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Review
. 2018 Sep;89(5):1462-1466.
doi: 10.1111/cdev.13020. Epub 2018 Jan 16.

How Children Invented Humanity

David F Bjorklund  1
Affiliations
Review

How Children Invented Humanity

David F Bjorklund. Child Dev. 2018 Sep.

Abstract

I use the commentaries of Legare, Clegg, and Wen and of Frankenhuis and Tiokhin as jumping-off points to discuss an issue hinted at both in my essay and their commentaries: How a developmental perspective can help us achieve a better understanding of evolution. I examine briefly how neoteny may have contributed to human morphology; how developmental plasticity in great apes, and presumably our common ancestor with them, may have led the way to advances in social cognition; and how the "invention" of childhood contributed to unique human cognitive abilities. I conclude by acknowledging that not all developmentalists have adopted an evolutionary perspective, but that we are approaching a time when an evolutionary perspective will be implicit in the thinking of all psychologists.

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