M. D. Rutherford
The only Canadian text of its kind, this new topical introduction to child development employs the unique perspective of evolutionary psychology as a jumping-off point into the discipline. All the key areas of developmental psychology are covered, including its history, foundational theories, and
core research methodologies. The author provides comprehensive treatment of perceptual, cognitive, language, moral, and social developmental processes, while at the same time engaging throughout with issues raised by the interaction between nature and nurture. The result is a text that covers the
key topics in the field in a fresh, modern, and exciting fashion.
1. What Is Developmental Psychology?
Opening Vignette: 7 Up! to 49 Up
What Is Developmental Psychology?
What Is Development?
Why Study the Developmental Psychology of Children?
A Historical Look at Developmental Psychology and the Nature vs. Nurture Debate
Nature and
Nurture, Working Together to Make a Person
An Evolutionary Perspective on Development
Adaptationism and Functionality
The Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness
Maladaptive Behaviour in the Modern World
2. Theories and Methods in Developmental Psychology
Opening Vignette:
Theories and Methods Challenged
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development
Associationism and Social Learning Theory
Developmental Systems Theory
Evolutionary Psychology
Methods of Developmental Psychology
Within- and Between-Subjects Design
Techniques for Developmental
Research
3. The Basics: Evolution, Genes, and Conception
Opening Vignette: Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel
A Modern Understanding of Evolution
Darwin's Problem: Blending Inheritance
Mendelian Inheritance
Chromosomes, Genes, and Alleles
Evolutionary
Processes
Adaptations, By-Products, and Noise
What Does DNA Do Anyway?
Interactionism: The Bidirectional Influences of Developmental Resources
Meiosis, Conception, and Pregnancy
Brain Development
4. Nature, Nurture, and Development
Opening Vignette: Who, if Anyone, Shot
Henry Ziegland?
Understanding Nature and Nurture
Causality
Heritability
The Heritability Statistic
IQ Heritability as an Example
Wrapping up Heritability: What It Is Not
Facultative Adaptation
There Are Many Types of Learning
Prepared Learning
5. Perceptual
Development
Opening Vignette: Michael May
The Function of Perception: Adaptive Behaviour
Early Competencies and Interests
Prenatal Perceptual Development
Postnatal Perceptual Development
Intermodal Perception
Constancies
The Nobel Prize-Winning Work of Hubel and
Wiesel: Experience-Expectant Development
Visual Deprivation and Development in Humans
Associationist Accounts of Visual Development
6. Concepts, Categories, and Essences
Opening Vignette: Concepts
What Are Categories and Concepts?
Instinct Blind to Concepts
Universality
of Categories and Concepts
The Classic View of Categories
A Prototype and Family Resemblance View
What Would Piaget Say about Children's Categorization?
The Function of Categories and Concepts
Early Concept Formation: Function Matters
Basic Levels and Hierarchical
Categorization
Natural Kinds
Concept Development
Essences and Essentialism
Special Design
What Would Associationists Say about Children's Categorization?
7. Core Knowledge Part I: Physics, Space, Biology, and Number
Opening Vignette: Core Knowledge
The Acquisition of
Knowledge
Framing the Question of Knowledge Acquisition
Informational Priorities in the EEA
Core Knowledge
Areas of Core Knowledge
A Cross-Species Comparison
8. Core Knowledge Part II: Face Perception, Animacy Perception, and Theory of Mind
Opening Vignette: Social
Isolation and Hallucination
Social Contact as a Need: Harry Harlow's Social Experiments
Why the Big Brain? The Social Brain Hypothesis
Big Brain and Long Childhood
What Would Piaget Say about Social Cognitive Development?
What Would Associationists Say?
Social Domains of Core
Knowledge
Social Cognitive Development in Infancy
Pretend Play
Face Perception
Animacy and Intentionality Perception
Theory of Mind
Autism: What if There Were No Theory of Mind?
9. Language Development
Opening Vignette: The Sparrow, the Vervet Monkey, the Chimpanzee,
and Language
Language Is Part of Our Psychology
Language as a Case Study in Evolutionary Psychology
Noam Chomsky and the Language Acquisition Device
The Brain Basis of Human Language
Infant Speech Perception
Proto-Babbling and Babbling
Word Learning
What Would
Associationists Say about Language Acquisition?
The Two-Word Phase
Adults' Role in Children's Language Learning
Critical Periods for Language Learning
Learning Grammar
Children Generate Language
Language Is Species-Specific
Can a Gene Cause the Development of
Grammar?
10. Social Contexts for Development
Opening Vignette: Three Different Families
Learning about One's Own Context
Psychological Adaptations for Culture
Life History Theory
Attachment
Emotional Development More Generally
Parents, Alloparents, Siblings, and
Peers
Differences in Parenting Make Little Difference
Peer Influence
Step-Parents
Birth Order
11. Sex and Gender
Opening Vignette: Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome
Why Look at Gender?
Gender Roles in the EEA
Adaptive Sex Differences
The Development of Sex and
Gender
Puberty
Views of Gender Development
The Reimer Twins: A Natural Test of the Socialization Theory of Gender
Intersex
The Transgender Experience
Relative Life Expectancy
Cultural Differences in Mating and Parenting
12. Moral and Prosocial Development
Opening
Vignette: Morals
Morality and Prosocial Behaviour
Traditional Views on Moral Development
What Evolutionary Thinking Adds to Moral and Prosocial Development?
The Function of Morality
Social Behaviour and Fitness
Getting Altruism off the Ground
Kin-Selected
Altruism
Co-Operation among Non-Kin
Moral Intuition, or Rational Moral Decision-Making?
Specialized Cognitive Machinery Underlying Morality
The Development of Social Exchange Reasoning
The Development of Sexual Morals
Universal Rules vs. Conventions
Teaching Morals:
Over-Reward or Internalize?
For Instructors:
Test Generator includes 60 multiple-choice questions per chapter for a total of 720 questions.
PowerPoint Slides summarizes key points from each chapter and incorporates figures and tables from the book - approximately 15-20 slides are available for each chapter.
Image Bank. Features every photo, figure, and table available in the text and also features bonus images of original photos from researchers conducting experiments in labs in Canada and the U.S.
For Students:
Companion Website features chapter summaries, learning objectives, key terms, a
glossary, review questions, as well as Interactive Flash Card exercises (15-20 questions/chapter), and Interactive Practice exams.
Dr. M.D. Rutherford is Canada research chair in social perceptual development and associate professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster University.
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Cognition - Daniel Smilek, Scott Sinnett and Alan Kingstone
Personality Theory - Douglas P. Crowne
A History of Psychology - John G. Benjafield
Introduction to Infant Development - Edited by Alan Slater, Michael Lewis, Gizelle Anzures and Kang Lee
