This engaging book presents social development in children through the language of preference management. Conversational excerpts garnered from around the world trace how parents talk about preferences, how infants and children s emergent language conveys their preferences, how children themselves are impacted by others preferences, and how they in turn influence the preferences of adults and peers. The language of preferences is used to crack into altruism, aggression, and morality, which are ways of coming to terms with other people s preferences. Behind the scenes is a cognitive engine...