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| An interrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps to explain and make predictions. |
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| specific assumptions and predictions that can be tested to determine their accuracy. |
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| Describes development as primarily unconscious and heavily colored by emotion. Behavior is merely a surface characteristic, and the symbolic workings of the mind have to be analyzed to understand behavior. Early experiences with parents are emphasized. |
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| Includes eight stages of human development. Each stage consists of a unique developmental task that confronts individuals with a crisis that must be resolved. |
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| States that children actively construct their understanding of the world and go through four stages of cognitive development |
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| Occurs when individuals incorporate new information into their existing knowledge |
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| Occurs when individuals adjust to new information |
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| A sociocultural cognitive theory that emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide cognitive development. |
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| Information-processing theory |
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| Emphasizes that individiuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it. Central to this theory are the processes of memory and thinking. |
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| The view of psychologists who emphasize behavior, environment, and cognition as the key factors in development. |
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| Stresses that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, is tied to evolution, and is characterized by critical or sensitive periods. |
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| Bronfenbrenner's environmental systems theory that focuses on five environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. |
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| Eclectic theoretical orientation |
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| An orientation that does not follow any one theoretical approach, but rather selects from each theory whatever is considered the best in it. |
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| Has the purpose of observing and recording behavior. |
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| A controlled setting in which many of the complex factors of the "real world" are removed. |
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| Observing behavior in real-world settings. |
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| A test with uniform procedures for administration and scoring. Many standardized tests allow a person's performance to be compared with the performance of other individuals. |
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| An in-depth look at a single individual. |
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| A record of information about a lifetime chronology of events and activities that often involved a combination of data records on education, work, family, and residence. |
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| The goal is to describe the strength of the relationship between two or more events or characteristics. |
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| A carefully regulated procedure in which one or more of the factors believed to influence the behavior being studied are manipulated while all other factors are held constant. |
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| A research strategy in which individuals of different ages are compared at one time. |
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| A research strategy in which the same individuals are studied over a period of time, usually several years or more. |
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| A combined cross-sectional, longitudinal design. |
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| Effects due to a person's time of birth, era, or generation but not to actual age. |
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| Using an ethnic label such as African American or Latino in a superficial way that portrays an ethnic group as being more homogeneousthan it really is. |
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| Emphasizes the importance of adaptation, reproduction, and "survival of the fittest" in shaping behavior. |
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| Threadlike structures that contain the remarkable substance DNA; there are 23 pairs of chromosomes. |
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| A complex molecule that contains genetic information. |
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| Units of hereditary information composed of DNA. Genes direct cells to reproduce themselves and to assemble proteins. |
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| Cellular reproduction in which the cell's nucleus duplicates itself with two new cells being formed, each containing the same DNA as the parent cell, arranged in the same 23 pairs of chromosomes. |
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| A specialized form of cell division that produces cells withonly one copy of each chromosome. Meiosis forms eggs and sperm (or gametes). |
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| A stage in the reproduction process whereby an egg and a sperm fuse to create a single cell, called a zygote. |
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| A single cell formed through fertilization. |
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| A person's genetic heritage; the actual genetic material. |
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| The way an individual's genotype is expressed in observed and measurable characteristics. |
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| A chromosomally transmitted form of mental retardation, caused by the presence of an extra copy of chromosome 21. |
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| A chromosome disorder in which males have an extra X chromosome, making them XXY instead of XY. |
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| A chromosome disorder involving an abnormality in the X chromosome, which becomes constricted and often breaks. |
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| A chromosome disorder in females in which either and X chromosome is missing, making the person XO instead of XX, or the second X chromosome is partially deleted. |
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| A chromosome disorder in which males have an extra Y chromosome. |
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| A genetic disorder in which an individual cannot properly metabolize phenylalanine, an amino acid. PKU is now easily detected but, if left untreated, results in mental retardation and hyperactivity. |
