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Glossary

A

A-not-B error: In Piaget’s framework, a classic mistake made by infants in the sensorimotor stage, whereby babies approaching age 1 go back to the original hiding place to look for an object even though they have seen it get hidden in different place.

accommodation: In Piaget’s theory, enlarging our mental capacities to fit input from the wider world.

acculturation: Among immigrants, the tendency to become similar in attitudes and practices to the mainstream culture after time spent living in a new society.

achievement tests: Measures that evaluate a child’s knowledge in specific school-related areas.

active euthanasia: A deliberate health-care intervention that helps a patient die.

active forces: The nature-interacts-with-nurture principle that our genetic temperamental tendencies and predispositions cause us to actively choose to put ourselves into specific environments.

ADL (activities of daily living) problems: Difficulty in performing everyday tasks that are required for living independently. ADLs are classified as either basic or instrumental.

adolescence-limited turmoil: Antisocial behavior that, for most teens, is specific to adolescence and does not persist into adult life.

adolescent egocentrism: David Elkind’s term for the tendency of young teenagers to feel that their actions are at the center of everyone else’s consciousness.

adoption study: Behavioral genetic research strategy, designed to determine the genetic contribution to a given trait, that involves comparing adopted children with their biological and adoptive parents.

adrenal androgens: Hormones produced by the adrenal glands that program various aspects of puberty, such as growth of body hair, skin changes, and sexual desire.

adult attachment styles: The different ways in which adults relate to romantic partners, based on Mary Ainsworth’s infant attachment styles (Adult attachment styles are classified as secure, preoccupied/ambivalent insecure, or avoidant/dismissive insecure).

adult development: The scientific study of the adult part of life.

advance directive: Any written document spelling out instructions with regard to life-prolonging treatment if individuals become irretrievably ill and cannot communicate their wishes.

age-based rationing of care: The controversial idea that society should not use expensive life-sustaining technologies on people in their old-old years.

age discrimination: Illegally laying off workers or failing to hire or promote them on the basis of age.

ageism: Stereotypic, intensely negative ideas about old age.

age norms: Cultural ideas about the appropriate ages for engaging in particular activities or life tasks.

age of viability: The earliest point at which a baby can survive outside the womb.

aggression: Any hostile or destructive act.

allostatic load: An overall score of body deterioration gained from summing how a person functions on multiple physiological indexes. Allostatic load predicts cognitive performance during adult life.

alternatives to institutionalization: Services and settings designed to keep older people, who do not merit intense 24-hour care and are experiencing age-related disabilities, from having to enter nursing homes.

amniocentesis: A second-trimester procedure that involves inserting a syringe into a woman’s uterus to extract a sample of amniotic fluid, which is tested for a variety of genetic and chromosomal conditions.

amniotic sac: A bag-shaped, fluid-filled membrane that contains and insulates the fetus.

analytic intelligence: In Robert Sternberg’s framework on successful intelligence, the facet of intelligence involving performing well on academic-type problems.

animism: In Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s belief that inanimate objects are alive.

anorexia nervosa: A potentially life-threatening eating disorder characterized by pathological dieting (resulting in severe weight loss and, in females, loss of menstruation) and a distorted body image.

anxious-ambivalent attachment: An insecure attachment style characterized by a child’s intense distress when reunited with a primary caregiver after separation.

Apgar scale: A quick test used to assess a just-delivered baby’s condition by measuring heart rate, muscle tone, respiration, reflex response, and color.

artificialism: In Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s belief that human beings make everything in nature.

assimilation: In Jean Piaget’s theory, the first step promoting mental growth, involving fitting environmental input to our existing mental capacities.

assisted-living facility: A housing option providing care for elderly people who have instrumental ADL impairments and can no longer live independently but may not need a nursing home.

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assisted reproductive technology (ART): Any infertility treatment in which the egg is fertilized outside of the womb.

attachment: The powerful bond of love between a caregiver and child (or between any two individuals).

attachment in the making: Second phase of Bowlby’s attachment sequence, when, from 4 to 7 months of age, babies slightly prefer the primary caregiver.

attachment parenting: A caregiving approach stressing the value of prolonged breast feeding, continuous “skin to skin” contact, and other strategies designed to promote intense parent-child bonding during the early years of life.

attachment theory: Theory formulated by John Bowlby centering on the crucial importance to our species’ survival of being closely connected with a caregiver during early childhood and being attached to a significant other during all of life.

attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): The most common childhood learning disorder in the United States, disproportionately affecting boys, characterized by inattention and hyperactivity at home and/or at school.

authoritarian parents: In the parenting-styles framework, a type of child-rearing in which parents provide plenty of rules but rank low on child-centeredness, stressing unquestioning obedience.

authoritative parents: In the parenting-styles framework, the best possible child-rearing style, in which parents rank high on both nurturance and discipline, providing both love and clear family rules.

autism spectrum disorders (ASDs): Conditions characterized by persistent, severe, widespread social and conversational deficits; lack of interest in people and their feelings; and repetitive, restricted behavior patterns, such as rocking, ritualized behavior, hypersensitivity to sensory input, and a fixation on inanimate objects. A core characteristic of these disorders is impairments in theory of mind.

autobiographical memories: Recollections of events and experiences that make up one’s life history.

autonomy: Erikson’s second psychosocial task, when toddlers confront the challenge of understanding that they are separate individuals.

average life expectancy: A person’s fifty-fifty chance at birth of living to a given age.

avoidant/dismissive insecure attachment: A standoffish, excessively disengaged style of relating to loved ones.

avoidant attachment: An insecure attachment style characterized by a child’s indifference to a primary caregiver at being reunited after separation.

axon: A long nerve fiber that usually conducts impulses away from the cell body of a neuron.

B

babbling: The alternating vowel and consonant sounds that babies repeat with variations of intonation and pitch and that precede the first words.

baby-proofing: Making the home safe for a newly mobile infant.

baby boom cohort: The huge age group born between 1946 and 1964.

basic ADL problems: Difficulty in performing essential self-care activities, such as rising from a chair, eating, and getting to the toilet.

behavioral genetics: Field devoted to scientifically determining the role that hereditary forces play in determining individual differences in behavior.

bidirectionality: The crucial principle that people affect one another, or that interpersonal influences flow in both directions.

