ABSTRACT
One of the most complex challenges for developmental psychology is constituted by the study of the child’s developing social knowledge. How does development affect the manner by which children arrive at stable inferences about the rather episodically unstable social world? Although numerous answers have been proposed to this puzzle, two are most prominent, and these are frequently entwined conceptually. We begin this chapter with a consideration of pure forms of these visions of social–cognitive development. After briefly describing each form, the conjoint operation of both perspectives in their “pure” and hybrid portrayals of social cognition are considered. Finally, we note what is missing from both pure and hybrid accounts and set the stage for the presentation of a novel perspective on dimensions of social cognitive development.
