Essays
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A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development: Entering the Community of Minds - Nelson, Katherine
Important cognitive changes take place during the preschool years in addition to the acquisition of a first language. A bio‐social‐cultural (BSC) theory is needed to explicate the relation between language and cognition during this period of development. The foundations of the BSC approach in evolutionary and developmental systems theory are noted and applied to the emergence of autobiographical memory and the understanding of one's own and other minds within the general conception of “entering the community of minds” a conceptual framework for the social‐cultural components of this approach. The need for further theoretical and empirical research including neurological change during this period is indicated. -
Adolescent Romantic Relationships in the Digital Age - Goldberg, Rachel E.
This essay summarizes key substantive findings about adolescent romantic relationships, identifying methodological and measurement innovations that have broadened understanding of their precursors and consequences. Research to date has been limited by narrow definitions of what constitutes a relationship; a focus on specific behaviors (e.g., sexual activity) to the neglect of relational dynamics; and insufficient measurement precision to portray fluctuations in the character of involvement and partnership quality. The final section discusses the implications of mobile technologies for administering intensive longitudinal surveys that are better suited to study the dynamics and consequences of teen romance in the digital age. -
An Evolutionary Perspective on Developmental Plasticity - Hartman, Sarah
In this essay, we advance the argument that variations in developmental plasticity should be treated as an individual‐difference construct in research on environmental influences on human development. As guided by the diathesis‐stress framework, past research has focused mainly on the development of dysfunction and negative outcomes in “vulnerable” individuals and the absence of such effects in “resilient” ones in response to adverse developmental experiences and environmental exposures. An evolutionary perspective challenges this traditional and prevailing framework for understanding person‐X‐environment interaction, leading to the view that there are individual differences in developmental plasticity, with those individuals most susceptible to the negative effects of adverse experiences also most likely to benefit from positive ones. Evidence consistent with this view is summarized and directions for future research are outlined. -
Behavioral Heterochrony - Wobber, Victoria
Behavioral heterochrony is the study of the timing and speed of development of behavior from an evolutionary perspective. Key to studies of behavioral heterochrony is the comparison of development across different species. Such studies can illuminate whether a trait thought to be unique to a given species might in fact have its precursors in the early development of a closely related species. They can inform our understanding of how behavioral development is constrained by elements of somatic or reproductive maturation. Studies of behavioral heterochrony can also elucidate mechanisms by which behavior evolves, by targeting evolutionary shifts in developmental pathways. Finally, such studies can enrich our knowledge of human evolution, in contextualizing the vast shifts in human life history patterns relative to other primates in terms of corresponding changes in behavioral and cognitive development. On the whole then, research in behavioral heterochrony can advance our understanding of behavior through forging interdisciplinary links between anthropology, biology, and psychology. -
Bullying, Aggression, and Human Development - Ehrenreich, Samuel E.
Children who are the victim of peer harassment are at increased risk for psychological maladjustment. Electronic forms of harassment via text messaging, the Internet, and social networking sites, often termed cyberbullying, have become increasingly common during the past several years. This essay presents current research that describes the predictors and outcomes of cyberbullying. Two features of electronic communication—permanence and anonymity—that present unique challenges when trying to understand and assess cyberbullying are discussed, and finally, recommendations are made for how to best examine how traditional forms of bullying and cyberbullying may be related to each other. -
Childhood - Kramer, Karen L.
