ch.9

• developmental psychology - a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span
• zygote - fertilized egg; enters a 2 week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo; attaches to mother's uterine wall in 10 days
• embryo - the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month; organs begin to form and function; umbilical cord forms; arms and legs begin to form
• fetus - the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth; hands and feet are developing; at around 6 months, organs such as the stomach have developed enough to allow a premature born fetus a chance of survival; is responsive to mother's voice
• placenta - life link that transfers nutrients and oxygen from mother to embryo
• teratogens - agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during the prenatal development and cause harm
• fetal alcohol syndrome - physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking - in severe cases, signs include a small, out of proportion head and abnormal facial features
• epigenetic effect - chemical marks on DNA that switch genes abnormally on or off - eg. smoking
• habituation - decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation; as infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner
• maturation - biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behaviour, relatively uninfluenced by experience
• use it or lose it process - aka pruning which shuts down unused links of synapses
• infantile amnesia - inability of adults to recall experiences or memories from the first 3-4 years of their life
• cognition - all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating
• schema - a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information
• assimilation - interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas
• accommodation - adapting our current understandings to incorporate new information
• sensorimotor stage (piaget) - 0-2 yrs; infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities; eg. looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping
• object permanence - the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived
• preoperational stage (piaget) - 2-6/7 yrs; a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic; uses intuition instead of logical reasoning
• mental operations - the ability too imagine the consequences of something without it actually needing to happen
• conservation - the principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects; Piaget believed it to be a part of concrete operational reasoning
• egocentrism - inability to consider another person's point of view
• theory of mind - ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others and to understand others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one's own
• concrete operational stage (piaget) - 7-11 yrs; children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events, grasp concrete analogies, and perform arithmetical operations
• formal operational stage (piaget) - 12+ yrs; people begin to think logically about abstract concepts
• Lev Vygotsky - studied how children think and learn
• scaffold - a framework that offers children temporary support as the develop higher levels of thinking
• Piaget's stages of cognitive development

  • sensorimotor - object permanence, stranger anxiety
  • preoperational - pretend play, egocentrism; language development
  • concrete operational - conservation, mathematical transformations
  • formal operational - abstract logic, potential for mature moral reasoning
• zone of proximal development - zone between what a child can and can't do
• autism spectrum disorder - a disorder is marked by significant deficiencies in communication and social interaction, and by rigidly fixated interests and repetitive behaviours
• stranger anxiety - the fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months old
• attachment - an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness of their caregiver and showing distress on separation
• Harry and Margaret Harlow - studied the effect of reassurance form the physical touch of a parent or caregiver and how it plays a key role in developing healthy physical growth and normal socialization
• critical period - an optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development
• imprinting - the process by which certain animals form strong attachments during early life
• Konrad Lorenz - studied the critical period and imprinting with ducks
• Mary Ainsworth - studied attachment through the Strange Situation Test
• strange situation - a procedure for studying child-caregiver attachment; child is placed in an unfamiliar environment while their caregiver leaves and then returns, and the child's reactions are observed
• secure attachment - demonstrated by infants who comfortably explore environments in the presence of their caregiver, show only temporary distress when the caregiver leaves, and find comfort in the caregiver's return
• insecure attachment - demonstrated by infants who display either a clinging, anxious attachment or an avoidant attachment that resists closeness