| AB-error | The Piagetian object-permanence concept in which an infant progressing into substage 4 makes frequent mistakes, selecting the familiar hiding place (A) rather than the new hiding place (B-).
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| acceptance | Kübler-Ross' fifth stage of dying, in which the dying person develops a sense of peace, an acceptance of her or his fate, and, in many cases, a desire to be left alone.
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| accommodation of the eye | The eye's ability to focus and maintain an image on the retina.
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| accommodation | Piagetian concept of adjusting schemes to fit new information and experiences.
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| active (niche-picking) genotype-environment correlations | Correlations that exist when children seek out environments they find compatible and stimulating.
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| active euthanasia | Death induced deliberately, as by injecting a lethal dose of a drug.
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| activity theory | The theory that the more active and involved older adults are, the more likely they are to be satisfied with their lives.
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| addiction | A pattern of behavior characterized by an overwhelming involvement with using a drug and securing its supply.
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| adolescent egocentrism | The heightened selfconsciousness of adolescents, which is reflected in adolescents' beliefs that others are as interested in them as they are in themselves, and in adolescents' sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility.
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| adoption study | 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 is to compare adoptive and biological siblings.
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| aerobic exercise | Sustained activity that stimulates heart and lung functioning.
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| affectionate love | Also called companionate love, this type of love occurs when individuals desire to have another person near and have a deep, caring affection for the person.
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| affordances | Opportunities for interaction offered by objects that fit within our capabilities to perform activities.
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| ageism | Prejudice against other people because of their age, especially prejudice against older adults.
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| AIDS | A sexually transmitted infection caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which destroys the body's immune system.
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| altruism | An unselfish interest in helping another person.
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| Alzheimer disease | A progressive, irreversible brain disorder characterized by a gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and, eventually, physical function.
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| androgens | The main class of male sex hormones.
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| androgyny | The presence of a high degree of feminine and masculine characteristics in the same individual.
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| anger cry | A cry similar to the basic cry but with more excess air forced through the vocal cords (associated with exasperation or rage).
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| anger | Kübler-Ross' second stage of dying, in which the dying person's denial gives way to anger, resentment, rage, and envy.
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| animism | A facet of preoperational thought— the belief that inanimate objects have "lifelike" qualities and are capable of action.
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| anorexia nervosa | An eating disorder that involves the relentless pursuit of thinness through starvation.
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| Apgar Scale | A widely used method to assess the health of newborns at 1 and 5 minutes after birth. The Apgar Scale evaluates infants' heart rate, respiratory effort, muscle tone, body color, and reflex irritability.
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| aphasia | A language disorder resulting from brain damage that involves a loss of the ability to use words.
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| assimilation | Piagetian concept of the incorporation of new information into existing schemes.
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| associative play | Play that involves social interaction with little or no organization.
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| attachment | A close emotional bond between two people.
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| attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) | A disability in which children consistently show one or more of the following characteristics: (1) inattention, (2) hyperactivity, and (3) impulsivity.
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| attention | Concentrating and focusing mental resources.
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| attribution theory | The theory that, in their effort to make sense out of their own behavior or performance, individuals are motivated to discover its underlying causes. Attributions are perceived causes of outcomes.
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| authoritarian parenting | A restrictive, punitive style in which parents exhort the child to follow their directions and to respect their work and effort. Firm limits are placed on the child and little verbal exchange is allowed.
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| authoritative parenting | A style that encourages children to be independent but still places limits and controls on children's actions; extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed and parents are warm and nurturant toward the child.
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| automaticity | The ability to process information with little or no effort.
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| autonomous morality | The second stage of moral development in Piaget's theory, displayed by older children (about 10 years of age and older). The child becomes aware that rules and laws are created by people and that, in judging an action, one should consider the actor's intentions as well as the consequences.
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| average children | Children who receive an average number of both positive and negative nominations from their peers.
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| bargaining | Kübler-Ross' third stage of dying, in which the dying person develops the hope that death can somehow be postponed.
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| basal metabolism rate (BMR) | The minimal amount of energy a person uses in a resting state.
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| basic cry | A rhythmic pattern usually consisting of a cry, a briefer silence, a shorter inspiratory whistle that is higher pitched than the main cry, and then a brief rest before the next cry.
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| basic-skills-and-phonics approach | An approach that emphasizes that reading instruction should teach phonics and its basic rules for translating written symbols into sounds.
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| Bayley Scales of Infant Development | Developed by Nancy Bayley, these scales are widely used in assessing infant development. The current version has three parts: a mental scale, a motor scale, and the infant behavior profile.
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| becoming parents and a family with children | The third stage in the family life cycle, in which adults move up a generation and become caregivers for the younger generation.
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| behavior genetics | The field that seeks to discover the influence of heredity and environment on individual differences in human traits and development.
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| behavioral and social cognitive theories | Theories that hold that development can be described in terms of the behaviors learned through interactions with the environment.
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| big five factors of personality | The view that personality is made up of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (emotional stability).
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| bio-psycho-social health model | The approach in which health is viewed in terms of a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors.
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| biological age | A person's age in terms of biological health.
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| bisexual | Being sexually attracted to people of both sexes.
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| bonding | The formation of a connection, especially a physical bond, between parents and the newborn in the period shortly after birth.
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| brain death | A neurological definition of death. A person is brain dead when all electrical activity of the brain has ceased for a specified period of time. A flat EEG recording is one criterion of brain death.
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| Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale | A test given shortly after birth to assess newborns' neurological development, reflexes, and reactions to people.
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| Broca's area | An area of the brain's left frontal lobe that is involved in speech production.
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| bulimia nervosa | An eating disorder in which the individual consistently follows a bingepurge eating pattern.
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| care perspective | The moral perspective of Carol Gilligan; views people in terms of their connectedness with others and emphasizes interpersonal communication, relationships with others, and concern for others.
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| case study | An in-depth examination of an individual.
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| cataracts | A thickening of the lens of the eye that causes vision to become cloudy, opaque, and distorted.
