This 1972 volume contains specially written reports by research workers in zoology, psychology and psychiatry applying methods of comparative ethology in studies of human behaviour. It is intended as a contrast to popular researches in animal behaviour. There has been a considerable increase in the number of descriptive/analytical studies of human behaviour concerned principally with the behaviour of children and their mothers, and the methods have become widely used. The present collection of papers assesses the value of the methods and clarifies the particular contributions which they may make to an understanding of human behaviour. The papers cover a range of topics familiar from animal studies: non-verbal communication, mother-infant interaction, play and aggressive behaviour, but also range widely into more usual subjects for developmental psychology: cross-cultural studies, development of skills, class differences in mother-infant interactions. This is essentially a book for research workers, teachers and students of behavioural sciences.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

First published in 1976, this volume is a collection of essays by some of the most prominent and active ethologists. It is organized into four sections: motivation and perception, function and evolution, development, and human social relationships. The first three sections reflect the four questions which are basic to ethology: what were the immediate causes of a behaviour pattern; what is its biological function; how did it evolve; and how did it develop in the individual? The last section involves questions of all four types. The sections are introduced and linked by editorials and the book concludes with an important statement on asking the right questions. The essays are forward looking and identify areas of importance for the study of behaviour. The volume is a source of formative ideas for students, their teachers and research workers in a wide variety of disciplines in the biological psychological and social sciences.

Evaluates the results of several decades of ethological work on developmental psychology. It looks at human development from the context of the natural world, thereby re-establishing the links, begun with Charles Darwin, between research on child development and animal behaviour.

First published in 1987. An attractive feature of nonverbal communication as a research area is that it has captured the interest of scholars of different disciplinary backgrounds psychologists, linguists, anthropologists, psychiatrists, and sociologists with each discipline bringing to the area its peculiar theoretical and methodological perspectives and biases. Each of these disciplines also tend to have a favorite topic or problem area within the general domain of nonverbal communication. Along with the varying yet overlapping topical concerns that the different disciplines bring to the area of nonverbal communication are major differences in methodology. The sections into which the book is divided roughly organize the chapters in terms of their concerns with the bodily structures and zones that are involved in nonverbal behavior.

Psychology Library Editions: Psycholinguistics brings together as one set, or individual volumes, a series of previously out-of-print titles, originally published between 1970 and 1990. From a variety of academic imprints this set reflects the growth of psycholinguistics as a serious scientific discipline in its own right. It provides in one place a wealth of important reference sources from a wide range of authors expert in the field.

Originally published in 1979, this book represents an effort to bring together the two disciplines at the core of psycholinguistics, psychology and linguistics. It discusses a broad variety of theoretical approaches to psycholinguistics as well as covering a wide range of topics. At the time the book had four goals: to discuss many of the important contemporary issues in psycholinguistics; to explore the different views on major theoretical controversies; to provide an analysis of background literature as a framework in which to evaluate the issues and controversies; and to describe interesting high-quality research currently being done by the authors and some of their colleagues. Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context, with many of the chapters still relevant in psycholinguistic research today.

Navajo Infancy describes the major sources of change and continuity in Navajo infant development. It does so by combining concepts and methods of classical ethology with those of social-cultural anthropology. The goal is to establish the relationships between human nature and culture. Buy considering the nature of adaptation, and the evolution of human developmental patterns, and through analyses of the determinants of change and continuity in Navajo infant development, Navajo Infancy outlines how the process of development itself may bridge nature and culture.With its special focus on the effect of the cradleboard on Navajo mother-infant interaction, Navajo Infancy raises important developmental issues in its analyses of why the eff ects of the cradleboard do not last. Incorporating the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale into its ethological-anthropological methods, Navajo Infancy demonstrates signifi cant Navajo-Anglo-American differences in newborn temperament. It fi nds a strong correlation between newborn behavior and prenatal environmental factors, arguing that racial and ethnic differences in behavior at birth go well beyond simple gene pool differences.Navajo Infancy also describes the individual and group differences in the development of Navajo and Anglo- American children's fear of strangers and patterns of mother-infant interaction. Aspects of attachment theory, transactional theories of development, and anthropological theories of socialization are related to this broad new evolutionary approach to the process of development and nature-culture interaction.

A scholarly collection of timely essays on the behavioral science of peace With contributions from experts representing a wide variety of scholarly fields (behavioral and social sciences, philosophy, environmental science, anthropology and economics), Peace Ethology offers original essays on the most recent research and findings on the topic of the behavioral science of peace. This much-needed volume includes writings that examine four main areas of study: the proximate causation of peace, the developmental aspects of peace, the function and systems of peace and the evolution of peace. The popular belief persists that, by nature, humans are not pre-disposed to peace. However, archeological and paleontological evidence reveals that the vast majority of our time as a species has been spent in small hunter-gatherer bands that are basically peaceful and egalitarian in nature. The text also reveals that most of the earth’s people are living in more peaceful societies than in centuries past. This hopeful compendium of essays: Contains writings from noted experts from a variety of academic studies Offers a social-psychological perspective on the causation of peaceful behavior Includes information on children’s peacekeeping and peacemaking Presents ideas for overcoming social tension between police and civilians Provides the most recent thinking on the behavioral science of peace Written for students and academics of the behavioral and social sciences, Peace Ethology offers scholarly essays on the development, nature, and current state of peace.

Filling a gap in current literature on human development, this volume explores the influence of psychophysiological, behavioral, and social factors on stability and continuity in the development of the mind during human infancy. The book reviews existing literature, presents new data, and discusses issues of substance in mental development, methodology, and interpretation. Commentaries by recognized experts interpret the research results from the previous chapters.