This chronologically organized book provides a broad overview of the field of human development¿from the moment of conception through death¿focusing on physical, cognitive, and social and personality development. This book offers readers the most current, balanced coverage of theory and research¿with a focus on the application of that research, woven into a rich presentation filled with useful learning tools. Topics present a global perspective, highlighting both the commonalties and diversity of today's multicultural society. Incorporates material relevant to diversity in all its forms: racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and cultural. Presents current developmental research or research issues applied to everyday problems such as genetic engineering and cloning; toilet training; and pregnancy in late adulthood. Useful to those in many different backgrounds and careers dealing with any aspect of human development.
Robert S. Feldman is professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where he is Director of Undergraduate Studies and recipient of the College Distinguished Teacher Award. He is both a Hewlett Teaching Fellow and a Senior Online Teaching Fellow at UMass.
Professor Feldman was educated as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, from which he graduated with High Honors, and received a M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he specialized in social and developmental psychology.
Among his more than 100 books, chapters, and articles, he has edited Development of Nonverbal Behavior in Children (Springer -Verlag), Applications of Nonverbal Behavioral Theory and Research (Erlbaum), and co-edited Fundamentals of Nonverbal Behavior (Cambridge University Press). He is the recipient of grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of the Disabilities and Rehabilitation Research, which love supported his research on the development of nonverbal behavior in children. A past Fulbright lecturer and research scholar, he is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and American Psychological Society.
During the course of nearly two decades as a college instructor, he has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses at Mount Holyoke College, Wesleyan University, Virginia Commonwealth University, in addition to the University of Massachusetts.
Professor Feldman loves music, is an enthusiastic, if not particularly accomplished, pianist, and is an excellent cook. He has three children, and he and his wife, a psychologist, live in Amherst, Massachusetts, in a home overlooking the Holyoke mountain range.