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| cellular clock theory | Leonard Hayflick's theory that the maximum number of times human cells can divide is about 75 to 80. As we age, our cells have less capability to divide.
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| centration | The focusing of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others.
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| cephalocaudal pattern | The sequence in which the fastest growth occurs at the top—the head—with physical growth in size, weight, and feature differentiation gradually working from top to bottom.
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| character education | A direct moral education approach that involves teaching students a basic moral literacy to prevent them from engaging in immoral behavior or doing harm to themselves or others.
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| child-centered kindergarten | Education that involves the whole child by considering both the child's physical, cognitive, and social development and the child's needs, interests, and learning styles.
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| child-directed speech | Language spoken in a higher pitch than normal with simple words and sentences.
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| chromosomes | Threadlike structures that contain the genetic substance DNA.
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| chronic disorders | Disorders characterized by slow onset and long duration.
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| chronological age | The number of years that have elapsed since a person's birth; what is usually meant by "age."
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| climacteric | The midlife transition in which fertility declines.
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| cliques | Small groups that range from 2 to 12 individuals and average about 5 to 6 individuals.
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| cognitive constructivist approach | An approach that emphasizes the child's active, cognitive construction of knowledge and understanding; Piaget's theory is an example of this approach.
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| cognitive developmental theory of gender | The theory that children's gender typing occurs after they think of themselves as boys and girls. Once they consistently conceive of themselves as male or female, children prefer activities, objects, and attitudes that are consistent with this label.
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| cognitive mechanics | The "hardware" of the mind, reflecting the neurophysiological architecture of the brain as developed through evolution. Cognitive mechanics involve the speed and accuracy of the processes involving sensory input, visual and motor memory, discrimination, comparison, and categorization.
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| cognitive moral education | Education based on the belief that students should learn to value things like democracy and justice as their moral reasoning develops; Kohlberg's theory has been the basis for many of the cognitive moral education approaches.
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| cognitive pragmatics | The culture-based "software" of the mind. Cognitive pragmatics include reading and writing skills, language comprehension, educational qualifications, professional skills, and also the type of knowledge about the self and life skills that help us to master or cope with life.
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| cohort effects | Effects that are due to a subject's time of birth or generation but not age.
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| collectivism | Emphasizing values that serve the group by subordinating personal goals to preserve group integrity, interdependence of members, and harmonious relationships.
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| commitment | The part of identity development in which individuals show a personal investment in what they are going to do.
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| concepts | Categories that group objects, events, and characteristics on the basis of common properties.
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| concrete operational stage | Piaget's third stage, which lasts from approximately 7 to 11 years of age; children can perform concrete operations, and logical reasoning replaces intuitive reasoning as long as the reasoning can be applied to specific, concrete examples.
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| conduct disorder | Age-inappropriate actions and attitudes that violate family expectations, society's norms, and the personal or property rights of others.
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| connectedness | It consists of two dimensions: mutuality, sensitivity to and respect for others' views; and permeability, openness to others' views.
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| conscience | The component of the superego that punishes the child for behaviors disapproved of by parents by making the child feel guilty and worthless.
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| conservation | The idea that an amount stays the same regardless of how its container changes.
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| contemporary life-events approach | Emphasizes that how a life event influences the individual's development depends not only on the event but also on mediating factors, the individual's adaptation to the life event, the life-stage context, and the sociohistorical context.
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| continuity-discontinuity issue | The debate about the extent to which development involves gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).
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| controversial children | Children who are frequently nominated both as someone's best friend and as being disliked.
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| conventional reasoning | The second, or intermediate, level in Kohlberg's theory of moral development. At this level, individuals abide by certain standards but they are the standards of others such as parents or the laws of society.
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| convergent thinking | Thinking that produces one correct answer; characteristic of the kind of thinking required on conventional intelligence tests.
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| cooperative play | Play that involves social interaction in a group with a sense of group identity and organized activity.
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| correlation coefficient | A number based on statistical analysis that is used to describe the degree of association between two variables.
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| correlational research | A type of research whose goal is to describe the strength of the relation between two or more events or characteristics.
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| creativity | The ability to think in novel and unusual ways and come up with unique solutions to problems.
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| crisis | A period of identity development during which the individual is choosing among meaningful alternatives.
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| critical thinking | Thinking reflectively and productively, and evaluating the evidence.
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| cross-cultural studies | Comparisons 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 to the degree to which it is culture-specific.
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| cross-sectional approach | A research strategy in which individuals of different ages are compared at one time.
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| crowds | Peer groups that are larger and less personal than cliques.
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| crystallized intelligence | Accumulated information and verbal skills, which increase with age, according to Horn.
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| culture-fair tests | Intelligence tests that are intended to not be culturally biased.
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| culture | The behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group of people that are passed on from generation to generation.
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| dating scripts | Cognitive models that guide individuals' dating interactions.
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| dementia | A global term for any neurological disorder in which the primary symptoms involve a deterioration of mental functioning.
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| denial and isolation | Kübler-Ross' first stage of dying, in which the dying person denies that she or he is really going to die.
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| depression | Kübler-Ross' fourth stage of dying, in which the dying person comes to accept the certainty of her or his death. A period of depression or preparatory grief may appear.
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| descriptive research | A type of research that aims to observe and record behavior.
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| development | The pattern of movement or change that begins at conception and continues throughout the human life span.
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| developmental quotient (DQ) | An overall developmental score that combines subscores on motor, language, adaptive, and personalsocial domains in the Gesell assessment of infants.
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| developmentally appropriate practice | Education that focuses on the typical developmental patterns of children (age appropriateness) and the uniqueness of each child (individual appropriateness). Such practice contrasts with developmentally inappropriate practice, which ignores the concrete, hands-on approach to learning. Direct teaching largely through abstract paper-and-pencil activities presented to large groups of young children is believed to be developmentally inappropriate.
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| dialect | A variety of language that is distinguished by its vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation.
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| difficult child | A temperament style in which the child tends to react negatively and cry frequently, engages in irregular daily routines, and is slow to accept new experiences.
