A social-affective-cognitive approach to self-construction. From Piaget to Bowlby – and back again

In this article we engage in dialog with Piaget; we explore some aspects of his constructivism and probe their role in current developmental science. Our testing ground is the development of subjective identity and our conclusion is that Piagetian constructivism may still be very relevant provided that (i) we combine it with that extensive body of neo-nativist psychology that led to the hypothesis that our mind contains an innate repertoire of conceptual representations (“core knowledge” or “core cognition”); and (ii) we curb the excessive individualism endemic to the Piagetian cognitive-developmental tradition by amending it in light of approaches to constructivism that are able to take into account the motivational and interpersonal aspects of identity formation.