Theories of Human Development

Cards

theory a set of concepts and propositions designed to organize, describe, and explain an existing set of observations.
parsimony a criterion for evaluating the scientific merit of theories; a parsimonious theory is one that uses relatively few explanatory principles to explain a broad set of observations.
falsifiability a criterion for evaluating the scientific merit of theories. A theory is falsifiable when it is capable of generating predictions that could be disconfirmed.
heuristic a criterion for evaluating the scientific merit of theories. A heuristic theory is one that continues to stimulate new research and new discoveries.
psychosexual theory Freud's theory that states that maturation of the sex instinct underlies stages of personality development, and that the manner in which parents manage children's instinctual impulses determines the traits that children display.
unconscious motives Freud's term for feelings, experiences, and conflicts that influence a person's thinking and behavior, but lie outside the person's awareness.
repression a type of motivated forgetting in which anxiety-provoking thoughts and conflicts are forced out of conscious awareness.
instinct an inborn biological force that motivates a particular response or class of responses.
id psychoanalytic term for the inborn component of the personality that is driven by the instincts.
ego psychoanalytic term for the rational component of the personality.
superego psychoanalytic term for the component of the personality that consists of one's internalized moral standards.
psychosocial theory Erikson's revision of Freud's theory that emphasizes sociocultural (rather than sexual) determinants of development and posits a series of eight psychosocial conflicts that people must resolve successfully to display healthy psychological adjustment.
behaviorism a school of thinking in psychology that holds that conclusions about human development should be based on controlled observations of overt behavior rather than speculation about unconscious motives or other unobservable phenomena; the philosophical underpinning for the early theories of learning.
habits well-learned associations between stimuli and responses that represent the stable aspects of one's personality.
operant the initially voluntary act that becomes more or less probable of occurring depending on the consequence that it produces.
reinforcer any consequence of an act that increases the probability that the act will recur.
punisher any consequence of an act that suppresses that act and/or decreases the probability that it will recur.
operant learning a form of learning in which voluntary acts (or operants) become either more or less probable, depending on the consequences they produce.
observational learning learning that results from observing the behavior of others.
environmental determinism the notion that children are passive creatures who are molded by their environments.
reciprocal determinism the notion that the flow of influence between children and their environments is a twoway street; the environment may affect the child, but the child's behavior also influences the environment.
cognitive development age-related changes that occur in mental activities such as attending, perceiving, learning, thinking, and remembering.
scheme an organized pattern of thought or action that a child constructs to make sense of some aspect of his or her experience; Piaget sometimes uses the term cognitive structures as a synonym for schemes.
assimilation Piaget's term for the process by which children interpret new experiences by incorporating them into their existing schemes.
disequilibriums imbalances or contradictions between one's thought processes and environmental events. On the other hand, equilibrium refers to a balanced, harmonious relationship between one's cognitive structures and the environment.
accommodation Piaget's term for the process by which children modify their existing schemes in order to incorporate or adapt to new experiences.
invariant developmental sequence a series of developments that occur in one particular order because each development in the sequence is a prerequisite for the next.
sociocultural theory Vygotsky's perspective on cognitive development, in which children acquire their culture's values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through collaborative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society.
information-processing perspective a perspective that views the human mind as a continuously developing, symbol-manipulating system, similar to a computer, into which information flows, is operated on, and is converted to output (answers, inferences, and solutions to problems).
ethology the study of the bioevolutionary basis of behavior and development with a focus on survival of the individual.
natural selection an evolutionary process, proposed by Charles Darwin, stating that individuals with characteristics that promote adaptation to the environment will survive, reproduce, and pass these adaptive characteristics to offspring; those lacking these adaptive characteristics will eventually die out.
sensitive period a period during which an organism is most susceptible to certain environmental influences; outside this period, the same environmental influences must be much stronger to produce comparable effects.
modern evolutionary theory the study of the bioevolutionary basis of behavior and development with a focus on survival of the genes.
altruism a selfless concern for the welfare of others that is expressed through prosocial acts such as sharing, cooperating, and helping.
ecological systems theory Bronfenbrenner's model emphasizing that the developing person is embedded in a series of environmental systems that interact with one another and with the person to influence development.
microsystem the immediate settings (including role relationships and activities) that the person actually encounters; the innermost of Bronfenbrenner's environmental layers or contexts.
mesosystem the interconnections among an individual's immediate settings or microsystems; the second of Bronfenbrenner's environmental layers or contexts.
exosystem social systems that children and adolescents do not directly experience but that may nonetheless influence their development; the third of Bronfen-brenner's environmental layers or contexts.
macrosystem the larger cultural or subcultural context in which development occurs; Bronfenbrenner's outermost environmental layer or context.
chronosystem in ecological systems theory, changes in the individual or the environment that occur over time and influence the direction development takes.
family two or more persons, related by birth, marriage, adoption, or choice, who have emotional ties and responsibilities to each other.
family social system the complex network of relationships, interactions, and patterns of influence that characterize a family with three or more members.
traditional nuclear family a family unit consisting of a wife/mother, a husband/father, and their dependent child or children.
nature/nurture issue the debate among developmental theorists about the relative importance of biological predispositions (nature) and environmental influences (nurture) as determinants of human development.
activity/passivity theme a debate among developmental theorists about whether children are active contributors to their own development or, rather, passive recipients of environmental influence.
continuity/discontinuity issue a debate among theorists about whether developmental changes are quantitative and continuous, or qualitative and discontinuous (i.e., stagelike).
quantitative change incremental change in degree without sudden transformations; for example, some view the small yearly increases in height and weight that 2- to 11-year-olds display as quantitative developmental changes.
qualitative change changes in kind that make individuals fundamentally different than they were before; the transformation of a prelinguistic infant into a language user is viewed by many as a qualitative change in communication skills.
developmental stage a distinct phase within a larger sequence of development; a period characterized by a particular set of abilities, motives, behaviors, or emotions that occur together and form a coherent pattern.
eclectics those who borrow from many theories in their attempts to predict and explain human development.