Child Psychology in Retrospect and Prospect: in Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the institute of Child Development (Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology) [1 ed.] 0805839712, 9780805839715, 9780585444918

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Child Psychology in Retrospect and Prospect In Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Institute of Child Development The Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology Volume 32

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Child Psychology in Retrospect and Prospect In Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Institute of Child Development The Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology Volume 32

Edited by

Willard W. Hartup Richard A. Weinberg University of Minnesota

Copyright © 2002 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, NJ 07430

Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Child psychology in retrospect and prospect: in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Institute of Child Development / edited by Willard W. Hartup, Richard A. Weinberg. p. cm.—(The Minnesota symposia on child psychology; v. 32) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 0-8058-3971-2 (alk. paper) 1. Child psychology—Congresses. 2. Child development—Congresses. I. Hartup, Willard W. II. Weinberg, Richard A. III. University of Minnesota. Institute of Child Development. IV. Minnesota symposia on child psychology (Series); v. 32. BF721 .C5164 2001 155.4—dc21

2001040929

Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents Preface 1.

2.

Origin of Species: The Potential Significance of Early Experience for Evolution Gilbert Gottlieb

1

How a Child Builds a Brain: Insights From Normality and Psychopathology Dante Cicchetti

23

3.

The Symbol-Mindedness of Young Children Judy S. DeLoache

4.

Understanding Understanding: Historical Origins of Current Questions About the Early Development of Receptive Language Competence Anne Fernald

5.

Emotion-Related Regulation and Its Relation to Quality of Social Functioning Nancy Eisenberg

6.

Children Develop in History: So What’s New? John Modell and Glen H. Elder, Jr.

7.

Notes Toward a Philosophy of Science for Developmental Science Sheldon H. White

8.

vii

The Institute of Child Development: Pioneering in Science and Application Willard W. Hartup, Ann Johnson, and Richard A. Weinberg

Author Index Subject Index

73

103

133 173

207

227

259 271

v

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Preface

Anniversaries suggest stock taking as well as celebration. Accordingly, when the Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, neared its 75th anniversary, the faculty wished to observe the event in two ways—by examining current research in developmental psychology in historical context, and by studying the history of the Institute itself. Included in this volume are eight essays based on presentations made at the 32nd Minnesota Symposium on Child Psychology held at the university on October 19–21, 2000, in observance of this Diamond Jubilee. All of the essays in the book are devoted to developmental science, its history and current status. The editors deliberately sought diversity in these manuscripts. For example, one contains an assessment of new ideas concerning the manner in which development affects evolution rather than the reverse. In another manuscript, current work on the linkages between brain and behavior is assessed within an extended historical context. And so, too, the volume includes essays on the development of symbolic thought, the understanding of spoken language, and personality—each describing contemporary work within an analysis of the history of ideas leading to it. The volume also contains two essays in which “history” figures some-what differently: One deals with the manner in which the child’s development contributes to social historical change as well as the reverse. In this essay, readers are reminded clearly that the dialectic between ontogeny and the social-historical context must be a constant consideration in developmental science. Still another essay contains a penetrating analysis of the philosophical and ideological foundations of the contemporary field of child psychology as a whole. “History” thus comes alive in this volume in several guises: as the context in which changing ideologies shape scientific endeavor; as an accounting, through time, of ideas undergirding contemporary research; and as processes through which ontogeny contributes to both the origin of species and the origins of social change. The remaining essay deals with institutional history, specifically the history of the Institute of Child Development. No such account has been published previously and this one was written to complement the other essays in the volume. As it happens, the Institute came into being as a result of major changes that occurred in the United States during the early vii