Childhood refers to the period of growth and development bracketed by weaning and puberty, roughly ages 3–10. During this important life history stage, the brain rapidly grows and achieves the majority of its adult size, the first permanent molars erupt, and the digestive tract matures. Socially, communication skills are rapidly acquired during childhood, gender identities are established, cooperative norms of behavior develop, and self‐reflection and emotional regulation mature. Cognitively, increasing independence exposes children to a high frequency of new experiences, perpetual learning, experimentation, and change. Childhood development has captured the attention of scholars from diverse disciplines. This review highlights foundational and new research in biological, social, cognitive, and economic aspects of child development. Attention is paid to how childhood is distinct compared to juvenility in other closely related species and the remarkable changes that have occurred during human evolution. This review focuses on childhood in traditional societies where children grow up under energetic, demographic, and social conditions that more closely reflect the selective pressures that shaped childhood. -
Darwinism as a Decryption Key for the Human Mind - Pléh, Csaba
The essay summarizes some of the key results and debated issues of Darwinian psychology over the past 150 years. Comparative psychology, psychological anthropology, research into the ontogeny of the mind, evolutionary interpretations of knowledge, and the study of individual differences are the main areas where evolutionary explanations remarkably influence traditional psychology. All five of them show up in twentieth century developments within the framework of overall selectionism, the idea that in all aspects of life—including human culture or habits—there is a certain diversity and variety not only in the form of living things but also in the form of “living‐things‐made” material, cultural or virtual, all of them being subject to natural selection. Some issues of overall selectionism, having been introduced by Karl Bühler, Karl Popper, and Donald Campbell, or by the genetic epistemology of Jean Piaget, are compared in this essay to the latest debates and ideas about the message of evolution by Daniel Dennett, to the coordination of evolutionary models, the theories about the social mind and its development, and the genesis of culture and evolution in rivaling models of human architectures, as in the one proposed by Michael Tomasello. Some of the continuously debated issues have been escorting us since the 1880s, such as the relative significance of nature or culture, the causal relations between different levels of selection, and the like. They all mean a real challenge to the unbounded and unanchored psychological and epistemological theories. -
Diverse Family Forms and Children's Well‐Being - Powell, Brian
The relationship between family structure and children's well‐being has been the subject of an extensive body of family scholarship that continues to grow. Amidst the worldwide diversification of families, scholars have grappled with how to make sense of the emergence and proliferation of “alternative” family forms—those differing from the “traditional families,” or what has been referred to as the Standard North American Family. This essay explores the literature on several of these alternative family forms, focusing on including single‐parent, stepparent, and cohabiting families, older‐parent families, adoptive families, same‐sex families, and multiracial families. The authors next identify six key areas for social scientists to consider when assessing the implications of diversifying family structures for children. -
Evolutionary Approaches to Understanding Children's Academic Achievement - Geary, David C.
There are evolved cognitive biases that influence what people pay attention to (e.g., faces, not rocks) and how they interpret this information (e.g., underlying intentions). These cognitive biases are organized to help us understand ourselves and other people (folk psychology), other species (folk biology), and the physical world (folk physics). Human cultural advances have resulted in the development of evolutionarily novel concepts (e.g., natural selection) and skills (e.g., reading) that are built from this evolved core. The basic architecture of folk cognitive biases is universal and adapted to nuances in local conditions as children play, interact with other people, and explore the environment. The learning of evolutionarily novel competencies is necessary for success in today's economy but children do not learn these as easily as they adapt folk knowledge nor are they as motivated to engage in the associated activities. This is because learning academic competencies requires adapting folk systems for tasks for which they did not evolve. The associated activities (e.g., direct instruction) are very different from the activities (e.g., play) that foster the adaptation of folk abilities to local conditions. Schooling thus involves the society‐wide organization of children's activities so they learn competencies that would not otherwise emerge. This perspective allows us to better understand the importance of working memory, a motivational focus on effort, and the need for explicit, organized instruction for children's learning in school. -
Evolutionary Perspectives on Animal and Human Personality - Manson, Joseph H.
