| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| continuous development | The view that development occurs as a gradual, incremental process of change throughout the lifespan. |
| cross-sectional research design | A research method that compares different groups of participants at the same point in time to study age-related differences in behavior and mental processes. |
| developmental psychology | The branch of psychology that studies how behavior and mental processes change across the lifespan from infancy through old age. |
| discontinuous development | The view that development occurs in distinct stages or phases with qualitative changes between stages. |
| longitudinal research design | A research method that follows the same participants over an extended period of time to study how behavior and mental processes change across development. |
| nature and nurture | A thematic issue in developmental psychology exploring the relative contributions of genetic/biological factors (nature) and environmental/experiential factors (nurture) to development. |
| stability and change | A thematic issue in developmental psychology examining the extent to which characteristics remain consistent or transform across the lifespan. |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| adolescent growth spurt | A period of rapid physical growth that occurs during adolescence, characterized by significant increases in height and weight. |
| adulthood | The stage of the lifespan characterized by physical maturity and generally lasting from early adulthood through old age, marked by changes in reproductive ability, mobility, and sensory acuity. |
| critical periods | Specific windows of time during infancy and childhood when the brain is particularly receptive to certain types of learning and development, especially for skills like language. |
| environmental factors | External conditions and influences during pregnancy, such as nutrition, stress, and exposure to substances, that affect prenatal development. |
| fine motor coordination | The development of precise, controlled movements using small muscles, typically in the hands and fingers, that allow children to perform tasks like grasping and manipulating objects. |
| flexibility | The range of motion in joints and muscles; a physical capacity that generally declines during adulthood. |
| genetic mutations | Permanent changes in DNA sequences that can be inherited and may affect physical development and behavior. |
| gross motor coordination | The development of controlled movements using large muscle groups that allow children to perform activities like crawling, walking, and running. |
| hormonal factors | Chemical messengers produced during pregnancy that regulate physical development and can influence prenatal growth and psychological development. |
| imprinting | A rapid learning process in which young animals form an attachment to the first object or organism they encounter, typically serving a survival function. |
| maternal illness | Diseases or health conditions in the mother during pregnancy that can negatively affect fetal development and birth outcomes. |
| menarche | The first menstrual period in females, marking the onset of menstruation during puberty. |
| menopause | The biological process in adulthood marked by the cessation of reproductive ability, typically occurring in middle adulthood. |
| mobility | The ability to move freely and easily; a physical capacity that generally declines during adulthood. |
| physical and psychological milestones | Significant developmental achievements during prenatal development that establish the foundation for physical growth and mental processes. |
| prenatal development | The biological processes and physical changes that occur from conception until birth, including the formation of major physical and psychological structures. |
| primary sex characteristics | Physical traits directly involved in reproduction that develop during puberty, including the reproductive organs. |
| puberty | The biological process during adolescence in which reproductive ability develops and the body undergoes physical changes. |
| reaction time | The time interval between a stimulus and a response; a measure of processing speed that generally increases (slows) during adulthood. |
| rooting reflex | An infant reflex in which a baby turns their head toward a touch on the cheek and opens their mouth, indicating normal physical and psychological development. |
| secondary sex characteristics | Physical traits that distinguish males from females but are not directly involved in reproduction, developing during puberty. |
| sensitive periods | Developmental windows during infancy and childhood when children are especially responsive to environmental influences and learning, with strong effects on skill development. |
| sensory acuity | The sharpness and sensitivity of the senses, including vision and hearing; a physical capacity that generally declines during adulthood. |
| spermarche | The first ejaculation in males, marking the onset of sperm production during puberty. |
| teratogens | Environmental agents or substances that can cause abnormal development and birth defects during prenatal development. |
| visual cliff apparatus | A research tool used to assess infant depth perception and fear of heights by observing whether infants will crawl over an apparent drop-off. |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| gender | The social and psychological characteristics associated with being male or female, distinct from biological sex. |
| gender identity | An individual's personal sense of their own gender, which may or may not align with the sex assigned at birth. |
| gender roles | Socially constructed expectations and behaviors associated with being male or female that vary across cultures and historical periods. |
| sex | Biological characteristics typically used to classify individuals as male or female at birth. |
| sexual orientation | An individual's pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction to others, including heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual orientations. |
