Critique highlights that knowledge emerges from interactions rather than being innate, reshaping development theories.
Social relationships are crucial in human development, but we criticize Thomas’s approach in terms of epistemology, methodology, genetics, neural development, and evolutionary theory. We critique the evidence Thomas cites to support claims of innate knowledge and instead propose that understanding relationships develops gradually through infants’ interaction within developmental systems elicited by their embodiment, not from innate knowledge.
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Aydın et al. (2026) studied this question.
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