ABSTRACT
In this book I have examined our understanding of the child as social person, dealing with material describing children's social functioning, examining dimensions of individual differences, looking at theoretical models and causal in¯uences. The work has been heterogeneous. I have had to piece together evidence from varying approaches in a number of different ®elds, a process which inevitably means some poorly ®tting assemblies and yawning gaps, because the factors affecting development as a social person are numerous, varied, complicated, and hard to ®t together. The research methods of many studies, although adequate for the work's immediate purposes, are not adequate for the big developmental questions.