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PREFACE

20th century in ideas about childhood, in the uses and responsibilities of science with respect to children, and in the utilization of great philanthropic and educational institutions to shape public policy concerning children and families. In this chapter, the forces are described that brought the Institute of Child Development into being as well as the forces that affected its subsequent history. Taken together, the manuscripts included in this book show how the history of science connects past and future, how it gives the individual investigator an identity and sense of purpose that he or she would not have without it, how contemporary studies occur within larger traditions, and how institutions like the Institute of Child Development constitute cultural traditions of their own. Collectively, these essays show that the past explains a great deal—whether we want to know about the processes through which the child acquires symbolic thought or whether we want to know how and why, during the last century, a few enduring centers were established for the scientific study of children and adolescents. Reading these essays, one obtains a sense of how the past becomes evidence, how it forms models for the way we think, and how intellectual challenges arise. As editors, we are grateful to the authors for undertaking the retrospective/ prospective task we laid out; most of them are not trained historians and the task was challenging. The historians among our authors also deserve great credit for the originality of their syntheses. The anniversary celebration held in October 2000 brought together current and former students, current and former faculty, and current and former staff; the presence of these individuals was crucial to the success of the symposium that had been planned. In fact, the celebration was gala: There was discussion, thesis and antithesis, feasting, music, and dancing. Special thanks are also due to several other individuals: to Ann Masten, Director of the Institute, for her many efforts on behalf of this event including the scholarly proceedings, the gala celebration, and this volume; to Lu-Jean Huffman-Nordberg, who headed the support staff for a number of previous symposia as well as this one (just before she retired); and to Claudia Johnston and Wendy McCormick for services too numerous to mention. Sponsors of the celebration included the Institute of Child Development, The College of Education and Human Development, the Leon and Marian Yarrow Endowment for Research in Social Relationships, and the Parents’ Institute Fund. As organizers of this event, we are grateful to these entities and to the individuals responsible for them. Finally, we wish to express our gratitude to the thousands of children, adolescents, women, and men who have been active in the Institute of Child Development over the last three quarters of a century. These include babies and preschool children, school children and adolescents,

PREFACE

ix

professors, teachers, undergraduate and graduate students, cooks, librarians, accountants, secretaries, statisticians, laboratory technicians, parents, grandparents, University alumni, deans, presidents, site visitors, individuals on sabbatical leave, Minnesota Symposia guests, maintenance personnel, donors, colloquium speakers, and many others. Our research, our nursery school, our classes and seminars, our research and writing, and the many other activities that constitute the Institute would not have been possible without them. We believe these contributions merit celebration and, with these words, we invite readers to celebrate along with us. —Willard W. Hartup —Richard A. Weinberg

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1 Origin of Species: The Potential Significance of Early Experience for Evolution Gilbert Gottlieb University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The traditional approach to evolutionary psychology relies entirely on natural selection as the cause of the evolution of adaptations. Exclusive reliance on natural selection overlooks the fact that changes in development are a necessary prerequisite for evolutionary change. These developmental changes provide the material for natural selection to work on. In the neo-Darwinian scenario, the mechanisms of evolution are mutation or genetic recombination, selection, migration, and eventual reproductive isolation. In the spirit of evolutionary pluralism, I describe a different three-stage scenario in which migration (the invasion of new niches or habitats) may occur without mutation or genetic recombination and selection first initiating a change in genes or gene frequencies: 1. Known changes in developmental rearing conditions foster behavioral novelties (behavioral neophenogenesis) that heighten exploratory behavior, resistance to stress, and problem-solving ability, all of which favor the occupation of new niches (or survival in a greatly changed old niche). 2. Survival in an altered niche or occupation of a new niche brings out latent anatomical and physiological changes through the activation of previously quiescent genes. 3. The genetic composition of the population may eventually change through reproductive isolation, but in this model, that occurs only after phenotypic evolution has already occurred at the anatomical, physiological, and behavioral levels. 1

