Navigating the Social World

What Infants, Children, and Other Species Can Teach Us

Susan A Gelman editor Mahzarin R Banaji editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc

Published:2nd May '13

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Navigating the Social World cover

Navigating the social world requires sophisticated cognitive machinery that, although present quite early in crude forms, undergoes significant change across the lifespan. This book will be the first to report on evidence that has accumulated on an unprecedented scale, showing us what capacities for social cognition are present at birth and early in life, and how these capacities develop through learning in the first years of life. The volume will highlight what is known about the discoveries themselves but also what these discoveries imply about the nature of early social cognition and the methods that have allowed these discoveries -- what is known concerning the phylogeny and ontogeny of social cognition. To capture the full depth and breadth of the exciting work that is blossoming on this topic in a manner that is accessible and engaging, the editors invited 70 leading researchers to develop a short report of their work that would be written for a broad audience. The purpose of this format was for each piece to focus on a single core message: are babies aware of what is right and wrong, why do children have the same implicit intergroup preferences that adults do, what does language do to the building of category knowledge, and so on. The unique format and accessible writing style will be appealing to graduate students and researchers in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and social psychology.

"From good and evil to trust, imitation, and theory of mind, an amazing collection of up-to-the-minute snapshots by an all-star cast." Gary Marcus, Professor of Psychology, New York University, author of The Birth of the Mind, Kluge, and Guitar Zero "An abundance of contributors, and each provides a golden nugget: readable, quotable, inspiring. They do not just provide the miraculous 'look how early infants can manifest adult-like sophistication in social cognition'-though the book reveals much of that. But they offer discoveries of mechanisms and insights into the contexts for children developing social cognitive skills, as a requirement of surviving and thriving. This collection supplies not just 'wow!' but 'how...', not just 'oh my!' but 'here's why." Susan T. Fiske, Eugene Higgins Professor, Psychology and Public Affairs, Princeton University "Together at last-the cognitive and the social! In this remarkable volume, Banaji and Gelman present 70 short, lucid essays from psychology's leading thinkers. Together the chapters, rich with everyday examples and clear explanations, light up how the social world shapes children's minds and how these minds shape their worlds. All the most challenging issues are examined here-how children understand themselves and others, trust and skepticism, good and evil, us and them. This paradigm-shifting book is a must-have resource for parents, teachers, and all students of child behavior." Hazel Rose Markus, Davis-Brack Professor in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University

ISBN: 9780199890712

Dimensions: 185mm x 254mm x 31mm

Weight: 975g

448 pages