Among many nonhuman animals, individuals differ consistently in their response tendencies (e.g., shy vs bold) across multiple contexts. Researchers have tested evolutionary hypotheses accounting for these phenomena, and have also begun exploring evolutionary explanations for human personality variation. For evolutionary biologists, a trait's significance lies in its effects on fitness, that is, the lifetime reproductive success of individuals who bear the trait, including indirect effects through the reproductive success of genetic relatives. Recent evolutionary personality research has pursued several alternative theoretical lines of inquiry: balancing selection models explore whether optimal levels of personality traits vary across time, space, or trait frequency distribution; mutation‐selection balance models propose that selection for a single optimum personality configuration is undermined by mutations at multiple genetic loci; and facultative calibration models hold that personality trait levels are adjusted, during individual development, to other characteristics that affect social bargaining power. A promising general approach links personality variation to variation in life history strategy, that is, the allocation of effort among the competing demands of growth, somatic maintenance, mate acquisition, and parental investment. Emerging areas of research include relationships between personality variation and biological fitness in humans and other primates; the extent to which personality trait levels are adjusted based on individual condition; the degree to which situational flexibility varies among individuals; and whether proposed structural models of personality, such as the human five‐factor model (extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience) are species‐typical or are affected by variable ecological and social conditions. -
Evolutionary Theory and Political Behavior - Petersen, Michael Bang
Political behavior is behavior aimed at regulating access to resources: Who is recognized to get what, when, and how? Evidence across a number of disciplines shows that humans over evolutionary history have evolved sophisticated abilities to engage in political behavior through status seeking and coalition formation in order to attract resources to themselves, their kin, and their allies. As demonstrated by recent research, this evolutionary history of politics continues to shape how modern individuals behave in modern mass politics and prompt people to derive their political attitudes from ancestrally relevant factors such as upper body strength and short‐term fluctuations in hunger. Important areas for research lies ahead in (i) understanding how evolution has given rise to individual variation in political behavior, (ii) investigating the extent to which the evolved psychology of humans biases modern political behavior, and (iii) strengthening the ties between this emerging application of evolutionary theory and more traditional research on political behavior. -
Expertise - Eyal, Gil
The main claim of the essay is that expertise is better understood neither as a set of skills that experts possess nor as a social attribution, but as a historically specific way in which we currently talk about the intersection, articulation, and friction between professions, science and technology on the one hand, and law and democratic politics on the other. It is shown that talk in terms of expertise is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it is claimed that it reflects not the rise of the “expert society,” but its crisis, namely, as long as it was fairly clear who the experts were, and how to recognize them there was little discussion of expertise, but once the number of contenders for expert status has increased and the bases for their claims have become more heterogeneous; once the struggles between these would‐be experts intensified; expertise became problematized because the question was how to determine whose claim is legitimate. After surveying some of the current debates about the nature and character of expertise, the essay concludes by suggesting that the more fruitful approach is to treat expertise in an open‐ended nominalist manner as everything that is necessary to take into account when one seeks to give a description of the capacity to accomplish a relevant task, that is, of everything that is necessary in order for a particular expert statement or performance to be produced, repeated, and disseminated. -
Four Psychological Perspectives on Creativity - Damian, Rodica Ioana
Creativity is a unique feature of human thinking and behavior that is essential to our species' survival, future progress, and even the rise and fall of civilizations. To understand this highly complex phenomenon, we need to adopt an interdisciplinary and multimethod approach. Because creativity happens at many different levels both intra‐ and interindividual, the psychological science of creativity currently lacks a strong paradigmatic coherence. In this essay, we review creativity research from four different scientific perspectives: cognitive, differential, developmental, and social, and attempt to provide a unified overarching picture. We present foundational and cutting‐edge research addressing the following questions: (i) What cognitive processes are involved in creative thinking; (ii) What personality traits are characteristic of the creative person; (iii) What developmental factors lead to creative achievement; and (iv) What social factors foster creativity? We identify current debate issues and propose ways to promote unity and coherence in creativity research across psychological subfields. We offer a clear definition of creativity and identify promising theoretical models that could help integrate and direct future research. -
Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Sociality - Hawkes, Kristen
We differ from the great apes in so many ways. Yet they all belong to our hominid family, and some are even more closely related to us than they are to each other. One distinctive human feature is our much great longevity, a difference that the Grandmother Hypothesis might explain. Grandmothering not only helps account for our long life spans but also changes childrearing in ways that may explain why distinctly human capacities for social engagement and mutual understanding evolved in our lineage. We review the background to this Grandmother Hypothesis and summarize it and related findings from evolutionary modeling and empirical measurements of both grandmother effects and social capacities of human infants. Then, we point to questions arising for social development, discriminating grandmothers, future mathematical modeling, and social strategies of men, as well as the physiology of human aging. -
Identity Fusion - Buhrmester, Michael D.
