Chapter 9 psychology

• Lifespan development


  The study of how humans change and grow from conception through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and death
• Physical development


  Growth and changes in the body and brain, the senses, motor skills, and health and wellness
• Cognitive development


  Learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity
• Psychosocial development

  Emotions, personality, and social relationships
• Psychosexual theory of development


  Freud's theory that personality develops during early childhood, with each stage focused on a different erogenous zone
• Psychosocial theory of development

  Erikson's theory that personality develops throughout the lifespan through social interactions and the resolution of psychosocial tasks
• Piaget's theory of cognitive development


  Theory that children progress through a series of stages of cognitive development, from sensorimotor to formal operations
• Kohlberg's theory of moral development


  Theory that individuals progress through stages of moral reasoning, from obedience to universal ethical principles
• Jean Piaget (1896-1980) studied childhood development, focusing on cognitive growth rather than psychoanalytical or psychosocial perspectives
• Schemata


  Concepts (mental models) used to help categorize and interpret information
• Assimilation


  Taking in new information or experiences in terms of current schemata
• Accommodation


  Changing schemata based on new information
• Sensorimotor stage


  World experienced through senses and actions, develop object permanence and stranger anxiety
• Preoperational stage


  Use symbols to represent words, images, and ideas, engage in pretend play, display egocentrism, lack logical reasoning
• Concrete operational stage


  Think logically about real (concrete) events, grasp use of numbers, understand conservation and reversibility
• Formal operational stage


  Children can use abstract thinking to problem solve, look at alternative solutions, and test these solutions
• Adolescent egocentrism


  A 15-year-old with a very small pimple on her face might think it is huge and incredibly visible, under the mistaken impression that others must share her perceptions
• Postformal stage


  Decisions are made based on situations and circumstances, and logic is integrated with emotion as adults develop principles that depend on contexts
• Neuroconstructivism


  Neural brain development influences cognitive development, and experiences that a child encounters can impact or change the way that neural pathways develop in response to the environment
• Sociocultural theory of development

  Human development is rooted in one's culture, and the language one speaks and the ways a person thinks about things are dependent on one's cultural background
• Gilligan criticized Kohlberg's theory because it was based only on upper class White men and boys, and she proposed that different genders reason differently, with girls and women focusing more on staying connected and the importance of interpersonal relationships