Social Cognitive Development
Frontiers and Possible Futures

A group of distinguished social scientists from a wide range of academic backgrounds the opportunity to reflect on social cognitive development.

John H. Flavell (Edited by), Lee Ross (Edited by)

9780521281560, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 29 May 1981

334 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.5 kg

Interest in the childhood evolution of our thinking and knowledge concerning the social world is lively and growing and studies have proliferated for many years. When it was first published in 1981, this book afforded a group of distinguished social scientists the opportunity to reflect on social cognitive development and on the implications their own theoretical positions and research findings might have for this central process. One of its special strengths is the range of the contributors' backgrounds. In addition to specialists, there are students of non-social cognitive development, social anthropology, the 'adult' (non-developmental) social, personality and cognitive psychology. Their readable essays thus offer compelling perspectives and approaches for those interested in the child's construction of social reality.

List of contributors
Editorial preface
1. The 'intuitive scientist' formulation and its developmental implications Lee Ross
2. The development of thoughts about animate and inanimate objects: implications for research on social cognition Rochel Gelman and Elizabeth Spelke
3. Perspectives on the difference between understanding people and understanding things: the role of affect Martin L. Hoffman
4. 'Concrete thinking' and the development of social cognition Stephen M. Kosslyn and Jerome Kagan
5. Social cognition in a script framework Katherine Nelson
6. Role taking and social judgment: alternative developmental perspectives and processes E. Tory Higgins
7. Exploring children's social cognition on two fronts William Damon
8. Relations between social cognition, nonsocial cognition, and social behavior: the case of friendship Thomas J. Berndt
9. Self-referent thought: a developmental analysis of self-efficacy Albert Bandura
10. Metacognition and the rules of delay Water Mischel
11. Monitoring social cognitive enterprises: something else that may develop in the area of social cognition John H. Flavell
12. The moral intuitions of the child Richard A. Schweder, Elliot Turiel, and Nancy C. Much
13. Concluding remarks John H. Flavell and Lee Ross
Index.

Subject Areas: Psychology [JM]