| accommodation | An adjustment of a schema to new information.
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| acculturative stress | The negative consequences that result from contact between two distinctive cultural groups.
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| active (niche-picking) genotype-environment correlations | Correlations that occur when children seek out environments that they find compatible and stimulating.
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| adaptive behavior | A modification of behavior that promotes an organism's survival in the natural habitat.
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| adolescence | The developmental period of transition from childhood to adulthood; it involves biological, cognitive, and socioemotional changes. Adolescence begins at approximately 10 to 13 years of age and ends in the late teens.
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| adolescent egocentrism | The heightened self-consciousness of adolescents, which is reflected in their belief that others are as interested in them as they themselves are, and in their sense of personal uniqueness and invulnerability.
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| adolescent generalization gap | Adelson's concept of generalizations being made about adolescents based on information regarding a limited, often highly visible group of adolescents.
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| adolescents who are gifted | Adolescents who have above-average intelligence (usually defined as an IQ of 130 or higher) and/or superior talent in some domain, such as art, music, or mathematics.
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| adoption study | A study in which investigators seek to discover whether the behavior and psychological characteristics of adopted children are more like their adoptive parents, who have provided a home environment, or more like those of their biological parents, who have contributed their heredity. Another form of adoption study involves comparing adopted and biological siblings.
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| adrenarche | Puberty phase involving hormonal changes in the adrenal glands, which are located just above the kidneys. These changes occur from about 6 to 9 years of age in girls and about one year later in boys, before what is generally considered the beginning of puberty.
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| affectionate love | Love in which an individual desires to have another person near and has a deep, caring affection for that person; also called companionate love.
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| AIDS | Stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome, a sexually transmitted infection caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which destroys the body's immune system.
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| altruism | Unselfish interest in helping another person.
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| amygdala | A portion of the brain's limbic system that is the seat of emotions such as anger.
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| anabolic steroids | Drugs derived from the male sex hormone testosterone. They promote muscle growth and increase lean body mass.
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| androgens | The main class of male sex hormones.
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| androgyny | The presence of a high degree of desirable feminine and masculine characteristics in the same individual.
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| anorexia nervosa | An eating disorder that involves the relentless pursuit of thinness through starvation.
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| anxiety | A vague, highly unpleasant feeling of fear and apprehension.
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| assimilation | The incorporation of new information into existing knowledge.
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| attention | Concentration and focusing of mental resources.
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| attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) | A disability in which children or adolescents consistently show one or more of the following characteristics over a period of time: (1) inattention, (2) hyperactivity, and (3) impulsivity.
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| attribution theory | The theory that in their effort to make sense of their own behavior or performance, individuals are motivated to discover its underlying causes.
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| authoritarian parenting | A restrictive, punitive style in which the parent exhorts the adolescent to follow the parent's directions and to respect work and effort. Firm limits and controls are placed on the adolescent, and little verbal exchange is allowed. This style is associated with adolescents' socially incompetent behavior.
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| authoritarian strategy of classroom management | A teaching strategy that is restrictive and punitive. The focus is mainly on keeping order in the classroom rather than on instruction and learning.
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| authoritative parenting | A style encouraging adolescents to be independent but still placing limits and controls on their actions. Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed, and parents are warm and nurturant toward the adolescent. This style is associated with adolescents' socially competent behavior.
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| authoritative strategy of classroom management | A teaching strategy that encourages students to be independent thinkers and doers but still involves effective monitoring. Authoritative teachers engage students in considerable verbal give-and-take and show a caring attitude toward them. However, they still set and enforce limits when necessary.
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| average children | Children who receive an average number of both positive and negative nominations from their peers.
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| behavior genetics | The field that seeks to discover the influence of heredity and environment on individual differences in human traits and development.
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| bicultural identity | Identity formation that occurs when adolescents identify in some ways with their ethnic group and in other ways with the majority culture.
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| Big Five factors of personality | Five core traits of personality: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (emotional stability).
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| binge eating disorder (BED) | Involves frequent binge eating without compensatory behavior like the purging that characterizes bulimics.
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| biological processes | Physical changes in an individual's body.
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| biopsychosocial approach | Approach that emphasizes that problems develop through an interaction of biological, psychological, and social factors.
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| bisexual | A person who is attracted to people of both sexes.
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| boundary ambiguity | The uncertainty in stepfamilies about who is in or out of the family and who is performing or responsible for certain tasks in the family system.
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| Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory | A theory focusing on the influence of five environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.
