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. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
Self‐Regulation in the First 3 Years of Life: A Key to Predict Successful Development? - Pauen, Sabina
Self‐regulation (SR) skills in young children are known to predict later achievements, but we still know only little about how various aspects of SR first emerge, how they are related to each other and what mechanisms underlie their development in infancy and beyond. To answer these questions we need to improve concepts and measures to describe early SR development, clarify whether SR development undergoes a sensitive period in infancy, and to identify factors that influence SR development in early years. The present report argues for a multi‐method, system‐oriented, and dynamic approach to meet these challenges. -
The Development of Social Trust - Jaswal, Vikram K.
Trust is the currency on which all human interactions are based. This entry reviews a diverse body of literature on the development of trust. We begin by describing foundational theories linking early experience to trust, and then discuss how violations of trust affect children. We turn next to a particularly active area of trust research in cognitive development—namely, trust in information learned from what other people say (testimony). Children's willingness to believe what they are told is essential for the cultural transmission of knowledge; it allows them to learn about things they have not experienced themselves. We describe research showing that, in fact, young children have a great deal of difficulty not believing testimony. We suggest that this credulity is the manifestation of a bias to trust testimony specifically rather than a more generic, undifferentiated trust, and speculate about the origins of this bias. Finally, we offer several suggestions of areas for future research, including whether children (like adults) make judgments of trustworthiness based on an individual's facial features, how culture influences trust and trustworthiness, and how children learn to evaluate the credibility of digital sources of information.