Big Five: Five core psychological predispositions—neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness—that underlie personality.

binge eating disorder: A newly labeled eating disorder defined by recurrent, out-of-control binging accompanied by feelings of disgust.

biracial or multiracial identity: How people of mixed racial backgrounds come to terms with who they are as people in relation to their heritage.

birth defect: A physical or neurological problem that occurs prenatally or at birth.

blastocyst: The hollow sphere of cells formed during the germinal stage in preparation for implantation.

body mass index (BMI): The ratio of weight to height; the main indicator of overweight or underweight.

boundaryless career: Today’s most common career path for Western workers, in which people change jobs or professions periodically during their working lives.

breadwinner role: Traditional concept that a man’s job is to support a wife and children.

bulimia nervosa: An eating disorder characterized by at least biweekly cycles of binging and purging (by inducing vomiting or taking laxatives) in an obsessive attempt to lose weight.

bully-victims: Exceptionally aggressive children (with externalizing disorders) who repeatedly bully and get victimized.

bullying: A situation in which one or more children (or adults) harass or target a specific child for systematic abuse.

C

caregiving grandparents: Grandparents who have taken on full responsibility for raising their grandchildren.

centering: In Piaget’s conservation tasks, the preoperational child’s tendency to fix on the most visually striking feature of a substance and not take other dimensions into account.

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cephalocaudal sequence: The developmental principle that growth occurs in a sequence from head to toe.

cerebral cortex: The outer, folded mantle of the brain, responsible for thinking, reasoning, perceiving, and all conscious responses.

certified nurse assistant or aide: The main hands-on care provider in a nursing home who helps elderly residents with basic ADL problems.

cervix: The neck, or narrow lower portion, of the uterus.

cesarean section (c-section): A method of delivering a baby surgically by extracting the baby through incisions in the woman’s abdominal wall and the uterus.

child development: The scientific study of development from birth through adolescence.

childhood obesity: A body mass index at or above the 95th percentile compared to the U.S. norms established for children in the 1970s.

child maltreatment: Any act that seriously endangers a child’s physical or emotional well-being.

chorionic villus sampling (CVS): A relatively risky first-trimester pregnancy test for fetal genetic disorders.

chromosome: A threadlike strand of DNA located in the nucleus of every cell that carries the genes, which transmit hereditary information.

chronic disease: Any long-term illness that requires ongoing management. Most chronic diseases are age-related and are the endpoint of normal aging changes.

circular reactions: In Piaget’s framework, repetitive action-oriented schemas (or habits) characteristic of babies during the sensorimotor stage.

class inclusion: The understanding that a general category can encompass several subordinate elements.

clear-cut attachment: Critical human attachment phase, from 7 months through toddlerhood, defined by separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, and needing a primary caregiver close.

clique: A small peer group composed of roughly six teenagers who have similar attitudes and who share activities.

co-sleeping: The standard custom, in collectivist cultures, of having a child and parent share a bed.

cognitive behaviorism (social learning theory): A behavioral worldview that emphasizes that people learn by watching others and that our thoughts about the reinforcers determine our behavior. Cognitive behaviorists focus on charting and modifying people’s thoughts.

cohabitation: Sharing a household in an unmarried romantic relationship.

cohort: The age group with whom we travel through life.

colic: A baby’s frantic, continual crying during the first three months of life caused by an immature nervous system.

collaborative pretend play: Fantasy play in which children work together to develop and act out the scenes.

collectivist cultures: Societies that prize social harmony, obedience, and close family connectedness over individual achievement.

commitment script: In Dan McAdams’s research, a type of autobiography produced by highly generative adults that involves childhood memories of feeling special; being unusually sensitive to others’ misfortunes; having a strong, enduring generative mission from adolescence; and redemption sequences.

Common Core State Standards: Transformative U.S. public school changes, spelling out universal learning benchmarks and emphasizing teaching through scaffolding, problem solving, and communication skills.

concrete operational thinking: In Piaget’s framework, the type of cognition characteristic of children aged 8 to 11, marked by the ability to reason about the world in a more logical, adult way.

conservation tasks: Piagetian tasks that involve changing the shape of a substance to determine whether children can go beyond the way that substance’s visually appearance and understand that the volume is retained.

consummate love: In Robert Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, the ideal form of love, in which a couple’s relationship involves all three of the major facets of love: passion, intimacy, and commitment.

contexts of development: Fundamental markers, including cohort, socioeconomic status, culture, and gender, that shape how we develop throughout the lifespan.

continuing-care retirement community: A housing option characterized by a series of levels of care for elderly residents, ranging from independent apartments to assisted living to nursing home care. People enter the community in relatively good health and move to sections where they can get more care when they become disabled.

conventional level of morality: In Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory, the intermediate level of moral reasoning, in which people respond to ethical issues by considering the need to uphold social norms.

corporal punishment: The use of physical force to discipline a child.

correlational study: A research strategy that involves relating two or more variables.

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creative intelligence: In Robert Sternberg’s framework on successful intelligence, the facet of intelligence involved in producing novel ideas or innovative work.

cross-sectional study: A developmental research strategy that involves testing different age groups at the same time.

crowd: A relatively large teenage peer group.

crystallized intelligence: A basic facet of intelligence, consisting of a person’s knowledge base, or storehouse of accumulated information.

cyberbullying: Systematic harassment conducted through electronic media.

D

day-care center: A day-care arrangement in which a large number of children are cared for at a licensed facility by paid providers.

day-care program: A service for impaired older adults who live with relatives, in which the older person spends the day at a center offering various activities.

decentering: In Piaget’s conservation tasks, the concrete operational child’s ability to look at several dimensions of an object or substance.

deinstitutionalization of marriage: The decline in marriage and the emergence of alternate family forms that occurred during the last third of the twentieth century.

dendrite: A branching fiber that receives information and conducts impulses toward the cell body of a neuron.

depth perception: The ability to see (and fear) heights.

developed world: The most affluent countries in the world.

developing world: The more impoverished countries of the world.

developmental disorders: Learning impairments and behavioral problems during infancy and childhood.

developmentalists: Researchers and practitioners whose professional interest lies in the study of the human lifespan.

developmental systems perspective: An all-encompassing outlook on development that stresses the need to embrace a variety of theories, and the idea that all systems and processes interrelate.

deviancy training: Socialization of a young teenager into delinquency through conversations centered on performing antisocial acts.

disorganized attachment: An insecure attachment style characterized by responses such as freezing or fear when a child is reunited with the primary caregiver in the Strange Situation.

divided-attention task: A difficult memory challenge involving memorizing material while simultaneously monitoring something else.

