Towards Complementarity: Specificity and Commonality in Social-Emotional Development

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2021-10

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Malti, Tina; Cheah, Charissa S. L.; Towards Complementarity: Specificity and Commonality in Social-Emotional Development; Child Development, 2021;

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Submitted to Child Development published by Wiley.

Subjects

Abstract

What are the roles of specificity and commonality in social-emotional development? We begin by highlighting the conceptual context for this timely and timeless question and explain how responses to it can inform novel lines of theoretical and empirical inquiry, as well as sociocultural generalizability. Next, we describe how the selection of papers included in this special section contribute to our understanding of specificity and commonality in socialemotional development. We then explain how applying the complementarity principle to socialemotional development can inform a future research agenda in this domain. Lastly, we discuss how specificity and commonality fundamentally impact the way we conceptualize and implement interventions aimed at nurturing social-emotional development in every child.