| socialization | The process through which individuals learn and internalize the norms, values, and behaviors of their society, influenced by factors such as sex and gender. |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| abstract thinking | The ability to think about concepts, ideas, and possibilities that are not directly tied to concrete objects or immediate experiences. |
| accommodation | The process by which the lens focuses visual stimuli onto the retina to create a clear image. |
| animism | The tendency to attribute life, consciousness, or human characteristics to inanimate objects or natural phenomena. |
| assimilation | The cognitive process of incorporating new information into existing schemas without changing the schemas themselves. |
| concrete operational stage | Piaget's third stage of cognitive development (early through late childhood) in which children can think logically about concrete events but struggle with abstract thinking. |
| conservation | The understanding that the quantity of a substance remains the same even when its appearance or arrangement changes. |
| crystallized intelligence | Intelligence based on accumulated knowledge, skills, and experience that remains relatively stable throughout adulthood. |
| dementia | A cognitive disorder characterized by progressive decline in memory, thinking, and behavioral abilities that interferes with daily functioning. |
| egocentrism | The inability to take another person's perspective or viewpoint; the tendency to see the world only from one's own point of view. |
| fluid intelligence | The ability to reason abstractly, solve novel problems, and process information quickly, which tends to decline with age. |
| formal operational stage | Piaget's fourth stage of cognitive development (late childhood through adulthood) in which individuals can think abstractly, hypothetically, and systematically. |
| hypothetical thinking | The ability to consider possibilities and imagine situations that may not exist in reality. |
| mental symbols | Internal representations of objects, events, or ideas that allow children to think about things not immediately present. |
| object permanence | The understanding that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight or perception. |
| preoperational stage | Piaget's second stage of cognitive development (toddlerhood through early childhood) characterized by the use of mental symbols and pretend play but limited logical reasoning. |
| pretend play | Imaginative play in which children use objects and situations to represent other things, demonstrating symbolic thinking. |
| reversibility | The cognitive ability to mentally reverse or undo an action or operation to return to its original state. |
| scaffolding | Temporary support provided by a more knowledgeable person to help a learner accomplish a task they cannot yet do independently. |
| schemas | Mental frameworks or organized patterns of knowledge about the world that influence how information is perceived and interpreted. |
| sensorimotor stage | Piaget's first stage of cognitive development (infancy through toddlerhood) in which children learn about the world through sensory experiences and motor actions. |
| sociocultural contexts | The social and cultural environments in which learning and development occur, including family, community, and cultural practices. |
| theory of mind | The understanding that other people have thoughts, beliefs, desires, and intentions that may differ from one's own. |
| zone of proximal development | The range of tasks that a person cannot yet perform independently but can accomplish with guidance and support from a more skilled individual. |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| babbling | A stage of language development in which infants produce repetitive consonant-vowel combinations like 'ba-ba-ba'. |
| communication | The exchange of information and ideas between individuals using language and other symbolic systems. |
| cooing | An early stage of language development in which infants produce soft, vowel-like sounds. |
| generative | The capacity of language to produce an infinite number of meaningful utterances from a finite set of rules and elements. |
| grammar | The system of rules that governs how words are combined and organized to form meaningful sentences in a language. |
| language | A shared system of arbitrary symbols that are rule-governed and generative, allowing for the production of an infinite number of ideas. |
| morphemes | The smallest units of meaning in a language, including words and word parts like prefixes and suffixes. |
| nonverbal manual gestures | Physical hand and arm movements, such as pointing, used to communicate meaning without spoken words. |
| one-word stage | A stage of language development in which children produce single words to express complete thoughts or requests. |
| overgeneralization | An error in language learning in which children apply grammatical rules too broadly, such as adding '-ed' to irregular verbs to form past tense. |
| phonemes | The smallest units of sound in a language that distinguish meaning between words. |
| semantics | The study of meaning in language, including how words and phrases convey meaning. |
| symbols | Arbitrary signs or representations that are mutually agreed upon to represent meaning within a language system. |
| syntax | The rules that govern the arrangement and order of words in sentences to create grammatically correct expressions. |
| telegraphic speech | A stage of language development in which children produce short utterances containing mainly content words while omitting function words like articles and prepositions. |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| acquisition | The process of learning an association between a conditioned stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus through repeated pairings. |
| associative learning | Learning that occurs when an organism associates or connects two stimuli or a stimulus and a response. |
| behavioral perspective | An approach to psychology that emphasizes the study of observable behavior and learning through conditioning. |
| biological preparedness | The innate predisposition of an organism to learn certain stimulus-response pairings more readily than others. |
| classical conditioning | A learning process in which an organism associates one stimulus with another stimulus to elicit a response. |
| conditioned response (CR) | A learned response that is elicited by a conditioned stimulus after classical conditioning has occurred. |
