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The beginnings of social understanding
DEVELOPMENTAL
REVIEW
Self-interest
311-316 (1990)
10,
BOOK REVIEW and Humanity: Some Reactions
The Beginnings
to Dunn’s
of Social Understanding DALE F. HAY
MRC
The Beginnings
Cambridge,
Child
Psychiatry
Unit,
London
By JUDY DUNN. Press, 1988. Pp. 212.
of Social Understanding.
MA: Harvard University
Dunn’s analysis of young children’s growing understanding of the social world raises old issues about the relations between altruism and egoism and the nature of human nature. In particular, she draws renewed attention to the development of self-interest, which in turn leads to a renewed emphasis on children’s motives as well as their thoughts and feelings. In doing so, some of the usual problems of motivational theories reappear. Nevertheless, Dunn’s account of social development in the early years deserves a careful reading. It is rare to discover a book in the developmental literature that so quickly raises issues that go to the heart of the human condition. 8 IWOAcademic press, hc.
For centuries, philosophers have speculated about the moral nature of man, asking whether all social acts, even ostensibly altruistic ones, derive from basic egoism and self-interest. In seeking evidence that bears on this question, many scholars began observing their own little children, and so began the tradition of using infancy and early childhood as a laboratory for moral study. Judy Dunn’s most recent book, The Beginnings of Social Understanding, is a challenging, eloquent heir to this tradition. Like many of the great natural histories of childhood that have preceded it (e.g., Sully, 1896; Tiedemann, cited in Murchison & Langer, 1927), Dunn’s work is thoughtful, carefully observed, and sensitively interpreted. Her presentation exploits both the power of systematically collected and tabulated group data and the power of the anecdote; in a way, the book reads like a novel, as we follow subplots about particular characters and their mothers and siblings. Unlike some earlier sets of speculations, however, Dunn presents a complex portrait of the young child as both egoistic and sociable, both possessive and cooperative in dealings with the social world. In sketching this portrait, Dunn reminds us of the humanity of selfishness as Reprint requests should be sent to Dale F. Hay, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, England. 311
0273-2297190 $3.00 Copyright All rights
0 1990 by Academic Press, Inc. of reproduction in any form reserved.
312
DALE
F. HAY
well as the selfishness of much of humanity. Her description of the l- and 2-year-old members of a family circle raises not only the usual question, does altruism derive from egoism, but its complement, is egoism itself rooted in sociability? There have been many past attempts to caricature the young of our species, with respect to their purported lack of anything resembling a moral impulse. Consider, for example, the way in which children were characterized in the psychiatric tradition by one of its founders, Henry Maudsley (1883, cited in von Gontard, 1988, pp. 580-581): “naturally boastful, scornful, passionate, envious, curious, selfish, idle, prone to steal, apt at dissimulation or thrown into excessive grief by trifle . . . not willing themselves to suffer but eager and pleased to inflict suffering. It is a description that would suit well for savages in a low state of civilization.” To balance such extreme accounts, some developmental psychologists, including myself, have called attention to the very young child’s impulse to act in a harmonious, “prosocial” way with other people (e.g., Bridgeman, 1983; Hay & Rheingold, 1983). A major contribution of Dunn’s book is to remind us that the real child lives behind both sets of caricatures, that the real child may at times be anti- and at times pro-, but is invariably social. This view of the complexity of the young child’s social and emotional life comes through most vividly in Dunn’s account of the l- and 2year-olds’ confrontations with mother and sibling. The anecdotes underscore our knowledge as parents if not as psychologists that the twos can be truly terrible. And, more than any other account of parent-child conflict in that period that I have read, Dunn’s observations get to the heart of the terror: The 2-year-old finds it funny. The mother finds her child’s apparent cruelty terrifying. The sibling finds the shifting coalitions in family life sometimes frustrating, but at other times useful. The only way around it seems to be for all three family members to talk and talk and talk about the way social life is “supposed to be,” with the 2-year-old interrupting frequently. It is not a particularly easy time for all concerned. But it must be a quite exciting time for the 2-year-old. Dunn notes at many points in the book that she has striven to emphasize the emotional content of these encounters within the family, and she sets forth the testable hypothesis that reasoning about social dilemmas may be more advanced when emotions run high. Her points about the need to examine emotion and its socialization are well-taken, but it is also important to note that she has similarly reintroduced the concept of motivation into discussions of social development. This is perhaps the most important theoretical contribution of the book, but it is also the most potentially problematical one.