2

GOTTLIEB

The modes of behavioral neophenogenesis—the developmental induction of novel behavior—are described and discussed, closing with an example of incipient speciation mediated by a developmental-behavioral change in the apple maggot fly (Rhagoletis pomonella). CONVENTIONAL THINKING IN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY In biological circles, it is an open secret that Charles Darwin (1859), in his magnificent book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, did not actually describe the origin of any species. Although Darwin did claim to have marshaled facts that supported his thesis that natural selection was the means for the origin of species, actually natural selection refers to what is happening in the subtitle rather than in the title of his book: Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Natural selection, acting as a filter, preserves (or destroys) that which is put to it; the question remains as to the origin of what is put to natural selection. When these two aspects of the problem—origin versus preservation—are not distinguished, a main problem in evolution, the origin of the variants thrown up to selection, is finessed, and one gets a distorted version of natural selection causing the adaptations, rather than preserving them, as in the following quotation: “Adaptation and natural selection are central concepts in the emerging science of evolutionary psychology. Natural selection is the only known causal process capable of producing complex functional organic ... adaptations” (Buss, Haselton, Shackelford, Bleski, & Wakefield, 1998, p. 533). In contrast to the aforementioned, as first pointed out by St. George Jackson Mivart (1871), adaptations arise before they are selected for and are, therefore, not a consequence of natural selection. Adaptations are a consequence of individual development; changes in individual development produce new behavioral variations and different adaptations. Thus, it is changes in individual development that produce evolution through natural selection. As noted by Endler (1986), “Natural selection cannot explain the origin of new variants and adaptations, only their spread” (p. 51). This essay is about the role that behavior plays in instigating evolution; more specifically, the fundamental importance of changes in behavior brought about by changes in prenatal and postnatal rearing environments. Behavior is the leading edge of evolution, as has been intermittently recognized since the time of Lamarck (Leonovicova & Novak, 1987). Conventional thinking in evolutionary biology would hold that genetic mutations, genetic recombination, or genetic drift are the leading edge of evolution. In the spirit of evolutionary pluralism, I am proposing a different pathway in which behavioral change leads the way to genetic change. Although

1. ORIGIN OF SPECIES

3

these different pathways are not mutually exclusive, what the molecular biologist Francois Jacob (1982) wrote in discussing the evolutionary path-way pertains to the present model: “It was not, however, biochemical innovation that generated the diversification of organisms. In all likelihood, things worked the other way around. It was the selective pressure resulting from changes in behavior or in ecological niches that led to biochemical adjustments and changes in molecular types”1 (p. 41). Given that behavior can change before the population genotype changes, it is important to understand how such behavioral changes can be maintained across generations in the early stages of evolution. RAPID “EVOLUTION” OF BEHAVIORAL DIFFERENCES BY SELECTIVE BREEDING AND THEIR MAINTENANCE ACROSS GENERATIONS BY STABILITY IN THE REARING ENVIRONMENT Because genes are a part of the developmental system, of which behavior is also a necessary component, it is possible to selectively breed for any behavioral trait once that trait has surfaced. The evidence for that conclusion is presented in Table 1.1. As can be seen in Table 1.1, it is possible to selectively breed animals for all kinds of existing behavioral differences: learning (maze dull vs. maze bright), spontaneous activity (high, low), audiogenic seizures (susceptible, nonsusceptible), alcohol preference (high, no preference), aggressiveness (high, low), mating speed (fast, slow), and so on. The differences in many of these strains (or lines) of animals developed rather quickly in the course of four or five generations of selectively breeding like to like. The trick is not in bringing about these line (strain) differences (selective breeding does that), but in maintaining the differences across generations. To maintain the differences one needs not only to selectively breed the animals in each generation but to make certain the prenatal and postnatal rearing conditions remain the same. If the genes alone were bringing about the behavioral changes, then the rearing environment would be irrelevant. But because the genes do not make behavior, it is the genes-in-the-recurring-developmental-system that make for the stability of the behavioral changes across generations. The only reason it is possible to perpetuate virtually any trait by selective breeding in the laboratory is that great pains are taken to ensure that environmental (prenatal and postnatal rear-

I appreciate Professor Gerald Turkewitz, of Hunter College, calling this quotation to my attention. 1

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