Over the past three decades mounting evidence has suggested that infants’ social perceptual and social cognitive abilities are considerably richer than was once thought. By the end of the second year of life, infants discriminate faces along various social dimensions, attend to and understand others’ goals and intentions, use the emotions of others to guide their learning and behavior, attribute dispositional characteristics to other agents, and make basic social evaluations. What has also become clear is that there is a great deal of variability in infants’ social perception and cognition. A critical, outstanding question concerns the nature and meaning of such variability. The proposed Research Topic welcomes papers addressing cutting-edge questions regarding variability and individual differences in early social perception and social cognition. The goal of these papers is to investigate overarching questions in this domain, which are necessary to move the field forward. Variability in early social perception and social cognition (among other domains) in infancy and early childhood is often attributed to noise, or overlooked in favor of focusing on age-related changes. Yet, recent work suggests that variability in social perceptual and social cognitive tasks reliably inter-relates, and predicts real-world social behaviors. For example, infants’ everyday experience with different face categories predicts individual differences in face processing, infants’ production of goal-directed actions predicts their simultaneous understanding of these actions, and variability in social attention during the second year of life is related to theory of mind during the preschool years. These findings suggest that variability in performance on social perception and social cognition tasks is not merely a nuisance variable, but, rather, may provide the key to addressing significant questions regarding the nature of infants’ social perception and social cognition, and the processes that underlie developmental change. Acknowledging and closely examining and investigating variability in early social perceptual and social cognitive abilities may represent a powerful approach for understanding development in (at least) two ways. First, variability can signal transitional points in the developmental onset of a given ability. Thus, such variability, and the extent to which variability relates to experience and/or other abilities, can be used to test hypotheses regarding mechanisms that underlie developmental changes. Second, variability can represent more enduring individual differences between infants. In this case, critical questions arise regarding the source of individual differences (that is, what factors shape the emergence of individual differences?) and whether such early individual differences contribute to the development of more advanced and sophisticated forms of social cognition and behavior. The goal of this Research Topic will be to encourage researchers to take variability in early social perception and cognition seriously. Papers that give variability center stage, and are aimed at addressing the value of variability for identifying developmental mechanisms, as well as investigating the existence, source, and antecedents of early individual differences in social perception and social cognition are welcomed. Taken together, the contributed papers will provide integral new information to the study of social perception and social cognition over the first three years of life.

Developmental research has long focused on regularities in language acquisition, minimizing factors that might be responsible for variation. Although researchers are now increasingly concerned with one or another of these factors, this volume brings together research on three different sources of variation: language-specific properties, the nature of the input to children across contexts, and several aspects of the learners themselves. Chapters explore these sources of variation within an interdisciplinary and comparative approach allying theories and methodologies stemming from linguistics, psycholinguistics, developmental psychology, and neuroscience. The comparative perspective involves different languages, contexts of use, types of learners (first/second language acquisition, monolingual/bilingual learners, autism, language impairment), as well as vocal and visuo-gestural communicative modalities (co-verbal gestures, sign language acquisition). The volume points to the need to enhance interdisciplinary research using complementary methodologies to further examine sources of variation and to integrate variation into a more general developmental theory.

Catherine Sanderson's Social Psychology will help open students minds to a world beyond their own experience so that they will better understand themselves and others. Sanderson's uniquely powerful program of learning resources was built to support you in moving students from passive observers to active course participants. Go further in applying social psychology to everyday life. Sanderson includes application boxes on law, media, environment, business, health and education in every chapter right as the relevant material is introduced, rather than at the end of the book. This allows students to make an immediate connection between the concept and the relevant application and provides a streamlined 15 chapter organization that helps you cover more of the material in a term.

New Perspectives on Early Social-Cognitive Development, Volume 258 in the Progress in Brain Research series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters on topics such as Dynamics of Coordinated Attention, Investigating the Role of Neural Body Maps in Early Social-Cognitive Development: New Insights from Infant MEG and EEG, Motion tracking in developmental research: Methodological considerations and social-cognitive developmental applications, Early maturation of the social brain: How brain development provides a platform for the acquisition of social-cognitive competence, Getting a grip on early intention understanding: The role of motor, cognitive, and social factors, and much more. - Provides the authority and expertise of leading contributors from an international board of authors - Presents the latest release in the Progress in Brain Research series - Includes the latest information on New Perspectives on Early Social-cognitive Development

