Individual development and human welfare [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION This book of abstracts is designed to fulfil two functions. On the one hand, it is a sort of vade-mecum for those attending the first European Conference on Developmental Psychology. On the other, it aims to provide, at a wider level, a picture of some of the topics, interests and concerns which are, at present engaging psychologists in Europe. European contributions to the development of Psychology have a long history and have often been of lasting significance. Two of the greatest figures in Psychology in general and Developmental Psychology in particular, Freud and Piaget, serve to illustrate this point. In spite of this extended history, contacts between psychologists in the different European lands have generally not been very good. The explosive growth in developmental psychological research over the past twenty years has served to highlight this situation. Psychologists working in one European country have often been more aware of work taking place beyond Europe, than that occurring in adjoining lands and opportunities for consultation and co-operative activity have suffered as a consequence. Such considerations led directly to the planning of a European conference and hence, to this volume. The range of contributions appearing in the following pages underlines the extent of research activity taking place in the different parts of Europe. It illustrates, at once, the diversity and overlap of interest and, by implication, the possibility to learn from each other and to work towards greater collaboration. The emphasis on Europe in the preceding paragraphs may give the impression of a movement towards some form of exclusiveness. This is emphatically not the intention behind the planning for this conference. Hopefully this is underlined by the theme - Individual Development and Human Welfare. The idea that the two dozen or so European lands can benefit from closer contact and co-operation is not incompatible with a concern for the position of the individual growing up in today's world, or with the wish to attend to issues of importance to human welfare. The theme also expresses another important idea which can be identified in many of the abstracts. This concerns the need to emphasise the link between the activities in which psychologists are engaged and the problems of human growth and development which bear upon ind-