SELF-INTEREST
AND
HUMANITY
313
Since the decline of drive theory, and the reign of the cognitivist perspective, developmental psychologists have been focusing their collective attention on an overly dispassionate, disinterested organism, an organism who seems to lack motive force. Even those developmental psychologists who study love, and assume that security in the mother’s love is the firm foundation of all later social adjustment, seem to prefer to talk about the cognitive representation of this love and the construction of “working models” of the mother and the love relationship (e.g., Bretherton, 1985). In contrast to much of the burgeoning literature on the sequelae of early attachment problems, Dunn’s compelling observations actually do more to convince me of Freud’s assertion that the relations between mother and infant are the “prototype of all future love relationships” (Freud, 1938). As Dunn recounts, the relationship with the mother in the second and third year of life has progressed past the initial falling in love phase into the next stage of passionate conflicts, power games, temporary rejection, feelings of hatred and resentment as well as love, and a certain mutual self-consciousness that is often accessed through teasing. In other words, like in any other love relationship. The tricky bit for the children in Dunn’s sample is that this passionate love relationship is but one element in family life, where it may be that the love relationships, and not individual adults and children, compete. Considerable intellectual progress is therefore made by Dunn’s focus on motivation, because it potentially leads to new hypotheses about the role of family relationships in socialization. The danger of a motivational approach, however, lies in the same place it always did: the attractions of teleology. It is all too easy to characterize children as dominated by self-interest if their actions are followed by consequences that promote their short-term well-being. And, at times, their own statements and protests indicate that they are clearly acting to further their own ends. But is it necessarily illuminating to explain those actions in terms of selfinterest? In examining the functions of the child’s actions in terms of self-interest, does not function translate too easily into purpose? Are we getting close to a claim that children are driven to promote their own self-interest? And does this not obscure other determinants of the child’s actions and development? How may such determinants be sought? Perhaps psychologists quite often begin to flirt with drive theories when they try to examine the general nature of human nature, rather than charting individual differences. Dunn’s work, as presented in this book, is quite firmly within the tradition of charting general developmental functions rather than measuring individual differences (see Appelbaum & McCall, 1983), as she herself notes in the final chapter. In that chapter, in the course of presenting a “relationships model of the development of social understanding,” Dunn speculates about some possible correlates of indi-
314
DALE
F. HAY
vidual and cultural differences in the ways in which children develop such understanding. However, one great strength of the book is the presentation of information about children in different cultures facing the same developmental and social dilemmas in their culturally specific ways. Fundamentally, then, Dunn’s book draws our attention to the general human condition as it is manifested between the first and third birthdays. And, as such, it is a refreshing alternative to much current writing about early social development. Since the study of individual differences has become respectable once again, the entire field is in danger of indiscriminate reification of what once would have been dismissed as error variance. Indeed, it sometimes seems as though psychologists and psychiatrists are currently constructing a new, academic Calvinism in which the aim is to identify which individuals are and which are not in a state of grace (i.e., are predestined to be of equable temperament, and, if they have the right mothers, to be secure, socially competent, and mentally healthy) from the moment of conception onward. In contrast to this overemphasis on discriminating able vs. disabled individuals, Dunn reminds us effectively of the communalities within the human family. Nonetheless, since one approach is somewhat incomplete without the other, the reader still wants to ask, what are some important differences among children and families ? To begin with, when Dunn makes her strong, motivational claim that “children are motivated to understand the social rules and relationships of their cultural world because they need to get things done in their family relationships” (her italics, p. 189), what factors that differentiate the structure and processes of different families are related to this need? To begin with, what is the effective family environment? One element that seems to be sorely neglected in Dunn’s account is the father’s relationships with his children and his partner, but one also wonders about the contributions of grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends of the family, and so on. Furthermore, in those families in Western society where parents have separated and mothers work for pay, children may “need to get things done” in more than one family circle. Does the need to understand differences among families in emotionally laden circumstances facilitate children’s powers of social reasoning? Furthermore, in considering the implications of Dunn’s argument, issues concerning pathology soon surface. When does rampant self-interest become pathological? When do selves become damaged? Are the reasoning powers of a sociopath the apogee of the progression she describes? It is at this point that one’s qualms about the temptations of drive theories surface, because at times it would become possible to explain both normal socialization and the development of psychopathology in terms of a drive to promote the self. When does this notion lose any explanatory power?
