Definitions Essay, Research Paper

Human Growth and Development

1. abusive relationship: when one partner in a relationship becomes violent or aggressive toward the other.

2. accommodation: according to Piaget, changing existing knowledge based on new knowledge.

3. achievement status: identity status in which adolescents have explored alternative identities and are now secure in their chosen identities.

4. active euthanasia: deliberate ending of someone?s life.

5. activities of daily living (ADL?s): self-care tasks such as eating, bathing, toileting, walking, or dressing.

6. activity: dimension of temperament defined by the tempo and vigor of a child?s activity.

7. adaptation level: area where environmental press is average for a particular level of competence.

8. addiction: physical dependence on a particular substance, such as alcohol.

9. adolescent egocentrism: self-absorption that is characteristic of teenagers as they search for identity.

10. aerobic exercise: exercise that places a moderate on the heart by maintaining a pulse rate between 60% and 90% of the maximum heart rate.

11. age discrimination: denying a job or promotion to someone solely on the basis of their age.

12. age integrated housing: where people of all ages live together and interact.

13. age of viability: age at which a fetus can survive because most of its bodily systems function adequately; typically at seven months after conception.

14. age-segregated housing: where all residents are of the same age.

15. agreeableness: dimension of personality associated with being accepting, willing to work with others, and caring.

16. alert inactivity: state in which a baby is calm with eyes open and attentive, and the baby seems to be deliberately inspecting the environment.

17. alienation: when workers feel that what they are doing is meaningless, that their efforts are devalued, or when they do not see the connection between what they do and the final product.

18. alleles: variations of genes.

19. altruism: pro-social behavior such as helping and sharing in which the individual does not benefit directly from his or her behavior.

20. Alzheimer?s disease: disease associated with aging characterized by gradual declines in memory, learning, attention, and judgment; confusion as to time and where one is; difficulties in communicating and finding the words one wants to use; declines in personal hygiene and self-care skills; inappropriate social behavior; and changes in personality.

21. amniocentesis: prenatal diagnostic technique that involves withdrawing a sample of amniotic fluid through the abdomen using a syringe.

22. amnion: inner sac in which the developing child rests.

23. amyloid: protein that is produced in abnormally high levels in Alzheimer?s disease and that may be responsible for the neurofibrillary tangles and neuritic plaques.

24. animism: crediting inanimate objects with life and life-like properties such as feelings.

25. anniversary reaction: changes in behavior related to feelings of sadness on the actual anniversary of a death.

26. anorexia nervosa: persistent refusal to eat, accompanied by an irrational fear of being overweight.

27. anoxia: lack of oxygen during delivery, typically because the umbilical cord becomes pinched or tangled during delivery.

28. anxiety disorders: problems such as feelings of severe anxiety for no apparent reason, phobias to specific things or places, and obsessive-compulsive disorders in which thoughts or actions are repeatedly performed.

29. appraise: to evaluate a situation to determine whether it exceeds a person?s resources and is, therefore, stressful.

30. assimilation: according to Piaget, taking in information that is compatible with what one already knows.

31. assortative mating: theory of mating that states that people find partners based on their similarity to each other.

32. attachment: enduring social-emotional relationship between infants and their caregivers.

33. attentional processes: processes that determine which information will be processed further by an individual.

34. authoritarian parents: parents who show high levels of control and low levels of warmth toward their children.

35. authoritative parents: parents who use a moderate amount of control and who are warm and responsive to their children.

36. autosomes: first 22 pairs of chromosomes.

37. average life expectancy: age at which half of the people born in a particular year will have died.

38. avoidant attachment: relationship in which infants turn away from their mothers when they are reunited following a brief separation.

39. axon: tube-like structure that emerges from the cell body and transmits information to other neurons.

40. babbling: speech-like sounds that consist vowel-consonant combinations.

41. basal metabolic rate: speed with which the body consumes calories.

42. basic cry: cry that starts softly and gradually becomes more intense often heard when babies are hungry or tired.

43. basic emotions: emotions experienced by humankind and that consist of three elements: a subjective feeling, a physiological change, and an overt behavior.

44. battered woman syndrome: situation in which a woman believes that she cannot leave an abusive situation.

45. behavior therapy: approach to treating depression based on increasing the number of rewards or reinforcements in the environment.

46. bioethics: study of the interface between human values and technological advances in health and life-sciences.

47. biological forces: all genetic and health-related factors that affect development.

48. biopsychosocial framework: view that integrates biological, psychological, sociocultural, and life-cycle forces on development.

49. blended family: family consisting of a biological parent, a stepparent, and children.

