Winner of the British Psychological Society Book Award for Best Textbook An instructive and accessible account of the psychological development of children aged 0-2 years and how it can be supported by social relationships. The first two years are critical in a child's development, influencing what happens in later childhood and even adulthood. Yet how best to support that early development is not always easy to grasp. Now help is at hand with this expert guide on the care of children through these essential years. Based on the latest research, with its wealth of picture sequences and clear explanations, this book shows how the development of young children's social understanding, attachments, self-control and intelligence can be supported through their relationships.

A leading cognitive scientist argues that a deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. From John Locke to Sigmund Freud, philosophers and psychologists have long believed that we begin life as blank moral slates. Many of us take for granted that babies are born selfish and that it is the role of society—and especially parents—to transform them from little sociopaths into civilized beings. In Just Babies, Paul Bloom argues that humans are in fact hardwired with a sense of morality. Drawing on groundbreaking research at Yale, Bloom demonstrates that, even before they can speak or walk, babies judge the goodness and badness of others’ actions; feel empathy and compassion; act to soothe those in distress; and have a rudimentary sense of justice. Still, this innate morality is limited, sometimes tragically. We are naturally hostile to strangers, prone to parochialism and bigotry. Bringing together insights from psychology, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Bloom explores how we have come to surpass these limitations. Along the way, he examines the morality of chimpanzees, violent psychopaths, religious extremists, and Ivy League professors, and explores our often puzzling moral feelings about sex, politics, religion, and race. In his analysis of the morality of children and adults, Bloom rejects the fashionable view that our moral decisions are driven mainly by gut feelings and unconscious biases. Just as reason has driven our great scientific discoveries, he argues, it is reason and deliberation that makes possible our moral discoveries, such as the wrongness of slavery. Ultimately, it is through our imagination, our compassion, and our uniquely human capacity for rational thought that we can transcend the primitive sense of morality we were born with, becoming more than just babies. Paul Bloom has a gift for bringing abstract ideas to life, moving seamlessly from Darwin, Herodotus, and Adam Smith to The Princess Bride, Hannibal Lecter, and Louis C.K. Vivid, witty, and intellectually probing, Just Babies offers a radical new perspective on our moral lives.

Learning begins in the first days of life. Scientists are now discovering how young children develop emotionally and intellectually, and are beginning to realize that from birth babies already know a staggering amount about the world around them. In the first book of its kind for a popular audience, three leading US scientists draw on twenty-five years of research in philosophy, psychology, computer science, linguistics and neuroscience to reveal what babies know and how they learn it.

First Published in 1999. This is Volume II of thirty-two in the Developmental Psychology series. Written in 1929, this book is a translation into English from Austrian of Dr. Bernfeld’s study that confines itself to an intensive study of the brief period in infancy from birth to weaning.

Infants may seem to do little more than eat, sleep, and play. Yet behind this misleadingly simplistic fa ade occurs an awe-inspiring process of development through which infants make sense of, and learn how to interact with the world around them. Written by leading researchers in the field, Introduction to Infant Development, Second Edition, provides fascinating insight into the psychological development of infants. This new edition captures the latest research in the field, with new chapters on perceptual and cognitive development as well as memory development; the text also examines the role of gender, culture, and social class in infant development. The coverage of language development and motor development has also been revised to account for the latest research. With enhanced pedagogical features throughout and a new Online Resource Center, Introduction to Infant Development is the ideal teaching and learning tool for those studying this intriguing field.

Originally published in 1933, this volume was the result of many years’ careful first-hand study of child psychology enriched by the author’s unusually wide experience in dealing with the subject with students. It was intended to follow the development of children from infancy to adolescence, but was cut short due to the author’s untimely death. The book makes available the results of modern experimental work of the time, much of which was published in scattered journals. Chapters deal with the development of sensory and muscular control, including walking and talking, and with the development of the intellectual, emotional and social life of children up to three years of age. A pioneer in the development of experimental psychology Hazlitt’s work can now be enjoyed again in its historical context.