DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

Anxious - Ambivalent Attachment

A style of attachment in which children are uncertain in their response to their mothers, going back and forth between seeking and shunning her attention. These mothers have been characterized as insensitive and less involved.

Jean Piaget

Known for his theory of cognitive development in children

Pre-conventional Stage

Kohlbergs stage of moral development in which moral reasoning is based on reward and punishment from those in authority

Neonatal Period

The first month of life after birth

Maturation

The natural physical changes that occur due to a person's genetic code.

Heredity

The passing of traits from parents to offspring

Expectancy Bias

The researcher allowing his or her expectations to affect the outcome of a study.

Attachment

The strong bond a child forms with his or her primary caregiver.

Theory of Mind

an awareness that other people's behavior may be influenced by beliefs, desires, and emotions that differ from one's own

Parenting Styles

authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative

Temperament

basic emotional style that appears early in development and is largely genetic in origin but not written in stone

Alzheimer's Disease

chronic, progressive, degenerative cognitivedisorder that accounts for more than 60% of all dementias

Epistemology

study of knowledge

Imprinting

The process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.

Ethology

The scientific study of how animals behave, particularly in natural environments.

Developmental Psychology

a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout a life span

Nature

a person's inherited traits, determined by genetics

Cognitive Development

study of how children acquire the ability to learn, think, reason, communicate, and remember

Authoritarian Parenting Style

style of parenting marked by emotional coldness, imposing rules and expecting obedience

Zones of Proximal Development

(Vygotsky) distance between what an individaul can accomplish on independently and what he or she can accomplish with the guidance and encouragement of a more skilled partner (develop quickly or slowly depends on these zones)

Authoritative Parenting Style

A parenting style in which parents encourage their children to be independent but still place limits and controls on their actions. Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed, and parents are warm and nurturing toward the child. The parenting style is associated with children's social competence.

Synaptic Pruning

A process whereby the synaptic connections in the brain that are used are preserved, and those that are not used are lost.

Avoidance Attachment

A style of attachment in which children act as if they are unconcerned about being separated from their mothers- These children may be showing the effects of repeated rejections in the past

Single Blind

A testing procedure in which the administrators do not tell the subjects if they are being given a test treatment or a control treatment in order to avoid bias in the results.

Assimilation

According to Piaget, the process by which new ideas and experiences are absorbed and incorporated into existing mental structures and behaviors

Insecure Attachment

Ainsworth experiment; avoid attachment, marked by anxiety or avoidance of trusting relationships ; less likely to explore strange situation and cling to mother or cry when mother leaves

Secure Attachment

Ainsworth experiment; confidently explore the novel environment while parents are present, are distressed when they leave, and come to parents when they return

Strange Situation

Ainsworth's method for assessing infant attachment to the mother, based on a series of brief separations and reunions with the mother in a playoom situation

Mary Ainsworth

American psychologist who studied attachment in infants using the "strange situation" model. Label infants "secure", "insecure" (etc.) in attachment

Carol Gilligan

Best known for her critique of Kohlberg's theory of moral development. In a book entitled "In a Different Voice", she argued that the participants in Kohlberg's basic study were all male. She contended that the scoring method Kohlberg used tended to favor a principled way of reasoning that was more common to boys. According to Gilligan, the moral concerns of women focus on caring and compassion.

John Bowlby

British psychologist- said that in order to lead a normal social life the child must bond to an adult before age 3. Saw bonding and attachment as having survival value (adaptive significance).

Schemas

Concepts or mental frameworks that organize and interpret information.

Egotistical

Excessively self-absorbed; very conceited

Contact Comfort

Harlow's research with Rhesus monkeys indicated that an infant's attachment is due to pleasant tactile sensations provided by a soft cuddly parent. Contradicted the Cupboard Theory

Mental Operations

In Piaget's theory, the mental process of solving problems by manipulating images in one's mind.

Post Conventional Stage

Kohlbergs stage of moral development in which the individual considers universal moral principles which supersede the authority of the group

Conventional Stage

Kohlbergs stage of moral development in which the morality of an action is primarily determined by the extent to which it conforms to social rules

Egocentrism

Piaget's theory that in a toddler, the belief that others perceive the world in the same way that he or she does

Lev Vygotsky

Russian developmental psychologist who emphasized the role of the social environment on cognitive development and proposed the idea of zones of proximal development

Harry Harlow

Studied attachment in monkeys with artificial mothers- wire or cloth mothers

Lawrence Kohlberg

Studied with Piaget and focused on moral development within cognitive development; presented boys moral dilemmas and studied their responses and reasoning processes in making moral decisions. Most famous moral dilemma is "Heinz" who has an ill wife and cannot afford the medication. Should he steal the medication and why?

Animistic Thinking

The belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities, such as thoughts, wishes, feelings, and intentions

Prenatal Period

The period from conception to birth, usually encompassing nine months of pregnancy

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.

Fetal Stage

The third stage of prenatal development, lasting from three months through birth.

Cupboard Theory

Theory that supported the idea that attachment to mother was driven by biological needs (food)

Double Blind

When the participants and the psychologists do not know the purpose of the study

Autism

a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others' states of mind

Nurture

a person's experiences in the environment

Cross Sectional Study

a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another

Critical Period

an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experience produces proper development

Infancy

first month -eighteen months

Diane Baumrind

identified three patterns of parental behavior associated with varying levels of children's competence; stated parenting styles as authoritative, authoritarian and permissive

Irreversibility

in Piaget's theory, the inability of the young child to mentally reverse an action

Pre-operational 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

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

Formal Operations

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.

Centration

in Piaget's theory, the tendency of a young child to focus only on one feature of an object while ignoring other relevant features

Innate

natural, inborn, inherent; built-in

Fluid Intelligence

our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood

Crystallized Intelligence

our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age

Longitudinal Study

research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period

Adoption Studies

research studies that assess hereditary influence by examining the resemblance between adopted children and both their biological and their adoptive parents

Konrad Lorenz

researcher who focused on critical attachment periods in baby birds, a concept he called imprinting

Accomodation

responding to a new event or object by changing an existing schema or creating a new schema

Concrete Operations Stage

stage in Piaget's theory characterized by the ability to perform mental operations on physical events only

Object Permanence

the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived - in place by one year

Permissive Parenting Style

unclear guidelines for their children; rules are constantly changed or aren't enforced consistently