50. brain death: most widely accepted definition of death, including no heart-beat, respiration, responsiveness, reflexes, and brain activity.

51. bulimia nervosa: disease in which people alternate between binge eating (periods in which they eat uncontrollably) and purging through self-induced vomiting or with laxatives.

52. burnout: depletion of a person?s energy and motivation.

53. cardinality principle: counting principle that the last number and name denotes the number of objects being counted.

54. career plateauing: either a lack of promotional opportunity from the organization or a person?s decision not to seek advancement.

55. cell body: center of the neuron that keeps the neuron alive.

56. cellular theories: theories of aging that focus on processes that occur within individual cells, which cause the build-up of harmful substances over one?s life-time.

57. centrality: meaning derived when grand-parenting is the most important thing in grandparents? lives.

58. cephalocaudal principle: principle that growth occurs from the head first and then down the spine.

59. cerebral cortex: wrinkled surface of the brain that regulates many functions that are distinctively human.

60. cerebral vascular accidents: see strokes.

61. chorionic villus sampling: prenatal diagnostic technique that involves taking a sample of tissue from the chorion.

62. chromosomes: thread-like structures in the nuclei of the sperm and egg that contain genetic material.

63. chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD): most common form of incapacitating respiratory disease among older adults; examples are asthma and emphysema.

64. circadian rhythm: sleep-wake cycle.

65. climacteric: loss of ability to bear children, which usually begins in the 40?s and is complete by age 50 or 55.

66. clinical death: death defined by a lack of heartbeat and respiration.

67. clique: small group of friends who are similar in age, sex, and race.

68. co-dominance: situation in which one allele does not dominate another completely.

69. cognitive therapy: approach to depression based on the idea that maladaptive beliefs or cognitions about oneself are responsible for depression.

70. cohabitation: two or more unrelated adults living together.

71. cohort effects: differences between individuals that result from experiences and circumstances unique to a person?s particular generation.

72. comparable worth: equating pay in occupations that are determined to be equivalent in importance but differ in terms of the gender distribution of the people in them.

73. competence: upper limit of a person?s ability to function in five domains: physical health, sensory-perceptual skills, motor skills, cognitive skills, and ego strength.

74. complex emotions: emotions that have a self- evaluative component.

75. cones: specialized neurons in the back of the eye that sense color.

76. conscientiousness: dimension of personality associated with being hard-working, ambitious, energetic, scrupulous, and persevering.

77. continuity theory: view that people tend to cope with daily life in late adulthood in essentially the same ways they coped in earlier periods of life.

78. continuity- discontinuity issue: issue concerned with whether a developmental phenomenon follows a smooth progression throughout the life span or a series of abrupt shifts.

79. conventional level: second level of reasoning in Kholberg?s theory, where moral reasoning is based on society?s norms.

80. convergent thinking: using information to arrive at one standard and correct answer.

81. cooing: early vowel-like sounds that babies produce.

82. cooperative play: play that is organized around a theme, with each child taking on a different role; begins at about 2 years of age.

83. coping: attempts to deal with stress.

84. corpus callosum: thick bundle of neurons that connects the 2 hemispheres.

85. correlation coefficient: statistic that reveals the strength and direction of the relation between 2 variables.

86. correlation study: investigation looking at relations between variables as they exist naturally in the world.

87. cross-linking: theory of aging in which some proteins interact randomly with certain body tissues, such as muscles and arteries.

88. cross sectional studies: research design in which people of different ages are compared at one point in time.

89. crowd: large group including many cliques that have similar attitudes and values.

90. crowning: appearance of the top of the baby?s head during labor.

91. crying: state in which a baby cries vigorously, usually accompanied by agitated but uncoordinated movement.

92. crystallization: first phase in Super?s theory of career development, in which adolescents use their emerging identities for ideas about careers.

93. crystallized intelligence: knowledge acquired through experience and education in a particular culture.

94. cultural conservator: status of grandparents whose grandchildren live with them to learn the native ways.

95. culture-fair intelligence tests: intelligence tests devised using items common to many cultures.

96. date (acquaintance) rape: when someone is forced to have sexual intercourse with someone they know.

97. death anxiety: refers to the fact that people are uncomfortable thinking about their own death.

98. deductive reasoning: drawing conclusions from facts; characteristic of formal operational thought.

99. dementia: family of diseases involving serious impairment of behavioral and cognitive functioning.

100. demographers: people who study population trends.

101. dendrite: end of the neuron that receives information; it looks like a tree with many branches.

102. deoxyribonucleic acid(DNA): molecule composed of four nucleotide bases that is the biochemical basis of heredity.