Identity fusion represents a new form of alignment with groups that motivates personally costly, pro‐group behaviors. The approach posits that fused individuals experience a visceral sense of “oneness” with a group, wherein their personal self (characteristics of individuals that make them unique) joins with a social self (characteristics of individuals that align them with groups). Research has identified several cognitive and affective mechanisms (e.g., sense of agency, invulnerability, familial ties) unique to fusion that help explain why strongly fused persons engage in pro‐group behaviors. For example, fusion robustly predicts endorsement of self‐sacrificial behaviors to save other group members' lives as well as less extreme but nonetheless personally costly acts such as donating money to needy group members. Here, we lay out the basic tenets of the fusion approach, highlight key empirical evidence for fusion theory, and discuss important issues and promising directions for future research on the topic. -
Identity‐Based Motivation - Oyserman, Daphna
People believe that they know who they are and that who they are matters for what they do. These core beliefs seem so inherent to conceptualizations of what it means to have a self as to require no empirical support. After all, what is the point of a concept of self if there is no stable thing to have a concept about, and who would care if that concept was stable if it was not useful in making it through the day? Yet the evidence for action‐relevance and stability are surprisingly sparse. This entry outlines identity‐based motivation theory which takes a new look at these assumptions and makes three core predictions termed dynamic construction, action‐readiness, and interpretation of difficulty. That is, rather than being stable, which identities come to mind and what they mean are dynamically constructed in context. People interpret situations and difficulties in ways that are congruent with currently active identities and prefer identity‐congruent to identity‐incongruent actions. When action feels identity‐congruent, experienced difficulty highlights that the behavior is important and meaningful. When action feels identity‐incongruent, the same difficulty suggests that the behavior is pointless and “not for people like me.” -
Insight - Erickson, Brian
Insight, also known as the Aha phenomenon, is the sudden awareness of the solution to a problem. In contrast, analysis is problem solving by consciously and deliberately manipulating the elements of a problem. The Gestalt psychologists began studying insight about a century ago. On the basis of their research with complex “insight problems,” they characterized insight as a reinterpretation or restructuring of one's representation of a stimulus or situation after a period of unconscious processing. The emergence of cognitive psychology later during the twentieth century led to another period of advancement in insight research during the 1980s and 1990s. This work further characterized the unconscious nature of the processing leading up to an insight. More recently, the development of techniques for measuring and manipulating brain function has sparked a new renaissance in insight research. Cognitive neuroscience research has highlighted the key role of the right hemisphere and has discovered a number of neural precursors to insight, including its origins in patterns of resting‐state brain activity and in neural preparatory activity immediately before a problem is presented. The latest trend is work aimed at developing techniques to enhance insight, including recent research showing that direct stimulation of the right hemisphere can facilitate the solving of insight problems. Cognitive neuroscience approaches should continue to fuel rapid advances and may lead to the development of practical technologies for insight enhancement. -
Intersectionality and the Development of Self and Identity - Azmitia, Margarita
Intersectionality is a key theoretical, empirical, and applied construct in the social sciences and the humanities. In this essay, we review the origins of the construct and the foundational theory and research that served to cement its importance in these fields. We then present a brief overview of how intersectionality guides current theory, research, and social policy in education, feminist studies, politics, psychology, and sociology, concluding with a discussion of the key issues that need to be addressed for this construct to deliver in its promise to strengthen theory, research, and practice in the social sciences. -
Making Sense of Control: Change and Consequences - Lachman, Margie E.
The concept of control in the social and behavioral sciences derives mainly from theories of motivation. Early work on control was largely descriptive, with an emphasis on individual differences in perceived control. This essay first reviews the foundational research on the development of control beliefs and their relationship to achievement and health outcomes. Next, the article summarizes more recent cutting‐edge research, which has examined trajectories of longitudinal change and the processes and mechanisms that link control beliefs with outcomes. Studies have shown that control beliefs can be a resilience factor that buffers the effects of stress and moderates social class differences in health and longevity. Suggestions for future research directions include a focus on short‐term, within‐person variability and intraindividual change processes, cultural variations in control beliefs, and the antecedents of control. The article concludes by considering some of the possible limits of a high sense of control as well as interventions to optimize control, and the policy implications of control beliefs. Future research will benefit from a biopsychosocial approach in order to understand how control beliefs develop and get under the skin to affect health and well‐being. -
Media and the Development of Identity - Manago, Adriana M.
The shift from “media” to “social media” in the digital age has implications for processes of identity formation during adolescence and the transition to adulthood. First, the Internet provides young people with opportunities to co‐construct entertainment and social environments tailored to their own needs and interests. Second, adolescents' presentations of self take place on the same screens and in the same activity settings in which they access commercial media programming. These changes reflect increasing cultural emphasis on personal agency and self‐expression which brings to bear new tasks for identity development during the transition to adulthood that involve both opportunities and challenges for creating a coherent, stable, and meaningful sense of self. In terms of opportunities, social media give youth enhanced control over presentations of self in social interactions and increased access to social information and large networks of others to solicit feedback and reify self‐concepts. However, social media also bring new demands to negotiate heightened pressure to perform a socially desirable self in a commercial environment that bestows value on attractive images and popularity. Suggestions for future research include methods that bridge youths' offline and online social contexts and that balance enthusiasm for the massive quantities of data that can be aggregated via data mining technologies with qualitative work that examines the lived experiences of adolescents' everyday social practices. -
Moral Identity - Hardy, Sam A.
