Child Development at the Intersection of Emotion and Cognition

In this extensively revised edition, Martha Ann Bell and her contributors synthesize the newest research on how cognitive and emotional processes influence each other in child development.

Historically, research in child development has treated cognitive processes as separate and distinct from social-emotional processes. However, many of the factors that influence self-regulation are also closely linked to cognitive development. For example, genetics, prenatal environment, relationships, language, and physiological processes are all links between emotion and cognition in child development.

The first edition of this volume greatly increased our understanding of emotion-cognition integration. This second edition incorporates new longitudinal research demonstrating this integration during infancy and throughout childhood. Chapters incorporate new research methods based on technological advances that have greatly enhanced our ability to examine early human brain development. The resulting volume is a critical read for those interested in understanding how brain development influences our behavior and social interactions.

Martha Ann Bell, PhD, is University Distinguished Professor, College of Science Faculty Fellow, and Professor of Psychology at Virginia Tech, where she has been on faculty since 1996 as a member of the Developmental Science program. Her research team examines individual differences in the development of executive function and emotion regulation across infancy and childhood, with her and collaborators’ work funded by the National Institutes of Health (NICHD, NIMH, NIDA) and the National Science Foundation. Bell is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (Division 7, Developmental Psychology; Division 3, Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science) and a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. She is past recipient of the Senior Investigator Award from the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology, as well as the society’s Rovee-Collier Mentor Award. She also has received Virginia Tech’s top awards for research (Alumni Award for Research Excellence) and mentoring (Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award – College of Science). Bell is past Editor of the journal Infancy and past chair of the NIH study section Cognition and Perception.