SELF-INTEREST
AND
HUMANITY
315
At this point, it is perhaps instructive to compare Dunn’s formulations with another current set of speculations about altruism and egoism, namely, discussions of kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and parentoffspring conflict set forth by contemporary sociobiologists (e.g., Campbell, 1983; Trivers, 1971, 1974). In recent years, evolutionary arguments have moved away from notions that individuals act to promote the wellbeing of the group and have instead turned to an explanatory system based on individual selection. The empirical work that has followed from this shift in emphasis in some ways bears a striking resemblance to Dunn’s concerns and observations. When one reads about some of the dealings between siblings in Dunn’s study, it seems that possibly the only reason they survive, not to mention ultimately come to love each other, is kin selection. Additionally, nowhere else is there an equally compelling description of parent-offspring conflict, which, for the sociobiologist, is best understood in terms of the mother’s investment in one child up to a certain point and then a transfer of energy to be invested in the next offspring. Recently, a mother of a 2-year-old, experiencing the kinds of battles Dunn so eloquently describes, said to me, “But do you think we naturally have to distance ourselves because biologically we’re ready for another baby?” I would be quite interested in Dunn’s thoughts on whether sociobiological speculations are in any ways compatible with the argument she has advanced here. In bringing up the topic of sociobiology, however, it is also important to note that biologists writing about egoism and altruism have sometimes been at pains to note that factors that explain the structural altruism and egoism of the social insects are not likely to explain human reasoning about moral choices or human love relationships. For example, Campbell (1983) notes that Trivers’ (1971) influential ideas about reciprocal altruism may be more important for discussions of cultural than for biological evolution. Campbell also argues that one element in the human psyche that may have been selected for in the course of evolution is the human “sense of the numinous,” or belief in the authority and power of an unseen, supernatural world. Religious belief may then serve to promote altruism and demote egoism, through cultural means. Dunn notes in her first chapter that her work bears on that undertaken by a diverse group of scholars who are currently speculating about children’s developing “theories of mind.” For one such scholar, Paul Harris et al., (in press), this line of inquiry has led to the exploration of children’s beliefs about mythical entities-monsters, ghosts, and witches. This, in turn, reminds me that, in common parlance, the terrible twos turn into the “terrified threes,” with many new fears, and some imaginary companions. Are we seeing here the developmental origins of a sense of the
316
DALE F. HAY
numinous? Are the laughing 2-year-olds who challenge their mothers about household rules, or tease siblings about their imaginary companions, acquiring true fear of authority and of the unknown? And, to paraphrase an old question, if God does not exist, will mothers still have to invent Him? Rarely have I read a book in the developmental literature that so quickly raised issues that go to the heart of the human condition. I thank Judy Dunn for reminding us that development proceeds as it does because children and adults need and want certain things. I only remind her that the concepts of need and want can get confused; as Mick Jagger once said, “You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need,” which is a paradigm of socialization quite compatible with the one set forth in Dunn’s book. And, as the ultimate failure of the drive theorists suggests, both wants and needs have proven to be notoriously difficult to study. REFERENCES Appelbaum, ogy. In Bretherton, Waters
