Maternal deprivation hypothesis:
A term defined by the English psychiatrist John Bowlby to describe the critical period of around 6 months to 3 years during which the child needs continuous love and care from one person, the mother or a permanent mother-substitute.
Maturity:
The stage in human development when the adult is seen as having achieved certain socially-acceptable levels of sexual, intellectual and emotional fullness. As defined by Erik Erikson, the adult at this stage develops the need to concern him/herself with the development of the next generation, either through parenthood or through the passing on of skills and knowledge to others.
Memory cueing hypothesis:
An explanation for the effects of content in the selection task, which suggests that familiar concrete content can remind a person of a similar problem that they have encountered in the past.
Menarche:
The onset of menstruation in adolescent girls.
Mental age:
In intelligence testing, the mental level at which a person has arrived compared with their actual, chronological age.
Mental models theory:
A framework for presenting research in thinking and reasoning based on manipulation of the models of parts of the world that people have in their minds.
Meninges:
The three layers of connective tissue that cover the brain and spinal cord.
Metabolic costs:
In the study of evolution, the expenditure of metabolic energy by brain tissue in order to support intelligence.
Multi-trait personality inventory:
In psychological analysis, a quick overall summary of individuality prepared in a test format, enabling comparisons to be drawn across a whole sample.
Mutation:
In the study of evolution, the mechanism of variation which occurs when the genetic code along the DNA molecule in a chromosome is replicated inaccurately, a process which is not always destructive.
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