Boundary Areas in Social and Developmental Psychology is based largely on the proceedings of a conference at Vanderbilt University in June 1981. One of the goals is to highlight some examples of research that illustrate facets of the important boundary area between social and developmental psychology. The book opens with a chapter that deals with the broad issues of boundary areas in psychology, ending with specific consideration of the boundary between social and developmental psychology. This is followed by separate chapters that consider general propositions regarding the importance of integrating concepts and methods from social and developmental psychology in the study of social relationships; show how integrating social and developmental considerations can assist in the understanding of relationships between parents and children; and apply developmental and social concepts to identify and study some of the aspects of the marital relationship that may lead to its dissolution. Subsequent chapters deal with boundary area issues focusing primarily on children's social behavior. These include the complexity of social processes inherent in children's peer relationships and the role of social exchange processes in social relationships from infancy to adulthood.

This book provides insight into the complex nature of socialization and development by exploring the interrelations among such topics as play, diet, social cognition, self-concept, friendship, family, and school. This book also examines the contributions and impact of intrapersonal and interpersonal integration on a child's psychological development from early to middle childhood levels.

This edited volume integrates research on people's relationships from childhood to later adulthood.

This volume takes the next step in the evolution of mass communication research tradition from effects to processes -- a more detailed and microanalytical analysis of the psychological processes involved in receiving and reacting to electronic media messages. This domain includes investigations into those psychological processes that occur between the process of selecting media messages for consumption and assessments of whatever processes mediate the long-term impact such message consumption may have on consumers' subsequent behavior. The editors strive to further understanding of some of the basic processes underlying the ways we gain entertainment and information.

Parents' Jobs and Children's Lives considers the effects of parental working conditions on children's cognition and social development. It also investigates how parental work affects the home environments that parents create for their children, and how these home environments influence the children directly. The theoretical underpinnings of the book draw from both sociology and economics; in addition, the authors make use of literature derived from developmental psychology. Theoretically eclectic, they rely on the personality and social structure framework developed by Melvin Kohn and his colleagues, on arguments regarding the importance of family social capital developed by James Coleman, as well as on ideas from Gary Becker's "new home economics" as guides to model specification. The empirical basis for Parcel and Menaghan's study is a series of multivariate analyses using data drawn from the 1986 and 1988 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey's Child-Mother data set. This data set matches longitudinal data on mothers, derived from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, with data on the children of these mothers born as of 1986. Children aged 3 to 6 were given age-appropriate developmental assessments every two years in order to assess the influence of parental work on short-term changes in their cognition and social behavior. The authors also devote considerable attention to the effects of fathers' work and family structure on the well-being of their children. Parcel and Menaghan's work brings evidence to bear on both the theoretical perspectives guiding the analyses and on current policy debates regarding the nexus of work and family.

Even as psychology becomes increasingly splintered and specialized, as evi denced by the growing number of special interest divisions of the American Psy chological Association, many psychologists are devoting their energies to finding commonalities between traditionally distinct fields and building bridges between them. Developmental psychopathology, for example, has emerged as a synthesis of child development theory and clinical child psychology. Health psychology has resulted from the cooperation and collaboration of many psychologists from a number of fields, including clinical, counseling, social, developmental, and physiological. Within clinical psychology is a growing movement toward "rap prochement" that is dedicated to finding common themes among seemingly dis parate approaches to psychotherapy. Thus, integration among different fields has increased even as diversity in psychology has flourished. One such integration or interfacing effort that is related in several ways to the integrative efforts just noted involves social, clinical, and counseling psychology. Although this effort is not a new one (see chapter 1), it was given a new lease on life by the publication of the first issue ofthe Journal of Social and Clinical Psy chology in 1983. Since that time, several volumes and numerous journal article and book chapters have been devoted to the general notion that social psychologi cal theory and research has much to offer clinical and counseling psychology, such as greater understanding of psychological and everyday problems in living and insight into clinical and counseling activities such as psychotherapy.

Coercive interactions and conflict are commonplace in close relationships and families, friendships, and teacher-student relationships in schools. Coercion and conflict can be used to grow stronger relationships, or they can lead to the deterioration of relationships, undermine efforts to socialize and teach youth, and lead to the development of mental health problems in children and parents. Coercion theory helps shed light on how these daily interaction dynamics explain the development of aggression, marital conflict, depression, and severe mental health problems in families and how they undermine school safety and effectiveness. The Oxford Handbook of Coercive Relationship Dynamics features the most recent, innovative applications of coercion theory to understanding psychopathology, developmental theory, and intervention science. The volume provides a multidisciplinary perspective on coercive processes, origins, and social functions to anchor coercion theory from multiple perspectives and to lay a theoretical and empirical foundation for innovative expansion of the coercion model to new areas of research. The volume gives specific examples of how the basic coercive processes underlie the development of significant suffering in children and families, and chapters include clinically oriented discussions of research on the role of coercion in the causation and amplification of problem behavior and emotional distress. The internationally renowned authors of this volume highlight scientific advances in the study of coercive dynamics in families and close relationships, account for physiological and genetic correlates of coercive dynamics, and discuss the application of coercion theory to effective interventions that improve the quality and well-being of children, adolescents, and adults. This volume is an invaluable resource on behavioral science methodology, developmental theory, and intervention science.

Presents the findings of the Carnegie Foundation study on adolescence, an interdisciplinary synthesis of research into the biological, social, and psychological changes occurring during this key stage in the life span. Focuses on the contexts of adolescent life-- social and ethnic, family and school, leisure and work.

This serial publication continues to review life-span research and theory in the behavioral and social sciences, particularly work done by psychologists and sociologists conducting programmatic research on current problems and refining theoretical positions. Each volume introduces excellent peer-reviewed empirical research into the field of life-span development while presenting interdisciplinary viewpoints on the topic. Often challenging accepted theories, this series is of great interest to developmental, personality, and social psychologists.

Based on presentations made at a conference sponsored by the Social Science Research Council's Committee on Social and Affective Development During Childhood, held at Harwichport, Mass., in June 1982.