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| direct instruction approach | A teachercentered approach characterized by teacher direction and control, mastery of academic material, high expectations for students' progress, and maximum time spent on learning tasks.
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| disease model of addiction | The view that addictions are biologically based, lifelong diseases that involve a loss of control over behavior and require medical and/or spiritual treatment for recovery.
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| disengagement theory | The theory that, to cope effectively, older adults should gradually withdraw from society.
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| dishabituation | The recovery of a habituated response after a change in stimulation.
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| dismissing-avoidant attachment | An insecure attachment style in which adolescents deemphasize the importance of attachment; is associated with consistent experiences of rejection of attachment needs by caregivers.
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| divergent thinking | Thinking that produces many answers to the same question; characteristic of creativity.
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| divided attention | Concentrating on more than one activity at a time.
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| DNA | A complex molecule that contains genetic information.
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| Down syndrome | A chromosomally transmitted form of mental retardation caused by the presence of an extra copy of chromosome 21.
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| dual-process model | A model of coping with bereavement that emphasizes oscillation between two dimensions: (1) loss-oriented stressors and (2) restoration-oriented stressors.
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| dynamic systems theory | A theory, proposed by Esther Thelen, that seeks to explain how motor behaviors are assembled for perceiving and acting.
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| dyscalculia | Also known as arithmetic disorder, this learning disability involves difficulty in math computation.
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| dyslexia | A category of learning disabilities involving a severe impairment in the ability to read and spell.
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| easy child | A temperament style in which the child is generally in a positive mood, quickly establishes regular routines, and adapts easily to new experiences.
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| eclectic orientation | An approach that selects and uses whatever is considered the best in many theories.
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| ecological theory | Bronfenbrenner's view that development is influenced by five environmental systems—microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. These emphasize the role of social contexts in human development.
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| ecological view | The view, proposed by the Gibsons, that people directly perceive information in the world around them. Perception brings people in contact with the environment in order to interact with it and adapt to it.
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| ego ideal | The component of the superego rewards the child by conveying a sense of pride and personal value when the child acts according to ideal standards approved by the parents.
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| egocentrism | An important feature of preoperational thought—the inability to distinguish between one's own and someone else's perspective.
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| elaboration | Engaging in more extensive processing of information, benefiting memory.
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| embryonic period | The period of prenatal development that occurs two to eight weeks after conception. During the embryonic period, the rate of cell differentiation intensifies, support systems for the cells form, and organs appear.
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| emotion | Feeling, or affect, that occurs when a person is in a state or an interaction that is important to him or her, especially to his or her well-being.
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| emotional intelligence | The ability to perceive and express emotions accurately and adaptively, to understand emotion and emotional knowledge, to use feelings to facilitate thought, and to manage emotions in oneself and others.
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| empathy | Reacting to another's feelings with an emotional response that is similar to the other's feelings.
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| encoding | The mechanism by which information gets into memory.
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| epigenetic view | Emphasizes that development is the result of an ongoing, bidirectional interchange between heredity and environment.
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| episodic memory | Retention of information about the where and when of life's happenings.
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| equilibration | A mechanism that Piaget proposed to explain how children shift from one stage of thought to the next. The shift occurs as children experience cognitive conflict, or disequilibrium, in trying to understand the world. Eventually, they resolve the conflict and reach a balance, or equilibrium, of tought.
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| Erikson's theory | A psychoanalytic theory in which eight stages of psychosocial development unfold throughout the human life span. Each state consists of a unique developmental task that confronts individuals with a crisis that must be faced.
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| estrogens | The main class of female sex hormones.
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| ethnicity | A range of characteristics rooted in cultural heritage, including nationality, race, religion, and language.
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| ethnocentrism | The tendency to favor one's own group over other groups.
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| ethological theory of development | An approach that stresses that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, tied to evolution, and characterized by critical or sensitive periods.
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| euthanasia | The act of painlessly ending the lives of persons who are suffering from incurable diseases or severe disabilities; sometimes called "mercy killing."
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| evocative genotype-environment correlations | Correlations that exist when the child's genotype elicits certain types of physical and social environments.
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| evolutionary psychology | Emphasizes the importance of adaptation, reproduction, and "survival of the fittest" in shaping behavior.
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| expanding | Restating, in a linguistically sophisticated form, what a child has said.
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| experiment | A carefully regulated procedure in which one or more of the factors believed to influence the behavior being studied is manipulated and all other factors are held constant. Experimental research permits the determination of cause.
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| expertise | Having extensive, highly organized knowledge and understanding of a particular domain.
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| explicit memory | Conscious memory of facts and experiences.
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| extrinsic motivation | Motivation produced by external incentives such as rewards and punishments.
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| factor analysis | A statistical procedure that correlates test scores to identify underlying clusters, or factors.
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| family at midlife | The fifth stage in the family life cycle—a time for launching children, linking generations, and adapting to midlife changes.
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| family in later life | The sixth and final stage in the family life cycle, involving adaptation to retirement and grandparenting.
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| family with adolescents | The fourth stage in the family life cycle, in which adolescents push for autonomy and an identity.
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| feminization of poverty | The fact that far more women than men live in poverty. Women's low income, divorce, and the resolution of divorce cases by the judicial system, which usually leaves women with less money than they and their children need to adequately function are the likely causes.
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| fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) | A cluster of abnormalities that appears in the offspring of mothers who drink alcohol heavily during pregnancy.
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| fetal period | The prenatal period of development that begins two months after conception and lasts for seven months, on the average.
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| fine motor skills | Motor skills that involve finely tuned movements, such as any activity that requires finger dexterity.
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| fluid intelligence | The ability to reason abstractly, which steadily declines from middle adulthood on, according to Horn.
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| formal operational stage | Piaget's fourth and final stage, which occurs between the ages of 11 and 15; individuals move beyond concrete experiences and think in more abstract and logical ways.
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| fragile | X syndrome A genetic disorder involving an abnormality in the X chromosome, which becomes constricted and often breaks.