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid): The material that makes up genes, which bear our hereditary characteristics.

dominant disorder: An illness that a child gets by inheriting one copy of the abnormal gene that causes the disorder.

Do Not Hospitalize (DNH) order: A type of advance directive put into the charts of impaired nursing home residents, specifying that, in a medical crisis, they should not be transferred to a hospital for emergency care.

Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order: A type of advance directive filled out by surrogates (usually a doctor in consultation with family members) for impaired individuals, specifying that if they go into cardiac arrest, efforts should not be made to revive them.

dose–response effect: Term referring to the fact that the amount (dose) of a substance, in this case the depth and length of deprivation, determines its probable effect or impact on the person (In the orphanage studies, the “response” is subsequent emotional and/or cognitive problems).

Down syndrome: The most common chromosomal abnormality, causing intellectual disability, susceptibility to heart disease, and other health problems as well as distinctive physical characteristics, such as slanted eyes and stocky build.

durable power of attorney for health care: A type of advance directive in which people designate a specific surrogate to make health-care decisions if they become incapacitated and are unable to make their wishes known.

dying trajectory: The fact that hospital personnel make projections about the particular pathway to death that a seriously ill patient will take and organize their care according to that assumption.

dyslexia: A learning disorder that is characterized by reading difficulties, lack of fluency, and poor word recognition that is often genetic in origin.

E

early childhood: The first phase of childhood, lasting from age 3 through kindergarten, or about age 5.

Early Head Start: A federal program that provides counseling and other services to low-income parents and children under age 3.

eating disorder: A pathological obsession with getting and staying thin. The two best-known eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

egocentrism: In Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s inability to understand that other people have different points of view from their own.

G-5

elderspeak: A style of communication used with an older person who seems to be physically impaired, involving speaking loudly and with slow, exaggerated pronunciation, as if talking to a baby.

embryonic stage: The second stage of prenatal development, lasting from week 3 through week 8.

emerging adulthood: The phase of life that begins after high school, tapers off toward the late twenties, and is devoted to constructing an adult life.

emotion regulation: The capacity to manage one’s emotional state.

empathy: Feeling the exact emotion that another person is experiencing.

end-of-life care instruction: Courses in medical and nursing schools devoted to teaching health-care workers how to provide the best palliative care to the dying.

epigenetics: Research field exploring how early life events alter the outer cover of our DNA, producing lifelong changes in health and behavior.

episodic memory: In the memory-systems perspective, the most fragile type of memory, involving the recall of the ongoing events of daily life.

Erikson’s psychosocial tasks: In Erik Erikson’s theory, each challenge that we face as we travel through the eight stages of the lifespan.

ethnic identity: How people come to terms with who they are as people relating to their unique ethnic or racial heritage.

eudaimonic happiness: Well-being defined as having a sense of meaning and life purpose.

evocative forces: The nature-interacts-with-nurture principle that our genetic temperamental tendencies and predispositions evoke, or produce, certain responses from other people.

evolutionary psychology: Theory or worldview highlighting the role that inborn, species-specific behaviors play in human development and life.

executive functions: Any frontal-lobe ability that allows us to inhibit our responses and to plan and direct our thinking.

experience-sampling technique: A research procedure designed to capture moment-to-moment experiences by having people carry pagers and take notes describing their activities and emotions whenever the signal sounds.

externalizing tendencies: A personality style that involves acting on one’s immediate impulses and behaving disruptively and aggressively.

extrinsic career rewards: Work that is performed for external reinforcers, such as pay.

extrinsic motivation: The drive to take an action because that activity offers external reinforcers such as praise, money, or a good grade.

F

face-perception studies: Research using preferential looking and habituation to explore what very young babies know about faces.

fallopian tube: One of a pair of slim, pipelike structures that connect the ovaries with the uterus.

family day care: A day-care arrangement in which a neighbor or relative cares for a small number of children in her home for a fee.

family watchdogs: A basic role of grandparents involving monitoring younger family members’ well-being and intervening to provide help in cases of crisis.

family–work conflict: A situation in which people—typically parents—are torn between the demands of family and work.

fantasy play: Play that involves making up and acting out a scenario; also called pretend play.

fertility rate: The average number of children a woman in a given country has during her lifetime.

fertilization: The union of sperm and egg.

fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS): A cluster of birth defects caused by the mother’s alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

fetal programming research: New research discipline exploring the impact of traumatic pregnancy events and intense stress on producing low birth weight, obesity, and long-term physical problems.

fetal stage: The final period of prenatal development, lasting seven months, characterized by physical refinements, massive growth, and the development of the brain.

fine motor skills: Physical abilities that involve small, coordinated movements, such as drawing and writing one’s name.

flow: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s term for feeling total absorption in a challenging, goal-oriented activity.

fluid intelligence: A basic facet of intelligence, consisting of the ability to quickly master new intellectual activities.

Flynn Effect: Remarkable and steady rise in overall performance on IQ tests that has been occurring around the world over the past century.

food insecurity: According to U.S. Department of Agriculture surveys, the number of households that report needing to serve unbalanced meals, worrying about not having enough food at the end of the month, or having to go hungry due to lack of money (latter is severe food insecurity).

formal operational stage: Jean Piaget’s fourth and final stage of cognitive development, reached at around age 12, and characterized by teenagers’ ability to reason at an abstract, scientific level.

G-6

frontal lobes: The area at the uppermost front of the brain responsible for reasoning and planning our actions.

