Social and Cognitive Development

By emphasizing the development of cognitive abilities and a repertoire of social abilities during infancy and early childhood, this course seeks to tie together dimensions of both, social and cognitive development to study early social cognition. Early human cognition tackles questions of how children categorize, perceive objects, acquire, and use language, and perform computations and complex calculations. Additionally, children also navigate the social world quite efficiently - understand others have ideas and beliefs, form attachments and groups, reason about right and wrong and follow social norms and rules. How do children engage in these increasingly complex tasks in the first few years of life? Do they come ‘prepared’ into the world or learn these sophisticated skills through experiences in their cultures? The course ‘Social Cognition in children’ is designed to discuss these questions. The course draws upon readings and research from cognitive and social development to provide a fuller picture of social cognition.