The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development. Группа авторов
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she describes the traditional family‐studies approaches (twin and adoption studies). She then reviews the various kinds of gene‐environment correlations, and of gene‐environment interactions. Her chapter makes it very clear that behavior geneticists are interested in environmental factors as well as genetic factors, and the complex interplay between them.
Erin Bigler provides a neuropsychological perspective, starting with basic information on the stages of development of the human brain, from gestation onwards. This development embraces size, myelination, and connectivity. From the 1970s onwards, studies of the brain have been revolutionised by techniques of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR), and these have become increasingly sophisticated, providing novel methods for studying neuroimaging‐identified networks. His chapter discusses how an injury or adverse event at a critical stage of brain development may affect the brain and social behavior. The picture is far from one of biological determinism, as many perceived and/or experienced adverse levels of environmental stress can be hazards for social brain development.
It is now fairly widely accepted that our evolutionary history provides a vital part of understanding who we are and how we function. For some hundreds of thousands of years our ancestors survived in a hunter‐gatherer lifestyle, sometimes referred to as the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, and this is argued to still have relevance for understanding modern humans. Lance Workman, Sandie Taylor, and Jerome Barkow develop such a perspective on social development, drawing from evolutionary psychology, human behavioral ecology and life history theory—perspectives that feed into evolutionary developmental psychology. They describe the work of earlier theorists in the area, notably Darwin, Hall, Bowlby, and Ainsworth, moving on to more recent theorists including Belsky, Harris, del Guidice, Tomasello, Geary, and Bjorklund. They consider the idea of developmental switch points, including one proposed for the juvenile period around 6–8 years; this can be related to the increasing importance of peers, and the ideas of group socialization theory. Also discussed is the development of social cognition; and three types of developmental adaptations: ontogenetic, deferred, and conditional. They conclude with a discussion of “cultural editing” and how this is changing in contemporary society.
Evolutionary processes operate over thousands of years. Historical processes operate over shorter time spans. Willem Koops illustrates how children and childhood have been viewed in modern Europe and western thinking, from the 18th century Enlightenment and the works of Kant and Rousseau onwards. Rousseau’s book Emile influenced later educators, such as Pestalozzi, and psychologists such as Piaget. In the second half of his chapter, Koops especially considers the perspectives of historians of childhood, such as Aries. Aries argued that childhood was a modern invention. Although many psychologists have dismissed Aries’ approach, Koops argues that it cannot be totally discarded; and he debates too the arguments about how the advent of the mass media have changed childhood so that it is perhaps “disappearing.” Certainly the internet is radically changing the experiences of children and young people, in ways that we cannot fully foresee (see also Part X).
There is an important sociological literature on child development, which takes fuller account of the wider societal factors in the ecological model (see also Chapter 8). In her chapter, Dimitra Hartas discusses what she calls the neoliberal restructuring of society (the growth of unregulated markets) and how the resulting inequality impacts on children, and on parents and teachers as main agents of socialization. Family policy directives tend to privatize social problems by locating them within the family, but families have different levels of access to various forms of capital and resources. Good parenting has become a key to upward social mobility, with more middle‐class parents engaging in intensive parenting, to some extent taking over academic aspects of socialization; while teachers are now expected to deal with issues of well‐being, traditionally assigned to parents. The privatization of public spaces also impacts directly on children, for example on opportunities to play (see also Chapter 28). Inequality can impact well‐being and mental health by stressful social comparisons and by the erosion of social trust and cohesion.
Hartas’ analysis mainly focusses on western countries and the “global north.” Anthropologists have long studied childhood in a full range of societies, including the work of pioneers such as Mead (who did in fact have a master’s degree in child psychology, before developing a career as an anthropologist). In her chapter, Heather Montgomery delineates two different “anthropologies of childhood.” The more traditional view described childrearing practices, providing cross‐cultural perspectives on insights often drawn from psychology on how children learn and develop. Work by the Whitings on the Six Cultures studies, and later LeVine and Lancy, are in this tradition; as well as work from evolutionary theorists, notably Konner on hunter‐gatherer childhoods (see also Chapter 4). However, a different tradition emerged, linked to work by sociologists such as James and Prout, and the New Social Studies of Childhood movement, especially from the 1990s. These theorists saw children as agents, social actors, and informants, rather than as passive recipients of socialization practices. This repositioning has been largely welcomed; and the emphasis on children’s own rights and agency is reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. But a more controversial idea is that childhood is a social construction rather than a universal biological entity (cf. Chapters 2, 3, and 4). Montgomery ends by suggesting some reconciliation of the two traditions, making use of cultural‐ecological models and Bronfenbrenner’s bio‐ecological model of human development (see Chapter 8).
CHAPTER TWO Behavioral Genetics
Darya Gaysina
Why are there differences in children’s social development even from the first weeks of their lives? Why can these differences be seen among children growing up in the same family? What are the origins of individual differences in social development, as well as in other behavioral traits? These are the main questions that behavioral geneticists try to address.
Nowadays, it is widely, even if not universally, accepted that individual differences in behavior are resulted from both genetic influences (Nature) and environmental influences (Nurture), that play an important role from the moment of conception throughout the life span. Moreover, Nature and Nurture do not act in isolation, but co‐act through complex gene–environment interplay, and jointly contribute to the whole variety of psychological characteristics (e.g., temperament, cognition, and emotions) of each person, and to individual differences in these characteristics that exist in the population.
Behavioral genetics is an interdisciplinary field that combines approaches of genetic and behavioral sciences to explore: the role of genetic factors; the role of environmental factors; and the role of gene–environment interplay, to better understand the origins of individual differences in social development and other psychological characteristics. This chapter focuses on key concepts in behavioral genetics, and on recent findings from genetically informative studies, such as twin, adoption, and molecular genetic studies, in relation to child social development. Specifically, we will explore relative contributions of genetic and environmental influences on typical and atypical child social development, and how these influences may change during development. We will discover how specific genetic factors contribute to child social development, and how these genetic effects can be modified by environmental influences. We will also find out how our genetic makeup shapes our environmental experiences. Finally, we will discuss how the findings from behavioral genetic research can be used in practice, in order to help children, families, and professionals working with children.
The Role of Genetic Factors in Social Development
In the past few decades,