Populations, communication and child development

A population psychology would provide empirical connections between individual differences studied under controlled conditions and the naturally occurring ecological parameters involved in transforming genotypes into phenotypes. Evidence from child development research indicates that the communicative environment of the child is the place to look for such parameters, which are located in communicative codes of symbolic meaning that children learn to master. These cultural codes may seem fixed to those who use them but are culturally variable, historically changeable and personally flexible - and should be studied in complex and changing environments. Copyright (C) 2002 S. Karger AG, Basel.