Bringing together some of the leading thinkers on the development of positive affect, this book aims to create a different focus for affective neuroscience. The contributors present their research on the development of positive affect in child, nonhuman, and clinical population.

1. Biological Approaches to the Study of Social Engagement ; 2. Temperamental Exuberance: Correlates and Consequences ; 3. Neural Bases of Infants' Processing of Social Information in Faces ; 4. Joint Attention, Social Engagement and the Development of Social Competence ; 5. The Social Dimension in Language Development: A Rich History and a New Frontier ; 6. Neurocognitive Bases of Preschoolers' Theory-of-Mind Development: Integrating Cognitive Neuroscience and Cognitive Development ; 7. The Neurobiology of Social Bonds and Affiliation ; 8. The Neurobiology of Maternal Behaviour in Mammals ; 9. Play and the Development of Social Engagement: A Comparative Perspective ; 10. Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Engagement ; 11. Understanding Impairments in Social Engagement in Autism ; 12. Social Engagements in Williams Syndrome ; 13. The Psychological Effects of Early Institutional Rearing

"This fine collection of contemporary studies of social phenomena in animals and children--healthy and biologically compromised--brings emotions and social concepts out of the shadows, and into the positions of prominence they must have for satisfying explanations of psychological events."--Jerome Kagan, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University "The concept of 'social engagement' is transforming how science studies the development of affective and cognitive processes. This volume provides a collection of papers by international experts focused on how social engagement drives processes that cross the classic boundary between the development of affect and cognition."--Stephen W. Porges, Director, Brain-Body Center and Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago "...covers a significant breadth of information; the pertinent literature is reviewed, new research presented, and hypotheses suggested to explain many aspects of developing social competence. Although this book focuses primarily on social and emotional development, it also presents an intriguing perspective on cognitive development, particularly with regard to the interaction between cognition, emotion, and social engagement."--PsycCRITIQUES "This fine collection of contemporary studies of social phenomena in animals and children--healthy and biologically comprised--brings emotions and social concepts out of the shadows, and into the positions of prominence they must have for satisfying explanations of psychological events."--Jerome Kagan, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University "The concept of 'social engagement' is transforming how science studies the development of affective and cognitive processes. This volume provides a collection of papers by international experts focused on how social engagement drives processes that cross the classic boundary between the development of affect and cognition."--Stephen W. Porges, Director, Brain-Body Center and Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago "...covers a significant breadth of information; the pertinent literature is reviewed, new research presented, and hypotheses suggested to explain many aspects of developing social competence. Although this book focuses primarily on social and emotional development, it also presents an intriguing perspective on cognitive development, particularly with regard to the interaction between cognition, emotion, and social engagement."--PsycCRITIQUES

Peter J. Marshall is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Temple University. His research interests include temperament, attachment, and the utility of electrophysical measures of nervous system functioning in research on social, emotional, and cognitive development in infancy and early childhood.LNathan A. Fox is Professor of Human Development at the University of Maryland, College Park. His interests mainly concern the biological bases of individual differences in infant temperament and the role of early experience as it affects brain and behavior in the realm of social and emotional competencies.