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| bulimia nervosa | An eating disorder in which the individual consistently follows a binge-and-purge eating pattern.
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| care perspective | The moral perspective of Carol Gilligan, which views people in terms of their connectedness with others and emphasizes interpersonal communication, relationships with others, and concern for others.
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| case study | An in-depth look at a single individual.
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| character education | A direct moral education approach that involves teaching students a basic moral literacy to prevent them from engaging in immoral behavior or doing harm to themselves or others.
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| chlamydia | One of the most common sexually transmitted infections, named for Chlamydia trachomatis, an organism that spreads by sexual contact and infects the genital organs of both sexes.
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| chromosomes | Threadlike structures that contain deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.
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| cliques | Small groups that range from 2 to about 12 individuals and average about 5 to 6 individuals. Members are usually of the same sex and are similar in age; cliques can form because of similar interests, such as sports, and also can form purely from friendship.
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| cognitive control | Involves effective control and flexible thinking in a number of areas, including controlling attention, reducing interfering thoughts, and being cognitively flexible.
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| cognitive moral education | An approach based on the belief that students should learn to value things like democracy and justice as their moral reasoning develops; Kohlberg's theory has been the basis for many of the cognitive moral education approaches.
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| cognitive processes | Changes in an individual's thinking and intelligence.
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| cohabitation | Living together in a sexual relationship without being married.
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| cohort effects | Characteristics related to a person's date of birth, era, or generation rather than to his or her actual chronological age.
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| collectivism | Emphasizes values that serve the group by subordinating personal goals to preserve group integrity.
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| commitment | The part of identity development in which adolescents show a personal investment in what they are going to do.
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| concrete operational stage | Piaget's third stage, which lasts approximately from 7 to 11 years of age. In this stage, children can perform operations. Logical reasoning replaces intuitive thought as long as the reasoning can be applied to specific or concrete examples.
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| conduct disorder | The psychiatric diagnostic category for the occurrence of multiple delinquent activities over a six-month period. These behaviors include truancy, running away, fire setting, cruelty to animals, breaking and entering, and excessive fighting.
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| conglomerate strategies | The use of a combination of techniques, rather than a single approach, to improve adolescents' social skills; also called coaching.
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| connectedness | An important element in adolescent identity development. It consists of two dimensions: mutuality, sensitivity to and respect for others' views; and permeability, openness to others' views.
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| conscience | The component of the superego that involves behaviors disapproved of by parents.
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| constructivist approach | A learner-centered approach that emphasizes the adolescent's active, cognitive construction of knowledge and understanding with guidance from the teacher.
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| contexts | The settings in which development occurs. These settings are influenced by historical, economic, social, and cultural factors.
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| continuity-discontinuity issue | Issue regarding whether development involves gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).
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| controversial children | Children who are frequently nominated both as a best friend and as being disliked.
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| conventional reasoning | The second, or intermediate, level in Kohlberg's theory. Individuals abide by certain standards (internal), but they are the standards of others (external), such as parents or the laws of society. The conventional level consists of two stages: mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal conformity (stage 3) and social systems morality (stage 4).
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| convergent thinking | A pattern of thinking in which individuals produce one correct answer; characteristic of the items on conventional intelligence tests; coined by Guilford.
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| coping | Managing taxing circumstances, expending effort to solve life's problems, and seeking to master or reduce stress.
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| corpus callosum | A large bundle of axon fibers that connect the brain's left and right hemispheres.
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| correlation coefficient | A number based on a statistical analysis that is used to describe the degree of association between two variables.
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| correlational research | Research whose goal is to describe the strength of the relationship between two or more events or characteristics.
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| creativity | The ability to think in novel and unusual ways and discover unique solutions to problems.
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| crisis | A period of identity development during which the adolescent is choosing among meaningful alternatives.
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| critical thinking | Thinking reflectively and productively and evaluating the evidence.
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| cross-cultural studies | Studies that compare a culture with one or more other cultures. Such studies provide information about the degree to which development in adolescents and emerging adults is similar, or universal, across cultures, or about the degree to which it is culture-specific.
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| cross-sectional research | A research strategy that involves studying different people of varying ages all at one time.
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| crowds | A larger group structure than cliques. Adolescents are usually members of a crowd based on reputation and may or may not spend much time together.
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| culture | The behavior, patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a particular group of people that are passed on from generation to generation.
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| date rape, or acquaintance rape | Coercive sexual activity directed at someone whom the perpetrator knows.
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| dating scripts | The cognitive models that adolescents and adults use to guide and evaluate dating interactions.