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| free-radical theory | A microbiological theory of aging that states that people age because when their cells metabolize energy, they generate waste that includes unstable oxygen molecules, known as free radicals, that damage DNA and other cellular structures.
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| fuzzy trace theory | States that memory is best understood by considering two types of memory representations: (1) verbatim memory trace and (2) gist. In this theory, older children's better memory is attributed to the fuzzy traces created by extracting the gist of information.
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| games | Activities that are engaged in for pleasure and include rules.
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| gender role | A set of expectations that prescribe how females or males should think, act, or feel.
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| gender schema theory | The theory that gender typing emerges as children gradually develop gender schemas of what is genderappropriate and gender-inappropriate in the culture.
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| gender stereotypes | Broad categories that reflect our impressions and beliefs about females and males.
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| gender typing | The process by which children acquire the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are considered appropriate for their gender in their culture.
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| gender-intensification hypothesis | The view that psychological and behavioral differences between boys and girls become greater during early adolescence because of increased socialization pressures to conform to traditional gender roles.
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| gender-role transcendence | The view that people should be evaluated as persons, not in terms of femininity, masculinity, or androgyny.
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| gender | The psychological and sociocultural dimensions of being female or male.
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| generativity versus stagnation | The seventh stage in Erikson's life-span theory that encompasses adults' desire to leave a legacy of themselves to the next generation.
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| genes | Units of hereditary information composed of DNA. Genes direct cells to reproduce themselves and manufacture the proteins that maintain life.
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| genotype | All of a person's genetic material.
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| germinal period | The period of prenatal development that takes place in the first two weeks after conception. It includes the creation of the zygote, continued cell division, and the attachment of the zygote to the uterine wall.
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| gifted | Having high intelligence (an IQ of 130 or higher) or superior talent for something.
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| glaucoma | Damage to the optic nerve because of the pressure created by a buildup of fluid in the eye.
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| goodness of fit | The match between a child's temperament and the environmental demands the child must cope with.
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| grasping reflex | A neonatal reflex that occurs when something touches infant's palms. The infant responds by grasping tightly.
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| grief | The emotional numbness, disbelief, separation anxiety, despair, sadness, and loneliness that accompany the loss of someone we love.
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| gross motor skills | Motor skills that involve large-muscle activities, such as walking.
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| growth hormone deficiency | The absence or deficiency of growth hormones produced by the pituitary gland to stimulate body growth.
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| habituation | Decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations of the stimulus.
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| helpless orientation | An orientation in which one seems trapped by the experience of difficulty and attributes one's difficulty to a lack of ability.
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| heritability | The fraction of the variance in a population that is attributed to genetics.
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| heteronomous morality (Kohlberg) | Kohlberg's first stage of preconventional reasoning, in which moral thinking is tied to punishment.
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| heteronomous morality (Piaget) | The first stage of moral development in Piaget's theory, occurring at 4 to 7 years of age. Justice and rules are conceived of as unchangeable properties of the world, removed from the control of people.
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| hidden curriculum | The pervasive moral atmosphere that characterizes schools.
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| horizontal décalage | Piaget's concept that similar abilities do not appear at the same time within a stage of development.
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| hormonal stress theory | The theory that aging in the body's hormonal system can lower resistance to stress and increase the likelihood of disease.
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| hormones | Powerful chemical substances secreted by the endocrine glands and carried through the body by the bloodstream.
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| hospice | A program committed to making the end of life as free from pain, anxiety, and depression as possible. The goals of hospice contrast with those of a hospital, which are to cure disease and prolong life.
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| hypothesis (plural hypotheses) | A specific testable assumption or prediction.
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| hypothetical-deductive reasoning | Piaget's formal operational concept that adolescents have the cognitive ability to develop hypotheses about ways to solve problems and can systematically deduce which is the best path to follow in solving the problem.
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| identity achievement | Marcia's term for the state adolescents are in who have undergone a crisis and have made a commitment.
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| identity diffusion | Marcia's term for the state adolescents are in who have not yet experienced a crisis (explored meaningful alternatives) or made any commitments.
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| identity foreclosure | Marcia's term for the state adolescents are in who have made a commitment but have not experienced a crisis.
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| identity moratorium | Marcia's term for the state adolescents are in when in the midst of a crisis, but their commitments are either absent or vaguely defined.
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| identity versus identity confusion | Erikson's fifth stage of development, which occurs during the adolescent years; adolescents are faced with finding out who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life.
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| identity | Who a person is, representing a synthesis of self-understanding.
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| imaginary audience | The aspect of adolescent egocentrism that involves attention-getting behavior motivated by a desire to be noticed, visible, and "on stage."
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| immanent justice | Piaget's concept that if a rule is broken, punishment will be meted out immediately.
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| implicit memory | Memory without conscious recollection—memory of skills and routine procedures that are performed automatically.
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| inclusion | Educating a child with special education needs full-time in the regular classroom.
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| individualism, instrumental purpose, and exchange | The second Kohlberg stage of moral development. At this stage, individuals pursue their own interests but also let others do the same.
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| individualism | Giving priority to personal goals rather than to group goals; emphasizing values that serve the self, such as feeling good, personal distinction and achievement, and independence.
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| individuality | It consists of two dimensions: selfassertion, the ability to have and communicate a point of view; and separateness, the use of communication patterns to express how one is different from others.
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| individualized education plan (IEP) | A written statement that spells out a program tailored to a child with a disability. The plan should be (1) related to the child's learning capacity, (2) specially constructed to meet the child's individual needs and not merely a copy of what is offered to other children, and (3) designed to provide educational benefits.
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| induction | A discipline technique in which a parent uses reasoning and explains the consequences for others of the child's actions.
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| indulgent parenting | A style in which parents are very involved with their children but place few demands or controls on them.
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| infinite generativity | The ability to produce an endless number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of words and rules.
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| information-processing approach | An approach that emphasizes that individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it. The processes of memory and thinking are central.
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| innate goodness | Rousseau's view that children are born inherently good.
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| insecure avoidant babies | Babies who show insecurity by avoiding the mother.
