front 1 The Importance of Studying Life-Span Development | back 1 Development s the pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the human life span. It includes both growth and decline. studying life-span development help prepare us to take responsibility for children, gives us insight abut our own lives, and gives us knowledge about what our lives will be like as we age. |
front 2 Characteristics of Life-Span Perspective | back 2 The life-span perspective includes these basic conceptions: Development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, and plastic; its study is multidisciplinary; it is embedded in contests; it involves growth, maintenance, and regulation; and it is a co-construction of biological, sociocultural, and individual factors. Three important sources of contextual influence are (1) normative age graded influences, (2) normative history graded influences, and (3) non normative life events. |
front 3 Some Contemporary Concerns | back 3 Health and well-being, parenting, education, sociocultural contexts and diversity, and social policy are all areas of contemporary concern that are closely tied to lifespan development. Important dimension of the sociocultural context include culture, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and gender There is increasing interest in social policy issues related to children and to older adults |
front 4 Development | back 4 the pattern of movement or change that begins at conception and continues through the human life span |
front 5 Life-span Perspective | back 5 the perspective that development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary and contextual; involves growth, maintenance and regulation of loss and is constructed through biological sociocultural and individual factors working together. |
front 6 Normative age-graded influences | back 6 influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group. |
front 7 Normative history-graded influences | back 7 influences that are common to people of a particular generation because of historical circumstances. |
front 8 Non-normative life events | back 8 Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on a individual's life |
front 9 Culture | back 9 The Behavior, patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group of people that are passed on from generation to generation. |
front 10 Cross-cultrual studies | back 10 comparison of one culture with one or more other cultures. these provide information about the degree to which development is similar, or universal, across cultures, and the degree to which it is culture-specific |
front 11 Ethnicity | back 11 A characteristic based on cultural heritage nationality characteristics, race, religion, and language. |
front 12 Socioeconomic status (SES) | back 12 Classification of a person's position in society based on occupational, educational, and economic characteristics. |
front 13 Gender | back 13 The characteristics of people as females or males |
front 14 Social Policy | back 14 A government's course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens |
front 15 Biological, Cognitive, and Socioemotional Processes. | back 15 Three key developmental processes are biological, cognitive, and socioemotional. Development is influence by an interplay of these processes. |
front 16 Periods of Development | back 16 The life-span is commonly divided into the following periods of development: prenatal, infancy, early childhood, middle and late childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood. Recently, life-span developmentalists have described the human life span in terms of four ages, with a special focuses on the third and fourth ages (young old and oldest old.) |
front 17 The Significance of Age | back 17 An increasing number of studies have found as adults get older they are happier. We often thing of age only in terms of chronological age, but a full evaluation of age requires consideration of chronological, biological, psychological, and social age. |
front 18 Developmental Issues | back 18 The nature-nurture issue focuses on the extent to which development is mainly influence by nature (biological inheritance) or nurture (experience). The stability change issue focuses on the degree to which we become older rendition of our early experience or develop into someone different from who were earlier in development. A special aspect of the stability-change issue is the extent to which development is determined by early versus later experiences. Developmentalists describe development as continuous (gradual, cumulative change) or as discontinues (abrupt, a sequence of stages). Most developmentalists recognize that extreme position on th nature-nurture, stability-change, and continuity discontinuity issues are unwise. Despite this consensus, there is still spirited debate on these issues. |
front 19 Biological processes | back 19 Processes that produce changes in an individuals's physical nature. |
front 20 Cognitive processes | back 20 Processes that involve changes in an individuals thought, intelligence, and language |
front 21 Socioemotional Processes | back 21 processes that involve changes in an individuals relationships with other people, emotions, and personality. |
front 22 Nature-Nurture issue | back 22 Debate about whether development is primarily influenced by nature of nurture. Nature refers to an organism's biological inheritance, nurture to it s environmental experiences. The "nature proponents" claim biological inheritance is the more important influence on development; the "nurture proponents" claim the environmental experiences are more important. |
front 23 Stability-Change issue | back 23 Debate as to whether and to what degree we become older renditions of our early experiences (stability) or whether we develop into someone different from who we were at an earlier point in development (change). |
front 24 Continutiy-discontinuity issue | back 24 Debate that focuses on the extent to which development involves gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity) |
front 25 Theory | back 25 An interrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps to explain phenomena and make predictions |
front 26 Hypotheses | back 26 Specific assumptions and predictions that can be tested to determine their accuracy |
front 27 psychoanalytic theories | back 27 Theories that describe development as primarily unconscious and heavily colored by emotion. Behavior is merely as surface characteristic, and symbolic working of the mind must be analyzed to understand behavior. Early experiences with parents are emphasized. |
front 28 Erikson's Theory | back 28 Theory that proposes eight stages of human development. Each stage consists of a unique development task that confronts individuals with a crisis that must be resolved. |
front 29 Piaget's theory | back 29 Theory stating that children actively construct their understanding of the world and go through four stages of cognitive development. |