G

“g”: Charles Spearman’s term for a general intelligence factor that he claimed underlies all cognitive activities.

gang: A close-knit, delinquent peer group. Gangs form mainly under conditions of economic deprivation; they offer their members protection from harm and engage in a variety of criminal activities.

gender-segregated play: Play in which boys and girls associate only with members of their own sex—typical of childhood.

gender schema theory: Explanation for gender-stereotyped behavior that emphasizes the role of cognitions; specifically, the idea that once children know their own gender label (girl or boy), they selectively watch and model their own sex.

gene: A segment of DNA that contains a chemical blueprint for manufacturing a particular protein.

generativity: In Erikson’s theory, the seventh psychosocial task, in which people in midlife find meaning from nurturing the next generation, caring for others, or enriching the lives of others through their work. According to Erikson, when midlife adults have not achieved generativity, they feel stagnant and without a sense of purpose in life.

genetic counselor: A professional who counsels parents-to-be about their own and/or their children’s risk of developing genetic disorders, as well as available treatments.

genetic testing: A blood test to determine whether a person carries the gene for a given genetic disorder.

germinal stage: The first 14 days of prenatal development, from fertilization to full implantation.

gerontology: The scientific study of the aging process and older adults.

gestation: The period of pregnancy.

gifted: The label for superior intellectual functioning characterized by an IQ score of 130 or above, showing that a child ranks in the top 2 percent of his age group.

gonads: The sex organs—the ovaries in girls and the testes in boys.

goodness of fit: An ideal parenting strategy that involves arranging children’s environments to suit their temperaments, minimizing their vulnerabilities and accentuating their strengths.

grammar: The rules and word-arranging systems that every human language employs to communicate meaning.

Great Recession of 2008: Dramatic loss of jobs (and consumer spending) that began with the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble in late 2007.

gross motor skills: Physical abilities that involve large muscle movements, such as running and jumping.

growth spurt: A dramatic increase in height and weight that occurs during puberty.

guilt: Feeling upset about having caused harm to a person or about having violated one’s internal standard of behavior.

H

habituation: The predictable loss of interest that develops once a stimulus becomes familiar; used to explore infant sensory capacities and thinking.

Head Start: A federal program offering high-quality day care at a center and other services to help preschoolers aged 3 to 5 from low-income families prepare for school.

healthy-life years: The number of years people can expect to live without ADL problems.

hedonic happiness: Well-being defined as pure pleasure.

holophrase: First clear evidence of language, when babies use a single word to communicate a sentence or complete thought.

home health services: Nursing-oriented and housekeeping help provided in the home of an impaired older adult (or any other impaired person).

homogamy: The principle that we select a mate who is similar to us.

homophobia: Intense fear and dislike of gays and lesbians.

hormones: Chemical substances released in the bloodstream that target and change organs and tissues.

hospice movement: A movement, which became widespread in recent decades, focused on providing palliative care to dying patients outside of hospitals and especially on giving families the support they need to care for the terminally ill at home.

hostile attributional bias: The tendency of highly aggressive children to see motives and actions as threatening when they are actually benign.

HPG axis: The main hormonal system programming puberty; it involves a triggering hypothalamic hormone that causes the pituitary gland to secrete its hormones, which in turn cause the ovaries and testes to develop and secrete the hormones that produce major body changes.

I

identity achievement: An identity status in which the person decides on a definite adult life path after searching out various options.

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identity constancy: In Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s inability to grasp that a person’s core “self ” stays the same despite changes in external appearance.

identity diffusion: An identity status in which the person is aimless or feels totally blocked, without any adult life path.

identity foreclosure: An identity status in which the person decides on an adult life path (often one spelled out by an authority figure) without any thought or active search.

identity: In Erikson’s theory, the life task of deciding who to be as a person in making the transition to adulthood.

identity statuses: James Marcia’s four categories of identity formation: identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, moratorium, and identity achievement.

imaginary audience: David Elkind’s term for the tendency of young teenagers to feel that everyone is watching their every action; a component of adolescent egocentrism.

immigrant paradox: The fact that despite living in poverty, going to substandard schools, and not having parents who speak the language, many immigrant children do far better than we might expect in school.

implantation: The process in which a blastocyst becomes embedded in the uterine wall.

income inequality: The gap between the rich and poor within a nation. Specifically, when income inequality is wide, a nation has a few very affluent residents and a mass of disadvantaged citizens.

individualistic cultures: Societies that prize independence, competition, and personal success.

induction: The ideal discipline style for socializing prosocial behavior, involving getting a child who has behaved hurtfully to empathize with the pain he has caused the other person.

industry versus inferiority: Erik Erikson’s term for the psychosocial task of middle childhood involving managing our emotions and realizing that real-world success involves hard work.

infant-directed speech (IDS): The simplified, exaggerated, high-pitched tones that adults and children use to speak to infants that function to help teach language.

infant mortality: Death during the first year of life.

infertility: The inability to conceive after a year of unprotected sex. (Includes the inability to carry a child to term.)

information-processing approach: A perspective on understanding cognition that divides thinking into specific steps and component processes, much like a computer.

initiative versus guilt: Erik Erikson’s term for the preschool psychosocial task involving actively taking on life tasks.

inner speech: In Vygotsky’s theory, the way in by which human beings learn to regulate their behavior and master cognitive challenges, through silently repeating information or talking to themselves.

insecure attachment: Deviation from the normally joyful response of being united with a primary caregiver, signaling problems in the caregiver–child relationship.

instrumental ADL problems: Difficulty in performing everyday household tasks, such as cooking and cleaning.

integrity: Erik Erikson’s eighth psychosocial stage, in which elderly people decide that their life missions have been fulfilled and so accept impending death.

intellectual disability: The label for significantly impaired cognitive functioning, measured by deficits in behavior accompanied by having an IQ of 70 or below.

intergenerational equity: Balancing the needs of the young and old. It is often regarded to as the idea that U.S. government entitlements, such as Medicare and Social Security, “over-benefit” the elderly at the expense of other age groups.

internalizing tendencies: A personality style that involves intense fear, social inhibition, and often depression.

intimacy: Erikson’s first adult task, involving connecting with a partner in a mutually loving relationship.

intrinsic career rewards: Work that provides inner fulfillment and allows people to satisfy their needs for creativity, autonomy, and relatedness.

intrinsic motivation: The drive to act based on the pleasure of taking that action in itself, not for an external reinforcer or reward.

in vitro fertilization: An infertility treatment in which conception occurs outside of the womb; the developing cell mass is then inserted into the woman’s uterus so that pregnancy can occur.