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| A genetic disorder that affects the red blood cells and occurs most often in people of African descent. |
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| The field that seeks to discover the influence of heredity and environment on individual differences in human traits and development. |
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| A study in which the behavioral similarity of identical twins is compared with the behavioral similarity of fraternal twins. |
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| A study in which investigators seek to discover whether the behavior and psychological characteristics of adopted children are more like their adoptive parents, who have provided a home environment, or more like their biological parents, who have contributed their heredity. Another form of the adoption study is to compare adopted and biological siblings. |
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| Passive genotype-environment correlations |
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| Correlations that exist when the natural parents, who are genetically related to the child, provide a rearing environment for the child. |
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| Evocative genotype-environment correlations |
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| Correlations that exist when the child's characteristics elicit certain types of environments. |
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| Active (niche picking) genotype environment correlations |
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| Correlations that exist when children seek out environments they find compatible and stimulating. |
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| Shared environmental experiences |
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| Sibling's common environmental experiences, such as their parents' personalities and intellectual orientation, the family's socioeconomic status, and the neighborhood in which they live. |
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| Nonshared environmental experiences |
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| The child's own unique experiences, both within the family and outside the family, that are not shared by another sibling. Thus, experiences occurring within the family can be part of the "nonshared environment." |
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| Emphasizes that development is the result of an ongoing, bidirectional interchange between heredity and environment. |
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| The period of prenatal development that takes place in the first two weeks after conception. It includes the creation of the zygote, continued cell division, and the attachment of the zygote to the uterine wall. |
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| The inner mass of cells that develops during the germinal period. These cells later develop into the embryo. |
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| An outer layer of cells that develops during the germinal period. These cells will become part of the placenta. |
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| The period of prenatal development that occurs from two to eight weeks after conception. During the embryonic period, the rate of cell differentiation intensifies, support systems for the cells form, and organs appear. |
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| A disk-shaped group of tissues in which small blood vessels from the mother and offspring intertwine but do not join. |
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| Contains two arteries and one vein; connects the baby to the placenta. |
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| The life-support system that is a bag or envelope containing a clear fluid in which the developing embryo floats. |
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| Organ formation that takes place during the first two months of prenatal development. |
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| The prenatal period of development that begins two months after conception and lasts for seven months, on average. |
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| From the Greek word tera, meaning "monster." Any agent that causes a birth defect. The field of study that investigates the causes of birth defects is called teratology. |
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| Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) |
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| A cluster of abnormalities that appears in the offspring of mother's who drink alcohol heavily during pregnancy. |
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| A caregiver who provides continuous physical, emotional, and educational support for the mother before, during, and after childbirth. |
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| Developed in 1914 by Dick-Read, this method attempts to reduce the mother's pain by decreasing her fear through education about childbirth and relaxation techniques during delivery. |
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| Developed by French obstetrician Ferdinand Lamaze, this childbirth stategy is similar to natural childbirth but includes a special breathing technique to control pushing in the final stages of labor and a more detailed anatomy and physiology course. |
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| The baby's position in the uterus that causes the buttocks to be the first part to emerge from the vagina. |
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| Infants that weigh less than 5 1/2 pounds at birth. |
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| Infants born three weeks or more before the pregnancy had reached its full term. |
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| Also called small for gestational age infants, these infants' birth weights are below normal when the length of pregnancy is considered. Small for date infants may be preterm or full term. |
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| A widely used method to assess the health of newborns at one and five minutes after birth. The Apgar Scale evaluates infants' heart rate, respiratory effort, muscle tone, body color, and reflex irritability. |
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| Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale |
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| A test performed within 24 to 36 hours after birth to assess newborns' neurological development, reflexes, and reactions to people. |
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| The period after childbirth when the mother adjusts, both physically and psychologically, to the process of childbirth. This period lasts for about 6 weeks or until her body has completed its adjustment and returned to a near prepregnant state. |
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| Characteristic of women who have such strong feelings of sadness, anxiety, or despair that they have trouble coping with daily tasks in the postpartum period. |
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