Any group in which most members have roughly equal status within the confines and functions of the group. The role of the peer group in the development of personality was brought to the fore in Judith Rich Harris s book The Nurture Assumption published in 1998 and revised in 2009 in which she claimed that parental socialization has relatively …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Pedagogy
The art, science, or profession of teaching. More specifically, consciously planned teaching, philosophy and practices underpinned by beliefs about, and/or theories of, teaching and learning. See Education, Hermeneutics (and phenomenology), Instruction
Pediatrics
The practice of medicine devoted to the care and treatment of children as well as the diagnosis and prevention of certain developmental disorders. It covers perinatal medicine, childhood and adolescence, and has evolved sub-specialities such as behavioral pediatrics, pediatric endocrinology and neurology, and neonatology. Many paediatric units cap the age at which they will see …
Pattern of variances and covariances
Pattern of variability of variances and covariances in a variance-covariance matrix. An example is compound symmetry. See Compound symmetry, Covariance, Variance-covariance matrix
Pattern
A systematic and repetitive arrangement of parts in a system or collection of systems that may be static (i.e., as in a structure) and dynamical (i.e., as with a function). A pattern is a property of a system and not of its elements. A question is whether similar patterns across diverse systems have anything in …
Pattern formation
The emergence of specific properties, as in behavior, and the mechanisms that link these properties together into higher-order units referred to as patterns. The pattern itself resides at the level of an order parameter, and the mechanisms of pattern formation at that of a control parameter. Ubiquitous in both organic and organic systems, one example …
Pathophysiology
The scientific study of the unfolding, sometimes complex, process by which an otherwise healthy biological system, partially or wholly, either slowly or instantaneously, breaks down or somehow fails to serve its intended function, potentially harming or killing the organism. It also addresses the etiology and treatment of pathological processes. Such processes involve the likes of …
Path diagram
A technique for path analysis developed by the evolutionary biologist Sewall Wright (1895-1988), the recognized founder of path analysis, and first published in 1921. Its function is to display of a set of linear relationships among measured (manifest) and unmeasured (latent) variables. If the diagrams are drawn in complete form, all structural expectations of the …
Pathogenesis (or pathogeny)
The origin and subsequent development of a disease. While a diseased state can be triggered by apathogen (e.g., bacteria, parasite, virus), it typically results from a numberof processes. Also referred to asnosogenesis and nosogeny. Also referred to as nosogenesis and nosogeny. See Diagnosis (or diacrisis), Etiology, Nosology, Orthogenetic principle, Pathophysiology
Path analysis
A set of mathematical and statistical models, sometimes incorrectly referred to a causal moiling, that take the form of multiple regression based on an organized set of multiple linear regression equations with multiple outcome variables. It can be viewed as a special case of structural equation modeling, but it is not a measurment model. …