This volume contains the papers presented at the seventeenth Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology, held October 28-30, 1982, at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. As has been the tradition for this annual series, the faculty of the Institute of Child Development invited internationally eminent researchers to present their research and to consider problems of mutual concern to scientists studying development. For this symposium, there also were commentary papers prepared by members of the University of Minnesota community. The theme of the seventeenth symposium, and the present volume, was parent-child interaction and parent-child relations.