This essay reviews theory and research on moral identity. The construct emerged roughly three decades ago in moral psychology as a possible motivational factor that could link moral judgments to moral actions. Moral identity is, generally speaking, the extent to which being a moral person is important to a person's identity. However, it has been conceptualized and measured in various ways. In this essay, conceptualizations of moral identity, as well as foundational empirical research on moral identity development and links between moral identity and behavior, are reviewed. Little is known about moral identity development, but moral identity has fairly consistently been found predictive of moral action using a variety of research methods. In addition, cutting‐edge research on new areas of theory is highlighted, and promising directions for future research are outlined. Cutting‐edge work deals with new ways to conceptualize and measure moral identity, mechanisms of influence, links to broader outcomes, situational variation in moral identity, and implicit aspects of moral identity. Promising future directions are expanding on these emerging directions, as well as looking at developmental processes, cultural variability, and the role of relationships. -
Niche Construction: Implications for Human Sciences - Laland, Kevin N.
Niche construction is the process whereby organisms, through their activities, interactions, and choices, modify their own and each other's niches. By using and transforming natural selection, niche construction generates feedback in evolution at various levels. Niche‐constructing species play important ecological roles by creating and modifying habitats and resources used by other species, thereby affecting the flow of matter and energy through ecosystems. This process is often referred to as ecosystem engineering. This engineering can have significant downstream consequences for succeeding generations—often referred to as an ecological inheritance. One key emphasis of niche‐construction theory is on the evolutionary role played by acquired characters in transforming selective environments. This is particularly relevant to human evolution, where our species has engaged in extensive environmental modification through cultural practices. Humans can construct developmental environments that feed back to affect how individuals learn and develop and the diseases to which they are exposed. Here we provide an introduction to niche construction and illustrate some of its more important implications for the human sciences. -
Patterns of Attachments across the Lifespan - Fivush, Robyn
The attachment relationship is a critical bond between infant and caregiver that, when secure, facilitates physical and psychological well‐being. Cutting‐edge research integrating attachment theory with cognitive theories of event representations indicates that both generalized event representations, or scripts, and specific autobiographical narratives provide continuity from implicit to explicit representations of attachment across development. Script‐like attachment representations are related to implicit behavioral measures in infancy, as well as to adult narrative measures of attachment, the emerging life story, and intimate partner behaviors, providing continuity across development in attachment representations and behaviors. Explicit attachment representations are at least partly developed within parentally guided narrative interactions in which mothers help their preschool children develop coherent and emotionally regulated representations of their past experiences. These representations are related to developing self‐concept and emotion‐regulation. Narrative representations of attachment extend beyond personal experience to include intergenerational narratives of the familial past, thus facilitating the intergenerational transmission of attachment. Additional longitudinal research is needed to flesh out these exciting new integrations of attachment theory and cognitive psychology. -
Positive Development among Diverse Youth - Lerner, Richard M.
The positive youth development (PYD) perspective is based on the notion that all young people possess strengths and the capacity for healthy growth. The key hypothesis within the PYD perspective is that thriving occurs when the strengths of youth are aligned across adolescence with ecological resources (or “assets”) that promote positive, healthy development (e.g., assets such as high‐quality parenting, mentoring, teaching, or coaching; effective youth development programs; or opportunities for youth to participate in and take leadership of valued family, school, and community activities). The 4‐H Study of PYD has sought to bring data to bear on these ideas about the individual and ecological bases of PYD. We discuss several findings derived from tests of the model of PYD forwarded by Lerner and Lerner, including the structure of PYD, its antecedents in youth strengths and ecological developmental assets, and both positive and problematic outcomes among youth. The results of the 4‐H Study of PYD provide important insights into how individual and contextual factors coalesce to promote adolescent thriving. -
Resilience - Diminich, Erica D.
Research on resilience is still evolving. For decades, developmental researchers have documented resilient outcomes in children exposed to chronic maltreatment who nonetheless thrived. Relatively more recently the study of resilience has migrated to the investigation of acute and potentially traumatic life events (PTE) in adults. We first consider some of the key differences in the conceptualization of resilience following chronic adversity versus resilience following single‐incident traumas, and then describe some of the misunderstandings that have developed about these constructs. We describe the terms emergent resilience and minimal‐impact resilience (Bonanno & Diminich, 2013) to represent trajectories of positive adjustment in these two domains, respectively. In particular, we focus on minimal‐impact resilience, and review recent advances in the literature. We then briefly discuss the most widely researched factors (e.g., age, gender, personality) suggested to influence resilient outcomes following exposure to PTEs. In closing, we suggest future areas of research to further expand the study of resilience within the social sciences.