K

kangaroo care: Carrying a young baby in a sling close to the caregiver’s body. This technique is most useful for soothing an infant.

Kübler-Ross’s stage theory of dying: The landmark theory, developed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, that people who are terminally ill progress through five stages in confronting their death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

L

language acquisition device (LAD): Chomsky’s term for a hypothetical brain structure that enables our species to learn and produce language.

learned helplessness: A state that develops when a person feels incapable of affecting the outcome of events, and gives up without trying.

G-8

lens: A transparent, disk-shaped structure in the eye, which bends to allow us to see close objects.

life-course difficulties: Antisocial behavior that, for a fraction of adolescents, persists into adult life.

lifespan development: The scientific study of development through life.

little-scientist phase: The time around age 1 when babies use tertiary circular reactions to actively explore the properties of objects, experimenting with them like “scientists.”

living will: A type of advance directive in which people spell out their wishes for life-sustaining treatment in case they become permanently incapacitated and unable to communicate.

longitudinal study: A developmental research strategy that involves testing an age group repeatedly over many years.

low birth weight (LBW): A body weight at birth of less than 5 1/2 pounds.

M

major neurocognitive disorder (NCD) (also known as dementia): The general term for any illness involving serious, progressive, usually irreversible cognitive decline, that interferes with a person’s ability to live independently. (A minor neurocognitive disorder is the label for a less severe impairment in memory, reasoning, and thinking which does not compromise independent living.)

marital equity: Fairness in the “work” of a couple’s life together. If a relationship lacks equity, with one partner doing significantly more than the other, the outcome is typically marital dissatisfaction.

mass-to-specific sequence: The developmental principle that large structures (and movements) precede increasingly detailed refinements.

maximum lifespan: The biological limit of human life (about 105 years).

mean length of utterance (MLU): The average number of morphemes per sentence.

means–end behavior: In Piaget’s framework, performing a different action to achieve a goal—an ability that emerges in the sensorimotor stage as babies approach age 1.

median age: The age at which 50 percent of a population is older and 50 percent is younger.

Medicare: The U.S. government’s program of health insurance for elderly people.

memory-systems perspective: A framework that divides memory into three types: procedural, semantic, and episodic memory.

menarche: A girl’s first menstruation.

menopause: The age-related process, occurring at about age 50, in which ovulation and menstruation stop due to the decline of estrogen.

micronutrient deficiency: Chronically inadequate level of a specific nutrient important to development and disease prevention, such as Vitamin A, Zinc, and/or Iron.

middle childhood: The second phase of childhood, covering the elementary school years, from about age 6 to 11.

middle knowledge: The idea that terminally ill people can know that they are dying yet, at the same time, not completely grasp or come to terms emotionally with that fact.

miscarriage: The naturally occurring loss of a pregnancy and death of the fetus.

mnemonic technique: A strategy for aiding memory, often by using imagery or enhancing the emotional meaning of what needs to be learned.

modeling: Learning by watching and imitating others.

moratorium: An identity status in which the person actively seeks out various possibilities to find a truly solid adult life path. A mature style of constructing an identity.

morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning in a particular language—for example, boys contains two morphemes: boy and the plural suffix s.

multiple intelligences theory: In Howard Gardner’s perspective on intelligence, the principle that there are eight separate kinds of intelligence—verbal, mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, and naturalist—plus a possible ninth form, called spiritual intelligence.

myelination: Formation of a fatty layer, encasing the axons of neurons. This process, which speeds the transmission of neural impulses, continues from birth to early adulthood.

N

natural childbirth: A general term for labor and birth without medical interventions.

naturalistic observation: A measurement strategy that involves directly watching and coding behaviors.

nature: Biological or genetic causes of development.

neonatal intensive care unit (NICU): A special hospital unit that treats at-risk newborns, such as low-birth-weight and very-low-birth-weight babies.

nest-leaving: Moving out of a childhood home and living independently.

neural tube: A cylindrical structure that forms along the back of the embryo and develops into the brain and spinal cord.

G-9

neurocognitive disorder due to Alzheimer’s disease (or Alzheimer’s disease): A type of age-related neurocognitive disorder characterized by neural atrophy and abnormal by-products of that atrophy, such as senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles.

neurofibrillary tangles: Long, wavy filaments that replace normal neurons and are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.

neuron: A nerve cell.

non-normative transitions: Unpredictable or atypical life changes that occur during development.

nonsuicidal self-injury: Cutting, burning, or purposely injuring one’s body to cope with stress.

normal aging changes: The universal, often progressive signs, of physical deterioration intrinsic to the aging process.

normative transitions: Predictable life changes that occur during development.

nursing home/long-term-care facility: A residential institution that provides shelter and intensive caregiving, primarily to older people who need help with basic ADLs.

nurture: Environmental causes of development.

nurturer father: Husband who actively participates in hands-on child care.

O

object permanence: In Piaget’s framework, the understanding that objects continue to exist even when we can no longer see them, which gradually emerges during the sensorimotor stage.

occupational segregation: The separation of men and women into different kinds of jobs.

off time: Being too late or too early in a culture’s timetable for achieving adult life tasks.

old-age dependency ratio: The fraction of people over age 60 compared to younger, working-age adults (ages 15 to 59). This ratio is rising dramatically as the baby boomers retire.

old-old: People almost age 80 and older.

on time: Being on target in a culture’s timetable for achieving adult life tasks.

operant conditioning: According to the traditional behavioral perspective, the law of learning that determines any voluntary response. Specifically, we act the way we do because we are reinforced for acting in that way.

osteoporosis: An age-related chronic disease in which the bones become porous, fragile, and more likely to break. Osteoporosis is most common in thin women and females of European and Asian descent.

ovary: One of a pair of almond-shaped organs that contain a woman’s ova, or eggs.

overextension: An error in early language development in which young children apply verbal labels too broadly.

overregularization: An error in early language development, in which young children apply the rules for plurals and past tenses even to exceptions, so irregular forms sound like regular forms.

ovulation: The moment during a woman’s monthly cycle when an ovum is expelled from the ovary.

ovum: An egg cell containing the genetic material contributed by the mother to the baby.

oxytocin: The hormone whose production is centrally involved in bonding, nurturing, and caregiving behaviors in our species and other mammals.