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| dependent variable | The factor that is measured in experimental research.
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| depressants | Drugs that slow down the central nervous system, bodily functions, and behavior.
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| descriptive research | Research that aims to observe and record behavior.
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| development | The pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the life span. Most development involves growth, although it also includes decay (as in death and dying).
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| developmental cascades | A developmental psychopathology approach that emphasizes connections across domains over time to influence developmental pathways and outcomes
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| developmental psychopathology approach | Approach that focuses on describing and exploring the developmental pathways of problems.
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| difficult child | A child who reacts negatively to many situations and is slow to accept new experiences.
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| direct instruction approach | A teacher-centered approach characterized by teacher direction and control, mastery of academic skills, high expectations for students, and maximum time spent on learning tasks.
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| dismissing/avoidant attachment | An insecure attachment category in which individuals deemphasize the importance of attachment. This category is associated with consistent experiences of rejection of attachment needs by caregivers.
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| divergent thinking | A pattern of thinking in which individuals produce many answers to the same question; more characteristic of creativity than convergent thinking; coined by Guilford.
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| divided attention | Concentrating on more than one activity at the same time.
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| DNA | A complex molecule that contains genetic information.
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| domain theory of moral development | Theory that identifies different domains of social knowledge and reasoning, including moral, social conventional, and personal domains. These domains arise from children's and adolescents' attempts to understand and deal with different forms of social experience.
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| dual-process model | States that decision making is influenced by two systems—one analytical and one experiential, which compete with each other; in this model, it is the experiential system—monitoring and managing actual experiences—that benefits adolescent decision making.
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| early adolescence | The developmental period that corresponds roughly to the middle school or junior high school years and includes most pubertal change.
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| early adulthood | The developmental period beginning in the late teens or early twenties and lasting through the thirties.
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| early childhood | The developmental period extending from the end of infancy to about 5 or 6 years of age; sometimes called the preschool years.
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| early-later experience issue | Issue focusing on the degree to which early experiences (especially early in childhood) or later experiences are the key determinants of development.
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| easy child | A child who generally is in a positive mood, quickly establishes regular routines, and adapts easily to new experiences.
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| eclectic theoretical orientation | An orientation that does not follow any one theoretical approach but rather selects from each theory whatever is considered the best in it.
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| ego ideal | The component of the superego that involves ideal standards approved by parents.
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| emerging adulthood | The developmental period occurring from approximately 18 to 25 years of age; this transitional period between adolescence and adulthood is characterized by experimentation and exploration.
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| emotion | Feeling, or affect, that occurs when a person is in a state or an interaction that is important to the individual, especially to his or her well-being.
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| emotion-focused coping | Lazarus' term for responding to stress in an emotional manner, especially by using defense mechanisms.
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| emotional autonomy | The capacity to relinquish childlike dependence on parents.
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| emotional intelligence | The ability to perceive and express emotion accurately and adaptively, to understand emotion and emotional knowledge, to use feelings to facilitate thought, and to manage emotions in oneself and others.
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| empathy | Reaction to another's feelings with an emotional response that is similar to the other's feelings.
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| epigenetic view | Belief that development is the result of an ongoing bidirectional interchange between heredity and environment.
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| equilibration | A mechanism in Piaget's theory that explains how individuals shift from one state of thought to the next. The shift occurs as individuals experience cognitive conflict or a disequilibrium in trying to understand the world. Eventually, the individual resolves the conflict and reaches a balance, or equilibrium, of thought.
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| Erikson's theory | Theory that includes eight stages of human development. Each stage consists of a unique developmental task that confronts individuals with a crisis that must be faced.
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| estrogens | The main class of female sex hormones.
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| ethnic gloss | Use of an ethnic label such as African American or Latino in a superficial way that portrays an ethnic group as being more homogeneous than it really is.
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| ethnic identity | An enduring, basic aspect of the self that includes a sense of membership in an ethnic group and the attitudes and feelings related to that membership.
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| ethnicity | A dimension of culture based on cultural heritage, national characteristics, race, religion, and language.
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| ethnocentrism | A tendency to favor one's own group over other groups.
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| evocative genotype-environment correlations | Correlations that occur because an adolescent's genetically shaped characteristics elicit certain types of physical and social environments.
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| evolutionary psychology | An approach that emphasizes the importance of adaptation, reproduction, and "survival of the fittest" in explaining behavior.
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| executive attention | Type of attention that involves planning actions, allocating attention to goals, detecting and compensating for errors, monitoring progress on tasks, and dealing with novel or difficult circumstances.
