I argue that the evolution of our life history, with its distinctively long, protected human
childhood, allows an early period of broad hypothesis search and exploration, before the …

Childhood adversity can have wide-ranging and long-lasting effects on later life. But what
are the mechanisms that are responsible for these effects? This article brings together the …

Like psychology more broadly, developmental psychology has long suffered from a narrow
focus on children from WEIRD societies—or those that are Western, Educated …

Curiosity and creativity are central pillars of human growth and invention. Although they
have been studied extensively in isolation, the relationship between them has not yet been …

Human culture is unique among animals in its complexity, variability, and cumulative quality.
This article describes the development and diversity of cumulative cultural learning. Children …

From maps sketched in sand to supercomputing software, humans ubiquitously enhance
cognitive performance by creating and using artifacts that bear mental load [1–5]. This …

Research in developmental psychology suggests that children are poor tool innovators.
However, such research often overlooks the ways in which children's social and physical …

The development of tool innovation presents a paradox. How do humans have such diverse
and complex technology, ranging from smartphones to aircraft, and yet young children find …

The human capacity for technological innovation and creative problem-solving far surpasses
that of any species but develops quite late. Prior work has typically presented children with …

Children's imagination was traditionally seen as a wayward, desire-driven faculty that is
eventually constrained by rationality. A more recent, Romantic view claims that young …