M. I., & McCall, R. B. (1983). Design and analysis in developmental psycholP. Mussen (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 1). New York: Wiley. I. (1985). Attachment theory: Retrospect and prospect. In I. Bretherton & E. (Eds.), Growing points of attachment theory and research. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 50, Serial No. 209. Bridgeman, D. L. (1983). Benevolent babies: Emergence of the social self. In D. Bridgeman (Ed.), The nature of prosocial development: Interdisciplinary theories and strategies. New York: Academic Press. Campbell, D. T. (1983). The two distinct routes beyond kin selection to ultrasociality: Implications for the humanities and the social sciences. In D. Bridgeman (Ed.), The nature of prosocial development: Interdisciplinary theories and strategies. New York: Academic Press. Freud, S. (1938). An outline of psychoanalysis. London: Hogarth. Harris, P.L., Brown, E., Marriott, C., Whittal, S., & Harmer, S. (in press) Monsters, ghosts and witches: Testing the limits of the fantasy-reality distinction in young children. British
Journal
of Developmental
Psychology.
Hay, D. F., & Rheingold, H. L. (1983). The early appearance of some valued social behaviors. In D. Bridgeman (Ed.), The nature of prosocial development: Interdisciplinary theories and strategies. New York: Academic Press. Murchison, C., & Langer S. (Trans.) (1927). Tiedemann’s observations on the development of the mental faculties of children. Pedagogical Seminary, 34, 205-230. Sully, J. (1896). Studies of childhood. New York: Appleton. Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35-57. Trivers, R. L. (1974). Parental-offspring conflict. American Zoologist, 14, 249-64. von Gontard, A. (1988). The development of child psychiatry in 19th century Britain. Journal of Child
Psychology
and Psychiatry,
29, 569-588.
RECEIVED: December 14, 1988; REVISED: November 13, 1989
REVIEW
Self-interest
311-316 (1990)
10,
BOOK REVIEW and Humanity: Some Reactions
The Beginnings
to Dunn’s
of Social Understanding DALE F. HAY
MRC
The Beginnings
Cambridge,
Child
Psychiatry
Unit,
London
By JUDY DUNN. Press, 1988. Pp. 212.
of Social Understanding.
MA: Harvard University
Dunn’s analysis of young children’s growing understanding of the social world raises old issues about the relations between altruism and egoism and the nature of human nature. In particular, she draws renewed attention to the development of self-interest, which in turn leads to a renewed emphasis on children’s motives as well as their thoughts and feelings. In doing so, some of the usual problems of motivational theories reappear. Nevertheless, Dunn’s account of social development in the early years deserves a careful reading. It is rare to discover a book in the developmental literature that so quickly raises issues that go to the heart of the human condition. 8 IWOAcademic press, hc.
For centuries, philosophers have speculated about the moral nature of man, asking whether all social acts, even ostensibly altruistic ones, derive from basic egoism and self-interest. In seeking evidence that bears on this question, many scholars began observing their own little children, and so began the tradition of using infancy and early childhood as a laboratory for moral study. Judy Dunn’s most recent book, The Beginnings of Social Understanding, is a challenging, eloquent heir to this tradition. Like many of the great natural histories of childhood that have preceded it (e.g., Sully, 1896; Tiedemann, cited in Murchison & Langer, 1927), Dunn’s work is thoughtful, carefully observed, and sensitively interpreted. Her presentation exploits both the power of systematically collected and tabulated group data and the power of the anecdote; in a way, the book reads like a novel, as we follow subplots about particular characters and their mothers and siblings. Unlike some earlier sets of speculations, however, Dunn presents a complex portrait of the young child as both egoistic and sociable, both possessive and cooperative in dealings with the social world. In sketching this portrait, Dunn reminds us of the humanity of selfishness as Reprint requests should be sent to Dale F. Hay, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, England. 311
0273-2297190 $3.00 Copyright All rights
0 1990 by Academic Press, Inc. of reproduction in any form reserved.
