ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book looks at the biological basis of human social development and considers social development in evolutionary perspective. It explains how the biologically given, endogenously organized behaviours of the young infant are integrated into a social context in the course of infant-caretaker interaction. The book argues that through the active deployment of his perceptual and cognitive capacities the human infant is engaged in constructing his own social reality from the earliest stages of development. It focuses on the joint influence of biological and environmental factors on the child's developing awareness of sex role identity. The book describes the conceptual clarification of the role of cognition in social development. It also argues for a model of the development of societal understanding in which the stages postulated parallel those advanced by Piaget to account for the development of formal operational thinking.