P

palliative care: Any intervention designed not to cure illness but to promote dignified dying.

palliative-care service: A service or unit in a hospital that is devoted to end-of-life care.

paradox of well-being: The fact that despite their physical and mental losses, the elderly report being just as happy or happier than the young.

parental alienation: The practice among divorced parents of badmouthing a former spouse, with the goal of turning a child against that person.

parent care: Adult children’s care for their disabled elderly parents.

parenting style: In Diana Baumrind’s framework, how parents align on two dimensions of child-rearing: nurturance (or child-centeredness) and discipline (or structure and rules).

passive euthanasia: Withholding potentially life-saving interventions that might keep a terminally ill or permanently comatose patient alive.

permissive parents: In the parenting-styles framework, a type of child-rearing in which parents provide few rules but rank high on child-centeredness, being extremely loving but providing little discipline.

Persistent Complex Bereavement-Related Disorder, or prolonged grief: Controversial new diagnosis, appearing in the most recent versions of the Western psychiatric disorder manuals, in which the bereaved person shows intense symptoms of mourning with no signs of abatement, or an increase in symptoms 6 months to a year after a loved one’s death.

personal fable: David Elkind’s term for the tendency of young teenagers to believe that their lives are special and heroic; a component of adolescent egocentrism.

person–environment fit: The extent to which the environment is tailored to our biological tendencies and talents. In developmental science, fostering this fit between our talents and the wider world is an important goal.

G-10

phoneme: The sound units that convey meaning in a given language—for example, in English, the c sound of cat and the b sound of bat.

physician-assisted suicide: A type of active euthanasia in which a physician prescribes a lethal medication to a terminally ill person who wants to die.

Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory: Jean Piaget’s principle that from infancy to adolescence, children progress through four qualitatively different stages of intellectual growth.

placenta: The structure projecting from the wall of the uterus during pregnancy through which the developing baby absorbs nutrients.

plastic: Malleable, or capable of being changed (used to refer to neural or cognitive development).

positivity effect: The tendency for older people to focus on positive experiences and screen out negative events.

postconventional level of morality: In Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory, the highest level of moral reasoning, in which people respond to ethical issues by applying their own moral guidelines apart from society’s rules.

postformal thought: A uniquely adult form of intelligence that involves being sensitive to different perspectives, making decisions based on one’s inner feelings, and being interested in exploring new questions.

power assertion: An ineffective socialization strategy that involves yelling, screaming, or hitting out in frustration at a child.

practical intelligence: In Robert Sternberg’s framework on successful intelligence, the facet of intelligence involved in knowing how to act competently in real-world situations.

preattachment phase: The first phase of John Bowlby’s developmental attachment sequence, during the first three months of life, when infants show no visible signs of attachment.

preconventional level of morality: In Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory, the lowest level of moral reasoning, in which people approach ethical issues by considering the personal punishments or rewards of taking a particular action.

preferential-looking paradigm: A research technique to explore early infant sensory capacities and cognition, drawing on the principle that we are attracted to novelty and prefer to look at new things.

preoccupied/ambivalent insecure attachment: An excessively clingy, needy style of relating to loved ones.

preoperational thinking: In Piaget’s theory, the type of cognition characteristic of children aged 2 to 7, marked by an inability to step back from one’s immediate perceptions and think conceptually.

presbycusis: Age-related difficulty in hearing, particularly high-pitched tones, caused by the atrophy of the hearing receptors located in the inner ear.

presbyopia: Age-related midlife difficulty with near vision, caused by the inability of the lens to bend.

preschool: A teaching-oriented group setting for children aged 3 to 5.

primary attachment figure: The closest person in a child’s or adult’s life.

primary circular reactions: In Piaget’s framework, the first infant habits during the sensorimotor stage, centered on the body.

primary sexual characteristics: Physical changes of puberty that directly involve the organs of reproduction, such as the growth of the penis and the onset of menstruation.

private pensions: The major source of nongovernmental income support for U.S. retirees, in which the individual worker and employer put a portion of each paycheck into an account to help finance retirement.

proactive aggression: A hostile or destructive act initiated to achieve a goal.

procedural memory: In the memory-systems perspective, the most resilient (longest-lasting) type of memory; refers to material, such as well-learned physical skills, that we automatically recall without conscious awareness.

prosocial behavior: Sharing, helping, and caring actions.

proximity-seeking behavior: Acting to maintain physical contact or to be close to an attachment figure.

proximodistal sequence: The developmental principle that growth occurs from the most interior parts of the body outward.

puberty rite: A “coming of age” ritual, usually beginning at some event such as first menstruation, held in traditional cultures to celebrate children’s transition to adulthood.

puberty: The hormonal and physical changes by which children become sexually mature human beings and reach their adult height.

Q

qualitative research: Occasional developmental science data-collection strategy that involves interviewing people to obtain information which cannot be quantified on a numerical scale.

quantitative research: Standard developmental science data-collection strategy that involves testing groups of people and using numerical scales and statistics.

G-11

quickening: A pregnant woman’s first feeling of the fetus moving inside her body.

R

reaction time: The speed at which a person can respond to a stimulus. A progressive increase in reaction time is universal to aging.

reactive aggression: A hostile or destructive act carried out in response to being frustrated or hurt.

recessive disorder: An illness caused by inheriting two copies of the abnormal, disorder-causing gene.

redemption sequence: In Dan McAdams’s research, a characteristic theme of highly generative adults’ autobiographies, in which they describe tragic events that turned out for the best.

reflex: A response or action that is automatic and programmed by noncortical brain centers.

rehearsal: A learning strategy in which people repeat information to embed it in to memory.

reinforcement: Behavioral term for reward.

rejecting-neglecting parents: In the parenting-styles framework, the worst child-rearing approach, in which parents provide little discipline and little nurturing or love.

relational aggression: A hostile or destructive act designed to cause harm to a person’s relationships.

reliability: In measurement terminology, a basic criterion of a test’s accuracy wherein scores must be fairly similar when a person re-takes a test.

