Reviews Karmiloff-Smith's "Beyond Modularity," suggesting that her work highlights phenomena that seem counter intuitive when regarded from current developmental frameworks, and advocates that understanding them requires more complex perspectives than can be supported by either extreme nativist or domain-general models of cognitive…

Because developmental theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bandura are far more complex than much of the empirical work based on them, researchers have concentrated on relatively narrow aspects of each man's ideas, in the process magnifying the differences between them. Nevertheless, basic differences do exist in each theorist's conceptualization of…

Agrees with proposition of Tudge and Winterhoff in the previous article that the differences between the developmental theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bandura have been exaggerated over the last 30 years. Perceived differences that distinguished these theories in the early 1960s have diminished dramatically, due in part to the later work of the…

Piaget's last writings in the 1980s and early 1990s contained both a coherent constructivist account of explanation in science and specific suggestions for revising the logic of operations as a logic of meanings. Demonstrates the interdependence of these two aspects of his work by examining the merits of Piaget's revised logical competence model…

Calls for a coalition of different research methods and strategies to better understand learning and development. Describes two such strategies: (1) testing-the-limits decomposing age-graded differences in upper limits of plasticity; and (2) experimental simulation of development, a coordinated sequence of theory-guided research steps. Both…

Notes that Nelson, Plesa, and Henseler's (1998) article addresses the issues of where social cognitive knowledge comes from, what form it takes, and whether "theory of mind" is an appropriate description of the social cognitive enterprise. Argues that researchers ought to get beyond the "theory" issue, and focus on the sources…

Maintains that Muller and Overton (1998) challenge the current Zeitgeist regarding infant cognitive development. Suggests that researchers reconsider infants as developing actors in a meaningful environment, not as born philosophers. Notes the need to explore processes underlying key transitions in infancy and the relation between action and…

Maintains that strengths of Olson and Torrance's work include its balanced focus on child and curriculum. Argues that the book neglects affective, social, and cultural aspects of development. Argues that the book's avoidance of ethnic categorization could encourage or justify avoiding issues of differences in human development and equity in…

Historically, cognitive-developmental and behavior-analytic approaches to the study of human behavior change and development have been presented as incompatible alternative theoretical and methodological perspectives. This presumed incompatibility has been understood as arising from divergent sets of metatheoretical assumptions that take the form…

Concepts of inner direction and of other direction are related to sex differences in correlates and antecedents of achievement motivation and behavior. (Author/ED)

Discusses difficulties in measuring interpersonal understanding, ego development and moral development. Compares Loevinger's and Selman's theories, showing how cognitive and sociocognitive structures may be used to reconstruct many ego development test items. (NH)

Discusses social impact of IQ used as concrete reference point; promotes a phenomenological approach to psychological development. (ST)

Presents a selected review of Habermas'"Theory of Communicative Action." The theorist's model of action rationality and concept of the "life world" are discussed, and an approach is suggested linking Habermas's substantive theory to psychological-developmental dimensions. (Author/RH)

Researchers concerned with the issue of children's play are urged to read the book "Children's Play: Current Theory and Research" edited by D. J. Pepler and K. H. Rubin which provides an up-to-date review of the conceptual, methodological and developmental issues related to children's play. (MP)

This review argues that an hypothesis about longitudinal development may be derived from, and tested exclusively by, cross-sectional data, when the potential sources of interpretive errors are dealt with adequately. The argument is illustrated by cross-sectional data relevant to developmental mediation theory. (Author/SS)