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| executive function | An umbrella-like concept that involves higher-order, complex cognitive processes that include exercising cognitive control, making decisions, reasoning, thinking critically, thinking creatively, and metacognition.
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| experience sampling method (ESM) | Research method that involves providing participants with electronic pagers and then beeping them at random times, at which point they are asked to report on various aspects of their lives.
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| experimental research | Research that involves an experiment, a carefully regulated procedure in which one or more of the factors believed to influence the behavior being studied are manipulated while all other factors are held constant.
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| externalizing problems | Behavior that occurs when individuals turn problems outward. An example is juvenile delinquency.
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| extrinsic motivation | External motivational factors such as rewards and punishments.
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| female athlete triad | A combination of disordered eating, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis that may develop in female adolescents and college students.
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| feminization of poverty | Term reflecting the fact that far more women than men live in poverty. Likely causes include women's low income, divorce, and the resolution of divorce cases by the judicial system, which leaves women with less money than they and their children need to function adequately.
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| flow | Csikszentmihalyi's concept of optimal life experiences, which he believes occur most often when people develop a sense of mastery and are absorbed in a state of concentration when they're engaged in an activity.
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| forgiveness | An aspect of prosocial behavior that occurs when an injured person releases the injurer from possible behavioral retaliation.
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| formal operational stage | Piaget's fourth and final stage of cognitive development, which he argued emerges at 11 to 15 years of age. It is characterized by abstract, idealistic, and logical thought.
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| friends | A subset of peers who engage in mutual companionship, support, and intimacy.
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| gender bias | A preconceived notion about the abilities of females and males that prevents individuals from pursuing their own interests and achieving their potential.
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| gender | The characteristics of people as males or females.
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| gender intensification hypothesis | Hypothesis stating that psychological and behavioral differences between boys and girls become greater during early adolescence because of increased socialization pressure to conform to masculine and feminine gender roles.
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| gender role | A set of expectations that prescribes how females and males should think, act, and feel.
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| gender schema theory | Theory stating that an individual's attention and behavior are guided by an internal motivation to conform to gender-based sociocultural standards and stereotypes. Females are often portrayed in sexually provocative ways on MTV and in rock videos.
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| gender stereotypes | Broad categories that reflect our impressions and beliefs about females and males.
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| gender-role transcendence | The belief that, when an individual's competence is at issue, it should be conceptualized not on the basis of masculinity, femininity, or androgyny but on a person basis.
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| genes | The units of hereditary information, which are short segments composed of DNA.
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| gene X environment (G X E) interaction | The interaction of a specific measured variation in the DNA and a specific measured aspect of the environment.
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| genital herpes | A sexually transmitted infection caused by a large family of viruses of different strains. These strains produce other, nonsexually transmitted diseases such as chicken pox and mononucleosis.
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| genital warts | An STI caused by the human papillomavirus; genital warts are very contagious and are the most commonly acquired STI in the United States in the 15- to 24-year-old age group.
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| genotype | A person's genetic heritage; the actual genetic material.
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| gonadarche | Puberty phase involving the maturation of primary sexual characteristics (ovaries in females, testes in males) and secondary sexual characteristics (pubic hair, breast and genital development). This period follows adrenarche by about two years and is what most people think of as puberty.
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| gonorrhea | A sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which thrives in the moist mucous membranes lining the mouth, throat, vagina, cervix, urethra, and anal tract. This STI is commonly called the "drip" or the "clap."
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| goodness of fit | The match between an individual's temperament style and the environmental demands faced by the individual.
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| gratitude | A feeling of thankfulness and appreciation, especially in response to someone doing something kind or helpful.
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| hallucinogens | Drugs that alter an individual's perceptual experiences and produce hallucinations; also called psychedelic (mind-altering) drugs.
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| helpless orientation | An outlook in which individuals seem trapped when experiencing difficulty and attribute their difficulty to a lack of ability. This orientation undermines performance.
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| hidden curriculum | The pervasive moral atmosphere that characterizes every school.
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| homophobia | Irrational negative feelings against individuals who have same-sex attractions.
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| hormones | Powerful chemicals secreted by the endocrine glands and carried through the body by the bloodstream.
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| hostile environment sexual harassment | Sexual harassment in which students are subjected to unwelcome sexual conduct that is so severe, persistent, or pervasive that it limits the students' ability to benefit from their education.
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| hypotheses | Specific assertions and predictions that can be tested.