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| insecure disorganized babies | Babies who show insecurity by being disorganized and disoriented.
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| insecure resistant babies | Babies who might cling to the caregiver, then resist her by fighting against the closeness, perhaps by kicking or pushing away.
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| intelligence quotient (IQ) | An individual's mental age divided by chronological age multiplied by 100; devised in 1912 by William Stern.
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| intelligence | The ability to solve problems and to adapt to and learn from life's everyday experiences.
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| intermodal perception | The ability to integrate information about two or more sensory modalities, such as vision and hearing.
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| intimacy in friendship | Self-disclosure or the sharing of private thoughts.
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| intrinsic motivation | Internal motivation to do something for its own sake—involves factors such as self-determination, curiosity, challenge, and effort.
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| intuitive thought substage | The second substage of preoperational thought, occurring between approximately 4 and 7 years of age. Children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions.
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| justice perspective | A moral perspective that focuses on the rights of the individual; individuals independently make moral decisions.
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| juvenile delinquency | Refers to a great variety of behaviors, ranging from unacceptable behavior to status offenses to criminal acts.
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| Klinefelter syndrome | A chromosomal disorder in which males have an extra X chromosome, making them XXY instead of XY.
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| kwashiorkor | A condition caused by a deficiency in protein in which the child's legs and abdomen swell with water.
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| labeling | Identifying the names of objects.
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| laboratory | A controlled setting.
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| language acquisition device (LAD) | Chomsky's term that describes a biological endowment that enables the child to detect the features and rules of language, including phonology, syntax, and semantics.
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| language | A form of communication, whether spoken, written, or signed, that is based on a systems of symbols.
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| lateralization | Specialization of function in one hemisphere of the cerebral cortex.
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| launching | The process in which youth move into adulthood and exit their family of origin.
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| learning disability | Includes three components: (1) a minimum IQ level; (2) a significant difficulty in a school-related area (especially reading or mathematics); and (3) exclusion of only severe emotional disorders, secondlanguage background, sensory disabilities, and specific neurological deficits.
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| least restrictive environment (LRE) | The concept that a child with a disability must be educated in a setting that is as similar as possible to the one in which children who do not have a disability are educated.
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| leaving home and becoming a single adult | The first stage in the family life cycle that involves launching.
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| leisure | The pleasant times when individuals are free to pursue activities and interests of their own choosing.
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| life expectancy | The number of years an average person can expect to live when born in a particular year.
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| life span | The upper boundary of life, the maximum number of years an individual can live. The maximum life span of human beings is about 120 years of age.
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| life-history records | Information about events and activities over a lifetime.
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| life-process model of addiction | The view that addiction is not a disease but a habitual response and a source of gratification and security that can be understood only in the context of social relationships and experiences.
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| long-term memory | A relatively permanent and unlimited type of memory.
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| longitudinal approach | A research strategy in which the same individuals are studied over a period of time, usually several years or more.
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| love withdrawal | A discipline technique in which a parent withholds attention or love from the child.
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| low birth weight infants | Infants who weigh less than 5 1/2 pounds at birth.
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| macular degeneration | A vision problem in the elderly that involves deterioration of the retina.
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| marasmus | A wasting away of body tissues in the infant's first year, caused by insufficient caloric intake.
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| mastery orientation | An orientation in which one is task-oriented and, instead of focusing on one's ability, is concerned with learning strategies.
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| meiosis | A specialized form of cell division that occurs to form eggs and sperm (or gametes).
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| memory | Retention of information over time.
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| menarche | A girl's first menstrual period.
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| menopause | The time in middle age, usually in the late forties or early fifties, when a woman's menstrual periods cease.
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| mental age (MA) | An individual's level of mental development relative to others.
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| mental retardation | A condition of limited mental ability in which the individual (1) has a low IQ, usually below 70 on a traditional intelligence test; (2) has difficulty adapting to everyday life; and (3) has an onset of these characteristics by age 18.
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| metacognition | Cognition about cognition, or "knowing about knowing."
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| metalinguistic awareness | Cognition about language.
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| metamemory | Knowledge about memory.
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| metaphor | An implied comparison between two unlike things.
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| mitochondrial theory | The theory that aging is caused by the decay of mitochondria, tiny cellular bodies that supply energy for function, growth, and repair.
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| mitosis | Cellular reproduction in which the cell's nucleus duplicates itself with two new cells being formed, each containing the same DNA as the parent cell, arranged in the same 23 pairs of chromosomes.
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| moral development | Changes in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regarding standards of right and wrong.
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| moral exemplars | People who have lived extraordinary lives. Emphasizes the development of personality, identity, character, and virtue that reflect moral excellence and commitment.
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| moral identity | The aspect of personality that is present when individuals have moral notions and commitments that are central to their lives.
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| Moro reflex | A neonatal startle response that occurs in reaction to a sudden, intense noise or movement. When startled, the newborn arches its back, throws its head back, and flings out its arms and legs. Then the newborn rapidly closes its arms and legs to the center of the body.
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| morphology | Units of meaning involved in word formation.
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| multiple-factor theory | L. L. Thurstone's theory that intelligence consists of seven primary mental abilities: verbal comprehension, number ability, word fluency, spatial visualization, associative memory, reasoning, and perceptual speed.
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| mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal conformity | Kohlberg's third stage of moral development. At this stage, individuals value trust, caring, and loyalty to others as a basis of moral judgments.
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| natural childbirth | Developed in 1914 by Dick-Read, this method attempts to reduce the mother's pain by decreasing her fear through education about childbirth and relaxation techniques during delivery.
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| naturalistic observation | Observation that occurs in a real-world setting without an attempt to manipulate the situation.
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| nature-nurture issue | The debate about the extent to which development is influenced by nature and by nurture. Nature refers to an organism's biological inheritance, nurture to its environmental experiences.
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| neglected children | Children who are infrequently nominated as a best friend but are not disliked by their peers.
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| neglectful parenting | A style in which the parent is very uninvolved in the child's life.
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| neo-Piagetians | Developmentalists who have elaborated on Piaget's theory, emphasizing the importance of information processing.
