Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience

This volume in the JPS Series is intended to help crystallize the emergence of a new field, "Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience," aimed at elucidating the neural correlates of the development of socio-emotional experience and behavior. No one any longer doubts that infants are born with a biologically based head start in accomplishing their important life tasks––genetic resources, if you will, that are exploited differently in different contexts. Nevertheless, it is also true that socially relevant neural functions develop slowly during childhood and that this development is owed to complex interactions among genes, social and cultural environments, and children’s own behavior. A key challenge lies in finding appropriate ways of describing these complex interactions and the way in which they unfold in real developmental time. This is the challenge that motivates research in developmental social cognitive neuroscience.

The chapters in this book highlight the latest and best research in this emerging field, and they cover a range of topics, including the typical and atypical development of imitation, impulsivity, novelty seeking, risk taking, self and social awareness, emotion regulation, moral reasoning, and executive function. Also addressed are the potential limitations of a neuroscientific approach to the development of social cognition.

Intended for researchers and advanced students in neuroscience and developmental, cognitive, and social psychology, this book is appropriate for graduate seminars and upper-level undergraduate courses on social cognitive neuroscience, developmental neuroscience, social development, and cognitive development.

Philip David Zelazo is the Nancy M. and John L. Lindahl Professor at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. He received his PhD (with distinction) from Yale in 1993. The recipient of numerous awards including the Boyd McCandless Young Scientist Award from the American Psychological Association, Dr. Zelazo’s research focuses on the conscious control of thought, action, and emotion. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Jean Piaget Society, and is an editorial board member of Child Development, Emotion, Cognitive Development, Journal of Cognition and Development, Psyche, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, and Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

Michael Chandler is a developmental psychologist at the University of British Columbia. He received his PhD in psychology, with a specialty in clinical developmental psychology from the University of California. Dr. Chandler is the only researcher in Canada ever named Distinguished Investigator of both the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. His research explores the role that culture plays in the construction of identity development.

Eveline Crone is Professor of Developmental Psychology at Leiden University and the Leiden Institute for Brain & Cognition. She has received several awards for her contributions to human sciences in the Netherlands and she is a member of the young academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Part 1. Introduction. P.D. Zelazo, M. Chandler, E.A. Crone, The Birth and Early Development of a New Discipline: Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience. Part 2. The Typical and Atypical Development of Social Cognition in Childhood. V. Gallese, M. Rochat, Motor Cognition: The Role of the Motor System in the Phylogeny and Ontogeny of Social Cognition and its Relevance for the Understanding of Autism. C. Moore, J. Barresi, The Construction of Commonsense Psychology in Infancy. J.E. Benson, M. Sabbagh, Theory of Mind and Executive Functioning: A Developmental Neuropsychological Approach. W. Cunningham, P.D. Zelazo, The Development of Iterative Reprocessing: Implications for Affect and Its Regulation. S.B. Perlman, B.C. Vander Wyk, K.A. Pelphrey, Brain Mechanisms in the Typical and Atypical Development of Social Cognition. S. Baron-Cohen, Autism and the Emphasizing-Systemizing (E-S) Theory. Part 3. Social Cognition in Adolescence. J.H. Pfeifer, M. Dapretto, M.D. Lieberman, The Neural Foundations of Evaluative Self-Knowledge in Middle Childhood, Early Adolescence and Adulthood. M. Ernst, M. Hardin, Neurodevelopment Underlying Adolescent Behavior: A Neurobiological Model. A.A. Baird, The Terrible Twelves. L. van Leijenhorst, E. Crone, Paradoxes in Adolescent Risk-taking. R.L. Selman, L.F. Feigenberg, Between Neurons and Neighborhoods: Innovative Methods to Assess the Development and Depth of Adolescent Social Awareness. Part 4. The Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience of Moral Reasoning. P.J. Eslinger, M. Robinson-Long, Crucial Developmental Role of Prefrontal Cortex in Social Cognition and Moral Maturation: Evidence from Early Prefrontal Lesions and fMRI. R.J. Blair, Contributions of Neuroscience to the Understanding of Moral Reasoning and its Development. J. Carpendale, B.W. Sokol, U. Müller, Is a Neuroscience of Morality Possible? E. Turiel, The Relevance of Moral Epistemology and Psychology for Neuroscience.