This Handbook is a comprehensive and scholarly overview of the latest research on prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. The Second Edition provides a full update of its highly successful predecessor and features new material on key issues such as political activism, economic polarization, minority stress, same-sex marriage laws, dehumanization, and mental health stigma, in addition to a timely update on how victims respond to discrimination, and additional coverage of gender and race. All chapters are written by eminent researchers who explore topics by presenting an overview of current research and, where appropriate, developing new theory, models, or scales. The volume is clearly structured, with a broad section on cognitive, affective, and neurological processes, and there is inclusion of studies of prejudice based on race, sex, age, sexual orientation, and weight. A concluding section explores the issues involved in reducing prejudice. The Handbook is an essential resource for students, instructors, and researchers in social and personality psychology, and an invaluable reference for academics and professionals in sociology, communication studies, gerontology, nursing, medicine, as well as government and policymakers and social service agencies.

THEORIES IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Theories in Social Psychology develops a deeper, more robust understanding of the theoretical framework underlying the field. Providing rich insights into the central theories and perspectives that continue to shape the discipline, this edited volume brings together a panel of distinguished scholars to address thirteen social psychological theories relating to social cognition, social comparison, social reinforcement, and self. In-depth critical discussions examine topics including cognitive dissonance, reactance, attribution, social comparison, relative deprivation, equity, interdependency, social identity, and more. The expanded second edition fills a substantial gap in current literature by articulating the important psychological theories rather than placing emphasis on applied research. New and revised content helps students understand the construction and complexity of key theories while inspiring researchers of social behavior to reflect on their current work and consider future areas of investigation. This comprehensive resource: Identifies and discusses the theoretical perspectives and specific theories that form the foundation of the study of social psychology Features work from leading scholars including Bertram F. Malle, Paul R. Nail, Richard E. Petty, Thomas Mussweiler, Faye J. Crosby, and Miles Hewstone Helps students move from introductory concepts to multifaceted theoretical frameworks Theories in Social Psychology, Second Edition, remains the perfect textbook for academics and students wanting to study and discuss important social psychological perspectives and theories and attain a deeper understanding of the theoretical framework. “This book will be a very valuable tool for students and professionals alike who wish to learn theories in social psychology and the role they have played in the development of the discipline. It is comprehensive in its coverage and covers the theories in an objective and engaging way.” —Robert J. Sternberg, Professor, Department of Psychology, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University, Honorary Professor of Psychology, University of Heidelberg, Germany “In this wonderful new edition of compilation of theories, at the core of modern social psychology, presented to us by Derek Chadee, we are given a special gift that enriches scholars, teachers and students of psychology in social and general psychology. We are treated to a clear exposition of these theories some of the research and controversy that each has generated, and are given some guidelines to new paths for future exploration of their implications. My research career has benefitted from working in the domains of dissonance, attribution, and social comparison theories, but my teaching and textbook writing has relied on all of the theories and their concepts so elegantly orchestrated here.” —Phillip G. Zimbardo, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Stanford University

The current book addresses the development of mental state understanding in children with typical and atypical population, and reports new suggestions about the way to evaluate it and to support it through training. The presented frame is multifaceted. In respect to typical populations, the role of maternal reflective functioning, language, communication, and educational contexts has been deepened; and the association with internalizing/externalizing behaviors, performances in spatial tasks and pragmatics has been addressed as well. As to atypical populations, deficits in mental states understanding are reported for children with different developmental disorders or impairments, as the agenesis of the corpus callosum, Down Syndrome, preterm birth, Autism Spectrum Disorder, hearing impairment and personality difficulties such as anxiety. Overall, the papers collected in our book allow a better understanding of the mechanisms influencing mental state understanding and the effects of mental state comprehension on development.

Inspired by the abundance of unique personalities available on dating websites, a renowned neuroscientist examines the science of what makes you, you. David J. Linden has devoted his career to understanding the biology common to all humans. But a few years ago he found himself on OkCupid. Looking through that vast catalog of human diversity, he got to wondering: What makes us all so different? Unique is the riveting answer. Exploring everything from the roots of sexuality, gender, and intelligence to whether we like bitter beer, Linden shows how our individuality results not from a competition of nature versus nurture, but rather from a mélange of genes continually responding to our experiences in the world, beginning in the womb. And he shows why individuality matters, as it is our differences that enable us to live together in groups. Told with Linden's unusual combination of authority and openness, seriousness of purpose and wit, Unique is the story of how the factors that make us all human can change and interact to make each of us a singular person.