The chapters collected in this volume represent the "state-of-the-art" of research on the development of intentional action and intentional understanding--topics that are at the intersection of current research on imitation, early understanding of mental states, goal-directed behavior in nonhuman animals, executive function, language acquisition, and narrative understanding, to name just a few of the relevant foci. Collectively, the contributors demonstrate that intentionality is a key issue in the cognitive and social sciences. Moreover, in a way that was anticipated more than a century ago by the seminal work of J. Mark Baldwin, they are beginning to reveal how the control of action is related in development to children's emerging self-conscious and their increasingly sophisticated appreciation of other people's perspectives.

This volume brings together the world's leading researchers on early social and cognitive development in an in-depth exploration of children's understanding of themselves and others.

"...the findings presented in this text are dicidedly rich, the result of some creative experimental designs and observational techniques."
—Contemporary Psychology

"...provides a readable, even-handed approach to the nature of intentionality by providing converging evidence from language development, comparative, and social psychology."
—Child Development Abstracts and Bibliography

"Because each chapter in Zelazo, Astington, and Olson's book takes a different approach to answering the questions: What is intentionality? and How does intentionality influence development?, all of the chapters, taken together, present a very broad and, indeed, a very rich account. the principal attration of the book is in this very richness, with its diversity in focus and interpretation."
—Human Development

Philip David Zelazo, Janet Wilde Astington, David R. Olson