A characteristic that reflects a genetic liability for disease and a more basic component of a complex clinical presentation. Endophenotypes are less developmentally malleable than overt behavior.

Event-related potentials (ERP)

Measures the firing of groups of neurons in the cortex. As a person views or listens to specific types of information, neuronal activity creates small electrical currents that can be recorded from non-invasive sensors placed on the scalp. ERP provides excellent information about the timing of processing, clarifying brain activity at the millisecond pace at which it unfolds.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Entails the use of powerful magnets to measure the levels of oxygen within the brain that vary with changes in neural activity. That is, as the neurons in specific brain regions “work harder” when performing a specific task, they require more oxygen. By having people listen to or view social percepts in an MRI scanner, fMRI specifies the brain regions that evidence a relative increase in blood flow. In this way, fMRI provides excellent spatial information, pinpointing with millimeter accuracy, the brain regions most critical for different social processes.

Social brain

The set of neuroanatomical structures that allows us to understand the actions and intentions of other people.

Authoritative

A parenting style characterized by high (but reasonable) expectations for children’s behavior, good communication, warmth and nurturance, and the use of reasoning (rather than coercion) as preferred responses to children’s misbehavior.

Conscience

The cognitive, emotional, and social influences that cause young children to create and act consistently with internal standards of conduct.

Effortful control

A temperament quality that enables children to be more successful in motivated self-regulation.

Family Stress Model

A description of the negative effects of family financial difficulty on child adjustment through the effects of economic stress on parents’ depressed mood, increased marital problems, and poor parenting.

Gender schemas

Organized beliefs and expectations about maleness and femaleness that guide children’s thinking about gender.

Goodness of fit

The match or synchrony between a child’s temperament and characteristics of parental care that contributes to positive or negative personality development. A good “fit” means that parents have accommodated to the child’s temperamental attributes, and this contributes to positive personality growth and better adjustment.

Security of attachment

An infant’s confidence in the sensitivity and responsiveness of a caregiver, especially when he or she is needed. Infants can be securely attached or insecurely attached.

Social referencing

The process by which one individual consults another’s emotional expressions to determine how to evaluate and respond to circumstances that are ambiguous or uncertain.

Temperament

Early emerging differences in reactivity and self-regulation, which constitutes a foundation for personality development

Theory of mind

Children’s growing understanding of the mental states that affect people’s behavior.

Authoritative

Conscience

The cognitive, emotional, and social influences that cause young children to create and act consistently with internal standards of conduct.

Effortful control

A temperament quality that enables children to be more successful in motivated self-regulation.

Family Stress Model

Cultural display rules

These are rules that are learned early in life that specify the management and modification of emotional expressions according to social circumstances. Cultural display rules can work in a number of different ways. For example, they can require individuals to express emotions “as is” (i.e., as they feel them), to exaggerate their expressions to show more than what is actually felt, to tone down their expressions to show less than what is actually felt, to conceal their feelings by expressing something else, or to show nothing at all.

Interpersonal

This refers to the relationship or interaction between two or more individuals in a group. Thus, the interpersonal functions of emotion refer to the effects of one’s emotion on others, or to the relationship between oneself and others.

Intrapersonal

This refers to what occurs within oneself. Thus, the intrapersonal functions of emotion refer to the effects of emotion to individuals that occur physically inside their bodies and psychologically inside their minds.

Social and cultural

Society refers to a system of relationships between individuals and groups of individuals; culture refers to the meaning and information afforded to that system that is transmitted across generations. Thus, the social and cultural functions of emotion refer to the effects that emotions have on the functioning and maintenance of societies and cultures.

Social referencing

This refers to the process whereby individuals look for information from others to clarify a situation, and then use that information to act. Thus, individuals will often use the emotional expressions of others as a source of information to make decisions about their own behavior.

Attachment behavioral system

A motivational system selected over the course of evolution to maintain proximity between a young child and his or her primary attachment figure.

Attachment behaviors

Behaviors and signals that attract the attention of a primary attachment figure and function to prevent separation from that individual or to reestablish proximity to that individual (e.g., crying, clinging).

Attachment figure

Someone who functions as the primary safe haven and secure base for an individual. In childhood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a parent. In adulthood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a romantic partner.

Attachment patterns

(also called “attachment styles” or “attachment orientations”) Individual differences in how securely (vs. insecurely) people think, feel, and behave in attachment relationships

Strange situation

A laboratory task that involves briefly separating and reuniting infants and their primary caregivers as a way of studying individual differences in attachment behavior.

Crowds

Adolescent peer groups characterized by shared reputations or images.

Deviant peer contagion

The spread of problem behaviors within groups of adolescents.

Differential susceptibility

Genetic factors that make individuals more or less responsive to environmental experiences.

Foreclosure

Individuals commit to an identity without exploration of options.

Homophily

Adolescents tend to associate with peers who are similar to themselves.

Identity achievement

Individuals have explored different options and then made commitments

Identity diffusion

Adolescents neither explore nor commit to any roles or ideologies.

Moratorium

State in which adolescents are actively exploring options but have not yet made identity commitments.

Psychological control

Parents’ manipulation of and intrusion into adolescents’ emotional and cognitive world through invalidating adolescents’ feelings and pressuring them to think in particular ways.

Collectivism

Belief system that emphasizes the duties and obligations that each person has toward others.

Developed countries

The economically advanced countries of the world, in which most of the world’s wealth is concentrated.

Developing countries

The less economically advanced countries that comprise the majority of the world’s population. Most are currently developing at a rapid rate.

Emerging adulthood

A new life stage extending from approximately ages 18 to 25, during which the foundation of an adult life is gradually constructed in love and work. Primary features include identity explorations, instability, focus on self-development, feeling incompletely adult, and a broad sense of possibilities.

Individualism

Belief system that exalts freedom, independence, and individual choice as high values.

OECD countries

Members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, comprised of the world’s wealthiest countries

Tertiary education

Education or training beyond secondary school, usually taking place in a college, university, or vocational training program.

Age identity

How old or young people feel compared to their chronological age; after early adulthood, most people feel younger than their chronological age.

Autobiographical narratives

A qualitative research method used to understand characteristics and life themes that an individual considers to uniquely distinguish him- or herself from others.

Average life expectancy

Mean number of years that 50% of people in a specific birth cohort are expected to survive. This is typically calculated from birth but is also sometimes re-calculated for people who have already reached a particular age (e.g., 65).

Cohort

Group of people typically born in the same year or historical period, who share common experiences over time; sometimes called a generation (e.g., Baby Boom Generation).

Convoy Model of Social Relations

Theory that proposes that the frequency, types, and reciprocity of social exchanges change with age. These social exchanges impact the health and well-being of the givers and receivers in the convoy.

Cross-sectional studies

Research method that provides information about age group differences; age differences are confounded with cohort differences and effects related to history and time of study.