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| Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Network Neurobehavioral Scale (NNNS) | An "offspring" of the NBAS, the NNNS provides a more comprehensive analysis of the newborn's behavior, neurological and stress responses, and regulatory capacities.
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| neuron | Nerve cell that handles information processing.
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| new couple | The second stage in the family life cycle that involves marriage, which is not just the union of two individuals but the union of two families.
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| nonnormative life events | Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on a person's life. The occurrence, pattern, and sequence of these events are not applicable to many individuals.
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| nonshared environmental experiences | The child's own experiences, both within the family and outside the family, that are not shared by another sibling. Thus, experiences occurring within the family can be part of the "nonshared environment."
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| normal distribution | A symmetrical distribution with a majority of the cases falling in the middle of the possible range of scores and few scores appearing toward the extremes of the range.
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| normative age-graded influences | Biological and sociocultural, environmental influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group.
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| normative history-graded influences | Environmental influences that are associated with history. These influences are common to people of a particular generation.
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| object permanence | The Piagetian term for one of an infant's most important accomplishments: understanding that objects and events continue to exist even when they cannot directly be seen, heard, or touched.
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| onlooker play | Play in which the child watches other children play.
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| operations | Internalized sets of actions that allow children to do mentally what before they had done physically. Operations also are reversible mental actions.
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| organization | Piaget's concept of grouping isolated behaviors into a higher-order, more smoothly functioning cognitive system; the grouping or arranging of items into categories.
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| original sin | Based on Christian doctrine, the view that children are born into the world corrupted with an inclination toward evil.
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| osteoporosis | A disorder of aging that involves an extensive loss of bone tissue and is the main reason many older adults walk with a marked stoop. Women are especially vulnerable to osteoporosis.
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| pain cry | A sudden appearance of loud crying without preliminary moaning and a long initial cry followed by an extended period of breath holding.
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| palliative care | Emphasized in hospice care, involves reducing pain and suffering and helping individuals die with dignity.
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| parallel play | Play in which the child plays separately from others, but with toys like those the others are using or in a manner that mimics their play.
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| parental imperative | Gutmann's view that mothers and fathers adopt different gender roles so they can raise children more effectively.
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| Parkinson disease | A chronic, progressive disease characterized by muscle tremors, slowing of movement, and partial facial paralysis.
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| passive euthanasia | The withholding of available treatments, such as life-sustaining devices, allowing the person to die.
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| passive genotype-environment correlations | Correlations that occur because the biological parents, who are genetically related to the child, provide a rearing environment for the child.
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| peers | Individuals of about the same age or maturity level.
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| perception | The interpretation of sensation.
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| performance orientation | An orientation in which one focuses on achievement outcomes; winning is what matters most, and happiness is thought to result from winning.
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| perimenopause | The transitional period from normal menstrual periods to no menstrual periods at all, which often takes up to 10 years.
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| personal fable | The part of adolescent egocentrism that involves an adolescent's sense of uniqueness and invincibility.
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| personality type theory | John Holland's view that it is important to match an individual's personality with a particular career.
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| personality | The enduring personal characteristics of individuals.
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| perspective taking | The ability to assume another person's perspective and understand his or her thoughts and feelings. 400, 560 phenotype The way an individual's genotype is expressed in observed and measurable characteristics.
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| phenylketonuria (PKU) | A genetic disorder in which an individual cannot properly metabolize phenylalanine, an amino acid. PKU is now easily detected, but if left untreated results in mental retardation and hyperactivity.
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| phonology | The sound system of a language—includes the sounds used and rules about how they may be combined.
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| Piaget's theory | The theory that children actively construct their understanding of the world and go through four stages of cognitive development.
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| play therapy | Therapy that lets children work off frustrations while therapists analyze their conflicts and coping methods.
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| play | A pleasurable activity that is engaged in for its own sake.
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| popular children | Children who are frequently nominated as a best friend and are rarely disliked by their peers.
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| possible selves | What individuals might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming.
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| postconventional reasoning | The highest level in Kohlberg's theory of moral development. At this level, the individual recognizes alternative moral courses, explores the options, and then decides on a personal moral code.
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| postformal thought | Thinking that is reflective, relative, and contextual; provisional; realistic; and open to emotions and subjective.
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| power assertion | A discipline technique in which a parent attempts to gain control over the child or the child's resources.
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| practice play | Play that involves repetition of behavior when new skills are being learned or when mastery and coordination of skills are required for games or sports. Sensorimotor play, which often involves practice play, is primarily confined to infancy, whereas practice play occurs throughout life.
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| pragmatics | The appropriate use of language in different contexts.
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| preconventional reasoning | The lowest level in Kohlberg's theory of moral development. The individual's moral reasoning is controlled primarily by external rewards and punishment.
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| preoccupied-ambivalent attachment | An insecure attachment style in which adolescents are hypertuned to attachment experiences. This is thought to occur mainly because parents are inconsistently available to the adolescent.
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| preoperational stage | The second Piagetian developmental stage, which lasts from about 2 to 7 years of age; children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings.
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| prepared childbirth | Developed by French obstetrician Ferdinand Lamaze, this childbirth strategy is similar to natural childbirth but includes a special breathing technique to control pushing in the final stages of labor and a more detailed anatomy and physiology course.
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| pretense/symbolic play | Play that occurs when a child transforms the physical environment into a symbol.
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| preterm infants | Infants born three weeks or more before the pregnancy has reached its full term.
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| primary emotions | Emotions that are present in humans and other animals, emerge early in life, and are culturally universal; examples are joy, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust.
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| Project Head Start | Compensatory education designed to provide children from lowincome families the opportunity to acquire the skills and experiences important for school success.
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| prospective memory | Involves remembering to do something in the future.
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| proximodistal pattern | The sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves toward the extremities.
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| psychoanalytic theories | Theories that hold that development depends primarily on the unconscious mind and is heavily couched in emotion, that behavior is merely a surface characteristic, that it is important to analyze the symbolic meanings of behavior, and that early experiences are important in development.