REM sleep: The phase of sleep involving rapid eye movements, when the EEG looks almost like it does during waking. REM sleep decreases as infants mature.

representative sample: A group that reflects the characteristics of the overall population.

resilient children: Children who rebound from serious early life traumas to construct successful adult lives.

reversibility: In Piaget’s conservation tasks, the concrete operational child’s knowledge that a specific change in the way a given substance looks can be reversed.

role: The characteristic behavior that is expected of a person in a particular social position, such as student, parent, married person, worker, or retiree.

role conflict: A situation in which a person is torn between two or more major responsibilities—for instance, parent and worker—and cannot do either job adequately.

role confusion: Erikson’s term for a failure in identity formation, marked by the lack of any sense of a future adult path.

role overload: A job situation that places so many requirements or demands on workers that it becomes impossible to do a good job.

role phase: In Murstein’s theory, the final mate-selection stage, in which committed partners work out their future life together.

rooting reflex: Newborns’ automatic response to a touch on the cheek, involving turning toward that location and beginning to suck.

rough-and-tumble play: Play that involves shoving, wrestling, and hitting, but in which no actual harm is intended; especially characteristic of boys.

ruminative moratorium: When a young person is unable to decide between different identities, becoming emotionally paralyzed and highly anxious.

S

scaffolding: The process of teaching new skills by entering a child’s zone of proximal development and tailoring one’s efforts to that person’s competence level.

school-to-work transition: The change from the schooling phase of life to the work world.

Seattle Longitudinal Study: The definitive study of the effect of aging on intelligence, led by K. Warner Schaie, involving simultaneously conducting and comparing the results of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies carried out with a group of Seattle volunteers.

secondary circular reactions: In Piaget’s framework, habits of the sensorimotor stage lasting from about 4 months of age to the baby’s first birthday, centered on exploring the external world.

secondary sexual characteristics: Physical changes of puberty that are not directly involved in reproduction.

secular trend in puberty: A century-long decline in the average age at which children reach puberty in the developed world.

secure attachment: Ideal attachment response when a child responds with joy at being united with a primary caregiver; in adulthood, the genuine intimacy that is ideal in love relationships.

secure (adult) attachment: The genuine intimacy that is ideal in love relationships.

selective attention: A learning strategy in which people manage their awareness so as to attend only to what is relevant and to filter out unneeded information.

selective optimization with compensation: Paul Baltes’s three principles for successful aging (and living): (1) selectively focusing on what is most important, (2) working harder to perform well in those top-ranking areas, and (3) relying on external aids to cope effectively.

G-12

self-awareness: The ability to observe our actions from an outside frame of reference and to reflect on our inner state.

self-conscious emotions: Feelings of pride, shame, or guilt, which first emerge around age 2 and show the capacity to reflect on the self.

self-efficacy: According to cognitive behaviorism, an internal belief in our competence that predicts whether we initiate activities or persist in the face of failures, and predicts the goals that we set.

self-esteem: Evaluating oneself as either “good” or “bad” as a result of comparing the self to other people.

self-report strategy: A measurement having people report on their feelings and activities through questionnaires.

self-soothing: Children’s ability, usually beginning at about 6 months of age, to put themselves back to sleep when they wake up during the night.

semantic memory: In the memory-systems perspective, a moderately resilient (long-lasting) type of memory; refers to our ability to recall basic facts.

semantics: The meaning system of a language—that is, what the words stand for.

senile plaques: Thick, bullet-like amyloid-laden structures that replace normal neurons and are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.

sensitive period: The time when a body structure is most vulnerable to damage by a teratogen, typically when that organ or process is rapidly developing or coming “on line.”

sensorimotor stage: Piaget’s first stage of cognitive development, lasting from birth to age 2, when babies’ agenda is to pin down the basics of physical reality.

separation anxiety: Signal of clear-cut attachment when a baby gets upset as a primary caregiver departs.

serial cohabitation: Living sequentially with different partners outside of marriage.

sex-linked single-gene disorder: An illness, carried on the mother’s X chromosome, that typically leaves the female offspring unaffected but has a fifty-fifty chance of striking each male child.

sexual double standard: A cultural code that gives men greater sexual freedom than women. Specifically, society expects males to want to have intercourse and expects females to remain virgins until they marry and be more interested in relationships than having sex.

shame: A feeling of being personally humiliated.

single-gene disorder: An illness caused by a single gene.

social-interactionist perspective: An approach to language development that emphasizes its social function, specifically that babies and adults have a mutual passion to communicate.

social clock: The concept suggesting that we regulate our passage through adulthood by an inner timetable telling us which activities are appropriate for certain ages.

social cognition: Any skill related to understanding feelings and negotiating interpersonal interactions.

socialization: The process by which children are taught to obey the norms of society and to behave in socially appropriate ways.

social networking sites: Internet sites whose goal is to forge personal connections between users.

social referencing: A baby’s checking back and monitoring a caregiver for cues as to how to behave while exploring; linked to clear-cut attachment.

Social Security: The U.S. government’s national retirement support program.

social smile: The first real smile, occurring at about 2 months of age.

socioeconomic health gap: The disparity, found in nations around the world, between the health of the rich and poor.

socioeconomic status (SES): A basic marker referring to status on the educational and—especially—income rungs.

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory: A theory of aging (and the lifespan) put forth by Laura Carstensen, describing how the time we have left to live affects our priorities and social relationships. Specifically in later life, people focus on the present and prioritize being with their closest attachment figures.

specific learning disorder: The label for any impairment in language or any deficit related to listening, thinking, speaking, reading, writing, spelling, or understanding mathematics.

spermarche: A boy’s first ejaculation of live sperm.

stimulus phase: In Murstein’s theory, the initial mate-selection stage, in which we make judgments about a potential partner based on external characteristics such as appearance.

