Chapter 1
Sequential Designs
conduct several similar cross-sectional or longitudinal studies at varying times
Sensitive Period
a time that is biologically optimal for certain capacities to emerge because the individual is especially responsive to environmental influences
Ethology
concerned with the adaptive, or survival, value of behavior and its evolutionary history
Microsystem
consists of activities and interaction patterns in the child's immediate surroundings
Macrosystem
consists of cultural values, laws, customs, and resources
Exosystem
consists of social settings that do not contain the developing person but nevertheless affect experiences in immediate settings
Nature-Nurture Controversy
deals with the extent to which heredity and the environment each influence behavior
Developmental Social Neuroscience
devoted to studying the relationship between changes in the brain and emotional and social development
Sociocultural Theory
focuses on how culture - the values, beliefs, customs, and skills of a social group - is transmitted to the next generation
Cross-sectional Design
groups of people differing in age are studied at the same point in time
Chronosystem
historical changes that influence the other systems
Normative Approach
measures of behavior are taken on large numbers of individuals and age-related averages are computed to represent typical development
Plasticity
open to change in response to influential experiences
Longitudinal Design
participants are studied repeatedly, and changes are noted as they get older
Psychoanalytic Perspective
people move through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations. How these conflicts are resolved determines the person's ability to learn, to get along with others, and to cope with anxiety
Experimental Design
permits inferences about cause and effect because researchers use an evenhanded procedure to assign people to two or more treatment conditions
Correlational Design
researchers gather information on individuals, generally in natural life circumstances, without altering their experiences. Then they look at relationships between participants' characteristics and their behavior or development
Clinical Interview
researchers use a flexible, conversational style to probe for the participant's point of view
Evolutionary Developmental Psychology
seeks to understand the adaptive value of species-wide cognitive, emotional, and social competencies as those competencies change with age
Resilience
the ability to adapt effectively in the face of threats
Information Processing
the design of digital computers that use mathematically specified steps to solve problems suggested to psychologists that the human mind might also be viewed as a symbol-manipulating system through which information flows
Continuous Development
the idea that changes with age occur gradually, in small increments, like that of a pine tree growing taller and taller
Structured Observation
the investigator sets up a laboratory situation that evokes the behavior of interest so that every participant has an equal opportunity to display the response
Dependent Variable
the one the investigator expects to be influenced by the independent variable
Independent Variable
the one the investigator expects to cause changes in another variable
Ethnography
the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures.
Social Learning Theory
the theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished
Naturalistic Observation
to go into the field, or natural environment, and record the behavior of interest
Contexts
unique combinations of personal and environmental circumstances that can result in different paths of change
Ecological Systems Theory
views the person as developing within a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment
Applied Behavior Analysis
Consists of careful observations of individual behavior and related environmental events, followed by systematic changes in those events based on procedures of conditioning and modeling. The goal is to eliminate undesirable behaviors and increase desirable responses.
Cohort Effects
Effects due to a person's time of birth, era, or generation but not to actual age.
Psychosocial Theory
Erikson emphasized that in addition to mediating between id impulses and superego demands, the ego makes a positive contribution to development, acquiring attitudes and skills that make the individual an active, contributing member of society
History-graded Influences
Explain why people born around the same time--called a cohort--tend to be alike in ways that set them apart from people born at other times.
Lifespan Perspective
Four assumptions make up this broader view: that development is (1) lifelong, (2) multidimensional and multidirectional, (3) highly plastic, (4) affected by multiple, interacting forces.
Developmental Science
a field of study devoted to understanding constancy and change throughout the lifespan
Correlation Coefficient
a number that describes how two measures, or variables, are associated with each other
Discontinuous Development
a process in which new ways of understanding and responding to the world emerge at specific times
Stage
a qualitative change in thinking, feeling, and behaving that characterizes a specific period of development
Theory
an orderly, integrated set of statements that describes, explains, and predicts behavior
Random Assignment
assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups
Clinical, or case study, method
brings together a wide range of information on one person, including interviews, observations, and test scores
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
brings together researchers from psychology, biology, neuroscience, and medicine to study the relationship between changes in the brain and the developing person's cognitive processing and behavior patterns
Cognitive-developmental Theory
children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world
Behaviorism
directly observable events- stimuli and responses- are the appropriate focus of study
Structured Interview
each participant is asked the same questions in the same way
Psychosexual Theory
emphasizes that how parents manage their child's sexual and aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for healthy personality development
Mesosystem
encompasses connections between microsystems
Nonnormative Influences
events that are irregular: they happen to just one person or a few people and do not follow a predictable timetable
Age-graded Influences
events that are strongly related to age and therefore fairly predictable in when they occur and how long they last