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| hypothetical-deductive reasoning | Piaget's term for adolescents' ability, in the formal operational stage, to develop hypotheses, or best guesses, about ways to solve problems; they then systematically deduce, or conclude, the best path to follow in solving the problem.
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| identity | Who a person believes he or she is, representing a synthesis and integration of self-understanding.
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| identity achievement | Marcia's term for an adolescent who has undergone an identity crisis and made a commitment.
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| identity diffusion | Marcia's term for the state adolescents are in when they have not yet experienced an identity crisis or made any commitments.
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| identity foreclosure | Marcia's term for the state adolescents are in when they have made a commitment but have not experienced an identity crisis.
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| identity moratorium | Marcia's term for the state of adolescents who are in the midst of an identity crisis but who have not made a clear commitment to an identity.
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| identity versus identity confusion | Erikson's fifth developmental stage, which occurs during adolescence. At this time, individuals are faced with deciding who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life.
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| inclusion | Educating a child or adolescent with special educational needs full-time in the regular classroom.
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| independent variable | The factor that is manipulated in experimental research.
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| index offenses | Acts such as robbery, rape, and homicide that are crimes regardless of whether they are committed by juveniles or adults.
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| individualism | Emphasizes values that serve the self and gives priority to personal goals rather than group goals.
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| individuality | An important element in adolescent identity development. It consists of two dimensions: self-assertion, the ability to have and communicate a point of view; and separateness, the use of communication patterns to express how one is different from others.
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| Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) | Federal legislation spelling out broad mandates for providing educational services to all children and adolescents with disabilities. These include evaluation and eligibility determination, appropriate education and an individualized education plan (IEP), and education in the least restrictive environment.
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| induction | A discipline technique in which a parent uses reason and explains how the adolescent's actions affect others.
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| indulgent parenting | A style in which parents are highly involved with their adolescents but place few demands or controls on them. This is associated with adolescents' social incompetence, especially a lack of self-control.
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| infancy | The developmental period that extends from birth to 18 or 24 months of age.
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| information-processing theory | A theory emphasizing that individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it. Central to this approach are the processes of memory and thinking.
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| insecure attachment | Attachment pattern in which infants either avoid the caregiver or show considerable resistance or ambivalence toward the caregiver. This pattern is theorized to be related to difficulties in relationships and problems in later development.
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| intelligence | The ability to solve problems and to adapt to and learn from everyday experiences; not everyone agrees on what constitutes intelligence.
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| intelligent quotient (IQ) | A person's tested mental age divided by chronological age, multiplied by 100.
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| internalizing problems | Emotional conditions that develop when individuals turn problems inward. Examples include anxiety and depression.
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| Internet | The core of computer-mediated communication. The Internet system is worldwide and connects thousands of computer networks, providing an incredible array of information—both positive and negative—that adolescents can access.
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| intimacy in friendship | In most research studies, this concept is defined narrowly as self-disclosure, or sharing of private thoughts.
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| intimacy versus isolation | Erikson's sixth developmental stage, which individuals experience during the early adulthood years. At this time, individuals face the developmental task of forming intimate relationships with others.
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| intrinsic motivation | Internal motivational factors such as self-determination, curiosity, challenge, and effort.
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| inventionist view | The view that adolescence is a sociohistorical creation. Especially important in this view are the sociohistorical circumstances at the beginning of the twentieth century, a time when legislation was enacted that ensured the dependency of youth and made their move into the economic sphere more manageable.
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| jigsaw classroom | A classroom strategy in which students from different cultural backgrounds are placed in a cooperative group in which, together, they have to construct different parts of a project to reach a common goal.
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| justice perspective | A moral perspective that focuses on the rights of the individual. Individuals make moral decisions independently.
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| juvenile delinquency | A broad range of behaviors, including socially unacceptable behavior, status offenses, and criminal acts.
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| laboratory | A controlled setting in which many of the complex factors of the "real world" are removed.
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| late adolescence | The developmental period that corresponds approximately to the latter half of the second decade of life. Career interests, dating, and identity exploration are often more pronounced in late adolescence than in early adolescence.
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| late adulthood | The developmental period that lasts from about 60 to 70 years of age until death.
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| learning disabilities | Disabilities in which children experience difficulty in learning that involves understanding or using spoken or written language; the difficulty can appear in listening, thinking, reading, writing, and spelling. A learning disability also may involve difficulty in doing mathematics. To be classified as a learning disability, the learning problem is not primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities; intellectual disability; emotional disorders; or environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
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| least restrictive environment (LRE) | A setting that is as similar as possible to the one in which children or adolescents without a disability are educated; under the IDEA, efforts to educate the child or adolescent with a disability in this setting have been given a legal basis.
