lifespan development - Answers the field of study that examines patterns of growth, change, and
stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire life span.
cognitive development (topical area) - Answers development involving the ways that growth and change
in intellectual capabilities influence a person's behavior.
physical development (topical area) - Answers development involving the body's physical makeup,
including the brain, nervous system, muscles, and senses, and the need for food, drink, and sleep.
social development (topical area) - Answers the way in which individuals' interactions with others and
their social relationships grow, change, and remain stable over the course of life.
cohort - Answers a group of people born at around the same time in the same place.
Age-graded influences - Answers biological and environmental influences that are similar for individuals
in a particular age group, regardless of when or where they are raised.
Non-normative life events - Answers specific, atypical events that occur in a particular person's life at a
time when such events do not happen to most people.
Continuous versus Discontinuous change - Answers continuous: gradual development in which
achievements at one level build on those of previous levels.
discontinuous: development that occurs in distinct steps or stages, with each stage bringing about
behavior that is assumed to be qualitatively different from behavior at earlier stages.
critical period - Answers a specific time during development when a particular event has its greatest
consequences and the presence of certain kinds of environmental stimuli are necessary for development
to proceed normally.
Sensitive period - Answers a point in development when organisms are particularly susceptible to
certain kinds of stimuli in their environments, but the absence of those stimuli does not always produce
irreversible consequences.
Psychodynamic Perspective - Answers the approach that states behavior is motivated by inner forces,
memories, and conflicts that are generally beyond people's awareness and control.
Behavioral Perspective - Answers the approach that suggests that the keys to understanding
development are observable behavior and outside stimuli in the environment.
Cognitive Perspective - Answers the approach that focuses on the processes that allow people to know,
understand, and think about the world.
psychoanalytic theory - Answers the theory proposed by Freud that suggests that unconscious forces act
to determine personality and behavior.
, operant conditioning - Answers a form of learning in which a voluntary response is strengthened or
weakened by its association with positive or negative consequences.
Piaget - Answers Swiss psychologist who lived from 1896 to 1980; proposed that all people pass through
a fixed sequence of universal stages of cognitive development; suggested that human thinking is
arranged into schemes, organized mental patterns that represent behaviors and actions; assimilation
and accommodation;
Freud - Answers lived from 1856 to 1939, was a Viennese physician whose revolutionary ideas had a
profound effect not only on
psychology and psychiatry, but on Western thought in general; psychoanalytic theory; the unconscious
is a part of the personality about which a person is unaware; id (pleasure principle), ego (reality
principle), superego (conscience)
Humanistic Perspective - Answers the theory that contends that people have a natural capacity to make
decisions about their lives and control their behavior.
contextual perspective - Answers the theory that considers the relationship between individuals and
their physical, cognitive, personality, and
social worlds.
evolutionary perspective - Answers the theory that seeks to identify behavior that is a result of our
genetic inheritance from our ancestors.
race - Answers Identity with a group of people descended from a common ancestor.
ethnicity - Answers Identity with a group of people that share distinct physical and mental traits as a
product of common heredity and cultural traditions.
Scientific method - Answers the process of posing and answering questions using careful, controlled
techniques that include systematic, orderly observation and the collection of data.
correlational research method - Answers research that seeks to identify whether an association or
relationship between two factors exists.
experimental research method - Answers research designed to discover causal relationships between
various factors.
Sociocultural influences - Answers the social and cultural factors present at a particular time for a
particular individual, depending on such variables as ethnicity, social class, and subcultural membership.
cognitive neuroscience approaches - Answers the approach that examines cognitive development
through the lens of brain processes
zygote - Answers the new cell formed by the process of fertilization.