103. dependent variable: behavior that is observed after other variables are manipulated.

104. depression: disorder characterized by pervasive feelings of sadness, irritability, and low self-esteem.

105. differentiation: distinguishing and mastering individual motions.

106. diffusion status: identity status in which adolescents do not have an identity and are doing nothing to achieve one.

107. disorganized(disoriented) attachment: relationship in which infants don?t seem to understand what?s happening when they are separated and later reunited with their mothers.

108. dispositional praise: praise that links a child?s altruistic behavior to an underlying altruistic disposition.

109. divergent thinking: thinking in novel and unusual directions.

110. divided attention: performing more than one task at a time.

111. dizygotic twins: result of the fertilization of two separate eggs by two sperm; also called fraternal twins.

112. docility: when people allow the situation to dictate the options they have.

113. dominance hierarchy: ordering of individuals within a group in which group members with lower status defer to those with greater status.

114. dominant: form of an allele whose chemical instructions are followed.

115. dream: as related to vocational development, a vision of one?s career.

116. dysphoria: feeling sad or down; the most prominent symptom of depression.

117. ecological theory: view that human development cannot be separated from the environmental contexts in which development occurs.

118. ectoderm: outer layer of the embryo that will become the hair, outer layer of skin, and the nervous system.

119. ego: according to Freud, the rational component of the personality; develops during the first few years of life.

120. egocentrism: difficulty in seeing the world from another?s point of view; typical of children in the preoperational period.

121. ego resilience: powerful personality resource that enables people to handle midlife.

122. electroencephalogram(EEG): pattern of brain waves recorded from electrodes that are placed on the scalp.

123. embryo: term given to the zygote once it is completely embedded in the uterine wall.

124. emotionality: aspect of temperament that refers to the strength of the infant?s emotional response to a situation, the ease with which that response is triggered, and the ease with which the infant can be returned to a non-emotional state.

125. empathy: experiencing another person?s feelings.

126. encapsulated: result of the processes of thinking becoming connected with the products of thinking.

127. endoderm: inner layer of the embryo, which will become the lungs and the digestive system.

128. environmental press: number and type of physical, interpersonal, or social demands that environments make on people.

129. epigenetic principle: view in Erikson?s theory that each psychosocial stage has its own period of importance.

130. equilibriation: according to Piaget, a process by which children reorganize their schemes to return to a state of equilibrium when disequilibrium occurs.

131. estrogen-related symptoms: symptoms associated with the climacteric and menopause, including hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, and urine leakage that are due to the drop in estrogen.

132. ethology: branch of biology concerned with adaptive behaviors that are characteristic of different species.

133. eugenics: effort to improve the human species by letting only people whose characteristics are valued by a society mate and pass along their genes.

134. euthanasia: practice of ending a life for reasons of mercy.

135. exchange theory: view that marriage is based on each partner contributing something to the relationship that the other would be hard-pressed to provide.

136. exosystem: according to Bronfenbrenner, social settings that influence one?s development even though one does not experience them first hand.

137. experiment: systematic way of manipulating factors that a researcher thinks cause a particular behavior.

138. explicit memory: conscious and intentional recollection of information.

139. expressive style: language-learning style that describes children whose vocabularies include many social phrases that are used like one word.

140. extended family: family in which grandparents and other relatives live with parents and children.

141. external aides: memory aides that rely on environmental resources, such as notebooks or calendars.

142. extraversion: dimension of personality in which an individual thrives on social interaction, likes to talk, takes charge easily, readily expresses opinions and feelings, likes to keep busy, has seemingly unending energy, and prefers stimulating and challenging environments.

143. extremely low birth weight: newborns who weigh less than 1,000 grams (2 pounds).

144. familial mental retardation: form of mental retardation that does not involve biological damage but represents the low end of the normal distribution of intelligence.

145. family life cycle: a series of relatively predictable changes that families experience.

146. fast mapping: fact that children make connections between new words and referents so quickly that they can?t be considering all possible meanings.

147. fetal alcohol syndrome: disorder affecting babies whose mothers consumed large amounts of alcohol while they were pregnant.

148. fetal medicine: field of medicine concerned with treating prenatal problems before birth.

149. fictive grandparenting: style that allows adults to fill in for missing or deceased grandparents, functionally creating the role of surrogate grandparent.

150. filial obligation: sense of responsibility to care for a parent if necessary.

151. fine motor skills: motor skills associated with grasping, holding, and manipulating objects.

152. fluid intelligence: abilities such as thinking in a flexible, adaptive manner, drawing inferences, and understanding relations between concepts.