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| limbic system | A lower, subcortical system in the brain that is the seat of emotions and experience of rewards.
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| longitudinal research | A research strategy in which the same individuals are studied over a period of time, usually several years or more.
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| love withdrawal | A discipline technique in which a parent withholds attention or love from the adolescent.
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| major depressive disorder | The diagnosis when an individual experiences a major depressive episode and depressed characteristics, such as lethargy and depression, for two weeks or longer and daily functioning becomes impaired.
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| mastery orientation | An outlook in which individuals focus on the task rather than on their ability; they concentrate on learning strategies and the process of achievement instead of the outcome.
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| menarche | A girl's first menstrual period.
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| mental age (MA) | An individual's level of mental development relative to others; a concept developed by Binet.
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| mentors | Individuals who are usually older and more experienced and are motivated to improve the competence and character of a younger person.
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| metacognition | Cognition about cognition, or "knowing about knowing."
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| middle adulthood | The developmental period that is entered at about 35 to 45 years of age and exited at about 55 to 65 years of age.
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| middle and late childhood | The developmental period extending from about 6 to about 10 or 11 years of age; sometimes called the elementary school years.
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| Millennials | The generation born after 1980, the first to come of age and enter emerging adulthood in the new millennium. Two characteristics of Millennials stand out: (1) their ethnic diversity, and (2) their connection to technology.
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| mindset | The cognitive view, either fixed or growth, that individuals develop for themselves.
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| moral development | Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regarding standards of right and wrong.
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| moral exemplars | People who have lived exemplary lives.
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| moral identity | An aspect of personality that is present when individuals have moral notions and commitments that are central to their lives.
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| multicultural education | Education that values diversity and includes the perspectives of a variety of cultural groups.
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| multiple developmental trajectories | Concept that adults follow one trajectory and children and adolescents another one; how these trajectories mesh is important.
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| myelination | The process by which the axon portion of the neuron becomes covered and insulated with a layer of fat cells, which increases the speed and efficiency of information processing in the nervous system.
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| narcissism | A self-centered and self-concerned approach toward others.
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| naturalistic observation | Observation of behavior in real-world settings.
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| nature-nurture issue | Issue involving the debate about whether development is primarily influenced by an organism's biological inheritance (nature) or by its environmental experiences (nurture).
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| neglected children | Children who are infrequently nominated as a best friend but are not disliked by their peers.
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| neglectful parenting | A style in which the parent is very uninvolved in the adolescent's life. It is associated with adolescents' social incompetence, especially a lack of self-control.
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| neo-Piagetians | Theorists who argue that Piaget got some things right but that his theory needs considerable revision. In their revision, they give more emphasis to information processing that involves attention, memory, and strategies; they also seek to provide more precise explanations of cognitive changes.
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| neuroconstructivist view | Developmental perspective in which biological processes and environmental conditions influence the brain's development; the brain has plasticity and is context dependent; and cognitive development is closely linked with brain development.
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| neurons | Nerve cells, which are the nervous system's basic units.
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| nonshared environmental experiences | The adolescent's own unique experiences, both within a family and outside the family, that are not shared by a sibling.
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| normal distribution | A symmetrical distribution of values or scores, with a majority of scores falling in the middle of the possible range of scores and few scores appearing toward the extremes of the range.
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| optimism | Involves having a positive outlook on the future and minimizing problems.
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| passive genotype-environment correlations | Correlations that occur because biological parents, who are genetically related to the child, provide a rearing environment for the child.
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| peers | Individuals who are about the same age or maturity level.
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| performance orientation | An outlook in which individuals are focused on winning rather than their achievement outcome. For performance-oriented students, winning results in happiness.
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| permissive strategy of classroom management | A teaching strategy that offers students considerable autonomy but provides them with little support for developing learning skills or managing their behavior.
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| personality | The enduring personal characteristics of individuals.
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| perspective taking | The ability to assume another person's perspective and understand his or her thoughts and feelings.
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| phenotype | The way an individual's genotype is expressed in observed and measurable characteristics.
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| Piaget's theory | A theory stating that children actively construct their understanding of the world and go through four stages of cognitive development.
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| popular children | Children who are frequently nominated as a best friend and are rarely disliked by their peers.
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| possible self | What individuals might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming.
