Psychology glossary.

20 Cognitive development. terms

Hi, my name is Kain, and I have been studying Social Sciences - the Individual at Montmorency College for 2 years. This glossary is useful for people studying Psychology because these are terms related to the cognitive theory, which is one of the major theories in psychology and it was also talked about throughout my previous Psychology class.

accommodation: noun; The process of modifying a structure in order to assimilate new elements.
animism: noun; The attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects and natural phenomena.
assimilation: noun; Process integration of external elements to a given structure.
causality: noun; Causality, or causation, is the relation between an event and a second event, where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first.
centration: noun; The tendency to focus on only one aspect of a situation, problem or object.
child development: noun; Child development refers to the biological, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth ans the end of adolescence, as the individual progresses from dependency to increasing autonomy.
cognitive psychology: noun; The study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity and thinking.
conservation: noun; The ability to recognize that measurable physical characteristics of objects can be the same even when objects look different.
egocentrism: noun; An inability on the part of a child to see any point of view other than his or her own.
emotion: noun; An affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate is experienced.
hypothesis: noun; A testable prediction of hat is going to happen given a certain set of conditions.
ideal self: noun; An evolving construct which represents the goals ans aspirations of an individual.
language: noun; A system of symbols and rules used for meaningful communication.
object permanence: noun; The ability to recognize that an object exists even when the object is not present and not perceived.
prenatal development: noun; The process in which a human embryo or fetus gestates during pregnancy, from fertilization until birth.
preoperational stage: noun; A stage between the ages of 2 and 7 that is characterized by a difficulty taking the point of view of others.
reversibility: noun; The ability to reverse action mentally.
self awareness: noun; The capacity for introspection and the ability to recognize oneself as an individual separate from the environment ans other individuals.
sensory motor stage: noun; The first stage of Piaget's theory lasts from birth to approximately age two and is centered on the infant trying to make sense of the world.
symbolic thought: noun; The ability to represent objects in terms of mental symbols.