from this line of research showing how children’s genetic susceptibility to environmental influence plays out in some social behavioral characteristics. From there, Ladd briefly walks us through ways that the emergence of the neuroscience discipline in the 1960s has increased our understanding of how neurological and brain development processes are linked to children’s social development. More recent innovations in imaging technology have dramatically increased knowledge of how the construct of the “social brain” facilitates the analysis of social stimuli. A concluding section highlights the incremental refinements that have evolved in the study of variations in emotional, cognitive, and behavioral processes that tie child temperamental characteristics to social development.
Aim three takes readers through what Ladd refers to as the “nonobservables” such as social‐cognitive, psychological, and emotional representations and processes that are reflected in child social developmental outcomes. This includes sections on: self‐understanding (e.g., self‐recognition, self‐concept, self‐esteem); social cognition which focuses on inferences children make about others’ mental states and psychological characteristics and how they use these insights to navigate their social worlds; and moral development, which includes research on moral reasoning, children’s knowledge about social norms and conventions, and internalization of moral rules and the emotions that guide moral decision making that is reflected in social behavior.
Aim four illuminates the ways that aversive socialization practices and other risk factors predict adverse psychosocial outcomes for children. Ladd gives an overview of the knowledge that has accumulated over the past several decades from research on the family system regarding the adverse effects of child maltreatment, marital discord, divorce, poor mental health, and insecure attachment relationships. This is followed by a review of research on impoverished child rearing conditions that negatively impact children’s social and psychological adjustment, with a focus on institutionally reared children and inconsistent caretaking. Problems in the peer system has been another area of systematic inquiry. Ladd discusses how poor peer relations in childhood is one of the best predictors of later problematic social and mental health outcomes. Much of this stems from peer group rejection, peer exclusion, and peer victimization. Risky child characteristics that are manifest in behavioral tendencies towards different forms of aggressive or withdrawn behavior, along with difficult temperament and mental health challenges (e.g., childhood depression), are associated with a host of dysfunctional characteristics and outcomes in adolescence and adulthood.
Ladd concludes this chapter with an analysis of the major factors that have facilitated transformations in social development research over the past 50 years. Readers will be enlightened by his synthesis and evaluation of innovations in developmental theories and models of development, the sociocultural issues and public health crises that have given rise to new lines of investigation, and the unprecedented rate of knowledge that has been acquired through advances in research methodology and sophisticated analytic strategies.
Looking back and reflecting on the historical insights gleaned from this carefully crafted chapter and the chapters that follow can help advance interdisciplinary knowledge about children’s social development in new and potentially exciting ways. It is easy to ignore the past and forget how we got to where we are. But it is important to remember how the past still exerts a strong influence on the parameters of our present thinking. As we review the breadth of scientific literature on children’s social development that Ladd and the other authors in this Handbook have so eloquently organized and synthesized for us, we may learn something too from the successes and failures of our predecessors that will help strategically shape the next half century for the betterment of children around the world.
CHAPTER ONE Conceptual and Empirical Precursors of Contemporary Social Development Research
Gary W. Ladd
The aim of this chapter is to consider how conceptual and investigative trends over the past half‐century (i.e., 1970s to 2020s; the “modern era”; Collins, 2011) shaped the theoretical and investigative agendas that drive contemporary research on social development. This historical analysis begins by briefly examining some of the ideological and empirical foundations of the modern era. It then proceeds to identify the dominant aims and foci of social development discipline during the past half‐century and trace the major research trends and substantive developments that transpired during that epoch. Of particular interest are research agendas that supersede individual substantive areas and thereby exemplify the overarching purposes of the larger scientific enterprise. Finally, this analysis traces some of the conceptual and empirical forces that transformed the discipline, including shifts in explanatory foci and frameworks, the influx of sociocultural issues and crises, and the introduction of novel research methods and analytic strategies.
Foundations of the Modern Era
The ideological underpinnings of the modern era can be traced to an intellectual awakening that originated during the 1800s and continued into the mid‐1900s (the emergent and middle periods; Collins, 2011). Interest in child socialization and development grew out of the enlightened humanitarian values and novel theoretical speculations that were expressed in the writings of philosophers, psychologists, educators, and physicians during the mid‐ to late 1800s. These innovative ideas challenged prevailing perspectives on a range of sociocultural and scientific issues including the origins of morality, the determinants of crime and juvenile delinquency, the causes of mental illness, and the value of education for children.
By the turn of 20th the century, these ideological forces inspired new ways of thinking about childrearing and development. Critical in this shift was the view that children’s development was driven not only by forces acting inside the child (e.g., the child’s nature), but also by forces outside the child, such as the socializing influences of families, peers, and cultures.
In the scientific community, the role of socialization and children’s social experience figured prominently in emerging theory and research on normal and abnormal development. Early examples include G. Stanley Hall’s (1844–1924) investigations of school children’s interests and experiences (White, 1994), John B. Watson’s (1878–1958) contention that learning drives development (Watson, 1913), and James Mark Baldwin’s (1861–1934) assertions that the child’s social environment, and the child’s reactions to this milieu, were essential and interrelated components of development (Cairns, 1994). During the early‐ to mid‐1900s, theorists such as Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, George Herbert Mead, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky contended that, among other influences, children’s development was affected by their experiences with adult caregivers and peers.
Freud (1856–1939) stressed the importance of early experience and theorized that conflicts between the child’s biological drives and rearing experiences (i.e., progressively across distinct psychosexual stages) shaped personality development. He also saw early parent–child play as a context that influenced children’s sense of self and shaped their emotional ties with caregivers (via brief separations and feelings of loss; Emde, 1994). In proposing the concept of the “looking glass self,” Mead (1863–1931) asserted that the individual’s self‐concept was based on the reactions they received from others (Mead, 1913). Erikson (1902–1994), a student of Freud’s, recognized the importance of parents and peers in children’s identity formation by arguing that relations with socializers could enhance or undermine a child’s sense of interpersonal trust, self‐worth, and social competence (Erikson, 1950).
Piaget (1896–1980) articulated a constructivist perspective in which organismic growth coupled with formative experiences – particularly conflicts with peers and other socializers – propelled not only children’s intellectual development but also their moral development (Beilin, 1994). The Russian psychologist Vygotsky (1896–1934), a contemporary of Piaget’s who died much younger than him, emphasized the social context of learning (Vygotsky, 1978). His concept of the zone of proximal
