Developmental Science

An Advanced Textbook

Marc H. Bornstein, Michael E. Lamb, Marc H. Bornstein, Michael E. Lamb

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781136282195
• Edition: 7
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Developmental Science: An Advanced Textbook is the most complete and cutting-edge introduction to the field available today. Since its initial publication, the key purpose of the text has been to furnish inclusive developmental perspectives on all substantive areas in psychology—neuroscience, perception, cognition, language, emotion, and social interaction. This edition is no exception, as it continues to underscore the dynamic and exciting status of contemporary developmental science.

In this Seventh Edition, Marc H. Bornstein and Michael E. Lamb once again invite international experts to prepare original, comprehensive, and topical treatments of the major areas of developmental science, which are masterfully woven into a single coherent volume. Some chapters in this edition are new, and those carried forward from the sixth edition have been extensively revised. This volume represents faithfully the current status of scholarly efforts in all aspects of developmental science. Ideal for advanced undergraduate and introductory graduate courses, the text is accompanied by a website with supplementary material for students and instructors, including chapter outlines, topics to think about before reading, glossaries, and suggested readings.

Part I
Foundations of Developmental Science

The three chapters in this first section of Developmental Science: An Advanced Textbook summarize the intellectual history of developmental science, review the cultural orientation to thinking about human development, and introduce the manner in which empirical research on development is conducted.

In Chapter 1, Richard M. Lerner, Rachel M. Hershberg, Lacey J. Hilliard, and Sara K. Johnson present the philosophical origins and history of systems in developmental science. They place great emphasis on the contextual systems view of contemporary developmental study. Developmental science has been the primary battleground for theorists attempting to explain development. Lerner and his colleagues explain shifts over time in both the definitions of development proposed within multiple theories and the manner in which central issues in development (e.g., nature versus nurture, continuity versus discontinuity, stability versus instability) are portrayed. Lerner and colleagues conclude by discussing the articulation of theory to application in developmental science.

In Chapter 2, Martin Packer and Michael Cole provide a sweeping account of the understanding and wisdom gained when scholars adopt a cultural perspective on development. Packer and Cole review central issues in the psychology of culture, including alternative definitions of culture, before proceeding to recount specific relations between culture and different stages of development, from before birth to adulthood. As the authors show convincingly, culture infuses virtually every facet of human growth, and therefore developmental scientists must be constantly attentive to its pervasive and diverse influences.

Finally, in Chapter 3, Donald P. Hartmann, Craig B. Abbott, and Kelley E. Pelzel discuss the diverse ways in which evidence is gathered, analyzed, interpreted, and understood by developmental scientists. Developmental scientists are methodologically eclectic and rely on observations, interviews, questionnaires, and experiments to obtain data. They marshal an array of descriptive and inferential statistical techniques to analyze data and reach conclusions. The authors also offer a unique review of qualitative approaches to developmental phenomena. Because most studies conducted by developmentalists involve children, a unique set of ethical issues also attends developmental research, and these too are discussed by Hartmann, Abbott, and Pelzel.

1
Concepts and Theories of Human Development

Richard M. Lerner, Rachel M. Hershberg, Lacey J. Hilliard, and Sara K. Johnson

Developmental science seeks to describe, explain, and optimize intraindividual (within-person) change and interindividual (between-person) differences in intraindividual change across the life span (Baltes, Reese, & Nesselroade, 1977; Lerner, 2012; Lerner, Lerner, Bowers, & Geldhof, 2015).¹ However, the meaning of the term development continues to engage scholars in philosophical and theoretical debate (e.g., Ford & Lerner, 1992; Harris, 1957; Lerner, 2002, 2006; Overton, 2013, 2015; Overton & Müller, 2013). The existence of the debate is itself indicative of a key feature of the meaning of the term: development is not an empirical concept. If it were, inspection of a set of data would indicate to any observer whether development was present. However, different scientists can look at the same data set and disagree about whether development has occurred.

In this chapter, we discuss the concept of development as it has been and currently is used within human developmental science. We review both the philosophical foundations and historical roots of the concept and explain how the use of the concept within contemporary, cutting-edge theoretical models of human development finds its basis in this philosophical and historical record. We then define the current theoretical approach that frames the field of developmental science and the empirical work conducted therein—models derived from a relational developmental systems (RDS) metamodel (Overton, 2015)—and we discuss concepts associated with the RDS metamodel (e.g., embodiment and epigenesis) and briefly describe several examples of theories associated with it. We then describe some key methodological implications of RDS-based models, and, finally, we discuss the application of RDS-based theory and methods to enhance human development and to promote social justice among diverse individuals across the life span.

The Concept of Development

Past concepts of development were predicated on Cartesian philosophical ideas about the character of reality that separated, or “split,” what was regarded as real from what was relegated to the derivative, “unreal,” or epiphenomenal (Overton, 2013, 2015). In human development, major instances of such splitting involved classic debates about nature versus nurture as “the” source of development, continuity versus discontinuity as an appropriate depiction of the character of the human (intraindividual) developmental trajectory, transformational versus variational change as the quality of developmental change, and stability versus instability as an adequate means to describe interindividual differences in developmental change. Today, most major developmental theories eschew such splits, and instead use concepts drawn from a process-relational paradigm (Overton, 2015) and, in turn, from RDS-based theories/models associated with this paradigm (e.g., Lerner, 2006; Lerner, Agans, DeSouza, & Hershberg, 2014; Overton, 2013, 2015; Overton & Mueller, 2013). Overton (2015) explained that, compared to a Cartesian worldview, the process-relational paradigm focuses on process, becoming, holism, relational analysis, and the use of multiple perspectives and multiple explanatory forms. Within the process-relational paradigm, the organism is seen as inherently active, self-creating (auto-poietic), self-organizing, self-regulating (agentic), nonlinear/complex, and adaptive (Overton, 2015; also see Sokol, Hammond, Keubli, & Sweetman, 2015).

