How Children Invented Humanity: The Role of Development in Human Evolution - Hardcover

by David F. Bjorklund (Author)

Infants and children are the often-ignored heroes when it comes to understanding human evolution. Evolutionary pressures acted upon the young of our ancestors more powerfully than on adults, and changes over the course of development in our ancestors were primarily responsible for the species and the people we have become. This book takes an evolutionary developmental perspective, emphasizing that developmental plasticity--the ability to change our physical and psychological selves early in life--is the creative force in evolution, with natural selection serving as a filter, eliminating novel developmental outcomes that did not benefit survival.

Author Biography

David F. Bjorklund is Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in developmental and evolutionary psychology. He previously served as Associate Editor of Child Development and is currently serving as Editor of the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. His books include The Origins of Human Nature: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology (with Anthony Pellegrini); Origins of the Social Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and Child Development (edited with Bruce Ellis); Why Youth is Not Wasted on the Young: Immaturity in Human Development; Child and Adolescent Development: An Integrative Approach (with Carlos Hernández Blasi); Psychology (with Peter Gray), and Children's Thinking: Cognitive Development and Individual Differences, now in its sixth edition. His current research interests include children's cognitive development and evolutionary developmental psychology.