The Way We Were: 10 Crucial Child Psychology Studies

Once upon a time, although it seems barely credible to us now, we were all children. We gurgled, we cried, we laughed, we explored, we fell down, and we had very little idea about the journey on which we had just embarked.

Barring mishap, over the first few years of our lives we developed memory, language, self-concept, cognitive, social and emotional abilities. We took our first steps towards our future selves.

Child psychology – or, more broadly, developmental psychology – is not just the study of children, it is the study of you and me and how we came to be this way. Just as discovering your history can teach you about the future, so child psychology shows us what we once were and even what we will become.

Here are 10 classic studies that have illuminated crucial areas of childhood development. Each one is a piece in the jigsaw puzzle that is ourselves, and each one reminds us, through examining just one piece, how aspects of experience we now take for granted were once so complex.

[Image credit: Patrick Q]