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| psychoanalytic theory of gender | Stems from Freud's view that preschool children develop a sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent, then, at 5 to 6 years of age, renounce the attraction because of anxious feelings, subsequently identifying with the same-sex parent and unconsciously adopting the samesex parent's characteristics.
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| psychological age | An individual's adaptive capacities compared with those of other individuals of the same chronological age.
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| psychosocial moratorium | Erikson's term for the gap between childhood security and adult autonomy that adolescents experience as part of their identity exploration.
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| puberty | A period of rapid physical maturation involving hormonal and bodily changes during early adolescence.
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| rapport talk | The language of conversation; a way to establish connections and negotiate relationships; preferred by women.
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| recasting | Rephrasing a statement that a child has said, perhaps turning it into a question, or restating a child's immature utterance in the form of a fully grammatical utterance.
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| reciprocal socialization | Socialization that is bidirectional in that children socialize parents just as parents socialize children.
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| reciprocal teaching | Individuals take turns leading small-group discussions.
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| reflexive smile | A smile that does not occur in response to external stimuli. It happens during the month after birth, usually during sleep.
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| rejected children | Children who are infrequently nominated as a best friend and are actively disliked by their peers.
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| report talk | Language designed to give information, including public speaking; preferred by men.
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| reproduction | The process that, in humans, begins when a female gamete (ovum) is fertilized by a male gamete (sperm).
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| restrained eaters | Individuals who chronically restrict their food intake to control their weight. Restrained eaters are often on diets, are very conscious of what they eat, and tend to feel guilty after splurging on sweets.
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| rites of passage | Ceremonies or rituals that mark an individual's transition from one status to another, especially into adulthood.
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| romantic love | Also called passionate love or eros, this type of love has strong components of sexuality and infatuation, and it often predominates in the early part of a love relationship.
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| romantic script | Sex is synonomous with love: If we develop a relationship with someone and fall in love, it is acceptable to have sex with the person whether we are married or not.
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| rooting reflex | A newborn's built-in reaction that occurs when the infant's cheek is stroked or the side of the mouth is touched. In response, the infant turns its head toward the side that was touched, in an apparent effort to find something to suck.
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| satire | The use of irony, derision, or wit to expose folly or wickedness.
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| scaffolding | In cognitive development, Vygotsky used this term to describe the changing support over the course of a teaching session, with the more-skilled person adjusting guidance to fit the child's current performance level.
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| schema theory | States people mold memories to fit information that already exists in their minds.
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| schemas | Mental frameworks that organize concepts and information.
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| schemes | In Piaget's theory, actions or mental representations that organize knowledge.
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| securely attached babies | Babies who use the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore the environment.
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| selective attention | Focusing on a specific aspect of experience that is relevant while ignoring others that are irrelevant.
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| selective optimization with compensation theory | The theory that successful selfregulation in aging is related to three main factors: selection, optimization, and compensation.
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| self-concept | Domain-specific evaluations of the self.
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| self-conscious emotions | Emotions that require self-awareness; they include empathy, jealousy, and embarrassment, which first appear at about 11 2 to 2 years, and pride, shame, and guilt, which first appear at about 21 2 years of age.
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| self-efficacy | The belief that one can master a situation and produce favorable outcomes.
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| self-esteem | The global evaluative dimension of the self. Self-esteem is also referred to as self-worth or self-image.
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| self-regulation | The ability to control one's behavior without having to rely on others for help.
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| self-understanding | The individual's cognitive representation of the self, the substance of self-conceptions.
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| self | All of the characteristics of a person.
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| semantic memory | A person's knowledge about the world, including fields of expertise, general academic knowledge, and "everyday knowledge" about meaning of words, famous individuals, important places, and common things.
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| semantics | The meanings of words and sentences.
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| sensation | Reaction that occurs when information contacts sensory receptors—the eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils, and skin.
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| sensorimotor play | Behavior by infants to derive pleasure from exercising their sensorimotor schemes.
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| sensorimotor stage | The first of Piaget's stages, which lasts from birth to about 2 years of age; infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences (such as seeing and hearing) with motoric actions.
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| separation protest | Occurs when infants experience a fear of being separated from a caregiver, which results in crying when the caregiver leaves.
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| sequential approach | A research strategy using a combined cross-sectional longitudinal design.
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| seriation | The concrete operation that involves ordering stimuli along a quantitative dimension (such as length).
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| service learning | A form of education that promotes social responsibility and service to the community.
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| sex | Designates the biological aspects of being female or male. 30, 434 sexual scripts Stereotyped patterns of expectancies for how people should behave sexually.
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| shape constancy | Recognition that an object remains the same even though its orientation to us changes.
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| shared environmental experiences | Siblings' common experiences, such as their parents' personalities and intellectual orientation, the family's socioeconomic status, and the neighborhood in which they live.
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| short-term memory | Retention of information for up to 15 to 30 seconds, without rehearsal of the information. Using rehearsal, individuals can keep the information in short-term memory longer.
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| sickle-cell anemia | A genetic disorder that affects the red blood cells and occurs most often in African Americans.
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| size constancy | Recognition that an object remains the same even though the retinal image of the object changes.
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| slow-to-warm-up child | A temperament style in which the child has low activity level, is somewhat negative, shows low adaptability, and displays a low intensity of mood.
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| small for date infants | Also called small for gestational age infants, these infants' birth weight is below normal when the length of pregnancy is considered. A small for date infant may be preterm or full-term.
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| social age | Social roles and expectations related to a person's age.
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| social breakdown–reconstruction theory | The theory that aging is promoted through negative psychological functioning brought about by negative views of older adults and inadequate services for them; social reconstruction can be brought about by viewing older adults as competent.
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| social cognitive theory of gender | The idea that children's gender development occurs through observation and imitation of gender behavior, as well as through the rewards and punishment children experience for behaviors believed to be appropriate or inappropriate for their gender.
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| social cognitive theory of morality | The theory that distinguishes between moral competence—the ability to produce moral behaviors—and moral performance—those behaviors in specific situations.