Stimulus-Value-Role Theory: Murstein’s mate-selection theory suggest that similar people pair up and that our path to commitment progresses through three phases (called the stimulus, value-comparison, and role phases).

G-13

stranger anxiety: Beginning at about 7 months of age, when a baby grows wary of people other than a primary caregiver.

Strange Situation: Mary Ainsworth’s procedure to measure attachment at age 1, involving planned separations and reunions with a caregiver.

stunting: Excessively short stature in a child, caused by chronic lack of adequate nutrition.

“storm and stress”: G. Stanley Hall’s phrase for the intense moodiness, emotional sensitivity, and risk-taking tendencies that characterize the life stage which he labeled adolescence.

successful intelligence: In Robert Sternberg’s framework, the optimal form of cognition involving having a good balance of analytic, creative, and practical intelligence.

sucking reflex: The automatic, spontaneous sucking movements newborns produce, especially when anything touches their lips.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): The unexplained death of an apparently healthy infant, often while sleeping, during the first year of life.

swaddling: The standard Western infant calming technique of wrapping a baby tightly in a blanket or other garment.

sympathy: A state necessary for acting prosocially, involving feeling upset for a person who needs help.

synapse: The gap between the dendrites of one neuron and the axon of another, over which impulses flow.

synaptogenesis: Forming of connections between neurons at the synapses. This process, responsible for all perceptions, actions, and thoughts, is most intense during infancy and childhood but continues throughout life.

synchrony: The reciprocal aspect of the attachment relationship, with a caregiver and infant responding emotionally to each other in a sensitive, exquisitely attuned way.

syntax: The system of grammatical rules in a particular language.

T

telegraphic speech: First stage of combining words in infancy, in which a baby pares down a sentence to its essential words.

temperament: A person’s characteristic, inborn style of dealing with the world.

teratogen: A substance, such as alcohol, that crosses the placenta and harms the fetus.

terminal drop: A research phenomenon in which a dramatic decline in an older person’s scores on vocabulary tests and other measures of crystallized intelligence predicts having a terminal disease.

tertiary circular reactions: In Piaget’s framework, “little-scientist” activities of the sensorimotor stage, beginning around age 1, involving flexibly exploring the properties of objects.

testes: Male organs that manufacture sperm.

testosterone: The hormone responsible for the maturation of reproductive organs in men as well as hair and skin changes during puberty and for sexual desire in both sexes.

theory: Any perspective explaining why people act the way they do. Theories allow us to predict behavior and also suggest how to intervene to improve behavior.

theory of mind: Children’s first cognitive understanding, which appears at about age 4, that other people have different beliefs and perspectives from their own.

thin ideal: Media-driven cultural idea that females need to be abnormally thin.

toddlerhood: The important transitional stage after babyhood, from roughly 1 year to 2 1/2 years of age; defined by an intense attachment to caregivers and an urgent need to become independent.

traditional behaviorism: The original behavioral worldview that focused on charting and modifying only “objective,” visible behaviors.

traditional stable career: A career path in which people settle into their permanent life’s work in their twenties and often stay with the same organization until they retire.

Triangular Theory of Love: Robert Sternberg’s categorization of love relationships into three facets: passion, intimacy, and commitment. When arranged at the points of a triangle, their combinations describe all of the different kinds of adult love relationships.

trimester: One of the 3-month-long segments into which pregnancy is divided.

true experiment: The only research strategy that can determine that something causes something else; involves randomly assigning people to different treatments and then looking at the outcome.

twentieth-century life expectancy revolution: The dramatic increase in average life expectancy that occurred during the first half of the twentieth century in the developed world.

twin/adoption study: Behavioral genetic research strategy that involves comparing the similarities of identical twin pairs adopted into different families, to determine the genetic contribution to a given trait.

G-14

twin study: Behavioral genetic research strategy, designed to determine the genetic contribution of a given trait, and involves comparing identical twins with fraternal twins (or with other people).

U

U-shaped curve of marital satisfaction: The most common pathway of marital happiness in the West, in which satisfaction is highest at the honeymoon, declines during the child-rearing years, then rises after the children grow up.

ultrasound: In pregnancy, an image of the fetus in the womb that helps to date the pregnancy, assess the fetus’s growth, and identify abnormalities.

umbilical cord: The structure that attaches the placenta to the fetus, through which nutrients are passed and fetal wastes are removed.

underextension: An error in early language development in which young children apply verbal labels too narrowly.

undernutrition: A chronic lack of adequate food.

uterus: The pear-shaped muscular organ in a woman’s abdomen that houses a developing baby.

V

validity: In measurement terminology, a basic criterion for a test’s accuracy involving whether that measure reflects the real-world quality that it is supposed to measure.

value-comparison phase: In Murstein’s theory, the second mate-selection stage, in which we make judgments about a partner on the basis of similar values and interests.

vascular neurocognitive disorder (also known as vascular dementia): A type of age-related neurocognitive disorder caused by multiple small strokes.

very low birth weight (VLBW): A body weight at birth of less than 3 1/4 pounds.

visual cliff: A table that appears to “end” in a drop-off at its midpoint; used to test for infant depth perception.

W

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS): The standard test to measure adult IQ, involving verbal and performance scales, each of which is made up of various subtests.

widowhood mortality effect: The elevated risk of death among surviving spouses after being widowed.

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC): The standard intelligence test used in childhood, consisting of different scales composing a variety of subtests.

working memory: In information-processing theory, the limited-capacity gateway system containing all of the material that we can keep in awareness at a single moment. The material in this system is either processed for more permanent storage or lost.

working model: In Bowlby’s theory, the mental representation of a caregiver allowing children over age 3 to be physically apart from that primary attachment figure.

Y

young-old: People in their sixties and seventies.

youth development program: Any after-school program or structured activity outside of the school day that is devoted to promoting flourishing in teenagers.

Z

zone of proximal development (ZPD): In Vygotsky’s theory, the gap between a child’s ability to solve a problem totally on his own and his potential knowledge if taught by a more accomplished person.

zygote: A fertilized ovum.