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| postconventional reasoning | The third and highest level in Kohlberg's theory. At this level, morality is more internal. The postconventional level consists of two stages: social contract or utility and individual rights (stage 5) and universal ethical principles (stage 6).
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| postformal thought | Thought that is reflective, relativistic, and contextual; provisional; realistic; and open to emotions and subjective.
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| power assertion | A discipline technique in which a parent attempts to gain control over the adolescent or the adolescent's resources.
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| precocious puberty | The very early onset and rapid progression of puberty.
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| preconventional reasoning | The lowest level in Kohlberg's theory of moral development. At this level, morality is often focused on reward and punishment. The two stages in preconventional reasoning are punishment and obedience orientation (stage 1) and individualism, instrumental purpose, and exchange (stage 2).
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| prefrontal cortex | The highest level of the brain's frontal lobes that is involved in reasoning, decision making, and self-control.
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| prejudice | An unjustified negative attitude toward an individual because of the individual's membership in a group.
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| prenatal period | The time from conception to birth.
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| preoccupied/ambivalent attachment | An insecure attachment category in which adolescents are hyperattuned to attachment experiences. This is thought mainly to occur because parents are inconsistently available to the adolescent.
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| preoperational stage | Piaget's second stage, which lasts approximately from 2 to 7 years of age. In this stage, children begin to represent their world with words, images, and drawings.
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| problem-focused coping | Lazarus' term for the strategy of squarely facing one's troubles and trying to solve them.
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| psychoanalytic theories | Theories that describe development as primarily unconscious and heavily colored by emotion. Behavior is merely a surface characteristic, and the symbolic workings of the mind have to be analyzed to understand behavior. Early experiences with parents are emphasized.
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| psychometric/intelligence view | A view that emphasizes the importance of individual differences in intelligence; many advocates of this view also argue that intelligence should be assessed with intelligence tests.
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| psychosocial moratorium | Erikson's term for the gap between childhood security and adult autonomy that adolescents experience as part of their identity exploration.
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| puberty | A brain-neuroendocrine process occurring primarily in early adolescence that provides stimulation for the rapid physical changes that accompany this period of development.
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| Public Law 94-142 | The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, which requires all students with disabilities to be given a free, appropriate public education.
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| quid pro quo sexual harassment | Sexual harassment in which a school employee threatens to base an educational decision (such as a grade) on a student's submission to unwelcome sexual conduct.
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| rape | Forcible sexual intercourse with a person who does not give consent.
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| rapport talk | The language of conversation, establishing connections and negotiating relationships.
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| reciprocal socialization | The process by which children and adolescents socialize parents, just as parents socialize them.
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| rejected children | Children who are infrequently nominated as a best friend and are actively disliked by their peers.
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| religion | An organized set of beliefs, practices, rituals, and symbols that increases an individual's connection to a sacred or transcendent other (God, higher power, or higher truth).
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| religiousness | The degree of affiliation with an organized religion, participation in prescribed rituals and practices, connection with its beliefs, and involvement in a community of believers.
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| report talk | Talk that gives information; public speaking is an example.
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| resilience | Adapting positively and achieving successful outcomes in the face of significant risks and adverse circumstances.
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| rites of passage | Ceremonies or rituals that mark an individual's transition from one status to another, such as the entry into adulthood.
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| romantic love | Love that has strong sexual and infatuation components; also called passionate love or eros. It often predominates in the early part of a love relationship.
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| schema | A mental concept or framework that is useful in organizing and interpreting information.
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| secular trends | Patterns of the onset of puberty over historical time, especially across generations.
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| secure attachment | Attachment pattern in which infants use their primary caregiver, usually the mother, as a secure base from which to explore the environment. Secure attachment is theorized to be an important foundation for psychological development later in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
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| selective attention | Focusing on a specific aspect of experience that is relevant while ignoring others that are irrelevant.
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| self | All of the characteristics of a person.
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| self-concept | Domain-specific evaluations of the self.
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| self-efficacy | The belief that one can master a situation and produce positive outcomes.
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| self-esteem | The global evaluative dimension of the self; also referred to as self-worth or self-image.
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| self-handicapping | Use of failure avoidance strategies such as not trying in school or putting off studying until the last minute so that circumstances, rather than a lack of ability, will be seen as the cause of low-level performance.
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| self-understanding | The individual's cognitive representation of the self; the substance and content of self-conceptions.
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| sensorimotor stage | Piaget's first stage of development, lasting from birth to about 2 years of age. In this stage, infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical, motoric actions.
