Commentary: An exciting evolutionary framework for new bridges between social‐emotional and cognitive development – a reflection on Suor et al. (2017)

• Published in: Journal of child psychology and psychiatry Vol. 58; no. 8; pp. 910 - 912
• Main Authors: Kochanska, Grazyna, Goffin, Kathryn C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Wiley-Blackwell 01.08.2017
• Subjects: Abstract Reasoning; Child Development; Cognitive Ability; Cognitive Development; Disadvantaged Environment; Emotional Development; Guidelines; Heuristics; Measurement; Personality Traits; Physical Fitness; Problem Solving; Rewards; Role; Schemata (Cognition); Social Development
• ISSN: 0021-9630; 1469-7610
• DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12761

Suor et al. () present a compelling new evolutionary framework that offers an alternative interpretation of the well‐established findings of cognitive deficits in children raised in harsh early environments. They argue that such findings do not convey a complete picture of those children's cognitive development, because children's cognition becomes specialized to solve problems in fitness‐enhancing ways, and traditional problem‐solving tasks do not fully capture their abilities. The authors demonstrate that children exposed to early harshness, particularly children with Hawk temperaments, preferentially shift cognition to salient fitness‐enhancing stimuli, and thus develop better skills for solving reward‐oriented tasks. This intriguing and heuristically generative study inspires multiple new research avenues, of which we outline three: (a) Further examination of the concept of harsh environments, (b) addressing questions about the conceptualization and the role of child temperament, and (c) further advances in the measurement of children's distinct skills. Read the full article at doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12718