| A | B |
|---|
| developmental psychology | the field in which psychologists study how people grow and change throughout the life span |
| maturation | automatic and sequential process of development that results from genetic signals |
| critical period | a stage or point in development during which a person or animal is best suited to learn a particular skill or behavior pattern |
| reflex | an involuntary reaction or response, such as swallowing |
| infancy | the period from birth to age two years |
| childhood | the period from two years to adolescence |
| attachment | the emotional ties that form between people |
| stranger anxiety | a fear of strangers |
| separation anxiety | when infants cry or behave in other ways that indicate distress if their mothers leave them |
| contact comfort | instinctual need to touch and be touched by something soft, such as skin or fur |
| imprinting | the process by which some animals form immediate attachments during a critical period |
| authoritative | meaning with authority where parents combine warmth with positive kinds of strictness |
| authoritarian | parents who believe in obedience for its own sake |
| self-esteem | is the value or worth that people attach to themselves |
| unconditional positive regard | means that parents love and accept their children for who they are - no matter how they behave |
| conditional positive regard | means that parents show their love only when the children behave in certain acceptable ways |
| assimilation | the process by which new information is placed into categories that already exist |
| accommodation | a change brought about because of new information |
| sensorimotor stage | Infants begin to understand that there is a relationship between their physical movements and the results they sense and perceive |
| object permanence | the understanding that objects exist even when they cannot be seen or touched |
| conservation | law which states that the key properties of substances, such as their weight, volume, and number, stay the same even if their shape or arrangement is changed |
| egocentrism | the inability to see another person's point of view |
| concrete-operational stage | Children enter this stage at age 7. Children begin to show signs of adult thinking. |
| formal-operational stage | the final cognitive stage in Piaget's theory begins at about puberty and represents cognitive maturity. |
| preconventional moral reasoning | children who base their judgments on the consequences of behavior |
| conventional moral reasoning | making judgments in terms of whether an act conforms to conventional standards of right and wrong |
| postconventional moral reasoning | reasoning based on a person's own moral standards of goodness |
