Honoring the Legacy of John H. Flavell: Pioneering the Future of Cognitive Development, Metacognition, and Theory of Mind

This Research Topic honors the profound scholarly contributions and enduring legacy of John H. Flavell (1928–2025), one of the most influential figures in modern developmental psychology. Flavell fundamentally shaped the direction of American psychological science by introducing Jean Piaget’s theories to the English-speaking world.

He coined the terms metacognition and metamemory, establishing entirely new paradigms for examining how children think about their own cognitive processes and monitor their own minds. His brilliant, deceptively simple methodologies, utilizing playful deceptions to explore visual perspective-taking, role-taking, and the distinction between appearance and reality, laid the groundwork for the modern explosion of Theory of Mind research.

This Research Topic aims to consolidate and advance the fields that Flavell’s work inspired, bringing together original empirical contributions, theoretical syntheses, and methodological innovations that build directly upon his intellectual legacy. By gathering work across the cognitive, developmental, and educational traditions he influenced, this Research Topic seeks to chart both the historical depth and current frontiers of his field.

We welcome submissions across the following thematic areas, with childhood as the primary developmental focus. Research spanning infancy through late adolescence will also be considered where developmental relevance is clearly established:

• Metacognitive Development and Regulation: Explorations of declarative, procedural, and conditional metacognitive knowledge, as well as real-time cognitive monitoring.

• The Development of Theory of Mind: Research into mentalizing capabilities, of the self and others, such as visual perspective-taking (Level 1 and Level 2), false belief, and imagining future thoughts and emotions.

• Appearance vs. Reality: Investigations into how learners navigate dual orientations, mental representations, pretense, and cognitive illusions.

• Metamemory and Strategy Acquisition: Empirical studies on developing awareness of how memory works and the strategic regulation of memory.

• Applied Educational Metacognition: Translating Flavell’s theoretical frameworks into classroom strategies to maximize reasoning, self-reflection, and independent problem-solving.

• Historical and Conceptual Appraisals: Reflections on Flavell’s intellectual journey; from his seminal 1963 book The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget to his structural impacts on developmental science through leadership in the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD).

Authors are invited to submit Original Research, Review, Systematic Review, Mini Review, Methods, Hypothesis and Theory, and Perspective articles.

Submissions should be grounded in developmental psychology and engage directly with Flavell’s theoretical or empirical legacy.

Academic descendants across subsequent generations, collaborators, and scholars whose work has been shaped by Flavell’s contributions are especially encouraged to participate, alongside any researcher working within these fields.

Topic Editor Stephanie Carlson holds a patent for the Minnesota Executive Function Scale and equity in Reflection Sciences, Inc. This conflict of interest is managed by the University of Minnesota. All other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject.

If you were not directly invited by the Topic Editors but wish to submit, you are welcome to do so; however, please contact us at developmentalpsychology@frontiersin.org before submitting.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: metacognition, theory of mind, John Flavell, cognitive development, metacognitive regulation, childhood, developmental psychology, young adult

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.