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| service learning | A form of education that promotes social responsibility and service to the community.
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| sexual minority | Someone who self-identifies as lesbian, gay, or bisexual.
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| sexual script | A stereotyped pattern of role prescriptions for how individuals should behave in sexual contexts. Females and males have been socialized to follow different sexual scripts.
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| sexually transmitted infections (STIs) | Infections that are contracted primarily through sexual contact. This contact is not limited to vaginal intercourse but includes oral-genital contact and anal-genital contact as well.
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| shared environmental experiences | Siblings' common experiences such as their parents' personalities and intellectual orientation, the family's socioeconomic status, and the neighborhood in which they live.
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| slow-to-warm-up child | A child who has a low activity level, is somewhat negative, and displays a low intensity of mood.
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| social cognition | The way individuals conceptualize and reason about their social worlds—the people they watch and interact with, their relationships with those people, the groups they participate in, and the way they reason about themselves and others.
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| social cognitive theory | The view that behavior, environment, and person/cognition are the key factors in development.
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| social cognitive theory of gender | Theory emphasizing that children's and adolescents' gender development occurs through observation and imitation of gender behavior, and through rewards and punishments they experience for gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate behavior.
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| social cognitive theory of moral development | The theory that distinguishes between moral competence (the ability to produce moral behaviors) and moral performance (enacting those behaviors in specific situations).
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| social constructivist approach | Approach that emphasizes the social contexts of learning and the construction of knowledge through social interaction.
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| social conventional reasoning | Thoughts about social consensus and convention, as opposed to moral reasoning that stresses ethical issues.
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| social policy | A national government's course of action designed to influence the welfare of its citizens.
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| social role theory | Theory stating that gender differences mainly result from the contrasting roles of females and males, with females having less power and status and controlling fewer resources than males.
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| socioeconomic status (SES) | Refers to a grouping of people with similar occupational, educational, and economic characteristics.
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| socioemotional processes | Changes in an individual's personality, emotions, relationships with other people, and social contexts.
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| sociometric status | The extent to which children and adolescents are liked or disliked by their peer group.
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| spermarche | A boy's first ejaculation of semen.
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| spirituality | Experiencing something beyond oneself in a transcendent manner and living in a way that benefits others and society.
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| standardized test | A test with uniform procedures for administration and scoring. Many standardized tests allow a person's performance to be compared with the performance of other individuals.
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| status offenses | Juvenile offenses, performed by youth under a specified age, that are not as serious as index offenses. These offenses may include acts such as underage drinking, truancy, and sexual promiscuity.
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| stereotype | A generalization that reflects our impressions and beliefs about a broad group of people. All stereotypes refer to an image of what the typical member of a specific group is like.
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| stimulants | Drugs that increase the activity of the central nervous system.
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| storm-and-stress view | G. Stanley Hall's concept that adolescence is a turbulent time charged with conflict and mood swings.
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| stress | The response of individuals to stressors, which are circumstances and events that threaten and tax their coping abilities.
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| sustained attention | The ability to maintain attention to a selected stimulus for a prolonged period of time.
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| synapses | Gaps between neurons, where connections between the axon and dendrites occur.
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| syphilis | A sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum, a spirochete.
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| temperament | An individual's behavioral style and characteristic way of responding.
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| theory | An interrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps explain phenomena and make predictions.
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| top-dog phenomenon | The circumstance of moving from the top position (in elementary school, the oldest, biggest, and most powerful students) to the lowest position (in middle or junior high school, the youngest, smallest, and least powerful students).
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| triarchic theory of intelligence | Sternberg's view that intelligence comes in three main forms: analytical, creative, and practical.
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| twin study | A study in which the behavioral similarity of identical twins is compared with the behavioral similarity of fraternal twins.
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| unresolved/disorganized attachment | An insecure category in which the adolescent has an unusually high level of fear and is disoriented. This can result from traumatic experiences such as a parent's death or abuse by parents.
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| values | Beliefs and attitudes about the way things should be.
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| values clarification | An educational approach that focuses on helping people clarify what is important to them, what is worth working for, and their purpose in life. Students are encouraged to define their own values and understand others' values.
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| Vygotsky's theory | A sociocultural cognitive theory that emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide cognitive development.
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| wisdom | Expert knowledge about the practical aspects of life that permits excellent judgment about important matters.
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| zone of proximal development (ZPD) | Vygotsky's concept that refers to the range of tasks that are too difficult for an individual to master alone, but that can be mastered with the guidance or assistance of adults or more-skilled peers.
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