“What good can come from studying Cognitive Development?”

Students enrolled in PSY 353: Cognitive Development were asked this question at the beginning of the Fall 2021 semester, as they were introduced to George Miller’s 1969 address to the APA, where he stated that “The most urgent problems of our world today are the problems we have made for ourselves [and] whose solutions will require us to change our behavior and our social institutions…“. Back then Psychology had a ways to go yet, in discovering the means of addressing the social problems that were creating an unjust society. Where are we at with this today? Our society is still reeling with social injustice – racism, sexism, ableism and more – but Psychological Science has advanced and we do now have a means of addressing these issues. That is the purpose of this class project.