Within the RDS metamodel, the integration of different levels of organization frames understanding of life-span human development (Lerner, 2006; Overton, 2013, 2015). Accordingly, the conceptual emphasis in RDS theories is placed on mutually influential relations between individuals and contexts, represented as individual ↔ context relations. These relations vary across place and across time (Elder, Shanahan, & Jennings, 2015); this latter level is history (and involves the “arrow of time,” or temporality). History is the broadest level within the ecology of human development and imbues all other levels with change. Such change may be stochastic (e.g., nonnormative life or historical events; Baltes, Linden-berger, & Staudinger, 2006) or systematic, and the potential for systematic change constitutes a potential for (at least relative) plasticity across the life span.

RDS-based theories thus depict the basic developmental process as involving relations—or “fusions” (Tobach & Greenberg, 1984)—among variables from the multiple levels of organization that comprise the ecology of human development (e.g., see Bronfenbrenner, 2001, 2005; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Accordingly, framed by such conceptions, contemporary developmental science regards the basic process of development as involving the above-noted individual ↔ context relations, which engage variables among levels of organization ranging from biology through individual and social functioning to societal, cultural, physical, ecological, and, ultimately, historical levels of organization (e.g., Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 1998, 2006; Elder et al., 2015; Ford & Lerner, 1992).

This bidirectionality is the reason that Gottlieb and colleagues (e.g., Gottlieb, 1997; Gottlieb, Wahlsten, & Lickliter, 2006) and others (e.g., Overton, 2006) have argued that the concept coaction or transaction should replace the term interaction except when referring to statistics within the general linear model. In this chapter we employ the term coaction except when the reference is to linear statistical models, specific theoretical perspectives of others, or quotes from other sources. These reciprocal bidirectional relations regulate (govern) the course of development (its pace, direction, and outcomes). When these “developmental regulations” involve individual ↔ context relations benefitting both the person and his or her ecology, they may be termed adaptive (Brandtstädter, 2006).

The relational character of development means that some degree of change is always possible within the developmental system, as the temporality of history imbues each of the other levels of organization within the developmental system with the potential for change. Temporality means that at least relative plasticity (the potential for systematic change) exists within the integrated (fused) developmental system. Such plasticity may be capitalized on to identify or promote individual ↔ context relations linked to positive human development. As a consequence, contemporary developmental theory transcends another split that has characterized the field of human developmental science—a split between basic science and application (Fisher & Lerner, 1994; Lerner, 2006).

That is, theoretically predicated attempts to change the course of development—the trajectory of individual ↔ context relations—constitute both tests of the basic, relational process of human development and (given ethical mandates to act only to enhance human development) attempts to improve the course of life. These interventions into the life course may be aimed at individuals, families, communities, or the institutions of society, and may involve such actions as instituting community-based programs or enacting broad rules (i.e., social policies) governing the structure or function of such programs (Lerner, 2002, 2006). Thus, from the viewpoint of the RDS metatheory that defines theories at the cutting edge of contemporary developmental science (Overton, 2015; Overton & Müller, 2013), there is no necessary distinction between research on the basic, relational process linking individuals to their multitiered ecological systems and applications aimed at promoting positive individual ↔ context relations and social justice.

How did developmental science progress from relying on split conceptions of the bases and course of development to applying integrative concepts and models that emphasize the relational character of human development and the synthesis of basic and applied foci? To answer this key question, which in essence tells the story of past and contemporary defining features of human developmental science, we need to consider first what developmental scientists may or may not assume about the nature of their subject matter.

The Assumptions of Developmental Scientists

Scientists begin their study of development with some conception, either implicit or explicit, of what development is (Overton, 2015). Then, when they inspect a given set of data, they determine whether the features of the data fit with their concepts. Thus, debates among scientists about the meaning of development arise because different scientists have different conceptual templates. These conceptual differences exist because different scientists are committed to distinct philosophical and theoretical beliefs about the nature of the world and of human life.

Nevertheless, and despite these philosophical and theoretical differences among scientists, there is some agreement about the minimal features of any concept of development. In its most general sense, development refers to change. But change and development are not equivalent terms. Whenever development occurs there is change, but not all changes are developmental ones. Changes must be organized for them to be labeled as developmental. That is, change must be patterned, structured, or coherent, as opposed to stochastic (random), to be indicative of development. However, organization alone does not suffice as a definition of developmental change. Change must also be systematic, in the sense that changes within and across observation periods must be interdependent; an alteration in one part of an entity, organism, or structure must be related to alterations in the other parts of the entity, organism, or structure. But organization and systematicity alone also do not suffice to define development. For organized or systematic changes to be developmental ones, they have to have a successive character. The idea of successive changes indicates that the changes seen at a later time are at least in part influenced by the changes that occurred at an earlier time, if only to the extent that the range of changes probable at the later time is limited by earlier occurrences.

Despite a relatively high degree of consensus that development is a theoretical concept that, at least, connotes systematic and successive change in an entity, organism, or structure, there is a good deal of disagreement among developmental scientist...