In it, the author provides a broad-based and integrative account of both the child's social relations and the child's search for self-identity and personality. To add coherence to a diverse field, Professor Damon has organized the material chronologically rather than present topics like attachment, aggression, and so on separately, isolated from one another. There is a special chapter on childhood peer relations and an entire section on adolescence. not a compendium of research findings, this text focuses on the major theories, each one illustrated with everyday examples and case histories. The textbook and its accompanying reader should be required reading for all students of human development.