What is the unique mission of developmental psychology? How has it evolved historically? What are its current challenges? The chapters in this collection present the view that research, history and policy are essential and interlocking components of a mature developmental psychology. Patterns of human development differ markedly across historical epochs, cultures and social circumstances. Major societal changes examined by contributing authors - the advent of universal compulsory schooling, the adoption of a one-child policy in China, US policy shifts in healthcare, welfare and childcare - present 'natural experiments' in social design. Authors challenge the idea of a clear distinction between basic and applied developmental research. In sharp contrast with the view that science is value-neutral, developmental psychologists have from the outset pursued the betterment of children and families through educational, childcare and health initiatives. An historical perspective reveals the beneficial, if sometimes contentious, interplay between empirical research and social programs and policies.

Governments in the developing nations of Africa invest much of their countries’ scarce resources in social and economic development programs, often without much evaluation of the programs or any knowledge of the potential outcomes. Social Psychology and Social Change in Nigeria offers a critical analysis and evaluation of government development social policies and programs, written by a social psychology government consultant who has been involved with such programs for over fifteen years. The analyses and evaluations are conducted using social psychology methods and techniques, including experimental and longitudinal studies, field surveys, and national opinion approaches. Programs and public policies selected for study in the book are those that are guided by social psychology theories and principles, such as the contact hypothesis, ethnic orientation, attitude, behavior and value change, social mobilization, environmental health, and strengthening the youth and women entrepreneurs' contributions to national development. It is the author’s hope that this book will be the first of many such studies, thus helping to improve the outcomes of economic development programs in Nigeria and other African nations.

Individual Development and Social Change: Explanatory Analysis represents a convergence of three lines of emphasis now visible in developmental research and theory building. The three are (1) the life course as a focus for the study of development and social change, and their interrelationships; (2) the life-span orientation to the study of individual development, with its acknowledgment of the salience of contextual features for understanding development; and (3) the growth of methodological innovations that provide more appropriate and powerful ways of exploiting data gathered to describe and explain developmental change processes. The book opens with a study on how major cultural change originates and unfolds over time. This is followed by separate chapters on the use of sequential designs for explanatory analyses; evolutionary aspects of social and individual development; the concepts of the theory of causal and weak causal regressive dependence; and the concepts of age, period, and cohort from the perspective of developmental psychology. Subsequent chapters examine development and aging as lifelong processes of historical populations; the methodological integration of natural and cultural science perspectives in developmental psychology; and application of the multifaceted methodology to the mutuality of constraint between sociocultural group and individual dynamics.

Today′s world is characterized by a set of overarching trends that often come under the rubric of social change. In this innovative volume, Rainer K. Silbereisen and Xinyin Chen bring together, for the first time, international experts in the field to examine how changes in our social world impact on our individual development. Divided into four parts, the book explores the major socio-political and technological changes that have taken place around the world - from post- from the rapid upheavals in 1990s Europe to the gradual changes in parts of East Asia - and explains how these developments interplay with human development across the lifespan. Human Development and Social Change is a useful resource for students and researchers involved in all areas of human development, including developmental psychology, sociology and education.

The decline of the socialist governments in Eastern and Central Europe and the resulting political and economic reorganizations of the 1990s provided a dramatic illustration of the far-reaching effects of social change. For those interested in the health and well-being of youth, such instances of social upheaval raise the question of how young people are affected socially and psychologically by societal changes, and whether their development is compromised or enhanced. This important volume considers the processes through which societal changes exert an impact on the course of adolescent development and identify individual and contextual factors that can modify the impact of social change and enhance the likelihood of a successful transition to adulthood.

Part of the authoritative four-volume reference that spans the entire field of child development and has set the standard against which all other scholarly references are compared. Updated and revised to reflect the new developments in the field, the Handbook of Child Psychology, Sixth Edition contains new chapters on such topics as spirituality, social understanding, and non-verbal communication. Volume 3: Social, Emotional, and Personality Development, edited by Nancy Eisenberg, Arizona State University, covers mechanisms of socialization and personality development, including parent/child relationships, peer relationships, emotional development, gender role acquisition, pro-social and anti-social development, motivation, achievement, social cognition, and moral reasoning, plus a new chapter on adolescent development.