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Definition
The branch of psychology concerned with
interaction between physical and psychological processes and with
stages of growth from conception throughout the entire life span. |
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Definition
Research efforts designed to describe what is
characteristic of a specific age or developmental stage. |
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The number of months or years since an individual’s
birth. |
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The chronological age at which most children show a
particular level of physical or mental development. |
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Definition
A research design in which the same participants are
observed repeatedly, sometimes over many years. |
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Definition
A research method in which groups of participants
of different chronological ages are observed and compared at a given
time. |
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Term
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Definition
The bodily changes, maturation, and growth that
occur in an organism starting with conception and continuing across
the life span. |
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Definition
| The single cell that results when a sperm fertilizes an egg. |
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Definition
The continuing influence of heredity throughout development;
the age-related physical and behavioural changes characteristic of a species. |
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Definition
| The process through which sexual maturity is attained. |
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| The onset of menstruation. |
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Definition
The development of processes of knowing,
including imagining, perceiving, reasoning, and problem solving. |
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Term
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Definition
Piaget’s term for cognitive structures that develop as infants and
young children learn to interpret the world and adapt to their
environment. |
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Term
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Definition
According to Piaget, the process whereby new cognitive
elements are fitted in with old elements or modified to fit more easily;
this process works in tandem with accommodation. |
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Term
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Definition
According to Piaget, the process of restructuring
or modifying cognitive structures so that new information can fit
into them more easily; this process works in tandem with
assimilation. |
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Term
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Definition
The recognition that objects exist independently
of an individual’s action or awareness; an important cognitive
acquisition in infancy. |
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Term
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Definition
In cognitive development, the inability of a young child at
the preoperational stage to take the perspective of another person. |
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Term
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Definition
A thought pattern common during the beginning of the
preoperational stage of cognitive development; characterized by the
child’s inability to take more than one perceptual factor into account at
the same time. |
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Term
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Definition
According to Piaget, the understanding that physical
properties do not change when nothing is added or taken away, even
though appearances may change. |
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Term
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Definition
Frameworks for initial understanding formulated
by children to explain their experiences of the world. |
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Term
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Definition
According to Vygotsky, the process through which
children absorb knowledge from the social context. |
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Term
| selective optimization with compensation |
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Definition
A strategy for successful aging
in which one makes the most gains while minimizing the impact of
losses that accompany normal aging. |
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Term
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Definition
Minimal units of speech in any given language that make a
meaningful difference in speech production and reception; /r/ and
/l/ are two distinct phonemes in English but variations of one in
Japanese. |
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Term
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Definition
A special form of speech with an exaggerated and
high-pitched intonation that adults use to speak to infants and young
children. |
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Term
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Definition
The innate guidelines or operating principles
that children bring to the task of learning a language. |
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Term
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Definition
A grammatical error, usually appearing during early
language development, in which the rules of a language are applied too
widely, resulting in incorrect linguistic forms. |
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Term
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Definition
The ways in which individuals’ social interactions and
expectations change across the life span. |
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Term
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Definition
Proposed by Erik Erikson, successive developmental
stages that focus on an individual’s orientation toward the self and
others; these stages incorporate both the sexual and social aspects
of a person’s development and the social conflicts that arise from the
interaction between the individual and the social environment. |
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Term
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Definition
The lifelong process whereby an individual’s behavioural
patterns, values, standards, skills, attitudes, and motives are shaped to
conform to those regarded as desirable in a particular society. |
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Term
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Definition
A child’s biologically based level of emotional and
behavioural response to environmental events. |
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Term
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Definition
Emotional relationship between a child and the parent or
regular caregiver. |
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Term
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Definition
A primitive form of learning in which some infant animals
physically follow and form an attachment to the first moving object
they see and/or hear. |
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Term
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Definition
The manner in which parents rear their children; an
authoritative parenting style, which balances demandingness and
responsiveness, is seen as the most effective. |
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Term
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Definition
Specific parenting behaviours that arise in response to
particular parental goals. |
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Term
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Definition
Comfort derived from an infant’s physical contact with
the mother or caregiver. |
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Term
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Definition
The capacity to make a full commitment—sexual, emotional,
and moral—to another person. |
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Term
| selective social interaction theory |
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Definition
The theory that, as people age, they
become more selective in choosing social partners who satisfy their
emotional needs. |
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Term
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Definition
A commitment beyond one’s self and one’s partner to family,
work, society, and future generations; typically, a crucial state in
development in one’s 30s and 40s. |
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Term
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Definition
Biologically based characteristics that distinguish males
from females. |
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Term
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Definition
A psychological phenomenon that refers to learned sex-related
behaviours and attitudes of males and females. |
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Term
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Definition
One’s sense of maleness or femaleness; usually includes
awareness and acceptance of one’s biological sex. |
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Term
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Definition
Sets of behaviours and attitudes associated by society as
being male or female and expressed publicly by the individual. |
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Term
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Definition
A system of beliefs and values that ensures that individuals will
keep their obligations to others in society and will behave in ways that
do not interfere with the rights and interests of others. |
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