front 30 Vygotsky's theory | back 30 Sociocultral cognitive theory that emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide cognitive development. |
front 31 Information-processing thoery | back 31 Theory emphasizing that individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it. Central to it's theory are the processes of memory and thinking. |
front 32 Social cognitive theory | back 32 Theoretical view that behavior, environment, and cognition are the key factors in development. |
front 33 Ethology | back 33 Theory stressing that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, is tied to evolution, and is characterized by critical or sensitive periods. |
front 34 Bronfenbrenner's ecological thoery | back 34 Focuses on five environmental systems: Microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem |
front 35 Eclectic theoretical orientation | back 35 Does not follow any one theoretical approach, but rather selects from each theory whatever is considered best in it. |
front 36 Laboratory | back 36 A controlled setting from which many of the complex factors of the "real world" have been removed. |
front 37 naturalistic observation | back 37 Observing behavior in real-world settings |
front 38 Standardized test | back 38 A test with uniform procedures for administration and scoring. Many standardized tests allow a person's performance to be compared with the performance of other individuals. |
front 39 Case Study | back 39 An in-depth look at a single individual |
front 40 Descriptive research | back 40 A type of research that aims to observe and record behavior |
front 41 Correlation research | back 41 A type of research that strives to describe the strength of the relationship between two or more events or characteristics. |
front 42 Correlation coeffiecient | back 42 A number based on a statistical analysis that is used to describe the degree of association between two variables. |
front 43 Experiment | back 43 Carefully regulated procedure in which on or more factors believed to influence the behavior being studied are manipulated while all other factors are held constant. |
front 44 Cross-sectional approach | back 44 A research strategy in which individual of different ages are compared at one time. |
front 45 Longitudinal approach | back 45 A research strategy in which the same individuals are studied over a period of time, usually several years or more. |
front 46 Cohort effects | back 46 Effects due to a person's time of birth, era, or generation, but not actual age. |
front 47 Ethnic gloss | back 47 use of an ethnic label such as African American or Latino in a superficial way that portrays an ethnic group as being more homogenous than it really is. |
front 48 Evolutionary psychology | back 48 A branch of psychology that emphasizes the importance of adaptation, reproduction, and "survival of the the fittest" in shaping behavior. |
front 49 Chromosomes | back 49 Threadlike structures made up of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA |
front 50 DNA | back 50 A complex molecule that has a double helix shape and contains genteic information |
front 51 Genes | back 51 Units of hereditary information composed of DNA. Genes direct cells to reproduce themselves and assemble proteins that direct body processes. |
front 52 Mitosis | back 52 Cellular reproduction in which the cell's nucleus duplicates itself; two new cells are formed, each containing the same DNA as the original cell, arranged in the same 23 paris of chromosomes. |
front 53 Meiosis | back 53 A specialized form of cell division that occurs to form eggs and sperm (or gametes) |
front 54 Fertalization | back 54 A stage in reproduction whereby an egg and sperm fuse to create a single cell, called zygote. |
front 55 Zygote | back 55 A single cell formed through fertalization |
front 56 Phenotype | back 56 Observable and measurable characteristics of an individual, such as height, hair, color, and intelligence. |
front 57 Down Syndrome | back 57 A chromosomally transmitted form of mental retardation, caused by the presence of an extra copy of chromosome 21. |
front 58 Klinefelter Syndrome | back 58 A chromosomal disorder in which males have an extra X chromosome, making them XXY instead of XY. |
front 59 Fragile X Syndrome | back 59 A chromosomal disorder involving an abnormality in the X chromosome, which becomes constricted and often breaks. |
front 60 Turner syndrome | back 60 A chromosomal disorder in females in which either an X chromosome is missing, making the person XO instead of XX, or part of one X-chromosome is detected. |
front 61 XYY Syndrome | back 61 A chromosomal disorder i which males have an extra Y chromsome |
front 62 Phenylketonuria (PKU) | back 62 A genetic disorder in which an individual cannot properly metabolize phenylalaine, an amino acid; PKU is now easily detected- but, if left untreated, results in mental retardation and hyperactivity. |
front 63 Sickle-cell anemia | back 63 A genetic disorder that affects the red blood cells and occurs most often in African Americans. |
front 64 Behavior genetics | back 64 The field that seeks to discover the influence of heredity and environment on individual difference in human traits and development. |
front 65 Twin Study | back 65 A study in which the behavioral similarity of identical twins is compared with the behavioral similarity of fraternal twins. |
front 66 Adoption Study | back 66 A study in which investigators seek to discover whether in behavior and psychological characteristics adopted children are more like their adoptive parents, who provided a home environment or more like their biological parents who contributed their heredity. Another form of the adoption study compares adoptive and biological siblings. |
front 67 Passive genotype-environment correlations | back 67 Correlations that exist when the biological parents, who are genetically related to the child, provide a rearing environment for the child. |
front 68 Evocative genotype-environment correlations | back 68 Correlations that exist when the child's characteristics elicit certain types of environments. |
front 69 Active (niche-picking) genotype-environment correlations | back 69 Correlations that exist when children seek out environments they find compatible and stimulating. |
front 70 Shared environmental experiences | back 70 Siblings' common experiences, such as their parents' personalities or intellectual orientation, the family's socioeconomic status, and the neighborhood in which they live. |
front 71 Nonshared environmental experiences | back 71 The child's own unique experiences, both within the family ad outside the family, that are not shared by another sibling; thus experiences occurring within the family can be part of the "non shared environment." |
front 72 Epigenetic view | back 72 Perspective that emphasizes that development is the result of an ongoing bidirectional inheritance between heredity and environment. |
front 73 Gene X environment (gxe) interaction | back 73 The interaction of a specific measured variation in the DNA and a specific measured aspect of the environment. |