David F. Bjorklund

"Infants and children are the often-ignored heroes when it comes to understanding human evolution. Evolutionary pressures acted upon the young of our ancestors more powerfully than on adults. Changes over the course of development in our ancestors were primarily responsible for the species and the people we have become. This book takes an evolutionary developmental perspective, emphasizing that developmental plasticity - the ability to change our physical and psychological selves early in life - is the creative force in evolution, with natural selection serving primarily as the Grim Reaper, or a filter, eliminating novel developmental outcomes that did not benefit the survival of those individuals that possessed them, while letting the more successful outcomes through. Over generations as embryos, infants, and children continued to change and to produce slightly different adults, a new species was born - Homo sapiens. This book is about becoming - of becoming human and of becoming mature adults"--

The Role of Development in Human Evolution

How Children Invented Humanity

Lynne E. Baker-Ward

Jennifer L. Coffman

"In this introduction to The Development of Children's Memory: The Scientific Contributions of Peter A. Ornstein, we provide biographical information for Professor Ornstein and identify some contextual influences on his work. We then examine the four distinct but interrelated programs of research he conducted that form the structure for this volume. Next, we briefly describe the chapters that are included in the review of each research program and introduce the authors. Ornstein's scientific development over his 50 years in research is depicted as moving from the study of age-related changes in memory performance to an increasing emphasis on the developmental processes that result in skilled remembering in children. This transition both reflected and contributed to the emergence of a developmental science of memory. Over a century of memory research has swung between the two poles of the mechanistic model of Ebbinghaus and the adaptive, sociocultural, and organismic view of Bartlett, both of which were necessary but neither of which was essentially developmental. The Ornstein lab has, over the last half century, with experimental rigor, explored how growing children use memory adaptively in meaningful contexts. From the transitional era of "verbal learning" in the 1950s to the cognitive revolution of the information-processing period in the 1980s, models of memory focused on the development of the deployment and control of strategic processes of remembering, models that, despite their modern sophistication, owe something to Ebbinghaus. But children grow up embedded in cultural structures of meanings ranging from the doctor's office to the courtroom, aided or hindered by the people in them, intent on helping growing children to use memory adaptively within those cultural narratives"--

The Scientific Contributions of Peter A. Ornstein

The Development of Children's Memory

Kayla B. Causey

The Sixth Edition of David F. Bjorklund and Kayla B. Causey’s topically organized Children’s Thinking presents a current, comprehensive, and dynamic examination of cognitive development. The book covers individual children and their developmental journeys while also following the general paths of overall cognitive development in children. This unique and effective approach gives readers a holistic view of children’s cognitive development, acknowledging that while no two children are exactly alike, they tend to follow similar developmental patterns. Supported by the latest research studies and data, the Sixth Edition provides valuable insights for readers to better understand and work with children.

Cognitive Development and Individual Differences

Children's Thinking

Jennifer Coffman

Children’s Thinking: Cognitive Development and Individual Differences, Seventh Edition by David Bjorklund remains the most comprehensive and current topical textbook available in cognitive development. The text presents up-to-date, thorough research studies and data throughout. Bjorklund expertly introduce readers to the concept of developmental function, which explains that healthy children can individually vary in their cognition as they develop. This concept is discussed throughout the text within the context of the typical progression of cognitive development through infancy and childhood. In addition, the text includes framework showing that, although some traits are established at birth, children’s cognitive development is also shaped by the physical and social environments that surround them throughout their formative years. The seventh edition has been updated to include current and extensive research, sociocultural coverage, evolutionary coverage of memory development, children’s development of prosocial cognition, moral development, and the concept of overimitation.

Children′s Thinking

Natural selection has operated as strongly or more so on the early stages of the lifespan as on adulthood. One evolved feature of human childhood is high levels of behavioral, cognitive, and neural plasticity, permitting children to adapt to a wide range of physical and social environments. Taking an evolutionary perspective on infancy and childhood provides a better understanding of contemporary human development, predicting and understanding adult behavior, and explaining how changes in the early development of our ancestors produced contemporary Homo sapiens.

Child Development in Evolutionary Perspective

Anthony D. Pellegrini

The origins of human nature offers readers the first book-length attempt to define the field of evolutionary developmental psychology -- the application of the principle of natural selection to explain contemporary human development. The authors point out that an evolutionary -- developmental perspective allows one to view gene -- environment interactions, the significance of individual differences, and the role of behavior and development in evolution in much greater depth. The authors also focus on how an evolutionary perspective can foster a better understanding of human development and how developmental processes may have influenced the course of human evolution. Of particular interest are chapters that explore factors influencing parenting and other aspects of family life; the role of play; and the interacting roles of an extended juvenile period, a big brain, and a complex social structure in human cognitive evolution. The authors present a hybrid approach to evolution and development, pointing out that though underlying assumptions held by evolutionary and developmental psychologists have been at odds, each field has much to offer the other.

Evolutionary Developmental Psychology

The Origins of Human Nature

De kindertijd is heel belangrijk voor de de mens. Of zoals auteur David Bjorklund zegt: 'Kinderen moeten de tijd en ruimte hebben om te kunnen spelen, observeren en zomaar een beetje aan te rommelen'.In Neem de tijd voor de kindertijd onderzoekt de auteur de lange periode van lichamelijke, sociale en intellectuele onvolwassenheid die wij 'als soort' doormaken op weg naar volwassenheid. Die weg wordt voor een deel biologisch en voor een deel sociaal-maatschappelijk bepaald. Dit samenspel wordt vanuit een evolutionair perspectief helder uitgewerkt. Hoe hebben veranderingen binnen de samenleving onze kijk op kinderen beinvloed, en hoe beinvloeden deze veranderingen de levens van kinderen? Neem de tijd voor de kindertijd moedigt de lezers aan om de kindertijd te zien als een essentiele fase in de ontwikkeling van de mens: een fase van groei en ontdekking die niet haastig moet worden afgeraffeld.

Het belang van onvolwassenheid in de ontwikkeling van de mens

Neem de tijd voor de kindertijd

Why Youth is Not Wasted on the Young examines the nature of childhood through an evolutionary lens and argues that childhood is an essential stage of development with its own unique purposes, separate from those of adulthood; a time of growth and discovery that should not be rushed. Written by a renowned developmental psychologist Examines the role that our period of immaturity plays on the social, emotional, and educational needs of today’s children Challenges common perceptions of children as simply “adults in training”

Immaturity in Human Development

Why Youth is Not Wasted on the Young

Peter O. Gray

Peter Gray's evolutionary perspective and emphasis on critical thinking have made his rigorous yet accessible introduction to psychology a widely respected classroom favorite, edition after edition. Now thoroughly revised, with the help of new co-author David Bjorklund, Psychology, Seventh Edition, invites and stimulates students to investigate the big ideas in psychological science.

David F. Bjorklund

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