How do humans think about family? Perspectives from Developmental Psychology

Family relationships are a ubiquitous component of human social life. In this chapter, we consider findings from developmental psychology to explore early-developing representations that serve as the foundation to adult intuitive theories of family relationships. First, we review evidence that concepts of biological inheritance, expectations of family-directed altruism, and knowledge of kin terms (e.g., that a grandmother is a mother of a mother), develop slowly over development and vary across cultures. Thus, these intuitions may not be good candidates for early developing or innate representations that support later developing representations of family relationships. By contrast, the ability to recognize social intimacy, and to reason about social triads appears to develop within the first years of life. Thus, humans may possess early developing intuitions that support later ideas about family relationships wherein family relationships are a subset of affiliative relationships marked by intimacy and that have network structures.