20 Studies That Revolutionized Child Psychology.
Dixon, W.E. Society for Research in Child
Development: Developments, 45 (2), April 2002.
I do not know if I am the only one who does this, but when I think about child psychology, I simply cannot help but
think in terms of scientific references. Every time I read a new scientific article in the field, I process it with respect
to certain other seminal pieces in the literature. In fact, I scour reference sections to see if certain other pieces have
been cited. And if not, I want to know why not?
As a service to the Society I undertook the task of determining the Most Revolutionary Studies in Child Psychology.
I sought the opinions of more than 1,500 randomly selected, doctoral-level members of the Society about which
studies, published since 1950, deserve the title "Most Revolutionary" (See Developments, 44(1), Winter 2001, for
the survey questions.) Here for the first time, I am making this list available.
The 20 Most Revolutionary Studies
1. Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. New York: International Universities Press.
2. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
3. Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss, Vol. 1. New York: Basic Books.
4. Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
5. Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.
6. Thomas, A., Chess, S., & Birch, H.G. (1968). Temperament and behavior disorders in childhood. New York:
New York University Press.
7. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32,
513-531.
8. Harlow, H., & Harlow, M. (1965). The affectional systems. In A. Schrier, H. Harlow, & F. Stollnitz (Eds.),
Behavior of non-human primates. New York: Academic Press.
9. Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models.
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63, 375-382.
10. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
11. Bell, R. Q. (1968). A reinterpretation of the direction of effect in studies of socialization. Psychological Review,
75, 81-95.
12. Sameroff, A. J., & Chandler, M. J. (1975). Reproductive risk and the continuum of caretaker causality. In F. D.
Horowitz (Ed.), Review of child development research (Vol. 4). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
13. Hubel, D. H., & Wiesel, T. N. (1965). Receptive fields of cells in striate cortex of very young, visually
inexperienced kittens. Journal of Neurophysiology, 26, 944-1002.
14) Anastasi, A. (1958). Heredity, environment, and the question "How?" Psychological Review, 89, 976 - 984.
15. Baillageon, R. (1987). Object permanence in 3.5- and 4.5-month-old infants. Developmental Psychology, 23,
655-664.
16. Baumrind, D. (1971). Current patterns of parental authority. Developmental Psychology Monographs, 4 (1, part
2).
17. Werner, E. E., & Smith, R. S. (2001). Journeys from childhood to midlife: Risk, resiliency, and recovery. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
18. Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
19. Fantz, R. L. (1961). The origin of form perception. Scientific American, 204, 66-72.
20. Premack, D., & Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? The Behavioral and Brain
Sciences, 1, 515-526.