| conditioned stimulus (CS) | A previously neutral stimulus that, after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to elicit a conditioned response. |
| counterconditioning | A therapeutic technique in which a new response that is incompatible with an unwanted conditioned response is paired with the conditioned stimulus. |
| extinction | The weakening and eventual disappearance of a conditioned response when the conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with the unconditioned stimulus. |
| habituation | A decrease in response to a repeated or enduring stimulus as an organism becomes accustomed to it. |
| higher-order conditioning | A process in which a conditioned stimulus is used as an unconditioned stimulus to condition a new stimulus. |
| one-trial conditioning | A type of learning in which an association is acquired through a single pairing of a stimulus and response without requiring further pairings. |
| spontaneous recovery | The reappearance of a conditioned response after extinction when the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are paired together again. |
| stimulus discrimination | The ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other similar stimuli, responding only to the specific conditioned stimulus. |
| stimulus generalization | The tendency to respond to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus, even if they have not been directly paired with the unconditioned stimulus. |
| taste aversion | A learned avoidance of a food or taste acquired through classical conditioning, typically after one pairing with illness. |
| unconditioned response (UCR) | A natural, automatic response that occurs in reaction to an unconditioned stimulus without prior learning. |
| unconditioned stimulus (UCS) | A stimulus that naturally and automatically elicits an unconditioned response without prior learning. |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| continuous reinforcement | A reinforcement schedule in which reinforcement is delivered after every correct behavior. |
| fixed-interval schedule | A reinforcement schedule in which reinforcement is delivered for the first correct behavior after a fixed amount of time has passed. |
| fixed-ratio schedule | A reinforcement schedule in which reinforcement is delivered after a fixed number of correct behaviors. |
| instinctive drift | The tendency of organisms to revert to instinctive behaviors even when those behaviors interfere with operant conditioning. |
| Law of Effect | The principle that behaviors followed by reinforcing consequences are more likely to be repeated, while behaviors followed by punishing consequences are less likely to be repeated. |
| learned helplessness | A condition in which an organism learns that it has no control over aversive consequences and stops attempting to escape or avoid them. |
| negative punishment | The removal of a desirable consequence following a behavior to decrease the likelihood of that behavior being repeated. |
| negative reinforcement | The removal of an undesirable consequence following a behavior to increase the likelihood of that behavior being repeated. |
| operant conditioning | A learning process in which behavior is modified by its consequences, with reinforcement increasing the likelihood of a behavior and punishment decreasing it. |
| partial reinforcement | A reinforcement schedule in which reinforcement is delivered after some, but not all, correct behaviors. |
| positive punishment | The addition of an undesirable consequence following a behavior to decrease the likelihood of that behavior being repeated. |
| positive reinforcement | The addition of a desirable consequence following a behavior to increase the likelihood of that behavior being repeated. |
| primary reinforcer | A reinforcer that satisfies a basic biological need, such as food or water. |
| punishment | A consequence that decreases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated. |
| reinforcement | A consequence that increases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated. |
| reinforcement discrimination | The ability to distinguish between stimuli that are followed by reinforcement and those that are not, leading to differential responding. |
| reinforcement generalization | The tendency to respond to stimuli similar to those associated with reinforcement in the same way as the original stimulus. |
| reinforcement schedule | The pattern or timing with which reinforcement is delivered following a behavior. |
| secondary reinforcer | A reinforcer that has acquired value through association with a primary reinforcer, such as money or praise. |
| shaping | A technique for conditioning a desired behavior by reinforcing successive approximations of that behavior. |
| superstitious behavior | Behavior that is reinforced by coincidental consequences unrelated to the behavior itself. |
| variable-interval schedule | A reinforcement schedule in which reinforcement is delivered for the first correct behavior after a variable amount of time has passed. |
| variable-ratio schedule | A reinforcement schedule in which reinforcement is delivered after a variable number of correct behaviors. |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| cognitive maps | Mental representations of spatial environments or relationships that are learned and can be used to navigate or solve problems. |
| insight learning | Learning that occurs when the solution to a problem is suddenly understood without prior association, reinforcement, or observation of a model. |
| latent learning | Learning that occurs without reinforcement and is not immediately demonstrated in behavior, but can be revealed under appropriate conditions. |
| models | Individuals whose behavior is observed and imitated by others as a source of learning. |
| observation | The process of watching and learning from the behavior of others without direct personal experience. |
| social learning theory | A psychological theory proposing that learning can occur through observation of others and does not require direct personal experience with consequences. |
| vicarious conditioning | Learning that occurs by observing the consequences of another person's behavior rather than experiencing those consequences directly. |