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| social cognitive theory | The theory that behavior, environment, and person/cognitive factors are important in understanding development.
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| social constructivist approach | An approach that emphasizes the social contexts of learning and the construction of knowledge through social interaction. Vygotsky's theory reflects this approach.
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| social contract or utility and individual rights | The fifth Kohlberg stage. At this stage, individuals reason that values, rights, and principles undergird or transcend the law.
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| social conventional reasoning | Thoughts about social consensus and convention, as opposed to moral reasoning that stresses ethical issues.
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| social play | Play that involves social interactions with peers.
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| social referencing | "Reading" emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in a particular situation.
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| social role theory | Eagly's theory that psychological gender differences are caused by the contrasting social roles of women and men.
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| social smile | A smile in response to an external stimulus, which, early in development, typically is a face.
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| social systems morality | The fourth stage in Kohlberg's theory of moral development. Moral judgments are based on understanding the social order, law, justice, and duty.
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| socioeconomic status (SES) | A grouping of people with similar occupational, educational, and economic characteristics.
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| socioemotional selectivity theory | The theory that older adults become more selective about their social networks. Because they place high value on emotional satisfaction, older adults often spend more time with familiar individuals with whom they have had rewarding relationships.
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| solitary play | Play in which the child plays alone, independently of others.
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| source memory | The ability to remember where something is learned.
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| spermarche | A boy's first ejaculation of semen.
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| spirituality | Involves a sense of connectedness to a sacred other (God, nature, a higher power).
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| stability-change issue | The debate about the degree to which early traits and characteristics persist through life or change.
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| standardized test | A test that is given with uniform procedures for administration and scoring.
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| stereotype threat | The anxiety that one's behavior might confirm a negative stereotype about one's group.
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| Strange Situation | Ainsworth's observational measure of infant attachment to a caregiver that requires the infant to move through a series of introductions, separations, and reunions with the caregiver and an adult stranger in a prescribed order.
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| stranger anxiety | An infant's fear of and wariness toward strangers; it tends to appear in the second half of the first year of life.
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| strategy construction | Creation of a new procedure for processing information.
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| sucking reflex | A newborn's built-in reaction of automatically sucking an object placed in its mouth. The sucking reflex enables the infant to get nourishment before it has associated a nipple with food.
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| sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) | Occurs when an infant stops breathing, usually during the night, and suddenly dies without an apparent cause; also called crib death.
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| sustained attention | The ability to maintain attention to a selected stimulus for a prolonged period of time.
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| symbolic function substage | The first substage of preoperational thought, occurring roughly between the ages of 2 and 4. In this substage, the young child gains the ability to represent mentally an object that is not present.
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| syntax | The ways words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences.
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| tabula rasa | Locke's view that children are born as "blank slates" and acquire their characteristics through experience.
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| telegraphic speech | The use of short words without grammatical markers such as articles, auxiliary verbs, and other connectives.
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| temperament | An individual's behavioral style and characteristic emotional response.
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| teratogen | Any agent that causes a birth defect.
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| theory of mind | Thoughts about how mental processes work, such as a child's becoming aware that the mind exists and understanding cognitive connections to the physical world.
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| theory | A coherent set of ideas that helps to explain data and to make predictions.
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| thinking | Manipulating and transforming information in memory, usually to form concepts, reason, think critically, and solve problems.
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| top-dog phenomenon | The circumstance of moving from the top position in elementary school to the lowest position in middle or junior high school.
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| traditional religious script | Sex is accepted only within marriage; extramarital sex is taboo, especially for women, and sex means reproduction and sometimes affection.
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| trait theories | State that personality consists of broad dispositions, called traits, that tend to produce characteristic responses.
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| transitivity | If a relation holds between a first object and a second object, and holds between the second object and a third object, then it holds between the first object and the third object. Piaget believed that an understanding of transitivity is characteristic of concrete operational thought.
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| triangular theory of love | Sternberg's theory that love includes three types—passion, intimacy, and commitment.
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| triarchic theory of intelligence | Sternberg's theory that intelligence consists of analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence.
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| Turner syndrome | A chromosomal disorder in females in which either an X chromosome is missing, making the person XO instead of XX, or the second X chromosome is partially deleted.
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| twin study | A study in which the behavioral similarity of identical twins is compared with the behavioral similarity of fraternal twins.
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| two-factor theory | Spearman's theory that individuals have both general intelligence, which he called g, and a number of specific intelligences, referred to as s.
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| universal ethical principles | The sixth and highest stage in Kohlberg's theory of moral development. Individuals develop a moral standard based on universal human rights.
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| unoccupied play | Play in which the child is not engaging in play as it is commonly understood and might stand in one spot or perform random movements that do not seem to have a goal.
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| unresolved-disorganized attachment | An insecure attachment style in which the adolescent has an unusually high level of fear and is disoriented. This may result from such traumatic experiences as a parent's death or abuse by parents.
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| values clarification | Helping people clarify what their lives are for and what is worth working for. Students are encouraged to define their own values and understand others' values.
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| values | Beliefs and attitudes about the way things should be.
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| visual preference method | A method developed by Fantz to determine whether infants can distinguish one stimulus from another by measuring the length of time they attend to different stimuli.
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| Vygotsky's theory | A sociocultural cognitive theory that emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide cognitive development.
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| Wernicke's area | An area of the brain's left hemisphere that is involved in language comprehension.
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| whole-language approach | An approach that stresses that reading instruction should parallel children's natural language learning. Reading materials should be whole and meaningful.
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| wisdom | Expert knowledge about the practical aspects of life that permits excellent judgment about important matters.
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| working memory | A mental "workbench" where individuals manipulate and assemble information when making decisions, solving problems, and comprehending written and spoken language.
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| XYY syndrome | A chromosomal disorder in which males have an extra Y chromosome.
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| zone of proximal development (ZPD) | Vygotsky's term for tasks too difficult for children to master alone but that can be mastered with assistance.
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| zygote | A single cell formed through fertilization.
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