Preference Management and the Role of Constructivist Processes in Children's Social Development

摘要

In her recent book, Social Development as Preference Management: How Infants, Children, and Parents Get What They Want from One Another, Rachel Karniol [2010] described a theory of social development that places preference management as the motivational engine that defines and propels children's social development. Defined as cognitive structures or mental representations that guide our choices, Karniol sees preferences as the 'reasons for goal-oriented behavior' (p. 1). According to this view, children are born with and further develop preferences that motivate their everyday behavior across all domains of their lives. Moreover, with development, children come to manage these preferences as they interact with others who also have preferences of their own. Accordingly, central tasks of social development involve communicating preferences to others, inferring others' preferences, and coordinating and aligning one's own preferences with those of others.