Four Cornell professors are among the leading researchers who were invited to contribute to the recently published new edition of the four-volume set The Handbook of Child Psychology.

The massive, 4,850-page, four-volume reference set, now in its fifth edition, is a comprehensive source book, encyclopedia and research review guide on the current state of knowledge in human development and developmental psychology.

Published every 15 years, The Handbook of Child Psychology, edited by William Damon (John Wiley & Sons, 1998: $490 through Nov.; $600 thereafter or $150 per volume) is an in-depth exploration of the social, emotional, perceptual, moral, cognitive, linguistic and applied aspects of child psychology.

Urie Bronfenbrenner, Stephen J. Ceci and Jeffrey Haugaard, all professors in the Department of Human Development at Cornell, and Frank Keil, Cornell professor of psychology, are authors or co-authors of chapters in the 71-chapter reference. In addition, Cornell doctoral student Pamela Morris is a co-author with Bronfenbrenner. Former Cornell professor Elizabeth Spelke, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, based a chapter on work she conducted at Cornell on nativism, empiricism and the development of knowledge.

In Volume 1, Theoretical Models of Human Development, Bronfenbrenner, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Human Development and of Psychology who also contributed to the 1983 edition of the handbook, co-authored with Morris the chapter, "The Ecology of Developmental Processes," and Keil, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology, contributed the chapter "Cognitive Sciences and the Origins of Thought and Knowledge."

In Volume 4, Child Psychology in Practice, Ceci, the Helen L. Carr Professor of Developmental Psychology, co-authored the chapter "Children's Testimony: Applied and Basic Issues" and Haugaard co-authored "Developmental Psychology and the Law: Divorce, Child Maltreatment, Foster Care and Adoption."

In each chapter, the authors, who were chosen because they "were widely acknowledged to be among the leading experts in their areas of the field," wrote editor Damon in the preface, were asked to describe their view of their field.