Frontmatter -- Introductory remarks at the opening of the Conference -- Editors' preface -- List of contributors -- Contents -- Section I: Historical and theoretical issues in the development of the individual and society -- 1. Early European contributions to developmental psychology -- A. Overview, contexts, and selections -- B. The contribution of William and Clara Stern to the onset of developmental psychology -- C. The real world of Alfred Binet -- D. Development and value orientation: The contribution of Eduard Spranger to a differential developmental psychology -- 2. The development of women through history -- A. Astarte, Moses, and Mary: Perspectives on the sexual dialectic in Canaanite, Judaic and Christian traditions -- B. Two types of women writers and three periods in time: A psychohistorical analysis -- C. Planned obsolescence: Historical perspectives on aging women -- 3. Formal models of development -- A. Organization and transformation, by Leland -- B. Conceptualizing behavioral development -- C. A view of cognition from a formalist's perspective -- D. Some ingredients for constructing developmental models -- Section II: Cognitivists' and socialists' inquiries into human development -- 1. The concept of development and the genetic approach in psychological theory of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries -- A. Philosophy and psychology in the Soviet Union -- B. The Soviet concept of development and the problem of activity -- C. Conditions and determinants of child development in contemporary Polish psychology -- 2. Soviet developmental study of verbal self-regulation -- A. Recent developments in Soviet research on the verbal control of voluntary motor behavior -- B. Speech-for-self as a multiply reafferent human action system -- C. Developmental aspects of rhythm in self-regulation -- D. The function of speech rhythms in the regulation of nonspeech activity -- E. Soviet research in the psychophysiology of individual differences -- F. Life-span cognitive development and the Soviet theory of self-regulation -- 3. Cognitive development through life: Research based on Piaget's system -- A. Sensorimotor period: The source of intellectual development -- B. The role of structures in explaining behavioral development -- C. Life-span analyses of Piagetian concept tasks: The search for nontrivial qualitative change -- 4. Theoretical viewpoints in perceptual development: The illusion as paradigm -- A. Illusions and perceptual development: a tachistoscopic psychophysical approach -- B. Perceptual development: A distorted view -- C. Cross-cultural and personality factors influencing the Ponzo perspective illusion -- Section III: Cross-cultural differences in human development -- 1. The individual in developmental theory: Cross-cultural perspectives -- A. A conceptual model for study of individual development in different cultures -- B. Erikson's theory in cross-cultural perspective: social class and ethnicity in 'Third World' comunities -- C. Thematic structuration in adolescence: Findings from different European countries -- D. Thematic structuration in adolescence: Findings from Pedi adolescents -- 2. Problems of cross-cultural research -- A. The problem of the packaged variable -- B. Situating the experiment in cross-cultural research -- C. Cross-cultural research and Piagetian theory: Paradox and progress -- D. Cross-cultural Piagetian studies: What can they tell us? -- 3. Cultural differences in socialization techniques -- A. Maternal socialization practices and spatial-perceptual abilities in Newfoundland and Labrador -- B. A test of the universality of an 'acculturation gradient' in three culture-triads -- C. A cross-cultural view of adult life in the extended family -- 4. Subcultural differences in language acquisition -- A. Some theoretical considerations of subcultural differences in language development -- B. An information processing approach to some problems in developmental sociolinguistics -- C. Some psycholinguistic and social predictors of dialect usage among subjects and their most preferred peers -- Bibliography -- Index