312
DALE
F. HAY
well as the selfishness of much of humanity. Her description of the l- and 2-year-old members of a family circle raises not only the usual question, does altruism derive from egoism, but its complement, is egoism itself rooted in sociability? There have been many past attempts to caricature the young of our species, with respect to their purported lack of anything resembling a moral impulse. Consider, for example, the way in which children were characterized in the psychiatric tradition by one of its founders, Henry Maudsley (1883, cited in von Gontard, 1988, pp. 580-581): “naturally boastful, scornful, passionate, envious, curious, selfish, idle, prone to steal, apt at dissimulation or thrown into excessive grief by trifle . . . not willing themselves to suffer but eager and pleased to inflict suffering. It is a description that would suit well for savages in a low state of civilization.” To balance such extreme accounts, some developmental psychologists, including myself, have called attention to the very young child’s impulse to act in a harmonious, “prosocial” way with other people (e.g., Bridgeman, 1983; Hay & Rheingold, 1983). A major contribution of Dunn’s book is to remind us that the real child lives behind both sets of caricatures, that the real child may at times be anti- and at times pro-, but is invariably social. This view of the complexity of the young child’s social and emotional life comes through most vividly in Dunn’s account of the l- and 2year-olds’ confrontations with mother and sibling. The anecdotes underscore our knowledge as parents if not as psychologists that the twos can be truly terrible. And, more than any other account of parent-child conflict in that period that I have read, Dunn’s observations get to the heart of the terror: The 2-year-old finds it funny. The mother finds her child’s apparent cruelty terrifying. The sibling finds the shifting coalitions in family life sometimes frustrating, but at other times useful. The only way around it seems to be for all three family members to talk and talk and talk about the way social life is “supposed to be,” with the 2-year-old interrupting frequently. It is not a particularly easy time for all concerned. But it must be a quite exciting time for the 2-year-old. Dunn notes at many points in the book that she has striven to emphasize the emotional content of these encounters within the family, and she sets forth the testable hypothesis that reasoning about social dilemmas may be more advanced when emotions run high. Her points about the need to examine emotion and its socialization are well-taken, but it is also important to note that she has similarly reintroduced the concept of motivation into discussions of social development. This is perhaps the most important theoretical contribution of the book, but it is also the most potentially problematical one.
SELF-INTEREST
AND
HUMANITY
313
Since the decline of drive theory, and the reign of the cognitivist perspective, developmental psychologists have been focusing their collective attention on an overly dispassionate, disinterested organism, an organism who seems to lack motive force. Even those developmental psychologists who study love, and assume that security in the mother’s love is the firm foundation of all later social adjustment, seem to prefer to talk about the cognitive representation of this love and the construction of “working models” of the mother and the love relationship (e.g., Bretherton, 1985). In contrast to much of the burgeoning literature on the sequelae of early attachment problems, Dunn’s compelling observations actually do more to convince me of Freud’s assertion that the relations between mother and infant are the “prototype of all future love relationships” (Freud, 1938). As Dunn recounts, the relationship with the mother in the second and third year of life has progressed past the initial falling in love phase into the next stage of passionate conflicts, power games, temporary rejection, feelings of hatred and resentment as well as love, and a certain mutual self-consciousness that is often accessed through teasing. In other words, like in any other love relationship. The tricky bit for the children in Dunn’s sample is that this passionate love relationship is but one element in family life, where it may be that the love relationships, and not individual adults and children, compete. Considerable intellectual progress is therefore made by Dunn’s focus on motivation, because it potentially leads to new hypotheses about the role of family relationships in socialization. The danger of a motivational approach, however, lies in the same place it always did: the attractions of teleology. It is all too easy to characterize children as dominated by self-interest if their actions are followed by consequences that promote their short-term well-being. And, at times, their own statements and protests indicate that they are clearly acting to further their own ends. But is it necessarily illuminating to explain those actions in terms of selfinterest? In examining the functions of the child’s actions in terms of self-interest, does not function translate too easily into purpose? Are we getting close to a claim that children are driven to promote their own self-interest? And does this not obscure other determinants of the child’s actions and development? How may such determinants be sought? Perhaps psychologists quite often begin to flirt with drive theories when they try to examine the general nature of human nature, rather than charting individual differences. Dunn’s work, as presented in this book, is quite firmly within the tradition of charting general developmental functions rather than measuring individual differences (see Appelbaum & McCall, 1983), as she herself notes in the final chapter. In that chapter, in the course of presenting a “relationships model of the development of social understanding,” Dunn speculates about some possible correlates of indi-
314
DALE
F. HAY
vidual and cultural differences in the ways in which children develop such understanding. However, one great strength of the book is the presentation of information about children in different cultures facing the same developmental and social dilemmas in their culturally specific ways. Fundamentally, then, Dunn’s book draws our attention to the general human condition as it is manifested between the first and third birthdays. And, as such, it is a refreshing alternative to much current writing about early social development. Since the study of individual differences has become respectable once again, the entire field is in danger of indiscriminate reification of what once would have been dismissed as error variance. Indeed, it sometimes seems as though psychologists and psychiatrists are currently constructing a new, academic Calvinism in which the aim is to identify which individuals are and which are not in a state of grace (i.e., are predestined to be of equable temperament, and, if they have the right mothers, to be secure, socially competent, and mentally healthy) from the moment of conception onward. In contrast to this overemphasis on discriminating able vs. disabled individuals, Dunn reminds us effectively of the communalities within the human family. Nonetheless, since one approach is somewhat incomplete without the other, the reader still wants to ask, what are some important differences among children and families ? To begin with, when Dunn makes her strong, motivational claim that “children are motivated to understand the social rules and relationships of their cultural world because they need to get things done in their family relationships” (her italics, p. 189), what factors that differentiate the structure and processes of different families are related to this need? To begin with, what is the effective family environment? One element that seems to be sorely neglected in Dunn’s account is the father’s relationships with his children and his partner, but one also wonders about the contributions of grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends of the family, and so on. Furthermore, in those families in Western society where parents have separated and mothers work for pay, children may “need to get things done” in more than one family circle. Does the need to understand differences among families in emotionally laden circumstances facilitate children’s powers of social reasoning? Furthermore, in considering the implications of Dunn’s argument, issues concerning pathology soon surface. When does rampant self-interest become pathological? When do selves become damaged? Are the reasoning powers of a sociopath the apogee of the progression she describes? It is at this point that one’s qualms about the temptations of drive theories surface, because at times it would become possible to explain both normal socialization and the development of psychopathology in terms of a drive to promote the self. When does this notion lose any explanatory power?
SELF-INTEREST
AND
HUMANITY
315
At this point, it is perhaps instructive to compare Dunn’s formulations with another current set of speculations about altruism and egoism, namely, discussions of kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and parentoffspring conflict set forth by contemporary sociobiologists (e.g., Campbell, 1983; Trivers, 1971, 1974). In recent years, evolutionary arguments have moved away from notions that individuals act to promote the wellbeing of the group and have instead turned to an explanatory system based on individual selection. The empirical work that has followed from this shift in emphasis in some ways bears a striking resemblance to Dunn’s concerns and observations. When one reads about some of the dealings between siblings in Dunn’s study, it seems that possibly the only reason they survive, not to mention ultimately come to love each other, is kin selection. Additionally, nowhere else is there an equally compelling description of parent-offspring conflict, which, for the sociobiologist, is best understood in terms of the mother’s investment in one child up to a certain point and then a transfer of energy to be invested in the next offspring. Recently, a mother of a 2-year-old, experiencing the kinds of battles Dunn so eloquently describes, said to me, “But do you think we naturally have to distance ourselves because biologically we’re ready for another baby?” I would be quite interested in Dunn’s thoughts on whether sociobiological speculations are in any ways compatible with the argument she has advanced here. In bringing up the topic of sociobiology, however, it is also important to note that biologists writing about egoism and altruism have sometimes been at pains to note that factors that explain the structural altruism and egoism of the social insects are not likely to explain human reasoning about moral choices or human love relationships. For example, Campbell (1983) notes that Trivers’ (1971) influential ideas about reciprocal altruism may be more important for discussions of cultural than for biological evolution. Campbell also argues that one element in the human psyche that may have been selected for in the course of evolution is the human “sense of the numinous,” or belief in the authority and power of an unseen, supernatural world. Religious belief may then serve to promote altruism and demote egoism, through cultural means. Dunn notes in her first chapter that her work bears on that undertaken by a diverse group of scholars who are currently speculating about children’s developing “theories of mind.” For one such scholar, Paul Harris et al., (in press), this line of inquiry has led to the exploration of children’s beliefs about mythical entities-monsters, ghosts, and witches. This, in turn, reminds me that, in common parlance, the terrible twos turn into the “terrified threes,” with many new fears, and some imaginary companions. Are we seeing here the developmental origins of a sense of the
316
DALE F. HAY
numinous? Are the laughing 2-year-olds who challenge their mothers about household rules, or tease siblings about their imaginary companions, acquiring true fear of authority and of the unknown? And, to paraphrase an old question, if God does not exist, will mothers still have to invent Him? Rarely have I read a book in the developmental literature that so quickly raised issues that go to the heart of the human condition. I thank Judy Dunn for reminding us that development proceeds as it does because children and adults need and want certain things. I only remind her that the concepts of need and want can get confused; as Mick Jagger once said, “You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need,” which is a paradigm of socialization quite compatible with the one set forth in Dunn’s book. And, as the ultimate failure of the drive theorists suggests, both wants and needs have proven to be notoriously difficult to study. REFERENCES Appelbaum, ogy. In Bretherton, Waters
M. I., & McCall, R. B. (1983). Design and analysis in developmental psycholP. Mussen (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 1). New York: Wiley. I. (1985). Attachment theory: Retrospect and prospect. In I. Bretherton & E. (Eds.), Growing points of attachment theory and research. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 50, Serial No. 209. Bridgeman, D. L. (1983). Benevolent babies: Emergence of the social self. In D. Bridgeman (Ed.), The nature of prosocial development: Interdisciplinary theories and strategies. New York: Academic Press. Campbell, D. T. (1983). The two distinct routes beyond kin selection to ultrasociality: Implications for the humanities and the social sciences. In D. Bridgeman (Ed.), The nature of prosocial development: Interdisciplinary theories and strategies. New York: Academic Press. Freud, S. (1938). An outline of psychoanalysis. London: Hogarth. Harris, P.L., Brown, E., Marriott, C., Whittal, S., & Harmer, S. (in press) Monsters, ghosts and witches: Testing the limits of the fantasy-reality distinction in young children. British
Journal
of Developmental
Psychology.
Hay, D. F., & Rheingold, H. L. (1983). The early appearance of some valued social behaviors. In D. Bridgeman (Ed.), The nature of prosocial development: Interdisciplinary theories and strategies. New York: Academic Press. Murchison, C., & Langer S. (Trans.) (1927). Tiedemann’s observations on the development of the mental faculties of children. Pedagogical Seminary, 34, 205-230. Sully, J. (1896). Studies of childhood. New York: Appleton. Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35-57. Trivers, R. L. (1974). Parental-offspring conflict. American Zoologist, 14, 249-64. von Gontard, A. (1988). The development of child psychiatry in 19th century Britain. Journal of Child
Psychology
and Psychiatry,
29, 569-588.
RECEIVED: December 14, 1988; REVISED: November 13, 1989