
- the fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into a embryo
- Embryo
- the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization throughout the second month
- Fetus
- the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth
- Teratogens
- agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm
- Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)
- physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking. In severe cases, symptoms include noticeable facial misproportions
- Rooting reflex
- a baby’s tendency, when touched on the cheek, to turn toward the touch, open the mouth, and search for the nipple
- 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
- Maturation
- biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experiences
- Schema
- a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information
- Assimilation
- interpreting one’s new experience in terms of one’s existing schemas
- Accommodation
- adapting one’s current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information
- Cognition
- all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating
- Sensorimotor stage
- in Piaget’s theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities
- Object permanence
- the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived
- Preoperational stage
- in Piaget’s theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic
- Conservation
- the principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects
- Egocentrism
- 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 and the behavior these might predict
- Autism
- a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others’ states of mind
- Concrete operational stage
- in Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events
- Formal operational stage
- in Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts
- Stranger anxiety
- the fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 mouths of age
- Attachment
- an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation
- Critical period
- an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development
- Imprinting
- the process by which certain animals for m attachments during a critical period very early in life
- Basic trust
- according to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers
- Self-concept
- a sense of one’s identity and personal worth
- Adolescence
- the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence
- 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
- nonproductive sexual characteristics, such as female breast and hips, male voice quality, and body hair
- Menarche
- the first menstrual period
- Identity
- one’s sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent’s task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles
- Intimacy
- in Erikson’s theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary development task in late adolescence and early adulthood
- Menopause
- the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines
- Alzheimer’s disease
- a progressive and irreversible brain disorder characterized by gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and, finally, physical functioning.
- Cross-sectional study
- a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another
- Longitudinal study
- research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period
- Crystallized intelligence
- one’s accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age
- Fluid intelligence
- one’s ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood
- Social clock
- the culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement