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PART I

Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

Weiner, I. B., Lerner, R. M., Easterbrooks, M. A., & Weiner, I. (2012). Handbook of psychology, developmental psychology. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from ashford-ebooks on 2019-01-14 19:30:57.

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CHAPTER 1

Developmental Science Across the Life Span

An Introduction

RICHARD M. LERNER, M. ANN EASTERBROOKS, AND JAYANTHI MISTRY

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE LIFE-SPAN STUDY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 4

THE PLAN OF THIS VOLUME 8

CONCLUSIONS 14 REFERENCES 14

Until the early 1960s, the study of human development was dominated by either descriptions of the behavioral or psy- chological phenomena presumptively unfolding as a conse- quence of genetically controlled timetables of maturational change (e.g., see the chapters by Hess and by McClearn in the 1970, 3rd edition of the Handbook of Child Psychol- ogy ; Mussen, 1970), or by descriptions of the behaviors presumptively elicited in response to stimulation encoun- tered over the course of early life experiences (e.g., see the chapters by Stevenson or by White in the same edition of the Handbook of Child Psychology). Framed within a Carte- sian dualism that split nature from nurture (Overton, 2010; Overton & Müller, this volume), scientists studying devel- opment focused in the main on the generic human being (Emmerich, 1968) and on the earliest years of life or, at most, the years surrounding the stages of pubertal change. These periods were regarded as the portions of ontogeny wherein the fundamental processes of human development emerged and functioned to shape the subsequent course of human life (Brim & Kagan, 1980).

Today, the study of development has evolved from a field embedded within the domain of developmental psy- chology to an area of scholarship labeled developmental science (Bornstein & Lamb, 2010; Lerner, 2010a; Mag- nusson & Stattin, 2006). Substantively, developmental

The preparation of this chapter was supported in part by grants from the National 4-H Council, the Altria Corporation, the Thrive Foundation for Youth, the John Templeton Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Massachusetts Children’s Trust Fund.

science is a field that conceptualizes the entire span of human life as potentially involving developmental change. The possibility of developmental change across life exists because the basic process of development is seen as involving mutually influential relations between an active organism and a changing, multilevel ecology, a relation represented as individual ← → context relations (Lerner, 2006). These relations provide the fundamental impetus to systematic and successive changes across the life span (Brandtstädter, 1998; Overton, 1973, 2010; Lerner, 2006).

Thus, the contemporary study of human development involves placing post, postmodern, relational models at the cutting-edge of theoretical and empirical interest (Overton, 2010; Overton & Müller, this volume). These models consider all levels of organization—from the inner biological through the physical ecological, cultural, and historical—as involved in mutually influential relationships across the breadth of the entire life course (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Riegel, 1975, 1976). Variations in time and place constitute vital sources of systematic changes across ontogeny—even into the 10th and 11th decades of life—and, as such, human life is variegated and characterized by intraindividual change and interindividual differences (Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006; Elder, 1980; Elder, Modell, & Parke, 1993; Elder & Shanahan, 2006). Accordingly, because ontogenetic change is embodied in its relation to time and place (Overton, 2010), contemporary developmental science regards the temporality represented by historical changes as imbued in all levels of organization, as

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4 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

coacting integratively, and as providing a potential for this systematic change, for plasticity , across the life span.

In short, as a consequence of the relational coactions of changes at levels of organization ranging from the bio- logical, psychological, and behavioral to the sociocultural, designed and natural physical ecological, and through the historical (see Gottlieb, 1997; cf. Overton, 2006), processes of development are viewed in contemporary developmental science through a theoretical and empirical lens that extends the study of change across the human ontogenetic span and, as well, through generational and historical time (Elder, 1998; Elder, et al., 1993). The variations in the actions of individuals on their contexts and contexts on individuals integratively propel and texture the course of life (Baltes, Freund, & Li, 2005; Brandtstädter, 2006; Freund & Baltes, 2000; Freund, Li, & Baltes, 1999). As a result, the breadth of the life span and all levels of organization within the ecology of human development must be considered in order to fully describe, explain, and optimize the course of intraindivid- ual change and of interindividual differences in such change (Baltes, et al., 2006; Baltes, Reese, & Nesselroade, 1977).

There exist both historical (Baltes, 1979, 1983; R. Cairns & Cairns, 2006) and philosophical and theoretical (Lerner, 1984; Overton, 1973, 1975, 2006) accounts of the nature and bases of the evolution of developmental science. These accounts document that the field changed from one dominated by psychological, environmental, or biological reductionist, split, and age-period restricted conceptions of human develop- ment processes to become a field focused on relational systems, and life-span developmental models (Lerner, 2010b; Overton, 2010). Edwin G. Boring (1950, p. ix) noted that Hermann Ebbinghaus once remarked that “psychology has a long past, but only a short history.” In many ways, the same statement may be made about the evolution of the study of human development across the life span; that is, of the history of the devel- opmental science of human development.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE LIFE-SPAN STUDY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Wilhelm Wundt labeled the science he is typically credited with launching as physiological psychology (Boring, 1950). In turn, at the end of his career Wundt sought to understand the science he had launched within the frame of cultural anthropology (Misiak & Sexton, 1966). Even in its early history, then, psychology was a field whose individual- level scholarship was linked to phenomena at levels of organization either more micro or more macro than its own.

Often, however, mechanistic and reductionist models were used to conceptualize the relations among levels. For example, Homans’s (1961) social exchange theory used principles of operant learning to reduce dyadic rela- tionships to psychogenic terms. Wilson (1975), in turn, reduced instances of (seemingly) moral behaviors (labeled as altruistic) to purported biogenic explanations (involving the concepts of inclusive fitness and gametic potential).

The field of developmental science emerged from this general approach in psychology. That is, the origins of developmental science lie in the field of developmen- tal psychology or, even more narrowly, in the field of child psychology when, prior to the 1960s, the portions of the life span beyond early adolescence were markedly understudied by developmental psychologists (e.g., Baltes, 1983; R. Cairns & Cairns, 2006; Dixon & Lerner, 1999). Within these earlier approaches to development there was an orientation to explain the phenomena of one level of organization by reductive reference to terms associ- ated with another level. Bijou and Baer (1961) attempted to explain all phenomena associated with psychological and behavioral development during infancy and childhood by reduction to the principles of classical and operant conditioning. Rowe (1994) sought to reduce parent-child relations and, in fact, all socialization experiences of child- hood by reference to genetic inheritance, as represented by estimates of heritability.

The attempts by such developmental psychologists to portray the phenomena of one level of organization as primary, or “real,” and others as derivative, or epiphe- nomenal, were representative of a more general tendency among developmentalists to split apart the components of the ecology of human life and to treat the bases of development as residing in one or another component, for example, nature or nurture (Overton, 1973, 2006, 2010). Indeed, theoretical controversies and associated empiri- cal activity revolved around whether nativist concepts or experiences associated with learning could explain the development of perception, cognition, language, intelli- gence, or personality (R. Cairns & Cairns, 2006; Dixon & Lerner, 1999). This split also is illustrated by the ten- dency to reduce human relationships to interactions among members of dyads, or individual interaction sequences. In addition, split conceptions of development framed debates about whether continuity or discontinuity characterized the course of life; for instance, a key issue was whether early experience, split off from subsequent periods of life, was integral in shaping the context of the per- son’s psychological-behavioral repertoire across ontogeny (Brim & Kagan, 1980).

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Developmental Science Across the Life Span: An Introduction 5

Levels of Integration in Human Development

An old adage says that “standing on the shoulders of giants we can see forever.” For scholars of human development— especially contemporary developmentalists who eschew the split conceptions of the past—many of these giants came from the fields of evolutionary biology or compar- ative psychology (e.g., Gottlieb, 1983, 1997, 2004; Got- tlieb, Wahlsten, & Lickliter, 2006; Ho, 2010; Jablonka & Lamb,2005;Kuo,1976;Lehrman,1953;Maier&Schneirla, 1935; Novikoff, 1945a, 1945b; Schneirla, 1957; Tobach, 1981; von Bertalanffy, 1933; and see Hood, Halpern, Green- berg, & Lerner, 2010, for reviews). Through the cumulative impact of the theory and research of such scholars, by the early years of the 21st century scientists studying human development have come to view the reductionist and split conceptions that dominated conceptual debates in develop- mental psychology during the first seven to eight decades of the 20th century as almost quaint historical artifacts. The few contemporary remnants of these split conceptions (e.g., Plomin, 2000; Rushton, 2000; Spelke & Newport, 1998) are regarded as theoretically atavistic and as conceptually and methodologically flawed (e.g., see Garcia Coll, Bearer, & Lerner, 2004; Hirsch, 2004; Keller, 2010; Lerner, 2006; Overton, 2010; Overton & Müller, this volume; Partridge & Greenberg, 2010).

Within the context of the contemporary understanding of the theoretical flaws of past and, in some cases, present (e.g., see Ho, 2010; Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Rose & Rose, 2000, for reviews), contemporary contributions to the literature of human development derive from ideas that stress that an integrative, reciprocal relation, fusion, or dynamic interaction of variables from multiple levels of organization provides the core process of development. These ideas—summarized in the concepts associated with relational developmental systems models of human devel- opment (Overton, 2010; Overton & Müller, this volume) and in the several instantiations of these models in con- temporary developmental science (e.g., Ford & Lerner, 1992; Mistry & Wu, 2010; Sameroff, 2009; Thelen & Smith, 2006)—are found in the theoretical ideas associ- ated with the work of the comparative psychologists and evolutionary biologists just noted.

To illustrate, the comparative work of Gilbert Got- tlieb (1983, 1997; Gottlieb et al., 2006; and see Hood, et al., 2010, for reviews) has been a central influence on contemporary developmental psychology, providing a rigorous, compelling theoretical and empirical basis for viewing human development as involving changes in a person-context developmental system across the life span.

Gottlieb’s scholarship has documented the probabilistic epigenetic character of developmental changes; that is, alterations that result from variation in the timing of the integrated or fused relations—or the coactions—among levels of organization ranging from biology through the macroecological influences of culture and history. Using examples drawn from a variety of species—and involv- ing, for instance, variation in morphological outcomes of development in the minute parasitic wasp; the emer- gence of enameled molar teeth resulting from chick oral epithelial cells being placed in contact with mouse cell mesenchyme; dominant frequencies in the vocalizations of mallard duck embryos and hatchlings; phenotypic vari- ation in the body builds of human monozygotic twins reared apart; and secular trends from 1860 to 1970 in the age at menarche of European and United States females—Gottlieb (1997, 1999) provided evidence of a probabilistic epigenetic view of bidirectional structure- function development. This view (Gottlieb, 1997, 1999) may be summarized as:

Genetic activity (DNA ←→ RNA ←→ Protein) ←→ Structural Maturation ←→ Function, Activity,

or Experience

Thus, Gottlieb’s (1983) theoretical work is coupled with rich and convincing empirical documentation that biology- ecology coactions provide a basis of plasticity—of the potential for systematic change—across the course of life (e.g., see Gottlieb, 1997).

Gottlieb’s (1997, 1999; Gottlieb, Wahlsten, & Lickliter, 1998) scholarship underscores the importance of focus- ing developmental analysis on the multilevel, integrated matrix of covariation—on the dynamic developmental system—that constitutes human development. Moreover, in forwarding a systems view of human development, this scholarship necessitates that developmental psychologists transcend a psychogenic view of their field. This schol- arship leads developmentalists to embrace a perspective that includes contributions from the multiple—biological, behavioral, and social—sciences that afford understand- ing of the several coacting levels of organization inte- grated in the developmental system.

In a similar vein, scholars building on Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural perspective on human development also emphasized the need to transcend the boundaries of psychological science. Cole (1990, 1996) and Wer- stch (1985, 1991) explicated Vygotsky’s description of the genetic method for the study of human development,

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6 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

stating that a complete theory of human development must be able to explain development at the phylogenetic, sociohistorical, ontogenetic, and microgenetic levels. The assumption is that such an endeavor requires the integra- tion of perspectives from biology, sociology, anthropology, history, and psychology.

In short, to understand human development, devel- opmental psychologists became developmental scientists. They became multidisciplinary collaborators seeking to describe, explain, and optimize the changing interlevel relations that constitute the basic process of develop- ment within a relational developmental systems perspec- tive (Lerner, 2006; Overton 2010).

Scholarly Products and Producers of Relational Developmental Systems Models

The work of Gottlieb, other comparative psychologists, and evolutionary biologists emphasizing epigenetics (e.g., Ho, 2010; Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Rose & Rose, 2000) found a ready audience among many developmentalists across the last three decades of the 20th century. This period was a teachable moment in the field of develop- mental psychology, because many scholars were strug- gling to find a theoretically sound means to frame what were anomalous findings by the then-current split theo- retical models (e.g., associated with either nature or nur- ture, mechanistic conceptions or predetermined epigenetic models; see Gottlieb, 1997; Lerner, 2002; Overton, 1973, 1998, 2010; Overton & Müller, this volume, for discussion of these split approaches).

For example, these findings pertained to cohort or time- of-testing effects on human ontogenetic change, to the role of later life events in altering (creating disconti- nuities with) the trajectories of individual development, and to the presence of plasticity across life—even in the aged years—regarding biological, psychological, and social functioning (e.g., see Baltes et al., 2006; Brim & Kagan, 1980; Elder, 1998; Elder & Shanahan, 2006; Lerner, 2006). These findings demonstrated that dynamic relations between individual characteristics and critical contextual events or nonnormative historical episodes shaped the char- acter of change across the life span.

Several different relational developmental systems the- ories were developed in regard to such findings (e.g., Brandtstädter, 2006; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Csik- szentmihalyi & Rathunde, 1998; Elder, 1998; Feldman, 2000;Fischer&Bidell,2006;Ford&Lerner,1992;Gottlieb, 1997,1998,1999;Lerner,2006;Magnusson&Stattin,2006; Overton, 2006, 2010; Thelen & Smith, 2006; Wapner &

Demick, 1998). Across these different formulations, there is a common emphasis on fused person-context relations and on the need to embed the study of human development within the actual settings of human life.

Such embeddedness may involve tests of theoretically predicated ideas that appraise whether changes in the relations within the system result in alterations in devel- opmental trajectories that coincide with model-based pre- dictions. Depending on their target level of organization, these changes may be construed as policies or programs, and the evaluation of these actions provides information about both the efficacy of these interventions in promoting positive human development and the basic, relational pro- cess of human development emphasized within relational developmental systems models.

As such, within contemporary, relational developmen- tal systems theory, there is a synthesis of basic and applied developmental science. That is, by studying integrated person-context relations as embedded in the actual ecol- ogy of human development, policies and programs repre- sent both features of the cultural context of this ecology and methodological tools for understanding how varia- tions in individual-context relations may impact the trajec- tory of human life. Thus, the application of developmental science (through policy and program innovations and eval- uations) is part of—is synthesized with—the study of the basic relational processes of human development.

The Contemporary Features of Developmental Science

As the decade of the 1980s ended, the view of devel- opmental science that Paul Mussen (1970) had put for- ward at the beginning of the 1970s—that the field placed its emphasis on explanations of the process of development—was both validated and extended. Mussen alerted developmentalists to the burgeoning interest not in structure, function, or content per se, but to change, to the processes through which change occurs, and thus to the means through which structures transform and func- tions evolve over the course of human life. His vision of and for the field presaged what emerged in the 1990s as the cutting edge of contemporary developmental the- ory: a focus on the process through which the individual’s engagement with his or her context constitutes the basic process of human development.

The interest that had emerged by the end of the 1980s in understanding the dynamic relation between individ- ual and context was, during the 1990s, brought to a more abstract level, one concerned with understanding the

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Developmental Science Across the Life Span: An Introduction 7

character of the integration of the levels of organization comprising the context, or bioecology, of human devel- opment (Lerner, 2006, 2010b). This concern was repre- sented by reciprocal or dynamic conceptions of process and by the elaboration of theoretical models that were not tied necessarily to a particular content domain but rather were focused on understanding the broader develop- mental system within which all dimensions of individual development emerged (e.g., Brandtstädter, 2006; Bronfen- brenner, 2005; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Ford & Lerner, 1992; Gottlieb, 1997; Magnusson, 1999a, 1999b; Sameroff, 1983, 2009; Thelen & Smith, 2006). In other words, although particular empirical issues or substan- tive foci (e.g., motor development, the self, psychological complexity, or concept formation) lent themselves readily as exemplary sample cases of the processes depicted in a given theory (Lerner, 1998), the theoretical models that were forwarded within the 1990s were superordinately concerned with elucidating the character of the individual- context relational developmental system (Lerner, 2006; Overton, 2010).

During the 1980s and 1990s similar concerns with under- standing the nature of the integration between individual development and cultural context led to the development of sociocultural perspectives on human development. As already noted, some scholars extended Vygotsky’s (1978) sociohistorical theory to emphasize the study of human development as it is constituted in the sociocultural context (Cole, 1990, 1996; Rogoff, 1990; Wertsch, 1985, 1995). Others conceptualized culture as the meaning systems, symbols, activities, and practices through which people interpret experience (Bruner, 1990; Greenfield & Cock- ing, 1994; Goodnow, Miller, & Kessel, 1995; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Mistry & Wu, 2010; Shweder, 1990).

By the end of the 20th century, then, the conceptually split, mechanistic, and atomistic views, which had been involved in so much of the history of concepts and theories of human development, had been replaced by theoretical models that stressed relationism and integration across all the distinct but fused levels of organization involved in human life. This dynamic synthesis of multiple levels of analysis is a perspective having its roots in systems the- ories of biological development (Cairns, 1998; Gottlieb, 1992; Kuo, 1976; Novikoff, 1945a, 1945b; Schneirla, 1957; von Bertalanffy, 1933); in addition, as noted by Cairns (1998), the interest in understanding person-context rela- tions within an integrative, or systems, perspective has a rich history within the study of human development.

For example, James Mark Baldwin (1897) expressed interest in studying development in context, and thus in

understanding integrated, multilevel, and hence interdis- ciplinary scholarship (Cairns, 1998). These interests were sharedaswellbyLightnerWitmer, the founder in1896of the first psychological clinic in the United States (Cairns, 1998; Lerner, 1977). Moreover, Cairns describes the conception of developmental processes—as involving reciprocal inter- action, bidirectionality, plasticity, and biobehavioral orga- nization (all quite modern emphases)—as integral in the thinking of the founders of the field of human develop- ment. For instance, Wilhelm Stern (1914; see Kreppner, 1994) stressed the holism that is associated with a relational developmental systems perspective about these features of developmental processes. In addition, other contributors to the foundations and early progress of the field of human development (e.g., John Dewey, 1916; Kurt Lewin, 1935, 1954; and even John B. Watson, 1928) stressed the impor- tance of linking child development research with application and child advocacy—a theme of very contemporary rele- vance (Lerner, Fisher, & Weinberg, 2000a, 2000b; Lerner, Jacobs, & Wertlieb, 2003; Zigler, 1999).

The study of human development has in a sense come full circle in the course of a century. From the beginning of the last century to the beginning of the present one, the history of developmental psychology has been marked by an increasing interest in the role of history—of temporal changes in the familial, social, and cultural contexts of life—in shaping the quality of the trajectories of change that individuals traverse across their life spans. As a con- sequence of incorporating into its causal schemas about ontogenetic change a nonreductionistic and a synthetic conception about (as compared to a Cartesian split view of) the influence of context—of culture and history—the field of human development has altered its essential ontol- ogy. The relational view of being that now predominates in the field has required epistemological revisions in the field as well. Qualitative as well as quantitative under- standing has been legitimated as scholars have sought an integrated understanding of the multiple levels of orga- nization comprising the ecology of human development. In fact, relational perspectives embracing the develop- mental system stress the methodological importance of triangulation across quantitative and qualitative appraisals of multilevel developmental phenomena (Lerner, Dowl- ing, & Chaudhuri, 2005).

In essence, then, as we pursue our scholarship about human development in this second decade of the 21st century, we do so with an orientation to the human life span that is characterized by (a) integrated, relational

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8 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

models of human life, perspectives synthesizing biological- through-physical ecological influences on human devel- opment in nonreductionistic manners; (b) a broad array of qualitative and quantitative methodologies requisite for attaining knowledge about these fused, biopsychoecologi- cal relations; (c) a growing appreciation of the importance of the cultural and historical influences on the quality and tra- jectory of human development across the course of life; and (d) a synthesis of basic and applied developmental science.

These four defining themes in the study of human development are represented in contemporary relational developmental systems theories, perspectives that consti- tute the overarching conceptual frames of modern schol- arship in the study of human development. We believe as well that across the rest of this century the field will advance through the coordinated emphasis on a culturally and historically sensitive science that triangulates quan- titative and qualitative appraisals of the relations among the multiple levels of organization fused within the devel- opmental system.

In short, there has been a history of visionary scholars interested in exploring the use of ideas associated with relational developmental systems theory for understanding the basic process of human development and for applying this knowledge within the actual contexts of people to enhance their paths across life. Accordingly, the chapters in this volume reflect and extend the diverse theoretical perspectives that emphasize understanding dynamic and integrated developmental processes as they are situated in the varying contexts of people’s lives and circumstances.

THE PLAN OF THIS VOLUME

Developmental science in the 21st century has become marked by an explicit integration of philosophy, theory, and method on the one hand and a synthetic understand- ing of basic developmental processes and applications designed to promote positive human development on the other (Lerner, 2006). In addition to the present chapter, Part I of this volume, “Foundations of Development Across the Life Span,” includes a chapter by Overton and Müller.

This chapter elaborates a relational developmental sys- tems approach that serves as the basis for integrating the range of concepts that are fundamental to understanding the integrative character of the developmental process, including variational and transformational change, nature and nurture, biology and culture, and explanation and interpretation. Overton and Müller identify the notions of person, action, and embodiment as core concepts of

relational developmental systems because these notions overcome the dichotomies that traditionally have charac- terized developmental theories.

The next five sections of the volume (Parts II through VI) provide evidence, within and across successive por- tions of the life span, of the rich scholarship conducted to describe and explain dynamic relations between devel- oping individuals and their complex contexts. In Part II of the volume, titled “Infancy and Early Childhood,” Colombo, Brez, and Curtindale summarize research in the last decade on the development of perception and cognition in preverbal infants. The chapter begins by placing the current state of the field in its historical context and covers the basic and predominant method- ological techniques and paradigms used in the field. The major part of the chapter is spent summarizing progress in eight specific subtopics within the area: attention, learn- ing, intersensory/intermodal processing, face processing, object perception, casual perception, quantitative pro- cessing, and categorization. In addition, two integrative sections explore how the study of the development of fundamental perceptual and cognitive functions relates to larger issues in developmental psychology. The first of these sections examines the developmental relationships between lower-order perceptual components and higher- order functions, such as language and executive function. A final section examines the incorporation of research on early perceptual and cognitive development in trans- lational and applied research. These topics include the prediction of later cognition from early cognitive perfor- mance, the use of infant perceptual-cognitive measures as dependent or outcome measures in intervention research, and the use of early perceptual-cognitive indicators as markers of developmental delay and disability.

In turn, Easterbrooks, Dym Bartlett, Beeghly, and Thompson note that the study of “socioemotional” devel- opment reflects the intertwining nature of the processes of social and emotional growth. They focus on social and emotional development of infants and toddlers. They begin by outlining the contextual frames that inform their discussion: psychobiological, relational, and cul- tural. Emotions have been referred to as the “language of infancy,” and the authors present a profile of early emotional development that focuses on several key aspects of emotions and how they shape, and are shaped by, social interactions; they include discussions of temperament, the importance of face-to-face social interactions, the role of social relationships in emotion regulation, and the growth of self-understanding. In the section that follows, they focus on attachment relationships between infants

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Developmental Science Across the Life Span: An Introduction 9

and their caregivers, addressing central questions related to individual differences in attachment security, and the influence of infants’ attachment relationships on later developmental functioning. The orientation they present highlights that the contours of emotional development in the early years both are informed by, and contribute to, social interactions and relationships.

In the next chapter in this section, Hostinar and Gun- nar address the issue of the conditions under which stress exposure in childhood induces vulnerability and promotes resilience. They review what is known about the develop- mental psychobiology of stress systems and articulate the current state of knowledge. They review also the anatomy and physiology of stress systems and some of their com- plex interconnections, followed by a discussion of what is known about the ontogeny of these systems and the way individual differences in their activity might emerge. They discuss studies of stress reactivity and regulation during each major developmental period between pre- natal life and adolescence, and, in turn, review findings related to temperamental, genetic, and caregiving factors that may underlie individual differences in stress reactiv- ity. They conclude with some ideas about the need for basic research examining the development of stress sys- tems at multiple levels of analysis—scholarship that will inform a comprehensive, biologically plausible model of stress and emotion across the life span.

In the final chapter of the “Infancy and Early Child- hood” section, Tamis-LeMonda and Song examine the sociocultural context of infant development, with pri- mary emphasis on parent-infant communicative interac- tions. They focus on the cultural context of development, as societies (and local communities) around the world have different sets of views and practices regarding rais- ing children. They focus on infancy, as it involves rapid brain growth and impressive achievements in language and social communication. In addition, they focus also on parent-infant communicative interactions, because infants’ social experiences occur primarily within the family set- ting and interactions with family members are a core conduit for sharing culture. The chapter presents five prin- ciples that guide the authors’ thinking on cultural sim- ilarities and differences in parent-infant communicative interactions and show how the everyday settings and activ- ities of families—referred to as daily routines—frame the types of communicative interactions that parents have with their young. They describe as well cultural variations in three aspects of parent-infant communicative interactions: modes of communication (i.e., language, gaze, touch, ges- ture), parents’ communicative accommodations to infants

(i.e., support of infants’ expressions and understandings), and the content of interactions (i.e., the functions and topics of communications). Finally, the authors point to next steps in the study of parent-infant interactions in cul- tural context.

The chapters in Part III, “Childhood,” present current perspectives on the dynamic processes of development and multiple influences of context in various domains of children’s development. In the first chapter in this section, Wagner and Hoff review four major theoretical approaches to the study of language development: the Biological, the Linguistic, the Social Pragmatic, and the Domain-General Cognitive. Each approach is described and evaluated with respect to its strengths and weaknesses. Major issues from the field are discussed, including the critical period for language, the poverty of the stimulus argument, nativism, rule abstraction, and statistical learn- ing. Evidence from the domains of phonological, lexical, and syntactic development are considered. The chapter argues that each approach has made important contribu- tions, but none alone has so far been able to account for the entirety of the phenomenon of language acquisition.

In the following chapter, Feldman notes that in more than half a century of history, the field of cognitive devel- opment has been marked by several revolutionary influ- ences that helped establish it as a distinct specialty. The cognitive revolution, the revolution in language acquisi- tion, and the Piagetian revolution were the most powerful early influences. As the field evolved, Neo-Piagetians and sociocultural perspectives balanced the focus on individual development with contextual and educational contributions. The author notes that toward the end of the last century, efforts at integration of individual and context, biology and culture, and universal and nonuniversal development were the focus of the field. Vygotsky’s sociocultural framework, with its emphasis on guidance and participation, was partic- ularly influential. Finally, the author indicates that in recent decades, emerging trends in comparative studies with pri- mates, dynamic systems frameworks that are grounded in biology, and brain research have invigorated and extended thefieldofcognitivedevelopment inchildren intonewareas.

In turn, Cummings, Braungart-Rieker, and Du Rocher Schudlich note that a change in views about the roles of emotions in socioemotional development has taken place. Emotions were once viewed as experiential, intrapsychic events that occurred more or less secondarily, as by- products of more significant causal processes and phenom- ena. However, they note that, in recent years, research and theory on the study of emotions have placed much greater emphasis on the significance and role of emotions in social

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functioning and personality development. Accordingly, the authors review the state-of-the-art in seminal themes for understanding the role of emotions in children’s devel- opment: what is known, what is being done, and future directions, including (a) individual differences in the devel- opment of emotion and personality in children, (b) relational influences, and (c) a developmental psychopathology per- spective. Future directions are discussed for each of these themes of research and theory on emotions and personality development.

In the next chapter in this section, Grusec, Chaparro, Johnston, and Sherman point out that in middle childhood, peers become important as children spend more time away from home. Major improvements occur in children’s abil- ity to understand the perspective of others and in their inferences about the psychological attributes of others as well as of themselves. Social development continues to result from a complex interaction between genes and the environment in which children find themselves, and behavior geneticists have studied the role of genetic medi- ation in social development, and sought specific genes that are involved in various social behaviors. Different children respond to the same socialization intervention in different ways, depending on a host of factors including variables such as age, sex, temperament, and the cultural context in which the intervention takes place. As a result, effective socialization is a function of the way children perceive and respond to a given intervention, rather than a function of a specific action on the part of the socializing agent. Social- ization goes on in a variety of domains, with each domain characterized by a different kind of relationship between agent of socialization and child, and the actions of the latter need to be appropriate to the relationship or domain that is currently activated. Although parents, peers, and siblings differ considerably in their characteristics rela- tive to the child being socialized, they all, nevertheless, operate in the same set of domains or relationships.

The final chapter in this section, by Mistry, Contreras, and Dutta documents key scholarship in integrating cul- ture and child development in the first decade of the 21st century. The authors argue that there is a twofold chal- lenge for an integration of perspectives from cross-cultural, cultural, and developmental psychology: (1) to resolve con- tinuing debates regarding the conceptualization of culture; and (2) to frame the central questions for culturally inclu- sive theories of development, such that each subdiscipline has something of value to contribute. To address these chal- lenges, Mistry, Contreras, and Dutta highlight two specific areas of convergences that they view as representing the most significant advances in the integration of culture and

child development. First, they document emerging ideas about the mutually constitutive nature of individual devel- opment and culture. They then review constructs that inte- grate person and culture into a single unit of analysis and argue that these ideas are paving the way for empirical inves- tigations that will advance the development of culturally inclusive theories of human development. Second, Mistry, Contreras, and Dutta argue that a common interest across all three subdisciplines in how developmental processes and changes are situated in context is triggering an inte- gration of approaches. The authors illustrate how address- ing the three goals for cultural developmental science—to describe, explain, and interpret the range of cultural vari- ations in human psychological functioning—requires an integration of cross-cultural, cultural, and developmental psychology.

The chapters in Part IV, “Adolescence,” all point to the multiple interrelated changes that mark this key transi- tionary period. In the first chapter in this section, Susman and Dorn present a perspective on the role of puberty in psychological development. They discuss how puberty has intrigued scholars, artists, parents, and adolescents alike for centuries and note that cultures have ritualized puberty to varying degrees. The authors go on to note that puberty’s biological basis has been described comprehen- sively in scientific journals in the last few decades and that its psychological significance continues to be of great scientific interest. Susman and Dorn consider the neu- roendocrinology of puberty and the implications of these endocrine and morphological changes for psychological development. Beginning with a historical and theoretical perspective on the role of puberty in development, the authors then provide a review of the major neuroendocrine changes that occur at puberty and how these changes affect physical morphological characteristics. Then the authors summarize the literature to present an overview of the relations between pubertal status, pubertal timing, and psychological development. Finally, Susman and Dorn make research and intervention recommendations for the future.

Next, Eccles and Roeser note that considerable strides have been made in the past decade in recognizing the cen- trality of the cultural context of schooling to adolescent development. The authors adopt a relational developmen- tal systems conceptualization of the context of schooling and focus on selected new research findings regarding how (a) teachers, curricular tasks, and classroom environments; (b) aspects of the school as an organization; and (c) district policies and practices can influence adolescents’ intellec- tual and social-emotional development.

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In the next chapter in this section, Schwartz, Donnellan, Ravert, Luyckx, and Zamboanga review what is known about adolescent and emerging adult identity—including both personal and cultural dimensions of identity. They discuss major approaches to personal identity, including Marcia’s (1966) identity status model and other models that have been developed based on identity status. They also highlight the role of agency and self-direction in the development of identity and how the role of agency dif- fers between Western and non-Western cultural contexts. The authors describe the embeddedness of identity within personality and within the self-narratives that individu- als create to make sense of their lives. They discuss also acculturation and other cultural processes as manifesta- tions of identity and highlight the need for integrative work between personal and cultural dimensions of iden- tity given the rapidly increasing ethnic diversity in the United States and other Western nations. Finally, several fruitful areas for future research are reviewed.

In the succeeding chapter in this section, by Lerner, Bowers, Minor, Boyd, Kiely, Müller, Schmid, Napoli- tano, Lewin-Bizan, and Lerner, the tripartite conception of positive youth development (PYD) suggested by Hamil- ton (1999)—as a developmental process, a philosophy or approach to youth programming, and as instances of youth programs and organizations focused on fostering the healthy or positive development of youth—is used to review different theoretical models of the developmental process involved in PYD. In addition, the authors discuss the ideas for, and the features of, youth development pro- grams aimed at promoting PYD and youth development programs seeking to enhance PYD among diverse youth. They note several conceptual and practical problems that must be addressed in order to advance the research, as well as applications pertinent to PYD.

In the final chapter in this section, Bornstein, Jager, and Steinberg describe adolescence and salient individual- difference characteristics in adolescents that are germane to their relationships with parents and friends/peers. In turn, the authors provide an analogous discussion of par- ents and parenting. Then they link adolescents and parents and discuss their special bidirectional, transactional rela- tionships. Bornstein and colleagues then introduce ado- lescents’ friends and peers, and the salient characteristics that are germane to their relationships with adolescents and adolescents’ parents. They then link adolescents with friends/peers and discuss their special bidirectional, trans- actional relationships. Finally, the authors move beyond the two dyadic relationships involving adolescents to dis- cuss triadic relationships and to delineate different ways

that dyadic relationships are influenced by or depend on other dyadic relationships and/or other contributors out- side of the dyad.

The chapters in Part V, “Adulthood and Aging,” attest to both the potentials for systematic change and, as well, the ways in which engagement of the individual with variables across the relational developmental system mod- erates transformational and variational change during this portion of the life span.

In the initial chapter in this section, Siegler, Bosworth, Davey, and Elias note that most of the ongoing research in developmental health psychology has been incremental, with the emphasis on qualitative changes most prominent at the start of adulthood. Fears about demographic tran- sitions have increased as Baby Boomers (born between 1946 to 1964) began to turn 65 in 2011. Accordingly, the authors review new findings on centenarians, risk and prevention of cognitive decline, and management of mul- tiple chronic disorders in the elderly. They note that major changes in the understanding of the bases of health among aged groups that may occur in the next 10 years will not necessarily come from psychology, but from other disci- plines. If, for instance, there are advances in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, such work will change later life and the health psychology of aging. In the absence of such advances, however, the authors believe that society will be faced with many dependent older persons with needs for long-term care.

In their chapter on cognitive development in adulthood Dixon, McFall, Whitehead, and Dolcos discuss five aspects of cognitive development in adulthood and aging. Specif- ically, the chapter includes attention to (a) foundational issues in the study of cognitive change over many years of adulthood; (b) two enduring cognitive topics in the field, namely, intelligence and memory; (c) the long-standing but under-studied roles that biological and health conditions play in cognitive aging; (d) the recent and novel topic of emotional and affective influences on cognition through- out adulthood; and (e) the historically intriguing question of whether and how sustained cognitive health can be detected or promoted in normal aging.

In the next chapter in this section, Bertrand, Kranz Gra- ham, and Lachman note that personality development in adulthood and old age has been the focus of considerable research over the last several decades, amassing a body of literature that is richly diverse in theoretical and method- ological approaches. The authors define and examine the nature of personality in adulthood and old age from diverse perspectives and consider issues of stability, continuity, and change. They focus on the impact of individual differences

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in personality on health and well-being in multiple domains (e.g., cognitive functioning) throughout the life span and discuss the impact of variations in personality due to such factors as gender, culture, and the antecedents of personal- ity change. In addition, they review theoretical approaches and present current major perspectives in the field, includ- ing traits, life-span developmental, contextual, self, and phenomenological approaches. Some of the major findings regarding subjective personality change and personality as a predictor of later life outcomes are discussed. They also examine specific aspects of the self-construct, such as identity, self-efficacy and control, well-being, and emotion regulation. Finally, the authors summarize the current state of the adult personality literature, especially the focus on identifying mechanisms.

In the final chapter in this section, Antonucci, Birditt, and Ajrouch trace scientific advancements made in the study of social relations across the life span and over the life course with a particular emphasis on adulthood and aging. The authors begin with attention to traditional social rela- tions theories, including the Convoy Model of Social Rela- tions. Next, Antonucci and colleagues consider empirical investigations to illustrate how increasingly sophisticated developmental theory and methods have led to expanded and more nuanced understandings of social relations in adulthood. Furthermore, the authors provide an overview of the most recent literature available on the convoy model, especially highlighting aspects of social relations that influ- ence stress, health, and well-being. Finally, the authors identify future directions in the study of social relations.

The chapters in Part VI, “Applied Developmental Sci- ence Across the Life Span,” point to the rich ways in which theory-predicated developmental science is being used to promote positive and healthy individual develop- ment, enhance the settings of human life, and further social justice. In the opening, and indeed, “keynote” chapter in this section, Fisher, Busch-Rossnagel, Jopp, and Brown focus on promising directions in applied developmental sci- ence in the next decade by charting recent contributions and future potential for new ways of thinking about how the field conceptualizes and optimizes development across the life course, the role of applied developmental science in public and private institutions, and obligations to promote a social justice agenda that contributes to social policies sensitive to diverse developmental challenges and is inclusive in its offering of opportunities for individuals from various cul- tural, economic, and social positions. This chapter brings together theoretical concepts and frameworks, methodolog- ical advances, and emerging themes and controversies that are redefining applied developmental science, highlighting

areas that warrant further exploration and focusing attention on critical issues that should be addressed in future.

In turn, Hauser-Cram, Cannarella, Tillinger, and Wood- man provide a brief historical perspective on disabilities, followed by a discussion of contemporary issues regard- ing definitions and classification schemes. The authors include an examination of cultural views on disabilities, as such perspectives provide a wide-ranging understand- ing of the etiology of disabilities and the use of the term “typical.” They consider theoretical models and empirical evidence emerging from current research on children with developmental disabilities within the network of family relationships. Because parents of children with disabilities often face unique challenges, they consider the processes of resilience in parental adaptation and the role of posi- tive emotions in parental well-being. The authors conclude with a section on future research in which they provide suggestions for expanding the perspective on families of children with disabilities. They propose that several of the scientific endeavors undertaken to understand develop- ment in those with disabilities be poised to inform critical issues in developmental science.

In the next chapter in this section, Lamb and Malloy focus on three topics regarding which legal practice con- cerning youth has been at least somewhat responsive to input from developmental scientists. First, they discuss the ways in which research on parent-child relationships and on the effects of divorce can guide professionals making decisions about children’s living arrangements when the children’s parents divorce or separate. Second, they review research on the extent to which children are capable of providing detailed testimony about their experiences of child abuse and illustrate the ways in which developmen- tally appropriate forensic interview procedures improve the quality of information provided by victims. Third, they dis- cuss the characteristics of alleged juvenile offenders that influence their vulnerability and culpability, highlighting implications for the legal system. The authors demon- strate that “basic” and “applied” research complement one another and that developmental processes can only be understood when we are able to examine youth in experi- mental, analog, and real-world contexts.

In their chapter on health and human development, Von- dracek and Crouter note that living a long and healthy life is a universal human aspiration. In fact, in many parts of the world, life expectancies have increased dramatically, primarily due to great progress in the treatment and preven- tion of disease. This necessary focus on disease has not been accompanied, however, by a corresponding focus on health. Fortunately, there is growing evidence that this situation is

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changing. Driving this change is an apparent convergence of theoretical frameworks used in human development, developmental psychology, and medicine around the idea that health and positive development are best addressed from a systems perspective that is capable of conceptual- izing the whole person-in-context as the proper target of attention. Complementing this theoretical shift has been a vigorous new emphasis on positive psychology, which features an emphasis on personal and contextual strengths as assets that promote health and well-being. Accordingly, the authors review contemporary empirical research that examines these complex relationships. Their discussion confirms that a shift from a disease and deficit model of human development and health toward a more positive and strength-based approach is both timely and warranted (see J. Lerner et al., this volume). The authors note that these developments have important implications for researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers, although it is clear that the extent and precise nature of these implications are just beginning to be explored.

In the succeeding chapter in this section, Freund, Nikitin, and Riediger explain that, historically, life expectancy has only recently extended into old age and has dramatically increased over the past 100 years. Early accounts of aging have characterized this phase in life as one of more or less uniform decline and focused on the question of how people can react to and cope with the many losses they encounter. Although this question remains one of the topics of aging research, more recent approaches to the notion of “suc- cessful aging” also address the question how older adults proactively shape their own aging process. Accordingly, the authors review the state of research on the topic of suc- cessful aging. Early approaches focused on the question “what is successful aging?” by outlining general criteria for aging well. More recent approaches have shifted the focus to the question “how do people age successfully?” These models—e.g., the socio-emotional selectivity the- ory; the model of selection, optimization, and compensa- tion; the model of assimilative and accommodative coping; or the model of primary and secondary control—emphasize the role of proactive emotional and motivational processes for aging successfully. By setting goals in accordance with one’s resources as well as age-related concerns (e.g., priori- tizing emotional goals over the acquisition of information), by adapting goals and standards to the changing availability of resources (e.g., to health-related decline), and by disen- gaging from unavailable goals, older people can maintain high levels of functioning and subjective well-being. The authors indicate that they hope that the identification of

processes underlying successful aging will help to enhance the quality of older persons’ lives in the future.

In the final chapter in this section, Bers and Kazakoff note that new technologies (computers, social media) are having an impact on young people and we need more research to understand this impact. Young people use computers to communicate with friends, to listen to and exchange music, to meet new people, to share stories with relatives, to organize civic protests, to shop for clothing, to blog, to create videos, to find romantic partners, and to learn new things in new ways. Accordingly, the authors review the role of new technologies with regard to child and youth development. One of the constants of new tech- nologies is that they will always be changing; there will always be newer and faster technologies. It is necessary to understand if and how these technologies support develop- mental milestones at different ages. Furthermore, due to the ever-changing nature of new technologies, a framework in which to evaluate these new technologies should be used. The authors focus on positive behaviors of children and youth that might be promoted by new technologies; at the same time, they also review potential harmful activities that might accompany or result from the use of these new technologies. The authors propose a framework of positive technological development (PTD) as a way of viewing and understanding this work.

In sum, the chapters in this volume contribute signif- icantly to extending more than a third of a century of scholarship aimed at understanding the dynamic relations between individuals and contexts. The present volume brings this scholarship to both an empirically richer and a more theoretically nuanced level, one depicting—for multiple substantive foci of human development and both within and across the major developmental epochs of life—the nature of the reciprocal or dynamic processes of human ontogenetic change, of how structures function, and of how functions are structured over time.

The consistency across chapters in the demonstration of the usefulness of relational developmental systems think- ing for theory, research, and application indicates that this frame for contemporary developmental scholarship is not tied necessarily to a particular content domain, but rather is useful for understanding the broader developmental system within which all dimensions of individual develop- ment emerge (e.g., Ford & Lerner, 1992; Gottlieb, 1998; Overton, 2010; Sameroff, 2009; Thelen & Smith, 2006). In other words, although particular empirical issues or substantive topics (e.g., perceptual development, success- ful aging, cognition and achievement, emotional behav- iors, or complex social relationships) may lend themselves

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readily as emphases of developmental scholarship within or across developmental periods, the chapters in this vol- ume attest to the importance of focusing on relational, integrative individual-context dynamics to understand the human developmental system.

CONCLUSIONS

The power of contemporary developmental science schol- arship lies in its integrative character—across substantive domains of individual functioning (e.g., biology, emo- tional, cognition, and social behaviors), across develop- mental periods, across levels of organization (from biology through culture and history), and across basic and applied interests in regard to understanding and enhancing human life. As represented by the scholarship in this volume, con- temporary developmental science is not limited by (or, perhaps better, confounded by) an inextricable association with a unidimensional portrayal of the developing person (e.g., the person seen from the vantage point of only cogni- tions, emotions, or stimulus-response connections). Today, the developing person is neither biologized, psychologized, nor sociologized. Rather, the individual is systemized; that is, his or her development is conceptualized and studied as embedded within an integrated, relational matrix of vari- ables derived from multiple levels of organization.

This relational approach to developmental science is certainly more complex than its organismic or mechanis- tic predecessors (Lerner, 2006; Overton, 2010; Overton & Müller, this volume). However, a relational developmen- tal systems approach is also more nuanced, more flexible, more balanced, and less susceptible to extravagant or even absurd claims (e.g., that nature, split from nurture, can shape the course of human development). Moreover, as elegantly demonstrated by the chapters in this volume, relational developmental systems offer a productive frame for rigor- ous and important scholarship about the process of human development and applications across the life span. Together, these advances in the scholarship of knowledge generation and knowledge application serve as an invaluable means for advancing science and service pertinent to people across the breadth of their lives. Ultimately, then, such applications of developmental science may contribute to the enhancement of social justice (Lerner & Overton, 2008).

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CHAPTER 2

Metatheories, Theories, and Concepts in the Study of Development

WILLIS F. OVERTON AND ULRICH MÜLLER

DEVELOPMENTAL INQUIRY AND THE METATHEORETICAL 20

TRANSFORMATION AND VARIATION: A RELATIONAL INTEGRATION 27

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PAST METATHEORETICAL WORLDS: TOWARD THE BIRTH OF DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 27

RELATIONISM—A CONTEMPORARY METATHEORY FOR DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 32

A METHODOLOGICAL RAPPROCHEMENT: EXPLANATION IN A RELATIONAL CONTEXT 41

THE RELATIONAL DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS’ EMBODIED ACTION (ENACTION) APPROACH 45

CONCLUSIONS 53 REFERENCES 53

In this chapter, we will focus on some ideas that usu- ally rest quietly in the background when development is explored. Background ideas are not unlike the founda- tion of a house. A foundation grounds, constrains, and sustains the nature and style of the building that can ultimately be constructed. So, too, do background ideas ground, constrain, and sustain both theory and methods of investigation in any area of inquiry. A foundation is usu- ally ignored by those who live and work in the house, at least until something goes wrong—as, for example, when cracks appear in walls or the house begins to sink into the ground. So, too, are background ideas often ignored by investigators, at least until something goes wrong with theoretical or empirical efforts in the field of study. In this chapter, we will try to bring these ideas from background to foreground and examine how they form the basis for, and impose constraints on, both theory and research in developmental psychology.

In scientific discussions background ideas are often termed metatheoretical or metatheories . They transcend (i.e., “meta”) theories, in the sense that they define the con- text in which theoretical concepts are constructed, just as a foundation defines the context in which a house can be con- structed. Further, metatheory functions not only to ground, constrain, and sustain theoretical concepts, but also to do the same thing with respect to methods of investigation.

For convenience, when specifically discussing background ideas that ground methods, we will use the term metameth- ods . Methodology would also be an appropriate term here, if this were understood in its broad sense as a set of prin- ciples that guide empirical inquiry (Asendorpf & Valsiner, 1992; Overton, 2006).

The primary function of metatheory—including metamethod—is to provide a rich source of concepts out of which theories and methods emerge. Metatheory also provides guidelines that help to avoid conceptual confusions and, consequently, help to avoid what may ulti- mately be unproductive ideas and unproductive methods.

Theories are about the empirical phenomena in a spe- cific subject area, and methods are the procedures used to generate or capture these phenomena; by contrast, metathe- ories and metamethods are about the theories and methods themselves. More specifically, a metatheory is a set of rules, principles, or a story (narrative), that both describes and prescribes what is acceptable and unacceptable as theory—the means of conceptual exploration of any sci- entific domain. A metamethod is also a set of rules, princi- ples, or a story, but this story describes and prescribes the nature of acceptable methods—the means of observational exploration—in a scientific discipline. When metatheoreti- cal ideas—including metamethod—are tightly interrelated and form a coherent set of concepts, the set is often termed

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20 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

a model or paradigm . These coherent sets can form a hierarchy in terms of increasing generality of application. Thus, for example, a model that contains the basic con- cepts from which a theory of memory will be constructed is a relatively low-level model, because it applies only to memory. A model such as relational developmental sys- tems (see Lerner & Overton, 2008; Overton, 2010) applies to a number of domains, including social, cognitive, and emotional domains, and hence functions at a higher hierar- chical level. The hierarchical dimension of any given set of metatheoretical ideas also forms a coherently interrelated system of ideas, and the model operating at the pinnacle of this hierarchy is termed a world view (Overton, 1984). World views are composed of coherent sets of epistemolog- ical (i.e., issues pertaining to the sources and justification of knowledge) and ontological (i.e., issues pertaining to fun- damental categories of reality) principles. In this chapter, most of the discussion will concern ideas that have a very high range of application.

Metatheories and metamethods are closely interrelated and intertwined. For example, as we will see shortly, when considering the very nature of development, a prevailing metatheory may assert the claim that change of form (trans- formational change) is a legitimate and important part of the understanding of developmental change. If a prevail- ing metatheory asserts the legitimacy of transformational change, then theories of development will include some type of stage concept, because “stage” is the theoretical concept that is used to describe transformational change. Further, if transformational change and stage is a part of one’s metatheory, then the related metamethod will pre- scribe the significance of methods that assess pattern and sequence of pattern that are appropriate to empirically examining the stage concept in any given specific empirical domain. On the other hand, if a metatheory asserts that trans- formational change is unimportant to our understanding of development, then any theoretical concept of stage will be viewed negatively, and methods of pattern and sequential assessment will be understood to be of marginal interest.

Broadly, a metatheory presents a vision of the nature of the world and the objects of that world (e.g., one metatheory might present a picture of the child as an “active agent” “constructing” his/her known world; another metatheory might picture the child as a “recording device” that “processes” information). A metamethod presents a vision of the tools that will be most adequate to explore the world described by the metatheory.

Any rich understanding of the impact of the metathe- oretical requires an historical appreciation of the emer- gence of specific alternative metatheoretical approaches

to knowledge. Developmental psychology was born and spent its early years in a curious metatheoretical world. This world, which began in the 17th century, has been called the modern world, or modernity . In the past century, the modern world has undergone major crises, and these form the context for alternative contemporary metatheo- ries. Before describing this history, a brief examination of the broad ways that metatheory colors an understanding of the nature of development deserves some attention. This discussion will establish a developmental framework, serv- ing as a general context for the remainder of the chapter.

DEVELOPMENTAL INQUIRY AND THE METATHEORETICAL

How should we understand the field of developmental science? While it is clear that change is central in any definition of development, the identification of the spe- cific nature of this change and the identification of what it is that changes in development are shaped by metatheoret- ical principles. Initially, we might say that developmental science is the study of age changes of living organisms from conception to the end of life. This is often a satis- factory initial working definition, but it involves several conceptual problems. First, age has no unique qualities that differentiate it from time; age is simply one index of time. Second, there is nothing unique or novel about units of age-time, such as years, months, weeks, min- utes, and so on (see also Lerner, 2011). Thus, this def- inition merely states that development is about changes that occur in time. The difficulty with this is that all change occurs “in” time and, as a consequence, the def- inition is an empty one, merely restating that develop- ment is about change. Furthermore, change itself is too broad a notion; it includes phenomena that we would normally not consider development. For example, diurnal rhythms consist of changes, but we would not consider these cyclical changes development. Similarly, we can train a dog to learn a new behavior, and we can then withhold rewards such that the new behavior becomes extinct. Even though this sequence of events involves change, we would be reluctant to describe this change as development. We can, however, further specify this initial working definition by saying that developmental science entails the scientific study of relatively permanent systematic intraindividual changes —from conception to the end of life—of an organism’s behavior, and of the systems and processes that underlie that behavior and those changes. The field encompasses the study of several

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Metatheories, Theories, and Concepts in the Study of Development 21

categories of change, such as ontogenesis (development of the individual across the life span), embryogenesis (devel- opment of the embryo), orthogenesis (normal develop- ment), pathogenesis (development of psychopathology), and microgenesis (development on a very small time scale, such as development of a single percept). But the field is also comparative in nature and, thus, includes the study of phylogenesis and evolution (development of the species), as well as historical and cultural develop- ment. Human ontogenesis/orthogenesis is the most famil- iar focus of attention of developmental science, and within this series there are a number of age-related areas of study—including infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, ado- lescence, early adulthood, mature adulthood, and late adulthood. Both within and across areas, developmental scientists explore biological, cognitive, emotional, social, motivational, and personality dimensions of individual development. The field also maintains a strong research focus on individual differences and contextual ecological systems that impact on development, including the family, home, neighborhoods, schools, and peers.

Organization, Sequence, Direction, Epigenesis, and Relative Permanence

Individual change constitutes the fundamental defining feature of development, but it is important to again emphasize that not all change is necessarily devel- opmental change. Developmental change entails five necessary defining features: (1) organization of processes (also termed “structure” and “system”), (2) order and sequence, (3) direction , (4) epigenesis and emergence, and (5) relative permanence and irreversibility . These features frame two broad forms of change that have tra- ditionally been considered developmental, but have also been considered, under some metatheoretical paradigms, as competing alternative definitions of developmen- tal change— transformational change and variational change (also, Lerner, 2011; Mistry, 2011; Raeff, 2011). A number of these features are illustrated in Figure 2.1. Other features of Figure 2.1 (e.g., embodiment, and Biological, Person, and Sociocultural/Environmental Systems) will be discussed later in this chapter.

Understanding the place of transformational and vari- ational change in development requires a type-token dis- tinction, which is also a distinction between structure and content. Perception, thinking, memory, language, affect, motivation, and consciousness are universal psycholog- ical processes (types), characteristic of the species as a whole. Any given percept, concept, thought, word,

memory, emotion, or motive represents a particular expression of a universal process (tokens). Although each form of change is entailed by any behavioral act, trans- formational change primarily concerns the acquisition, maintenance, retention, or decline of universal processes or operations (types), whereas variational change primar- ily concerns the acquisition, maintenance, retention, or decline of particular expressions (tokens), and individual differences in expressions.

Transformational Change

It will be seen in the following descriptions of the defining features of transformational change that each feature rep- resents a necessary component of developmental change itself. In a later section, we will explore the place of these features in variational change and further examine the relation of transformational and variational change to developmental change.

Organization. Transformational change is change in the form, organization, or structure of a system. In the case of ontogenesis, the system is the living organism, while subsystems consist of cognitive, affective, and motiva- tional (i.e., psychological) processes, along with their bio- logical correlates. Embryological changes constitute some of the clearest and most concrete examples of transforma- tional or morphological change (Edelman, 1992; Gottlieb, 1992). Through processes of differentiation and reintegra- tion, movement occurs from the single-celled zygote to the highly organized functioning systems of the 9-month- old fetus. Some cognitive and socioemotional phenomena of human ontogenesis have also been conceptualized as reflecting transformational change. For example, senso- rimotor action undergoes a sequence of transformations to become symbolic thought, and further transformations lead to a reflective symbolic thought exhibiting novel logical characteristics (Mascolo & Fischer, 2010; Müller & Racine, 2010). Memory may reflect transformational changes moving from recognition memory to recall mem- ory. The sense of self and identity (Chandler, Lalonde, Sokol, & Hallett 2003; Damon & Hart, 1988) has been portrayed by some as moving through a sequence of trans- formations. Emotions have been understood as differen- tiations from an initial relatively global affective matrix (Lewis, 1993; Sroufe, 1979). Physical changes, such as changes in locomotion, have also been conceptualized as transformational changes (Thelen & Ulrich, 1991). Trans- formational change has several closely interrelated defin- ing features, and these give further specification to the concept of developmental change.

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22 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

Embodiment

(S ta

ge s)

Ti m

Tr an

sf or

m at

io na

l c ha

ng e

Embodiment

Practical Intentions, Acts, Goals,

feeling

Action systems (schemes)

(operations)

Biological systems

Living body embodiment

Empressive/Constitutive

(Projective-transform- exploration)

Instrumental

Expressive/constitutive

Instrumental

Expressive/constitutive

Instrumental

Expressive/constitutive

Instrumental Variational

change

Sociocultural &

Physical world

(Projective-transformation-exploration)

(Projective-transformation-exploratory action)

(Projective-transformational-exploratory action = change mechanism)

Bio-systems

Pe rso

3rd order representational action systems

Thoughts, Wishes, Feelings

Trans-reflective reflective symbolic practical

Reflective symbolic practical

Symbolic practical

Representational action systems

2nd order repersentational action systems

Figure 2.1 The development of the person: Levels of transformational and variational change emerging through embodied action in a sociocultural and physical world.

System. Transformational change implies an object that is changed. Historically, when reductionist neoposi- tivism and behaviorism constituted the standard metathe- ory of psychology—when psychology identified itself as a discipline that took substance rather than process as its ontological reality (Bickhard, 2008)—the object changed was simply observable behavior. At the core of neoposi- tivism and behaviorism—and even more recently in what has been termed a “strict” contextualism (i.e., a horizon- tal cosmology that minimizes the value of hierarchical organization) (Overton, 2007)—observed behavior and its associations with biological and environmental variables

form the bedrock and exclusive context of inquiry. As a consequence, within these metatheoretical frames, it was possible to identify developmental change with a behavioral change that is split off from (i.e., not rela- tionally connected to) any organization of processes. As psychology moved to a more postpositivist and rela- tional stance—becoming a process rather than a sub- stance discipline —it is the living , complex , sponta- neously active (i.e., not driven by external or internal forces), self-creating (i.e., autopoietic, see Maturana & Poerksen, 2004), self-organizing (i.e., organizational pro- cess leading to increased complexity without guidance or

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Metatheories, Theories, and Concepts in the Study of Development 23

management by an external source), self-regulating and adaptive system of processes that constitutes the object changed. As an inherently and spontaneously active sys- tem, the system acts, and its acts (a) express the underlying organization of the system (i.e., any act is expressive in nature); (b) function as the means for communicating with its environments (i.e., any act is communicative); and (c) constitute the change mechanisms that both transform and are transformed by its environments (i.e., any act is rela- tionally or bidirectionally instrumental ).

As discussed later in this chapter, it is the complex active psychological system that creates, organizes, and regulates itself through complex and multidirectional rela- tional interpenetrating feedback loops with its biological and cultural environments. In sum, it is what has been termed the relational developmental system (Lerner, 2011; Lerner & Overton, 2008; Overton, 2006, 2010) itself that is the object of transformational change.

Order and Sequence. The overt or observable acts of a relational developmental system exhibit variations (e.g., there are many ways to reach for and grasp a cup), and these variations produce sequences. These behavioral sequences are contingent (i.e., under changed conditions they can be different). However, change in the form or organization of the system itself exhibits a necessary order and universal sequence (e.g., the development of “grasping”). Any living system is an adaptive system, and any adaptive system, if it is to live and thrive, neces- sarily moves from lesser to greater levels of complexity. The transformations from zygote to embryo to fetus, for example, are not contingent; they are universal, and could not be otherwise. Similarly the transformation of a sys- tem characterized by sensorimotor functioning to a system characterized by complex reflective thought represents a necessary and universal ordered sequence.

Directionality. Any notion of order implies a direc- tion to the change. That is, any ordered system implies an orientation towards a goal or end state. The notion of a goal orientation (telos) has often befuddled and even frightened those developmental psychologists who con- tinue to hold on to the anachronism called neopositivism. To talk of a telos seems to raise the worry of admitting a discredited teleology into the science. This fear is based on competing metatheoretical assumptions and conceptual confusions. One conceptual confusion concerns subjective versus objective teleology. Subjective teleology involves subjectively held “purposes,” “aims,” or “goals” (e.g., “I intend to become a better person”) and is irrelevant to the definition of transformational developmental change.

Objective teleology, on the other hand, involves the scientific construction of principles or rules designed to explain—in the sense of making intelligible—phenomena under investigation (e.g., “the development of x moves from lack of differentiation to more equilibrated levels of differentiation and hierarchic integration”). The rule so constructed, conceptually “finds,” “discovers,” or “identi- fies” the sequential order and the end state. Any position that seriously accepts the idea of transformational change necessarily accepts both goal directedness and the fact that the specific goal articulated is a theoretical concept—not a slice of physical nature—designed to illuminate the nature of the transformational change under study.

It is simply a conceptual confusion to argue that ade- quate descriptions are more important than the positing of endpoints (e.g., Sugarman, 1987), or similarly to sug- gest a movement away from endpoints and towards “a more neutral, person-time-and-situation-geared concep- tion of development” (Demetriou & Raftopoulos, 2004, p. 91). There is no “neutral” standpoint, and no develop- mental description could possibly occur without a positing of endpoints. The question here is what one would possi- bly describe if one did not understand development as tending toward some specified end? If one wishes to describe/explain the course of acquiring language, then adult language is, of necessity, the endpoint towards which development moves. No “description” of the language of the child would be possible without this ideal endpoint. In a similar fashion, if one wishes to describe/explain the transformational development of reasoning, or thought, or problem solving, or personality, or anything, a conceptu- ally defined endpoint must serve as the ultimate model.

A related feature of this confusion over the positing of developmental endpoints arises from the mistaken notion that positing a goal or endpoint necessarily leads to an “adultomorphic perspective [that] forces one to view earlier behaviors and functions as immature versions of adult func- tions” (Marcovitch & Lewkowicz, 2004, p. 113). Central to this argument is its faulty assumption that all devel- opmental change, including transformational change, is additive (linear, strict continuity) and, conversely, the fail- ure to recognize that in complex self-organizing adap- tive systems, nonlinearity (nonadditivity; discontinuity) is frequently the rule. For example, Piaget’s interest in examining the development of reasoning from a relational developmental systems perspective resulted in his identi- fying deductive propositional reasoning as the endpoint of inquiry—whether this was a good idea or a poor idea is here irrelevant to the argument. What is relevant is that Piaget described several quite different forms of reasoning

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24 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

(e.g., preoperational, concrete operational) that function as discontinuous precursors to this adult form, and these early forms are not simply immature versions of the adult function; rather, they are qualitatively distinct forms of reasoning.

A final conceptual confusion is the notion— widespread for many years—that focusing on sequences and positing endpoints introduces rigidity and denies the plasticity of development. This notion is quickly debunked by recognizing that the concept of equifinality (i.e., that there are multiple means to the same end) is a core concept in any relational developmental systems perspective. While each level of organization of the system is a part of the normative sequence moving toward a normative end, there are multiple means or action paths to each system level.

From a strictly metatheoretical, especially an epis- temological metatheoretical, perspective, the centrality of transformational change—including the relational developmental system, order, sequence, and directional characteristics—is meaningful only to the extent that our understanding of developmental science and scientific method in general, have advanced beyond the neoposi- tivism of what is usually termed “Newtonian mechanical explanation” (Overton, 1991). In that conceptual system, scientific explanation, and hence science, was ultimately reduced to the search for individual and additive observable forces (biological and environmental) that were taken as the causes and hence the explanation of development. In a relational postpositivist scientific world, the identification of dynamic pattern —both momentarily as a “complex self-organizing adaptive system” and temporally as the organized, sequential, directional “relational developmen- tal system”—is logically prior to a detailed analysis of the resources this system employs to grow. From a relational developmental systems perspective, given the system’s characteristics, neither individual nor combined forces cause development; the relational developmental system itself defines the resources and their participation in system change. To consider “genes,” “neurons,” “brain changes,” “cultural objects,” “parents,” “peers,” or “neighborhoods,” to be sets of additive causes that drive development is to miss the point that these are all resources that the relational developmental system employs to grow (Robert, 2004). It is the relational developmental system itself that is the cause of development, and this system enacts its development by engaging in a multitude of complex relational actions with these resources.

Classically, these actions have been termed “interac- tions,” but that term is totally inadequate to describe the

relational interpenetrations of co-acting parts that operate as the developmental system. As Griffiths and Tabery (2008) point out, there have been at least two meanings of the term “interaction.” One of these is the familiar statistical concept (i.e., P × Q), which is based on a linear model (Lewontin, 1974); is fundamentally addi- tive in nature; and applies to population differences (i.e., interindividual differences) rather than to causes of indi- vidual development. Thus, for example, in discussions of the nature–nurture controversy, arguments sometimes revolve around the presence/absence of G × E (Gene by Environment) interactions. On the other hand, there is a developmental interaction, which involves analysis of the multiple complex positive and negative feedback action loops that describe the multidirectional relational causes (← →) that are associated with individual development.

The focus of this chapter is the developmental interac- tion, and as a consequence, to capture both the merging (or fusion—Greenberg & Tobach, 1984) of parts into a single identity, while at the same time maintaining their own identity as differentiations, the terms “interpenetra- tion” (merging) and “co-action” (differentiation) (Gottlieb, Wahlsten, and Lickliter, 2006) will be used in this chapter in place of “interaction,” except in those cases that refer to the simple additive combination of elements. “Interpene- tration” and “co-action” will also be used in place of “bidi- rectional causality” (← →), which is often employed by contemporary developmental scientists when discussing the developmental interaction. It should be kept in mind that when others employ “bidirectional causality” they ref- erence the same activity here termed “interpenetration” and “co-action.”

While a developmental telos is another necessary fea- ture of transformational change, there is an open and empir- ical question as to what universal telos most adequately captures the broad course of life-span development. Is it “differentiation and integration” (Mascolo & Fischer, 2010; Müller & Racine, 2010) as originally suggested in the seminal works of the eminent 20th-century develop- mentalist Heinz Werner (1948)? Or might it be some form of the concept “adaptation” (Bundick, Yeager, King, & Damon, 2010), as originally suggested by that other emi- nent 20th-century developmentalist Jean Piaget (1967)? Or some notion of “balance” (Bialystok & Craik, 2010; Kare- litz, Jarvin, & Sternberg, 2010)? Or could it be some notion of an “attractor,” as discussed within systems approaches to the understanding of changes in complex systems oper- ating far from equilibrium (Overton, 1994a; van Geert, 2003)? The most likely answer to this question is that it is an integration of all of these suggestions. That is, any

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telos is an interpretation designed to bring conceptual order into system change, and posited end points can vary as a function of a specific area of inquiry.

Epigenesis and Emergence. The concept of epigene- sis was originally introduced in biology as a counterweight to the idea of “preformation” in the explanation of the appearance of increasingly organized complexity, from a relatively undifferentiated egg to a highly differentiated organism. While epigenesis has a long history with several twists and turns (Lickliter & Honeycutt, 2003) today, con- ceptualized as “probabilistic epigenesis” (Gottlieb, 1992), it designates a holistic approach to understanding devel- opmental complexity (transformational change). Proba- bilistic epigenesis is the principle that the role played by any part of a relational developmental system—gene, cell, organ, organism, physical environment, culture—is a function of all of the co-acting parts of the system. It is through complex relational bidirectional and multidi- rectional reciprocal interpenetrating actions (positive and negative feedback loops) among the co-acting parts that the system moves to levels of increasingly organized com- plexity. Thus, epigenesis identifies the system as being completely contextualized and situated. The contextual- ization of the system is important, as it points to the necessity of exploring contextual variables as a part of the overall developmental research enterprise (Bronfen- brenner & Morris, 2006).

Epigenesis also points to a closely related feature of transformational developmental change: emergence. Transformational change results in the emergence of sys- tem novelty . As forms change, they become increasingly complex. This increased complexity is a complexity of pattern rather than a linear additive complexity. The but- terfly emerges from the caterpillar through the differenti- ation and reintegration of organization, the frog from the tadpole, the plant from the seed; the organism from the zygote. In an identical fashion, higher order psycholog- ical structures emerge from lower order structures, and new patterns of organization exhibit novel characteris- tics that cannot be reduced to (i.e., completely explained by) or predicted from, earlier forms. The novel properties are termed systemic, indicating that they are properties of the whole system and not properties of any individ- ual part. This emergence of novelty is commonly referred to as qualitative change, in the sense that it is change that cannot be represented as purely additive. Similarly, reference to discontinuity in development is simply the recognition of emergent novelty and qualitative change of a system (Overton & Reese, 1981). Concepts of stages

and levels of development are theoretical concepts, which within a relational developmental systems perspective ref- erence transformational change along with the associated emergent novelty, qualitative change, and discontinuity. Each of the classic grand developmental figures of the 20th century—Piaget (1967), Vygotsky (1978), Werner (1948), and Erikson (1968)—acknowledged the central- ity of nonlinearity and emergence; Piaget and Werner, via their ideas of development proceeding through phases of differentiation and reintegration; Erikson, through his epi- genetic principle of development; and Vygotsky, in his argument that development is not “the gradual accumula- tion of separate changes . . . [but] a complex dialectical process characterized by . . . qualitative transformations of one form into another [with an] intertwining of external and internal factors” (1978, p. 73).

Systemic emergence is not limited to homogeneous stages such as those offered by the grand theories. Mas- colo and Fischer (2010), for example, in discussing skill theory describe development as an “emergent develop- mental web”:

The developmental web represents development in terms of a series of partially distinct pathways that, depending upon developmental circumstances, move in different diverging or converging directions. Higher-order psychological structures emerge from the integration or coordination of lower-level structures that develop along partially distinct trajectories. The splitting and converging of developmental trajectories is not something that can be specified or predicted a priori .

—Mascolo & Fischer, 2010, p. 33

Similar positions on the centrality of emergence (Lerner, 2006; Overton, 2006) are expressed by numer- ous contemporary developmental scientists, including: Greenberg and Partridge (2010) on the origin of mind; Demetriou, Mouyi, and Spanoudis (2010) on the devel- opment of levels of mental processing; MacWhinney (2010) on the development of language; Lewis (2010) on the development of self and consciousness; Santostefano (2010) on the development of self; Müller & Racine (2010) on the development of symbolic representations; and Carpendale and Lewis (2010) on the transformational lag between neurological and psychological functioning.

Relative Permanence and Irreversibility. A final feature of transformational change of a system is that it is not circular, transitory, or willy-nilly reversible. Transfor- mational change—system change—is relatively perma- nent, relatively irreversible. This feature eliminates sleep, digestion, going to the movies, and any behaviors that

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26 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

are readily extinguishable from the list of transformational changes. While this attribute is generally a straightforward feature of transformational change, it sometimes raises issues when the late adult years of human development are considered. It is for this reason that some have argued that it is necessary to distinguish “development” from “aging” (see Overton, 2010, for a full discussion of this issue).

Variational Change

Variational change refers to the degree or extent that a change varies from a standard, norm, or average. Nes- selroade and Molenaar (2010) describe three kinds of comparisons that constitute the most elemental charac- ter of variation: (1) comparisons among kinds of enti- ties (e.g., qualitative differences); (2) comparisons of an entity with itself over different occasions (intraindivid- ual differences); and (3) comparisons among entities of the same kind (interindividual differences). The first of these refers to the outcome of transformational change; the second—intraindividual variation—is the focus of this section. The third—interindividual differences—is related to the concept of development only to the extent that the focus is on change of individual differences, and these changes themselves ultimately devolve back into intraindi- vidual variation. The contingent reaching and grasping pat- terns of the infant’s behavior, the toddler’s improvements in walking precision, the growth of vocabulary, and receiv- ing different grades on different exams are all examples of variational intraindividual change. From an instrumental point of view, intraindividual variational change is about a skill or ability (token) emerging (but not emergent) and becoming more precise and more accurate. Intraindividual variations are generally represented as linear and as addi- tive in nature. As a consequence, this change is generally understood as quantitative and continuous.

At any given level of form (i.e., any level of a rela- tional developmental system), there are variants that con- stitute intraindividual variational changes. If thinking is understood as undergoing transformational change, then at any given transformational level, variational changes are found in variants of thought (e.g., analytic styles and synthetic styles). If emotions are presented as undergo- ing transformational change, then at any transformational level, variational change is reflected, for example, in differ- ences in the degree of emotionality (more or less anxious, empathic, altruistic, and so on). If identity is thought of as undergoing transformational change, then at any trans- formational level there is variational change in the type of identity assumed (e.g., individualistic or communal). If the

structure of memory undergoes transformational change, there is variational change in memory capacity, speed of processing, memory style, memory content.

Transformational change has been identified with domain-general normative structural issues such as changes that are typical of phyla, species, and individuals. In ontogenesis, for example, normative changes in cog- nitive, affective, and motivational systems have been the central issue of concern. The focus here is on sequences of universal forms whose movement defines a path or trajectory. Intraindividual variational change has been identified with domain-specific content and skill issues. In this case, interest is focused on local changes that suggest a particularity and a to-and-fro movement or a contingent directionality of change. Concepts of contingent rather than necessary organization and contingent rather than necessary change, and concepts of reversibility, conti- nuity, and cyclicity, are associated with intraindividual variational change. Intelligence represents an example, where fluid intelligence (“for the most part defined by reasoning”; Blair, 2010, p. 6) or “control processes” (Bia- lystok & Craik, 2010) are associated with transformational features, while crystallized intelligence (i.e., knowledge and specific skills) along with processing speed (Blair, 2010) are associated with variational features of change.

Transformational and variational changes have also been associated with different mechanisms of change. Transformational change has been associated with the embodied action-in-the-world characteristic of open com- plex self-organizing and self-regulating systems. Varia- tional change in, for instance, cognitive functioning, has been associated with information processing mechanisms related to the encoding, storage, and retrieval of informa- tion (Klahr & MacWhinney, 1998).

We are here faced with a conundrum. Earlier, it was said that developmental change entails five necessary defining features. However, as it turns out, each of those features is associated with transformational change, and none with variational change. Yet it was also said that development entails both transformational and variational change. How do we resolve this apparent contradiction? One proposal for resolving this conundrum identifies transformational change as developmental and variational change as historical change (Mascolo & Fischer, 2010; see also Raeff, 2011). The difficulty with this solution lies in its apparent exclusivity. The study of change with respect to the individual’s acquisition of specific con- cepts and skills (i.e., variational or historical change) as well as processing mechanisms entailed by those skills has traditionally been housed within the broad study of

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Metatheories, Theories, and Concepts in the Study of Development 27

human development. It would seem prudent to explore whether there might be some principled way in which variational and transformational change might be inte- grated into a single inclusive relational framework. That is, it would seem prudent to find a way in which a de facto situation—the current field of development science includes scientists who focus their study on each type of change—can be justified in a coherent principled fashion.

TRANSFORMATION AND VARIATION: A RELATIONAL INTEGRATION

From a metatheoretical perspective, there are two possible solutions to this sort of conundrum: split and relational. The split solution denies the reality of, or marginalizes, one type of change, thus claiming the other constitutes the really Real development. The relational solution—to be expanded in the chapter section titled “Relationism: A Metatheory”—maintains that the apparent dualism, like any dualism, can better be understood as two intercon- nected features of the same whole. From the relational perspective, transformation and variation are not alterna- tives competing for the mantle of “development”; they constitute a whole reflecting two co-equal and indissocia- ble complementary processes. This solution claims a real- ity in which the processes assume differentiated functional roles, but each process in itself explains and is explained by the other. Put simply, relational developmental systems produce variations, and variations transform the relational developmental system (Overton & Ennis, 2006a). As discussed earlier, relational developmental systems are spontaneously active; they produce acts consistent with the structure of the system (flies produce fly acts; pigeons, pigeon acts; and humans, human acts). Acts are embodied actions-in-the-world, and they succeed or fail to various degrees in attaining their intended goals . Partial success results in variations of the act (exploratory functioning) that feed back to the system. The system, in turn, employs the feedback as a resource in the ongoing process of changing (transforming) the system. The transformed system, in turn, produces further variants of the act. Thus, all development entails cyclical movements between transformation and variation that result in increasing complexity of the system and increasingly refined variants (Gestsdóttir & Lerner, 2008; Overton, 2006). As Demetriou, Mouyi, and Spanoudis (2010) point out,

The relations between the general and the specialized pro- cesses are complex and bi-directional. On the one hand, gen- eral processes set the limits for the construction, operation,

and development of the domain-specific systems. On the other hand, specialized processes provide the frame and raw material for the functioning of general processes.

—Demetriou, Mouyi, & Spanoudis, 2010, pp. 34–35

The relational solution clarifies the de facto situation that a great deal of research in the field of developmen- tal science currently takes place at one or the other pole of the whole, and it encourages an integrated vision for future study. On the other hand, the relational solution dis- courages any notion of a systems approach and an infor- mation processing approach or a social learning approach as necessarily being competing alternatives. They become competing alternatives only when variational and transfor- mational change are split off from one another and one is held up as the only type of developmental change.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PAST METATHEORETICAL WORLDS: TOWARD THE BIRTH OF DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE

The concept of development presented in the previous pages itself represents the outcome of a broader develop- ment. This is a history, not of the individual organism, but of the world views (metatheories) that have contex- tualized the science of development. An understanding of this history is necessary for the avoidance of conceptual confusions and as a guide for the continuing future growth of developmental science.

The Modern Period

Modernity was defined both by a quest for absolute cer- tainty of knowledge (Toulmin, 1990) and by an effort to expand individual freedom, especially freedom of thought. Building knowledge on rational and reasoned grounds, rather than on the grounds of authority and dogma, was understood as the key to each of these goals. The early protagonists who developed the basic tenets of this metatheoretical storyline were Galileo Galilei and his physics of a natural world disconnected from mind; René Descartes, whose epistemology elevated disconnection or splitting to a first principle; and Thomas Hobbes, who saw both mind and nature in a vision of atomistic materialism. Of the three, Descartes was to have the greatest and most lasting impact on the text and subtexts of this particular metatheoretical story.

Descartes major contributions entailed the invention and articulation of splitting and foundationalism as key

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28 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

interrelated themes of the story of scientific knowing. Splitting is the formation of a conceptual dichotomy—an exclusive either/or relation—and foundationalism is a claim that one or the other elements of the dichotomy con- stitutes the ultimate Real or bedrock of certainty. Nature and Nurture; Idealism and Materialism (Form and Mat- ter), Reason and Observation, Subject and Object, Con- stancy and Change, Biology and Culture, and the like all can be—and under the influence of Cartesian epistemol- ogy are—presented as split-off competing alternatives. Choose a background principle as the “Real”—as the foundation —and it follows, under a split metatheory, that the other is mere Appearance or epiphenomenal.

It must be cautioned at this point that there is a critical distinction between the use of the term “real” in everyday commonsense life, and the Real of foundationalism. No one argues—or has ever argued—that there is a lack of reality or realness in the experienced everyday world. This is commonsense realism. Commonsense realism accepts the material existence of a real, actual, or manifest world, and all metatheoretical perspectives treat people, and animals, and physical objects as having such a real existence. The metatheoretical issue of the Real with a capital R (Putnam, 1987) is a very different issue. It concerns the current issue of having an absolute base or foundation from which everything else emerges. In this limited sense, the Real is defined as that which is not dependent on something else; that which cannot be reduced to something else. In metaphysical realism , it is even assumed the ultimate material reality exists as an absolute—independent of mind or knower (Searle, 1992). This constituted, as Putnam (1990) has said, the idea of objectivism , “A God’s eye view” that would be independent of the mind of the investigator.

Modernity’s foundationalism is identified with a final achievement of absolute certainty and the end of doubt. In this story, even probable knowledge is knowledge on its way to certainty (i.e., 100% probable). This foundation is not simply a grounding or a vantage point, stand- point, or point-of-view, and certainty and doubt are not dialectically related. Descartes’ foundationalism describes the final fixed secure base. It constitutes an absolute, fixed, unchanging bedrock; a final Archimedean point (Descartes, 1969).

Cartesian splitting and foundationalism came to operate as a permanent background frame for modernity’s scien- tific story. However, the specification of the nature of the ultimate foundation remained at issue. It was left to the empiricist branch of modernity to locate the Real within a dichotomy of observation split off from interpretation. Hobbes and later empiricists operated within this frame,

in which subject became split from object, mind split from body, ideas split from matter, and built into it a materialist identification of atomistic matter as the ultimate ontologi- cal foundational Real. Further, epistemological empiricists (e.g., David Hume) endorsed the position that the source of all knowledge is sense experience. In the materialist tradition, matter thus came to constitute the ontological Real to which all of commonsense experience would be reduced to arrive at the goal of science; a systematized body of certain empirical knowledge. This materialist foundation was inspired by Newton’s natural philosophy. Central to Newton’s natural philosophy was the redefini- tion of the nature of matter in a way that conceived of all bodies as fundamentally inactive. Prior to Newton, matter had been understood as inherently active. Matter had been conceived in terms of the relation of being (the static, fixed) and becoming (the active, changing). Newton, how- ever, through his concept of inertia, split activity and matter and redefined matter as inactivity (Prosch, 1964).

The redefinition of bodies as inert matter and the assumption of the atomicity of matter (i.e., bodies as ulti- mately aggregates of elemental matter that is uniform in nature, and in combination, yields the things of the world) were basic for Newton’s formulation of his laws of motion. However, they were also ideas that a later generation gen- eralized into a metaphysical worldview (i.e., a metatheory at the highest level of generality). This worldview identi- fied the nature of the Real as fixed inert matter and only fixed inert matter. This worldview has been called the “bil- liard ball” notion of the universe, “the notion that basically everything . . . was made up of small, solid particles, in themselves inert, but always in motion and elasticitly [sic] rebounding from each other, . . . and operating mechani- cally” (Prosch, 1964, p. 66).

With these metatheoretical themes at hand—splitting, foundationalism, objectivism, materialism , and empiri- cism —it was a short step to the formulation of a completely exclusive scientific metamethod termed mechanical explanation that, with relatively minor modifications, has continued to serve to the present day as the metamethod of empiricism. This metamethod has surfaced under various names, including neopositivism (i.e., the position that pristine observational evidence constitutes the sole criterion of scientific knowledge) and later instrumentalism (i.e., the position that theoretical and metatheoretical concepts serve a heuristic function and only a heuristic function in science), and conven- tionalism (i.e., the position that heuristic theoretical and metatheoretical concepts are explicit or implicit social agreements) (Overton, 2006).

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Metatheories, Theories, and Concepts in the Study of Development 29

Mechanical Explanation

The mechanical explanation metamethod continues the splitting process by dichotomizing science into two air- tight compartments, description and explanation . There are three steps to mechanical explanation. The first is considered descriptive, and the second and third are con- sidered explanatory.

Step 1: Reduction–Description . The first step of mechanical explanation entails addressing the common- sense object of inquiry and reducing it to the absolute material, objective, fixed, unchanging, foundational elements or atoms. Terms like reductionism , atomism , elementarism , and analytic attitude all identify this step. In psychology for many years the atoms were “stimuli” and “responses.” Today they tend to be “neurons” and “behaviors,” or “contextual factors” and “behaviors”— the storyline changes, but the themes remain the same within this metatheory. In keeping with the framework of empiricism and materialism, the broad stricture here is to reduce all phenomena to the visible.

Briefly consider one impact of this first step on developmental inquiry. Immediately, “transformational change,” “stages” of development, and the “mental organizations” or “relational developmental systems” that change during development become suspect as being somehow derivative because they are not directly observ- able. At best under this storyline, transformations, stages, and mental organization can only function as summary statements for an underlying more molecular really Real. In fact, the drive throughout this step is toward the ever more molecular in the belief that it is in the realm of the molecular that the Real is directly observed. This is particularly well illustrated in the enthusiasm for a microgenetic method (e.g., Kuhn, Garcia-Mila, Zohar, & Anderson 1995; Siegler, 1996; Siegler & Crowley, 1991, 1992) as a method that offers “a direct means for studying cognitive development” (Siegler & Crowley, 1991, p. 606, emphasis added). This use of the microgenetic method as an intensive “trial-by-trial analysis” reduces the very notion of development to a molecular bedrock of visible behavioral differences as they appear across learning trials. Interestingly, the term microgenetic method was introduced by the develop- mental psychologist Heinz Werner. In Werner’s work, the term describes the study of the moment-by-moment formation (Aktualgenese) of percepts in adults, leading from diffuse affective-motoric impressions to an objective perceptual world (Müller, 2005; Valsiner & van der Veer, 2000, for a detailed analysis of the differences between Werner’s and Siegler’s understanding of microgenesis).

It is important to recognize that the aim of Step 1 is to drive out interpretations from the commonsense phe- nomena under investigation. Under the empiricist theme, commonsense observation is error laden, and it is only through ever more careful neutral observation that sci- ence can eliminate this error and ultimately arrive at the elementary bedrock that constitutes the level of “facts” or “data” (i.e., invariable observations).

Step 2. Causal Explanation . Step 2 of mechanical explanation begins to move inquiry into the second compartment—explanation . Step 2 consists of the instruction to find the relations among the elements described in Step 1. More specifically, given our objects of study in developmental psychology—behavior and behavior change—this step directs inquiry to locate antecedents. These antecedents, when they meet certain criteria of necessity and sufficiency, are termed causes , and the discovery of cause defines explanation within this metamethod . The antecedents are also often referred to as mechanisms , but the meaning is identical.

This point is another place at which to pause and notice an important impact of metatheory. Here, because of the particular metatheoretical principles involved, the word “explanation” comes to be defined as an antecedent– consequent relation, or the efficient/material proximal cause of the object of inquiry. Further, science itself often comes to be defined as the (causal) explanation of nat- ural phenomena. It is critically important to remember here that Aristotle had earlier produced a very differ- ent metatheoretical story of scientific explanation. Aristo- tle’s schema entailed complementary relations among four types of explanation rather than a splitting. To illustrate Aristotle’s different types of explanation, take the example of a piano being out of tune (Spaemann & Löw, 1981). In explaining why it is out of tune, one could refer to the fact that it is made out of wood, and, therefore, is warped when exposed to fluctuations in humidity (material cause). One could also refer to the fact that the piano is considered to be out of tune because it is a musical instrument (i.e., has a particular form), which implies the possibility of being out of tune (a simple piece of wood would not be consid- ered to be out of tune). Further, one could refer to the fact that the piano was exposed to humidity (efficient cause), which led to its being out of tune. Finally, a piano can only be said to be out of tune if there is a particular purpose or telos (i.e., final cause) in relation to which the piano is out of tune. The telos of the piano is to produce music, and a piano that is out of tune does not serve its purpose well.

Aristotle’s “formal” (i.e., the momentary form or orga- nization of the object of inquiry) and “final” (i.e., the

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30 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

end or goal of the object of inquiry) explanations were explanations that made the object of inquiry intelligi- ble and gave reasons for the nature and functioning of the object (Randall, 1960; Taylor, 1995). Today, the structure of the atom, the structure of DNA, the struc- ture of the solar system, and the structure of the uni- verse are all familiar examples of formal pattern princi- ples drawn from the natural sciences. Kinship structures, mental structures, mental organization, dynamic systems, attachment behavior system, structures of language, ego and superego, dynamisms, schemes, operations, and cog- nitive structures are familiar examples of formal pattern principles drawn from the human sciences. Similarly, ref- erence to the sequence and directionality found in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, self-organizing systems, and the psychological developmental concepts of “equi- libration process,” “reflective abstraction,” “orthogenetic principle,” and “probabilistic epigenesis,” are all examples of final pattern principles (Overton, 1994a).

Both formal and final pattern principles entail interpre- tations that make the phenomena under investigation intel- ligible. Both, within the Aristotelian relational scheme, constitute legitimate explanations. However, within the split story of mechanical explanation, as guided by reduc- tionism, formal and final principles completely lose any explanatory status; explanation is limited to nothing but observable efficient (i.e., the force that moves the object) and material (i.e., the material composition of the object) causes. At best, within the mechanical story formal and final principles may reappear in the descriptive com- partment as mere summary statements of the underly- ing molecular descriptive Real discussed in Step 1. In this way, transformational change and dynamic relational developmental systems become eliminated or marginal- ized with respect to developmental inquiry.

Step 3. Induction of Interpretation-Free Hypotheses, Theories, Laws . Step 3 of mechanical explanation installs induction as the foundational logic of science. Step 3 instructs the investigator that ultimate explanations in sci- ence must be found in fixed unchanging laws, and these must be inductively derived as empirical generalizations from the repeated observation of cause–effect relations found in Step 2. Weak generalizations from step 2 regular- ities constitute interpretation-free “hypotheses.” Stronger generalizations constitute interpretation-free theoretical propositions. Theoretical propositions joined as logical conjunctions (“and” connections) constitute interpretation- free theories. Laws represent the strongest and final inductions.

Deduction later re-enters modernity’s story of empiri- cal science as a split-off heuristic method of moving from inductively derived hypotheses and theoretical proposi- tions to further empirical observations. When later edi- tions of the story introduced a Hypothetico-Deductive Method , it was simply more variation on the same theme. The hypothesis of “Hypothetico” has nothing to do with interpretation, but is simply an empirical generalization driven by pristine data that then serves as a major premise in a formal deductive argument. Similarly, when instru- mentalism moved away from the Hypothetico-Deductive stance to the employment of models, models themselves functioned merely as the same type of interpretation-free heuristic devices.

Another important variation—but a variation nevertheless—on this same theme was the so-called cov- ering law model of scientific explanation. This concept was introduced by Carl Hempel (1942) and became the prototype of all later explanations formulated within this metatheory. According to the covering law model, an event E (i.e., the explanandum) is explained if E can be derived from a set of laws together with certain factual statements. For example, we might explain the observa- tion that Fido barks from the fact that he is a dog and the general law that all dogs bark. The covering law model was particularly important for developmental inquiry because it treated historical events as analogous to physi- cal events, in the sense that earlier events were considered the causal antecedents of later events (Ricoeur, 1984).

Here, then, is the basic outline of the quest for abso- lute certainty according to the empiricist modernity story of scientific methodology: Step 1, reduce to the objec- tive (interpretation-free) observable foundation. Step 2, find the causes. Step 3, induce the Law. As noted, variations appear throughout history. In fact, it would be misleading not to acknowledge that “probability” has replaced “cer- tainty” as the favored lexical item in the story as it is told today. Indeed, induction is itself statistical and probabilis- tic in nature. However, as mentioned earlier, this change represents much more style than substance, as the aim remains to move toward 100% probability, thereby arriv- ing at certainty or its closest approximation. This type of fallibilistic stance continues to pit doubt against cer- tainty as competing alternatives rather than understanding doubt and certainty as a dialectical relation, framed by the concept of plausibility . More generally, all of the varia- tions that have been introduced since the origin of New- tonian explanation—including those formulated under the methodological banners of neopositivism, instrumentalism,

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conventionalism, and functionalism—have changed the basic themes not at all.

There is scarcely any doubt that modernity’s empiri- cist metatheory of “objective certainty” failed. This fail- ure is too long a story to retell here. It has been thor- oughly documented in the arena of scientific knowl- edge by numerous historians and philosophers of science, including Stephen Toulmin (1953), N. R. Hanson (1958), Thomas Kuhn (1970), Imre Lakatos (1978), Larry Lau- dan (1977), Richard Bernstein (1983), and Bruno Latour (1993). Despite this discrediting, ghosts of modernity’s mechanistic worldview continue to haunt the scientific study of development. Nature (material cause) and nurture (efficient cause) are still presented as competing alterna- tive explanations. Biology and culture still compete with each other as “fundamental” explanations of development (see Lerner, 2002). There are still those who argue that emergence of genuine novel behavior is not possible, and that any apparent novelty must be completely explained by antecedent causal mechanisms. Indeed, the claim is still put forth that if a causal mechanism is not identi- fied, then there is no “real” explanation, only “mysticism” (Elman et al., 1996) or “miracles” (Siegler & Munakata, 1993). This assertion reflects the mechanistically defined argument that there can be no transformational change in development. All change, according to this mechanis- tic argument, is (i.e., must be) nothing but additive in nature; all qualitative change must be reduced to noth- ing but quantitative change. There are also those who still argue that development must be explained by causal mechanisms and only causal mechanisms. And, last but not least, there are still those who argue that all scien- tific knowledge about development must begin and end in a world of interpretation-free pristine observations of what “the child actually does,” a world that exalts the instrumental–communicative and excludes the expressive features of acts.

There are probably several reasons for the failure to recognize and accept the demise of modernity’s empiricist metatheory. One of these has to do with socialization. For psychologists who were reared in the strictures of mechan- ical explanation, these strictures are difficult to abandon, and the values tend to be passed from generation to gener- ation without deep reflection. Indeed, as this metatheory is virtually inscribed with the motto “Don’t think, find out” (Cohen, 1931), it is not surprising that fledgling investiga- tors are often discouraged from taking the very notion of metatheory seriously and, hence, seldom do they evaluate the merits and flaws of alternative background assump- tions. Another perhaps more important reason, however,

has been the apparent lack of viable empirical scientific alternatives and the seeming abyss of uncertainty that is faced when one abandons a secure, rock-solid base. The rise of postmodern thought did nothing to assuage this fear.

The Postmodern Period and the Chaos of Absolute Relativity

Like its predecessor, postmodernism is identified with the ideal of achieving individual freedom. However, the propo- nents of the postmodern agenda have approached this ideal almost exclusively through attacks directed at modernity’s rational quest for absolute certainty. This stance has left in place the splitting of categories. The effect of this continued splitting is that postmodern thought has tended to define itself in terms of categories that reflect the opposite of those that defined modernity. Thus, if modernity was “rational,” the postmodern celebrates the “emotional”; if modernity was objectivist “observational,” the postmodern celebrates subjectivist “interpretation”; and if modernity aimed for the “universal,” the postmodern argues for the “particular.” Despite the fact that advocates of postmodernism explic- itly reject foundationalism and explicitly reject the notion of metatheory—“meta-narratives,” as they are termed in the postmodern vernacular (Overton, 2006)—splitting into oppositional categories, of necessity, creates a new, if implicit, foundationalism. In this new foundationalism modernity is turned on its head. The Apparent Reality of modernity becomes the Real Foundational Reality of post- modernism. The foundational elevation of “interpretation” over “observation” in some versions of hermeneutics and deconstructivism is illustrative.

When interpretation is valued to the exclusion of obser- vation, the end result is a complete (i.e., absolute) rela- tivism. If there is no neutral observational territory to help decide between your judgment and my judgment, then all knowledge is purely subjective and, hence, absolutely relative. But this situation is chaotic, and precludes any stable general base from which to operate. This situation is complete relativity and uncertainty. Given this chaotic alternative, it is little wonder that the generation of devel- opmental psychologists that followed the destruction of neopositivism and instrumentalism tended to cling for sup- port to the wreckage of modernity’s descending narrative. In their split world, the slow death of fading relevance is less terrifying than the fear of chaotic fragmentation.

Although much of postmodern thought has moved towards the chaotic abyss, one variant has attempted to establish a stable base for knowledge construction by developing a new scientific metamethod. This position

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emerged from the hermeneutic and phenomenological traditions (Latour, 1993), and has come to operate parallel to and as a reaction against neopositivism’s quest for reductionist causal explanation. This alternative picture champions understanding , in contrast to explanation , as the base of scientific knowledge, at least as this scientific knowledge pertains to the behavioral and social sciences, including the humanities.

Broadly, hermeneutics is the theory or philosophy of the interpretation of meaning. Hermeneutics elevates to a heroic role the very concept that mechanical explanation casts as demon error— interpretation . For our purposes, we can pass by the periods of classical, biblical, and roman- tic hermeneutics, as well as Vico’s historical hermeneutics. Our brief focus here is on the effort that Dilthey (1972) promoted at the end of the 19th century to construct a metamethod for the social sciences. This was Verstehen or understanding . Within this metamethod, “understanding” operates as an epistemological rather than a psychological concept. And, most importantly, interpretation operates as the procedure that results in understanding.

As a metamethod of the social and behavioral sciences, understanding is closely related to a relational developmen- tal systems’ embodied action (enaction) perspective. This perspective is a person-centered developmental approach to inquiry into the origin and nature of processes and oper- ations of the meaning generating, living embodied agent (Brandtstädter & Lerner, 1999; H. Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1999; Overton, 1997a, 1997b; Overton, Müller, & New- man, 2008). The embodied action perspective stands in contrast to exclusively variable-centered approaches to human behavior, which are externalist and event oriented in their focus. Paul Ricoeur has clearly outlined—in the context of Wittgenstein’s “language-games,” which are themselves metatheoretical background principles—the distinction between variable-centered events and person- centered actions (see also Magnusson & Stattin, 1998), and in this outline he suggests the distinction between mechan- ical explanation and hermeneutic understanding:

It is not the same language game that we speak of events [variables] occurring in nature or of actions performed by people. For, to speak of events [variables], we enter a language game including notions like cause, law, fact, explanation and so on. . . . It is . . . in another language game and in another conceptual network that we can speak of human action [i.e., a person-centered frame]. For, if we have begun to speak in terms of action, we shall continue to speak in terms of projects, intentions, motives, reasons for acting, agents, [interpretation, understanding] and so forth.

—Ricoeur, 1991, pp. 132–133

Unfortunately, the creation of a distinct metamethod for the social sciences is yet another example of proceeding within a split background frame. Within the hermeneutic tradition, Verstehen is presented as a competing account of human functioning to that found in the natural sciences. However, the articulation of this dichotomy may also pro- vide a clue to the possibility of its resolution; the possibility of a rapprochement between the futility of a search for absolute certainty and the chaos of absolute uncertainty. Verstehen as a metamethod and a relational developmen- tal systems’ embodied action perspectives as approaches to human functioning are closely related through the inten- tional quality of action. Intention is never directly observ- able by a third party. To intend is to do something for the sake of it; it involves direction and order. There is a goal toward which embodied action moves and a sequence of acts lead to that goal. To explain (understand) an act, it is necessary to make interpretative inferences about patterns of embodied acts that make the specific behavioral movement of an act intelligible and give a reason for the movement.

For example, the act we term “reaching” in the young infant is only that if the inference is made that the infant intends a particular goal object. Under another inference, the observed movements might be termed “stretching.” Making inferences about action patterns is, in fact, identi- cal to Aristotle’s “formal” and “final” explanations as they were designed to make the object of inquiry intelligible and give reasons for the nature and functioning of the object. Thus, a rapprochement in developmental science between adherents of a “natural science” perspective and adherents of an relational developmental systems embod- ied action perspective may be found in a metatheoretical perspective that integrates mechanical causal explanation and action pattern explanation.

RELATIONISM—A CONTEMPORARY METATHEORY FOR DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE

The historian of science Bruno Latour (1993) has sketched just such a rapprochement in his analysis of the modern agenda and postmodernism. Latour begins by rejecting both modernity and postmodernism. He refers to the latter as “a symptom, not a fresh solution” (p. 46) to the problems of modernity.

It [postmodernism] senses that something has gone awry in the modern critique, but it is not able to do anything but pro- long that critique, though without believing in its foundations (Lyotard, 1979). . . . Postmodernism rejects all empirical work

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as illusory and deceptively scientistic (Baudrillard, 1992). Disappointed rationalists, its adepts indeed sense that mod- ernism is done for, but they continue to accept its way of dividing up time. (p. 46)

While adversaries, both groups have played on the field of identical background assumptions. Latour’s solution is to move from this arena to another much broader field of play where foundations are groundings, not bedrocks of certainty, and analysis is about creating categories, not about cutting nature at its joints. Viewed historically, Latour calls this approach amodernism, a term that implies the denial of both modernity and postmodernism. Viewed as a metatheoretical background, it is termed “relationism” (p. 114), and its identity is defined by a move away from the extremes of Cartesian splits to the center or “Middle Kingdom,” where entities and ideas are represented not as pure forms, but as forms that flow across fuzzy boundaries.

As a broad, abstract metatheory, relationism operates at the level of a world view. Because it is a world view, it involves both ontological and epistemological princi- ples. Relationism represents a principled synthesis of what Stephen Pepper (1942) referred to as the contextualist and the organismic world views (Overton, 2007; Overton & Ennis, 2006a, 2006b). The ontology of relationism entails a reality based on process rather than substance (Bick- hard, 2008), This ontology has classically been defined as an ontology of Becoming (Allport, 1955; Overton, 1991). It includes process, activity, change, emergence, and necessary organization as fundamental defining cat- egories in contrast to categories of substance, stability, fixity, additivity, and contingent organization, which are characteristics of the mechanistic and strict contextualist world views (Overton, 2007; Witherington, 2007).

The ontological dimension of relationism has important implications for both theories and methods of develop- mental science. For example, in an analysis of the devel- opment of consciousness, Lewis (2010) has argued that this development can only make sense in the context of understanding the organism as an active developmental system. And Müller and Racine (2010) have drawn out the implications of this understanding for the investigation of the development of representation and concepts.

The epistemological base of relationism is equally important to the study of development by developmental scientists. Here we describe these principles in detail.

Rejecting Splits and Bedrocks

The epistemology of relationism is, first and foremost, a relatively inclusive epistemology, involving both knower

and known as equal and indissociable complementary processes in the construction, acquisition, and growth of knowledge. It is “relatively” inclusive, because “inclu- sion” itself—much like Hegel’s (1807) master–slave dialectic—can only be grasped in relation to its com- plement “exclusion.” Thus, just as “freedom” must be identified in the context of “constraint,” “inclusion” must be identified in the context of “exclusion.”

Relational epistemology specifically excludes Carte- sian dualistic ways of knowing, because Cartesian epis- temology trades on absolute exclusivity; it is a “nothing- but” epistemology that was founded on atomism, where in the last analysis nothing but “atoms” in their additive combination count, regardless of whether the psychologi- cal atoms are genes, neurons, responses, or aspects of the sociocultural world. Cartesian dualism claims to cut nature at its joints, dividing up any whole into pure forms that constitute absolutely decomposable pieces (i.e., it “splits” the whole and converts it into an aggregate of elements) resulting in a dichotomy. This “divide-and-conquer” strat- egy is not simply analysis, but analysis in which the whole is treated as epiphenomenal. For example, sub- ject is split from object, mind from body. Having forced the dichotomy, Cartesian thought makes the epistemo- logical claims that: (a) the natural (material, physical, objective) constitutes the absolute bedrock Real; the ulti- mate “atoms” on which all else is built. As mentioned earlier, this position has been called foundationalism; (b) one of the pieces of the whole is more Real than the other (the foundation); and (c) therefore, the less Real must be explained (i.e., reduced to) the more Real. As one example among many possible examples of fundamental split dichotomies (see Table 2.1), consider the splitting of subject from object, mind from body.

Having made the split, a decision is required as to which constitutes the foundational Real bedrock that will do the explaining and which constitutes the apparent Real that will be explained. If the ontological position is that the physical constitutes the foundational Real—as in all neopositivist and many behavioristic approaches—thinking, reasoning, perception, motiva- tion, affect, and the like must necessarily ultimately be explained by the atoms of biology (genes, neurons), and the sociocultural and physical environment. Because split- ting is pervasive in Cartesian epistemology, these “atoms” are themselves treated as split pieces, and attempts to explain specifically how they might come to constitute the whole are necessarily additive. Any behavior or process thus becomes the additive “interaction” of genetic, neurological, and environmental pieces. “Interaction” is

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TABLE 2.1 Some Fundamental Categories of Analysis Expressed as Either/Or Dichotomies

SUBJECT OBJECT MIND BODY BIOLOGY PERSON CULTURE BIOLOGY PERSON CULTURE PERSON SITUATION INTRAPSYCHIC INTERPERSONAL NATURE NURTURE STABILITY CHANGE EXPRESSIVE INSTRUMENTAL VARIATION TRANSFORMATION REASON EMOTION FORM MATTER UNIVERSAL PARTICULAR TRANSCENDENT IMMANENT ANALYSIS SYNTHESIS UNITY DIVERSITY

here placed in quotation marks to emphasize that this is not an interaction of relational interpenetration or reciprocal bi- or multidirectionality, but an interaction in which the pieces are context free and maintain their split-off identity.

The epistemology of relationism heals splits and resolves dualisms—false dichotomies—that in a post- positivist era are recognized as retardants to scientific progress. And, importantly, relationism does this healing in a coherent, principled manner. Efforts at moving beyond Cartesian dichotomies are not new, but since the 19th century’s rejection of Hegel’s metaphysical system, there have been few systematic attempts at accomplishing this healing in a principled fashion. Calls for relational thinking are also not new. Holism was a central characteristic of William James’ work, and Putnam (1995) describes how James’s commitment led to the “obvious if implicit rejection of many familiar dualisms: fact, value, and theory are all seen by James as interpenetrating and interdependent” (p. 7). James (1975) addresses virtually all the traditional dichotomies of split-off traditions, and he, along with Dewey (1925), argues for a relational interpene- trating understanding of universal–particular, inner–outer, subject–object, theory–practice, monism–pluralism, and unity–diversity. However, neither James nor Dewey articulated an explicit set of principles designed to support this argument. In recent times, the scientific significance of thinking relationally has been discussed from the vantage point of several disciplines, including physics (Smolin, 1997: “Twentieth century physics represents a partial triumph of this relational view over the older Newtonian conception of nature.” [p. 19]), anthropology (Ingold,

2000: “How can one hope to grasp the continuity of the life process through a mode of thought that can only countenance the organic world already shattered into a myriad of fragments? . . . What we need, instead, is a quite different way of thinking about organisms and their environments. I call this ‘relational thinking.’ ” [p. 295]); biology (Robert, 2004: “To understand the relationship between genotype and phenotype, we must transcend the dichotomy between them in two ways: we must grasp the phenotype of the gene and we must recognize that the relevant developmental space does not begin nor does it end with the genome-in-context. It begins, instead, with the genetically co-defined primary, initially unicellular, organism.” [p. 66]); social psychology (Good, 2007: “The relational nature of the ecological approach would thus entail a shift away from a focus on just the individual as the object of study and unit of analysis . . . . The growing interest in cognition as embodied and embedded is seen, nevertheless, as guaranteeing the continuing relevance of the ecological approach, with its emphasis on the reciprocity of perception and action and its relational ontology.” [p. 268]) and science studies (Latour, 2004: “Their [the sciences] work consists precisely in inventing through the intermediary of instruments and the artifice of the laboratory, the displacement of point of view. . . . They make it possible to shift viewpoint constantly by means of experiments, instruments, models, and theories. . . . Such is their particular form of relativism—that is, relationism [emphasis added].” [p. 137]). However, again, despite the many calls for a relational approach to science, there has been little in the way of articulating a coherent set of metatheoretical principles that may then serve as a guide for how one actually might do relational thinking.

Holism

As stated above, relationism is a metatheoretical space, representing a synthesis of contextualism and organicism where foundations are groundings, not bedrocks of cer- tainty, and analysis is about creating categories, not about cutting nature at its joints. In place of a rejected atom- ism, holism becomes the overarching epistemological first principle. Holism is the principle that the identities of objects and events derive from the relational context in which they are embedded. Wholes define parts and parts define wholes. The classic example is the relation of com- ponents of a sentence. Patterns of letters form words, and particular organizations of words form sentences. Clearly, the meaning of the sentence depends on its individual words (parts define whole). At the same time, the meaning

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of the words is often defined by the meaning of the sentence (wholes define parts). Consider the word mean- ings in the following sentences: (1) The party leaders were split on the platform; (2) The disc jockey discovered a black rock star ; and (3) The pitcher was driven home on a sacrifice fly . The meaning of the sentence is obviously determined by the meaning of the words; but the meaning of each word is determined by context of the sentence it is in. Parts determine wholes; wholes determine their parts (Gilbert & Sarkar, 2000).

Holistically, the whole is not an aggregate of discrete elements, but an organized system of parts, each part being defined by its relations to other parts and to the whole. Complexity in this context is organized complexity (Luh- mann, 1995; von Bertalanffy, 1968a, 1968b), in that the whole is not decomposable into elements arranged in addi- tive linear sequences of cause-effect relations (Overton & Reese, 1973). In the context of holism, principles of splitting, foundationalism, and atomism are rejected as meaningless approaches to analysis, and “fundamental” antimonies are similarly rejected as false dichotomies. In an effort to avoid “standard’ (i.e., neopositivistic) mis- understandings here, it must be strongly emphasized that nondecomposability does not mean that analysis itself is rejected. It means that analysis of parts must occur in the context of the parts’ functioning in the whole. The context- free specifications of any object, event, or process— whether it be a gene, cell, neuron, the architecture of mind or culture—is illegitimate within a holistic system.

While holism is central to relationism, the acceptance of holism does not, in itself, offer a detailed program for resolving the many dualisms that have framed an understanding of the development of living organisms or fundamental issues in other fields of scientific inquiry. A complete relational program requires principles accord- ing to which the individual identity of each concept of a formerly dichotomous pair is maintained while simultane- ously it is affirmed that each concept constitutes, and is constituted by, the other. A program is needed in which, for example, both nature and nurture maintain their indi- vidual identity while it is simultaneously understood that the fact that a behavior is a product of biology does not imply that it is not equally a product of culture, and the fact that a behavior is a product of culture does not imply that it is not equally a product of biology. This under- standing is accomplished by considering identity and dif- ferences as three moments of analysis . The first moment is based on the principle of the Identity of Opposites; the second is based on the principle of the Opposites of

Identity. The third moment is based on the principle of The Synthesis of Wholes.

The Identity of Opposites

The principle of the identity of opposites establishes the identity among parts of a whole by casting them not as exclusive contradictions as in the split epistemology, but as differentiated polarities (i.e., co-equals) of a uni- fied (i.e., indissociable) inclusive matrix; as a relation. As differentiations, each pole defines and is defined by its opposite. In this identity moment of analysis, the law of contradiction is suspended, and each category contains and, in fact, is its opposite. Further—and centrally—as a differentiation, this moment pertains to character, ori- gin, and outcomes. The character of any contemporary behavior, for example, is 100% nature because it is 100% nurture; 100% biology because it is 100% culture. There is no origin to this behavior that was some other percentage—regardless of whether we climb back into the womb, back into the cell, back into the genome,—nor can there be a later behavior that will be a different percentage. Similarly, any action is both expressive and communica- tive/instrumental, and any developmental change is both transformational and variational.

There are a number of ways of articulating this princi- ple, but a particularly clear illustration is found in con- sidering the famous ink sketch by M.C. Escher titled “Drawing Hands.” As shown in Figure 2.2, a left and a right hand assume a relational posture according to which each is simultaneously drawing and being drawn

Figure 2.2 M. C. Escher’s “Drawing Hands”

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36 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

by the other. In this matrix each hand is identical—thus co-equal and indissociable—with the other in the sense of each drawing and each being drawn. This is a moment of analysis in which the law of contradiction (i.e., Not the case that A = not A) is relaxed and identity (i.e., A = not A) reigns. In this identity moment of analy- sis, pure forms collapse and categories flow into each other. Here each category contains and is its opposite. As a consequence, there is a broad inclusivity established among categories. If we think of “inclusion” and “exclu- sion” as different moments that occur when we observe a reversible figure (e.g., a Necker Cube or the vase–women illusion), then in this identity moment we observe only inclusion. In the next (opposite) moment of analysis—to be discussed next—the figures reverse, and there we will again see exclusivity as the hands appear as opposites and complementarities.

Within this identity moment of analysis, it is a use- ful exercise to write on each hand one of the bipolar terms of a traditionally split dualisms (e.g., biology and culture) and to explore the resulting effect. This exercise is more than merely an illustration of a familiar bidirec- tionality of cause–effects. The exercise makes tangible the central feature of the relational metatheory; seemingly dichotomous ideas that are often thought of as competing alternatives can, in fact, enter into inquiry as co-equal and indissociable. It also concretizes the meaning of any truly nonadditive reciprocal determination (Overton & Reese, 1973) and any “circular causality” in a way that simple bidirectionality cannot.

If inquiry concerning, for example, person, culture, and behavior is undertaken according to the principle of the identity of opposites, various constraints are imposed, as constraints are imposed by any metatheory. An important example of such a constraint is that behavior, traits, styles, and so forth cannot be thought of as being decomposable into the independent and additive pure forms of biology and culture. Thus, the notion occasionally put forth by some sociocultural or social constructivist approaches that society and culture occupy a privileged position in devel- opmental explanation is simply a conceptual confusion in the context of relational metatheory.

If the principle of the identity of opposites introduces constraints, it also opens possibilities. One of these is the recognition that, to paraphrase Searle (1992), the fact that a behavior implicates activity of the biological sys- tem does not imply that it does not implicate activity of the cultural system, and, the fact that the behavior impli- cates activity of the cultural system does not imply that it does not implicate activity of the biological system.

In other words, the identity of opposites establishes the metatheoretical rationale for the theoretical position that biology and culture, like culture and person, and biology and person, etc., operate in a truly interpenetrating man- ner. Of course, the identity of opposites also justifies the claim that development is not the transformational change of system, nor the variational change of behavior, but the transformational/system-variational/behavioral change of the organism.

This transformation of competing alternatives into com- plementary partners is illustrated in an exchange of com- ments concerning research on the topic that social psychol- ogy refers to as the “Fundamental Attribution Error.” In this exchange, one group (Gilovich & Eibach, 2001) proceeds from a split position and notes that “human behavior is not easily parsed into situational and dispositional causes” (p. 23) and it is difficult to establish “a precise accounting of how much a given action stems from the impinging stimu- lus rather than from the faculty or disposition with which it makes contact” (p. 24). In a reply to this comment, Sabini, Siepmann, and Stein (2001) assert that they reject such a position because it reflects confusion between competing and complementary accounts. Reflecting an implicit com- mitment to the identity of opposites, they argue that the problem with the question of:

How much John’s going out with Sue stems from her beauty rather than from his love of beautiful women . . . is not that it is difficult to answer; it is that it is conceptually incoherent. It is incoherent because it construes two classes of accounts that are in fact complementary as if they were competing. The heart of our argument is that one must take this point seriously. All behavior is jointly a product of environmental stimuli and dispositions.

—Sabini et al., 2001, p. 43

A similar, but subtler, example is found in a dialogue on spatial development. Uttal (2000) begins this dialogue with a view that seemingly implies the complementary of the development of the organism and the environment and artifacts. Specifically, he contends that his claims about spatial development “are based on the assumption that the relation between maps and the development of spatial cognition is reciprocal in nature” (p. 247). However, in a commentary on Uttal’s article, Liben (2000) raises the question of whether Uttal is, in fact, operating within the context of an identity of opposites, which she proposes as her own approach.

As I read his thesis, Uttal seems to be suggesting an inde- pendent contribution of maps, positing that exposure to maps

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can play a causal role in leading children to develop basic spatial concepts. My own preference is to propose a more radically interdependent [emphasis added] role of organismic and environmental factors.

—Liben, 2000, p. 272

The Opposites of Identity

While the identity of opposites sets constraints and opens possibilities, it does not in itself set a positive agenda for empirical inquiry. The limitation of the identity moment of analysis is that, in establishing a flow of categories of one into the other, a stable base for inquiry that was provided by bedrock “atoms” of the split metatheory is eliminated. With atomism, no relativity entered the picture, all was absolute. Reestablishing a stable—not an absolute fixity, nor an absolute relativity, but a relative relativity (Latour, 1993)—base within relational metatheory requires mov- ing to a second moment of analysis. This is the opposi- tional moment, where the figure reverses and the moment becomes dominated by a relational exclusivity. Thus, in this opposite moment of analysis it becomes clear that despite the earlier identity, Escher’s sketch does illustrate both a right hand and a left hand. In this moment, the law of contradiction (i.e., Not the case that A = not A) is reasserted and categories again exclude each other. As a consequence of this exclusion, parts exhibit unique iden- tities that differentiate each from the other. These unique differential qualities are stable within any holistic sys- tem and, thus, may form relatively stable platforms for empirical inquiry. The platforms created according to the principle of the opposites of identity become standpoints , points-of-view , or lines-of-sight , in recognition that they do not reflect absolute foundations (Latour, 1993). They may also be considered under the common rubric lev- els of analysis , when these are not understood as bedrock foundations. Again considering Escher’s sketch, when left hand as left hand and right as right are the focus of atten- tion, it then becomes quite clear that—were they large enough—one could stand on either hand and examine the structures and functions of that hand as well as its relation to the other hand. Thus, to return to the nature–nurture example, while explicitly recognizing that any behavior is 100% biology and 100% culture, alternative points-of- view permit the scientist to analyze the behavior from a biological , or from a cultural standpoint . Biology and culture no longer constitute competing alternative expla- nations; rather they are two points-of-view on an object of inquiry that has been both created by and will only be fully understood through multiple viewpoints. To state

this idea more generally, the unity that constitutes human identity and human development becomes discovered only in the diversity of multiple interrelated lines of sight.

The Synthesis of Wholes: A View from the Center

Engaging fundamental bipolar concepts as relatively sta- ble standpoints opens the way, and marks an important first step, toward establishing a broad stable base for empirical inquiry within a relational metatheory. How- ever, this solution is incomplete, as it omits a key rela- tional component, the relation of parts to the whole. The oppositional quality of the bipolar pairs reminds us that their contradictory nature still remains and still requires a resolution. Further, the resolution of this tension cannot be found in the split approach of reduction to a bedrock absolute reality. Rather, the relational approach to a res- olution is to move away from the extremes to the center and above the conflict, and to here discover a novel system that will coordinate the two conflicting systems. This is the principle of the synthesis of wholes, and the synthesis achieved will constitute yet another standpoint.

At this point, the Escher sketch fails as a graphic repre- sentation. While “Drawing Hands” illustrates the identities and the opposites, and while it shows a middle space between the two, it does not describe a coordination of the two. In fact, the synthesis for this sketch is an unseen hand that has drawn the drawing hands and is being drawn by these hands. The synthesis of interest for the general metatheory would be a system that is a coordination of the most universal bipolarity one can imagine. Undoubtedly there are several candidates for this level of generality, but the polarity between matter or nature, on the one hand, and society , on the other, is sufficient for present purposes (Latour, 1993).

The Person as Synthesis

Matter and society represent systems that stand in an iden- tity of opposites. To say that an object is a social or cultural object in no way denies that it is matter, to say that an object is matter in no way denies that it is social or cul- tural. And further, the object can be analyzed from either a sociocultural or a physical standpoint. The question for synthesis becomes the question of what system will coor- dinate these two systems. Arguably, the answer is that it is life or living systems that coordinate matter and society. Because our specific focus of inquiry is the psychological, we can translate this matter–society polarity back into a nature–nurture polarity of biology and culture. In the con- text of psychology, then, as an illustration, write “biology”

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38 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

(a) (b) (c)

Person Biology Culture Standpoint Standpoint Standpoint

Biology Culture Person Culture Biology Person

Figure 2.3 Relational standpoints in psychological inquiry: Person, biology, and culture.

on one and “culture” on the other Escher hand, and consider what system coordinates these systems? It is life, the human organism, the person (see Figure 2.3a). Persons—as rela- tional developmental systems (i.e., complex self-creating, self-organizing, self-regulating adaptive system of cogni- tive, emotional, and motivational processes, and the actions this system expresses) represent a novel level of structure and functioning that emerges from, and constitutes a coor- dination of, biology and culture (see Magnusson & Stattin, 1998, for an analysis of a methodological focus on the per- son). This integrative psychophysically neutrality of the concept of the person is well captured in William Stern’s (1917/2010) personalistic thinking:

A “person” is an entity that despite the multiplicity of parts form a real, unique and intrinsically valuable unity, and despite the multiplicity of the part functions achieves a unifying, goal- striving self-activation. . . . It is not that there are the physical and the psychological, but rather that there are real persons, that is the primary fact of the world. That these persons can appear both to themselves and to others, thereby producing the distinction between the psychological and the physical, is a fact of secondary order.

—Stern, 1917/2010, p. 129

At the synthesis then, there is a standpoint that coor- dinates and resolves the tension between the other two members of the relation. This provides a particularly broad and stable base for launching empirical inquiry. A person standpoint opens the way for the empirical investigation of universal dimensions of psychological structure–function relations (e.g., processes of perception, thought, emotions, values), their individual differences, and their development (transformational–variational) across the life span. Because universal and particular are themselves relational con- cepts, no question can arise here about whether the focus on universal processes excludes the particular; it clearly does not, as we already know from the earlier discussion of polarities. The fact that a process is viewed from a universal standpoint in no way suggests that it is not contextualized. The general theories of Jean Piaget (1952), Heinz Werner

(1948), James Mark Baldwin (1895), and William Stern (2010), and the attachment theory and object relations the- ories of John Bowlby (1958), Harry Stack Sullivan (1953), and Donald Winnicott (1965, 1971), all are exemplars of developmentally oriented relational person standpoints .

The Biological as Synthesis

It is important to recognize that one synthesis standpoint is relative to other synthesis standpoints. Person and Society are coordinated by Matter , and thus, within psychological inquiry, biology represents a standpoint as the synthesis of person and culture (Figure 2.3b). The implication of this is that a relational biological approach to psychological pro- cesses investigates the biological context of psychological structure–function relations. This exploration is quite dif- ferent from split–foundationalist approaches to biological inquiry, which assume an atomistic and reductionist bio- logical foundationalism. This foundationalist approach is found in various gene-centric theories of the development of the phenotype (see Lickliter & Honeycutt, 2010) as well as in neuroreductionism. A particularly vivid example of the latter occurred in an interview on National Public Radio (April 30, 2011) that focused on an empirical study report- ing a relation between the application of a magnetic pulse to the brain and subsequent changes in moral judgments:

The fact that scientists can adjust morality with a magnet may be disconcerting to people who view morality as a lofty and immutable human trait, says Joshua Greene, psychologist at Harvard University. But that view isn’t accurate, he says.

“Moral judgment is just a brain process ,” he says. “That’s precisely why it’s possible for these researchers to influence it using electromagnetic pulses on the surface of the brain.”

The new study is really part of a much larger effort by scientists to explain how the brain creates moral judgments, Greene says. The scientists are trying to take concepts such as morality, which philosophers once attributed to the human soul [sic], and “break it down in mechanical terms.”

If something as complex as morality has a mechanical expla- nation, Greene says, it will be hard to argue that people have, or need, a soul (emphasis added).

Compare this biological reductionism to the relational biological approach to the mind–brain–body issue, taken by neurobiologist Antonio Damasio (1994, 1999, 2010; see also Thompson, 2007) concerning his work on the brain-body basis of a psychological self and emotions. Damasio points out:

A task that faces neuroscientists today is to consider the neurobiology supporting adaptive supraregulations [e.g., the

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psychological subjective experience of self]. . . I am not attempting to reduce social phenomena to biological phenom- ena, but rather to discuss the powerful connection between them. . . . Realizing that there are biological mechanisms behind the most sublime human behavior does not imply a simplistic reduction to the nuts and bolts of neurobiology.

—Damasio, 1994, pp. 124 and 125

A similar relational illustration comes from the Nobel Laureate neurobiologist Gerald Edelman’s (1992, see also Edelman, 2006; Edelman & Tononi, 2000) work on the brain–body base of consciousness:

I hope to show that the kind of reductionism that doomed the thinkers of the Enlightenment is confuted by evidence that has emerged both from modern neuroscience and from modern physics. . . . To reduce a theory of an individual’s behavior to a theory of molecular interactions is simply silly, a point made clear when one considers how many different levels of physical, biological, and social interactions must be put into place before higher order consciousness emerges.

—Edelman, 1992, p. 166

Another biological area that has seen both split foun- dational and relational approaches is the study of evolu- tion. The neo-Darwinian theory of evolution (the so-called modern synthesis) represented a marriage of Darwinian selection and Mendelian laws of inheritance. This “syn- thesis” was, however, attained by splitting off individual development from heredity, and privileging heredity. In this split frame, individual development was dismissed as playing any significant role in evolution (Lickliter & Hon- eycutt, 2010; Robert, 2004). The neo-Darwinian theory was strongly influenced by classic population geneticists (Gottlieb, 2002) who interpreted heredity solely in terms of the transmission of genes. Genes were conceptualized as packages of information that held instruction or infor- mation that unidirectionally determined the phenotype and growth (Gottlieb, 2000). Further, evolution was reduced to heritable variation , understood as random mutation and segregation, and natural selection , caused by a split off environment. Important implications of the neo-Darwinian theory were that (a) development was essentially “black- boxed” (Hamburger, 1980) because it was, itself, sup- posedly determined by genetic activity (Gilbert, 2003; Gottlieb, 2000); (b) the internal (variation) and the exter- nal (selection) were independent, split-off processes (see Overton, 2006), and (c) there was space for variational change alone, not for transformational change.

A relational alternative to the neo-Darwinian split between evolution/development emerged some time

ago in developmental biology (Gottlieb, 2002) and has become increasingly prominent due to advances in molec- ular genetics and evolutionary developmental biology. Specifically, these advances have led to a reconceptu- alization of the role of genes and have emphasized that genetic activity and environmental events are intrinsically and reciprocally linked at multiple levels in the relational developmental system (Burian, 2010; Charney, in press; Gottlieb, 2002; Greenberg & Partridge, 2010; Ho, 2010; Jablonka & Lamb, 2005, 2007). What this linkage means is that inheritance is epigenetic in character (Meaney, 2010; Jablonka & Lamb, 2007; Jablonka & Raz, 2009). Inheritance is not about split-off genes, it is about any type of resource the relational developmental system uses that stabilizes the reoccurrence of a particular form of life (see Griffiths, 2009, for a general discussion of the meaning of inheritance).

The relational synthesis of development and evolution is the basis of a relatively new field of evolutionary devel- opmental biology , or evo-devo (Laubichler, 2010; Pigli- ucci, 2009; Robert, 2004). A major goal of this field is the reintegration of development and evolution. Although evo-devo itself comprises a variety of approaches, evo- devo approaches share the relational perspective in that the reintegration necessarily entails a recognition that the internal and the external, along with variational and trans- formational change, operate as co-equal and indissocia- ble complementarities, and not as competing alternatives. Evo-devo also takes the relational stance that individual organisms are active, not passive, participants in the evo- lutionary process (Bateson, 1996; Reid, 2007; Wereha & Racine, 2011). Thus, a recognition has been growing in the field of the value of adopting a relational developmen- tal systems perspective, according to which the relational developmental system itself is a necessary and indissocia- ble feature evolution. As Robert (2002) describes it:

Most evolutionary changes are introduced during ontogeny, in the sense that ontogenetic modifications, and modifications in developmental processes, produce evolutionary changes; moreover, developmental mechanisms themselves evolve.

—Robert, 2002, p. 599

The Culture as Synthesis

A third synthesis standpoint recognizes that Human and Matter are coordinated by Society , and again, granting that the inquiry is about psychological processes, culture represents a standpoint as the synthesis of person and biology (Figure 2.3c). Thus, a relational cultural approach to psychological processes explores the cultural conditions and settings of psychological structure–function relations.

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From this cultural standpoint , the focus is on the analysis of cognitive, affective, and motivational processes in the context of different cultural settings as complementary to the person standpoint’s focus on how psychological functions constitute cultural processes and institutions (Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll, 2005).

Essentially, the major problem encountered by cultural theories is how to conceptualize the relation between indi- vidual and society (Carpendale & Müller, 2004). In this context, three positions can be distinguished: (1) a position that reduces all social phenomena to individuals and their properties—methodological individualism; (2) a position that social phenomena cannot be reduced to individual behavior because they possess the power to exert outside pressure on individuals’ consciousness—dualistic holism or collectivism; and (3) the relational position according to which co-acting, co-constructing systems constitute the primary reality (Berger & Luckmann, 1966).

Closely related to these different positions about the relations between individual and society, when viewed from the cultural standpoint, are different conceptualiza- tions of the process according to which society and culture impact the development of the person—a process fre- quently described in terms of the notion of internalization: “Internalization refers to the process by which material that is held out for the individual by social others is imported into the individual’s intra-psychological domain of thinking and affective processes” (Lawrence & Valsiner, 1993, p. 151). However, the concept of internalization can be interpreted in two different ways (Lawrence & Valsiner, 1993). First, it can be viewed as a unidirectional transmission process in which an expert provides a novice with some prepack- aged information that is passively copied or absorbed by the novice. Second, it can be viewed as an active relational pro- cess of co-construction, in the course of which the novice transforms the information provided to her. Traditionally, collectivist views of the relation between individual and cul- ture have endorsed a transmission view of internalization.

Such a collectivist, split-foundationalist perspective appears to be at work in some cultural psychologies. When, for example, a cultural psychology makes the assertion that social discourse is “prior to and constitutive of the world” (Miller, 1996, p. 99), it becomes clear that this form of cultural psychology has been framed by split- foundationalist background ideas. Similarly, when socio- cultural claims are made about the “primacy of social forces,” or claims arise suggesting that “mediational means” (i.e., instrumental–communicative acts) constitute the necessary focus of psychological interest (see, e.g., Wertsch, 1991), or the argument is made that the sense

of self is “produced in the flow of rhetorical actions” (Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004, p. 480), the shadows of split-foundationalist metatheoretical principles are clearly in evidence.

A recent example of a relational, developmentally ori- ented cultural standpoint emerges from the work of Valsiner (1998), which examines the “social nature of human psy- chology.” Focusing on the “social nature” of the person, Valsiner stresses the importance of avoiding the temptation of trying to reduce person processes to social processes. To this end, he explicitly distinguishes between the dualisms of split-foundationalist metatheory and the “dualities” of the relational stance he advocates. Ernst Boesch (1991, 1992) and Lutz Eckensberger (1990, 1995, 2002, 2011) have also presented an elaboration of the cultural standpoint . Draw- ing on Piaget’s cognitive theory, on Janet’s dynamic theory, and on Kurt Lewin’s social field-theory, Boesch (1991, p. 183) argues that cultural psychology aims at an integration of individual and cultural change, an integration of individ- ual and collective meanings, a bridging of the gap between subject and object. Specifically, Boesch balances a person and a culture standpoint, in that he argues that individuals are not passive in the enculturation process because knowledge “is not simply ‘received,’ absorbed, but assimilated, thereby undergoing multiple processes of selection, transformation and integration into individual systems of action” (1992, p. 93). At the same time, social interaction creates mecha- nisms of stabilization (e.g., systems of rules) that ward off the dispersion of knowledge and the breakdown of social coordination.

Recently Mistry and Wu (2010) have offered an explic- itly relational sociocultural perspective on how children from diverse cultural backgrounds negotiate their devel- oping in different cultures:

Although the conceptual model was developed based on our interpretation of sociocultural theory, it is highly consistent with contemporary perspectives in developmental psychology that eschew dualisms [Lerner, 2006; Overton, 2006], such as the separation of individual and culture. We suggest that our conceptual model exemplifies a developmentally oriented embodied action metatheory [Overton, 2006] in which embodiment represents the interpenetrating relations between person, biology, and culture.

—Mistry & Wu, 2010, p. 22

In a similar vein, Damon offers a vision of the cul- tural standpoint in his discussion of “two complementary developmental functions, . . . the social and the personal- ity functions of social development” (1988, p. 3). These are presented by Damon as an identity of opposites. The

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social function is an act of integration serving to “establish and maintain relations with other, to become an accepted member of society-at-large, to regulate one’s behavior according to society’s codes and standards” (p. 3). The personality function, on the other hand, is the function of individuation; an act of differentiation serving the for- mation of the individual’s personal identity that requires “distinguishing oneself from others, determining one’s own unique direction in life, and finding within the social network a position uniquely tailored to one’s own particu- lar nature, needs, and aspirations” (p. 3). Although others could be mentioned as illustrative (e.g. Grotevant, 1998), it should be noted in conclusion here that Erik Erikson (1968), was operating out of exactly this type of rela- tional standpoint when he described identity as “a process ‘located’ in the core of the individual and yet also in the core of his communal culture” (p. 22).

As a general summary to this point, the argument has been made that metatheoretical principles form the ground out of which grow the theories and methods of any domain of empirical inquiry. This view has been illustrated by exploring several issues that frame the field of developmen- tal science. Historically, both the modern and postmodern eras have articulated broad metatheoretical paradigms that have functioned as competing alternatives in the natural and social sciences. The commonality of these paradigms has been that each shares the background assumptions of splitting and foundationalism. A relational paradigm, which begins by rejecting these assumptions, may offer a rap- prochement of the alternatives through an elaboration of the principles of holism, the identity of opposites, the opposites of identity, and the synthesis of opposites. The question of the specific nature of this rapprochement remains.

A METHODOLOGICAL RAPPROCHEMENT: EXPLANATION IN A RELATIONAL CONTEXT

A relational methodological rapprochement between the natural and social sciences emerges by transforming the historically traditional dichotomies of observation versus interpretation and theory versus data into relational bipolar dimensions. Given this movement in grounding, mechan- ical explanation and hermeneutic understanding become an integrated metamethod in the following manner:

Step 1: Relational Analysis—Synthesis Replaces Split Reductionism

Clearly, the reduction and atomism of mechanical expla- nation are split principles and need to be replaced.

Anointing holism as the guiding principle without fur- ther comment is not workable, because holism in a split conceptual world is frequently identified with synthesis as reductionism is identified with analysis. A rapprochement requires that analysis and synthesis operate as a relational polarity. Analysis must occur in the context of some inte- grated whole, the integrated whole operates in the context of its analytic parts. Because a relational metatheory is sometimes, but incorrectly, viewed as less rigorous than mechanical explanation, a major feature of this first step is the affirmation of the importance of analysis and the analytic tools of any empirical science. The provisos here are that it simultaneously be recognized that the analytic moment always occurs in the context of a moment of synthesis, and that the analysis can neither eliminate nor marginalize synthesis.

Step 2: Relational Action Pattern—Conditions Explanation Replaces Split Causes

As noted earlier, the defining marks of mechanical explana- tion and hermeneutic understanding have been the “nothing but” reliance on causes and action patterns, respectively. By entering into a relational context, these forms of expla- nation become integrated. In a relational context, causes are transformed from interpretation-free observed objects or events that produce changes in other objects or events to conditions that are associated with or resources for changes. A cause is interpretation-free only when analysis is split from synthesis; in a relational model conditions—as an analytic moment of inquiry—are understood as func- tioning under some interpretation, some synthesis (Han- son, 1958). A cause can be a “force” that “produces” or “influences” or “affects” the status or change of an object only in a model that splits system and activity. In a relational model, system and activity are joined as a dynamic structure–function relation, and conditions are identified as necessary and/or sufficient to the occurrence of the phenomenon under investigation (von Wright, 1971). Thus, rather than inquiry into the “causes” of behavior or development, inquiry from a relational perspective exam- ines conditions that are associated with behavior or that can serve as resources for the developmental system. For example, if inquiry concerned the development of a plant, food and water would represent necessary conditions for the plant to grow, but would not be offered as the “cause” of the plant’s development in the sense of producing that development. Similarly, neither nature factors nor nurture factors can be considered the cause of human develop- ment; they represent conditions that are associated with

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that development, resources that serve the relational devel- opmental system.

The assertion that causes are best understood as con- ditions leaves open the question of what, in fact, does produce behavior and change. The issue here is that of mechanisms . As is the case with other key terms, mech- anism has several, often incompatible, definitions. In the present case, the meaning is closer to “a process, physi- cal or mental, by which something is done or comes into being” than to “the doctrine that all natural phenomena are explicable by material causes and mechanical princi- ples” (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 2000). Hence, for present purposes, mecha- nism is defined as an active method or process rather than a cause or set of causes. These mechanisms are found in the dynamic structure–function relations that identify action patterns. Any relational developmental system con- stitutes a set of dynamic structure–function relations. The system is not a random aggregate of elements; it has a specific organization or architecture (i.e., a structure). Further, this structure is not randomly active; it has a characteristic activity (i.e., a function). Even computers (structure)—when they are turned on—compute (func- tion). However, computers do not change—at least, they do not change in a transformational manner—and for this reason they are rather limited as models of the human mind (Fodor, 2000). The input and output of a computer may change—and this is the basis for traditional and contemporary split “functionalist” approaches to explana- tion (Overton, 1994a). However, the organization/activity of the computer itself does not undergo transformational change. In contrast, living organisms are relational devel- opmental systems; they are dynamic organizations (struc- tures) that are inherently active (function) and exhibit transformational change.

When a relational developmental system is viewed from the standpoint of function, it is the function itself (i.e., the characteristic action of the developmental system) that constitutes the mechanism of behavior and change. Systems change through their characteristic action in the context of external conditions. Thus, the explanation of behavior and change is given by the functioning of the system (see Thelen & Smith, 2006; Witherington, 2007). Further, because of the relation of structure and function, when a system is viewed from the standpoint of structure, structure then explains function. Consequently, both structure and function enter centrally into the explanatory process.

Structure and function are central to explanation, but they are also fundamentally interpretative in nature; they are not directly observable. Structure-function relations

are patterns of action, but patterns are never directly observed; they must be inferred. When examined from the structural standpoint, the patterns constitute Aristo- tle’s formal and final explanations. From the structural standpoint, action patterns make the object of inquiry intelligible and give reasons for the nature and function- ing of the object. From the functional standpoint, action patterns explain by presenting the mechanism of behavior and development. Action patterns, however, necessarily operate within the context of material conditions, both internal to the system and external to it. Thus, the intro- duction of structure–function relations serves to integrate the hermeneutic explanation and the natural science condi- tions explanation. Both types of explanation are necessary, but each operates from a different standpoint.

Developmental science offers several illustrations of this explanatory integration. For example, Bowlby’s (1958) theory of infant–caregiver attachment posits a behavioral attachment system (structure) in relation to actions that serve the adaptive function of keeping the caregiver in close proximity. Piaget’s (1952, 1985) theory presents a more general example. This theory represents an attempt to make sense of (i.e., explain) the development of know- ing. Like Bowlby’s, Piaget’s is a relational developmental systems theory that takes seriously the background ideas of dynamic structure–function and conditions. Because the theoretical goal is to explain the person and the develop- ment of the knowing person, Piaget takes a person (and epistemic) standpoint rather than a biological or a cul- tural standpoint. The theory conceptualizes the person as a complex adaptive system of self-organizing action sys- tems operating in a world of biological and environmen- tal resources. Structure and function constitute thesis and antithesis, and the resulting synthesis is transformational change, or stages of new structure-function relations. Struc- tures are the mental organizations that are expressed as patterns of action. On the structural side of the equation Piaget introduces the theoretical concepts schemes , coordi- nation of schemes , operations , groupings , and group. Each explains (i.e., formal explanation)—at successive novel levels of transformation—the cognitive equipment that the infant, toddler, child, and adolescent come to have available for constructing their known world.

Theoretical concepts of adaptation , assimilation– accommodation , equilibrium , equilibration , and reflective abstraction , constitute the functional side of the equation. Schemes, coordinated schemes, operations, and the like function; they are active and it is through their action in a world of conditions that they change. Piaget’s is an embod- ied action theory, and action is the general mechanism

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Metatheories, Theories, and Concepts in the Study of Development 43

of development. Through the organized actions of the person in the world, the person’s mode of knowing the world becomes transformed, and these transformations are adaptive. Embodied action as the mechanism of development becomes more specific through recognition of its biphasic nature. Assimilation is the phase of action that expresses the mental organization. This expression gives meaning to the world; it constitutes the world as known. However, these meanings—including meanings at a presymbolic, preconceptual stage—have an instrumental function as well as the expressive function. When the instrumental function of the action is not completely successful in securing an adaptive goal, variation occurs in the action. For example, an infant may intend (assimilate) the side of the breast as a nipple by sucking it, but when the satisfaction of feeding does not occur, variations arise in the action, and this is exemplified by the infant sucking in various new locations. Variations open up new possibilities that both secure a goal and provide feedback that transforms (differentiations and novel coordinations) the system itself. This action phase of variation and organizational modification is the accommodation phase of any action.

Organization explains in the sense of establishing the form (structure) and action yields the explanatory mecha- nism (function). This relational polarity operates in the context of conditions , such as parents who do or do not provide appropriate opportunities for the adequate exercise of functioning. It is also the case that at the begin- ning of any stage of novel structure–function relations, the capacity for successful adaptation is limited. This sit- uation is theoretically expressed in the idea that there is more assimilation than accommodation at the beginning of a stage, and hence, there is a lack of balance or equilib- rium between assimilation and accommodation. Through action, this imbalance changes, and the two phases of action eventually move into equilibrium within a given stage. Of course, given the relational nature of the the- ory, equilibrium of assimilation and accommodation also means that the underlying structures have reached a stable state (equilibrium) of differentiation and intercoordination.

The movement toward equilibrium of the action phases of assimilation and accommodation describes the develop- ment mechanism within a stage. To explain development across stages, Piaget introduces a principle that also has both a structural and a functional face. Structurally , this is the equilibration principle (Piaget, 1985; see Boom, 2009) and it asserts that developmental change is directed toward “improved” states or patterns of the just described equilib- rium. “Improved” here is defined in terms of the adaptive

value of one stage of cognitive structures relative to the adaptive value of other stages of cognitive structures. For example, the formal operational structures associated with adolescence represent an improved equilibrium over the sensorimotor structures associated with infancy, in that the formal operational structures are more stable, more flexible, and describe a much broader range of potential cognitive experiences than sensorimotor structures. The equilibration principle introduces hierarchical organiza- tion into the theory and explains sequence, order, and direction in the emergence of novel cognitive abilities, just as the Second Law of Thermodynamics explains sequence, order, and direction with respect to the physical world. It reflects Aristotle’s metatheoretical final explana- tion , and it is consistent with the structural final explana- tions offered in other developmental theories, including Heinz Werner’s (1948, 1957) “orthogenetic principle,” and Erik Erikson’s (1968) “epigenetic principle.”

The functional face of the mechanism of development across stages is termed reflective abstraction (Piaget, 1985; see Campbell, 2009). Reflective abstraction is action, but it is action that has its own biphasic char- acter consisting of “reflecting,” in the sense of projecting something from a lower to a higher level, and “reflexion,” which is the reorganization of what has been projected. The alternation of the reflecting–reflexion phases pro- duces each new stage of cognitive reorganization. Reflec- tion is similar to the act of generalizing; reflexion is acting from the generalized position to consolidate the gains made through generalizing. What is abstracted in this pro- cess is the coordination of the differentiated structures of the lower level of organization.

Step 3: Abductive Logic Replaces Split Induction and Deduction

The third step towards a relational metamethod or methodology that integrates mechanical explanation and hermeneutic understanding addresses the nature of scientific logic. Modern mechanical explanation split acts of discovery and acts of justification and then identified the former with a foundational inductive logic and the latter with a deductive logic. Interpretation-free induction from interpretation-free data was the vehicle for the discovery of hypotheses, theories, and laws, and interpretation-free deduction the vehicle for their justification. A relational metamethod introduces the logic of abduction as the syn- thesis of the opposite identities theory (broadly considered, including background ideas) and data. Abduction (also called “retroduction”) was originally described by the

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44 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1992), and the historian of science N. R. Hanson (1958) has argued that it has long been the fundamental, if often invisible, logic of scientific activity. In a contemporary version this logic is termed “inference to the best explanation” (Fumerton, 1993; Harman, 1965).

Abduction operates by arranging the observation under consideration and all background ideas (here including specific theoretical and metatheoretical concepts) as two Escherian hands. The possible coordination of the two is explored by asking the question of what must neces- sarily be assumed in order to have that observation (see Figure 2.4). The inference to—or interpretation of—what must, in the context of background ideas, necessarily be assumed then comes to constitute the explanation of the phenomenon. The abductive process has also been termed the transcendental argument .

Abductive inference is illustrated in virtually any psy- chological work that assumes a centrality of emotional, motivational, or cognitive mental organization. Russell (1996), for example, has discussed the significance of abduction to the area of cognition. Chomsky’s work in language and Piaget’s work in cognitive development are particularly rich in abductive inference. Consider as an illustration of the process the following example, drawn from Piaget: (a) There is the phenomenal observation (O) that it is the case that a certain group of people (chil- dren around 6–7 years of age) understands that physical substances maintain the same quantity despite changes in qualitative appearances (i.e., conservation); (b) Given the relational background ideas discussed in this paper, Piaget forms the abductive inference that the explanation of this observation (E) is that a certain type of action system, having specified features including reversibility (i.e., concrete operations), must be available to these peo- ple. This inference forms the conditional statement “If

Abductive

Hypothesis

Background Observation

Figure 2.4 The abductive process

(E) concrete operational structure, then (O) conservation, is expected”; (c) Given (O), the conclusion is, “Therefore, concrete operational structure explains the understanding of conservation.”

This, of course, is not the end of the process, as criteria must be established that allow choice among alternative Es, the “best” E. But this step is not a major hurdle, as many of the criteria for theory-explanation selection that were articulated within traditional modern science can readily be incorporated here. These criteria include the explanation’s depth, coherence, logical consistency, extent to which it reduces the proportion of unsolved to solved conceptual and/or empirical problems in a domain (Laudan, 1977), and, last but not least, scope, empirical support, and empirical fruitfulness.

Scope, empirical support, and fruitfulness as partial cri- teria for choice of a best theory-explanation all demand a return to the observational grounds for empirical assess- ment. Some of the statistical and research strategies associated with this return are described in detail by Rozeboom (1997). Scope is assessed through testing the abductive explanation in observational contexts that go beyond the context that generated the explanation. For example, conservation may be assessed in the contexts of number, weight, area, volume, or it may be assessed in relation to other skills that should—in the context of the explanation—be associated with it. The assess- ment of scope also serves the function of establishing that the abductive explanation–observation relation is not viciously circular.

The fruitfulness of an explanation is measured in terms of the extent to which the explanation combines with other abductive hypotheses to generate (predict) new observa- tions. Each new abductive hypothesis in the relational triangle (Figure 2.4) becomes a part of background (back- ground ideas—theory) and, thus, creates a new enlarged background (see Figure 2.5). The new background gener- ates novel observations, but these too—because they con- stitute a background–observation relation—yield opposite identities that require further abductive inferences.

Empirical support for an abductive explanation is the outcome of any assessment of scope. Here, another central feature of a relational metamethod needs to be differ- entiated from the traditional modern split metamethod. Under the rule of split-off induction and deduction, it was assumed that scientific progress moved forward through the deductive falsification of theories (Popper, 1959). The criterion of falsification, however, fell into disre- pute through demonstrations by several historians and philosophers of science (e.g., Hanson, 1958; Kuhn, 1970;

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Metatheories, Theories, and Concepts in the Study of Development 45

Abductive Hypothesis

Background Observation

Becomes

Abductive Hypothesis

Background Observation

Figure 2.5 Scientific progress through abduction

Lakatos, 1978; Laudan, 1977; Putnam, 1983; Quine, 1953) that although deductive logic, and hence falsification, is applicable to a specific experimental hypothesis, falsifi- cation does not reach to the level of rich theories (i.e., background is abductive in character, not inductive nor deductive). Within a relational metatheory, these demon- strations lead to the principle that falsified experimental hypotheses are important in that they constitute failures of empirical support for the broader abductive explanation, but they are not important in the sense of constituting a refutation of the explanation. Kuhn, Lakatos, and Lau- dan describe these failures as anomalous instances for the background, and as such they require evaluation; but they do not, in and of themselves, require abandonment of the abductive explanation (see Overton, 1984, 1994a).

To this point, a relational metatheory and an integra- tive metamethod have been described, and the manner in which these ground, constrain, and sustain various

developmentally relevant issues, theories, and methods has been illustrated. The next and final section of this chapter will present a broad illustration of the application of relational metatheory to developmental inquiry.

THE RELATIONAL DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS’ EMBODIED ACTION (ENACTION) APPROACH

As repeated throughout this chapter, a relational metathe- ory for the development of living organisms establishes the defining context for a specifically developmental science perspective that is generally termed a relational developmental systems perspective. This perspective is broadly characterized as a conceptualization of the organism—including both its internal environment (biol- ogy) and its external environment (physical, cultural) as a

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46 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

developmental system. This system is itself identified as being adaptive, complex, inherently active, self-creating, self-organizing, and self-regulating. As mentioned earlier, when the psychological person is the center of inquiry, it is the embodied active psychological system that creates, organizes, and regulates itself through complex and multidirectional relational interpenetrating feedback loops with its internal and external environments.

Relational Synthesis: Embodied Action

A major assertion of relationism is that objects and events derive their meaning from their relations as parts of a whole, and not as split-off elements of nature. As Colom- betti (2010) recently remarked, “meaning is always rela- tional” (148). A mind without a human living body actively engaged in the world is inconceivable, as is the engaged human living body inconceivable without a mind. From this relational stance, embodiment is not about a split-off, disengaged agent defined by its movements; nor is it about a moving agent peeking at a preformed world and drawing meaning directly from that world. Nor is embodiment about a set of genes causing behavior, or a split-off brain causing, or being, the mind (e.g., brain- in-a-vat), or a split-off culture imprinting itself on mind and behavior. Embodiment is a concept of synthesis (see Figure 2.6), a bridge that joins broad areas of inquiry into a unified whole (i.e., the biological, the phenomenological, the sociocultural and environmental) as relative stand- points that together constitute the whole. Thus, embod- iment references not merely physical structures, but the body as a form of lived experience, actively engaged in and with the world of sociocultural and physical objects. The body as form references a biological standpoint, the body as lived experience actively engaged references a phe- nomenological or psychological person standpoint, and

Person Embodiment

Biological Cultural Embodiment Embodiment

Figure 2.6 Embodiment as synthesis

the body actively engaged in and with the world points to a contextual social, cultural, and environmental standpoint.

Until recently, the role of the lived body in cogni- tive and socioemotional development was largely ignored (Barsalou, 2008a, 2008b; Müller & Newman, 2008). This omission is due to a variety of reasons. Among others, in the tradition of Descartes and behaviorism, the body was viewed as a physical object and not as a lived body that is actively engaged with the world and, in this process, cre- ates meaning and, in effect, constructs the world as known. Furthermore, under the spell of the computer metaphor, cognition was viewed as computational process that oper- ates on amodal symbols (Barsalou, 2008a). However, con- temporary theorizing (Gallagher, 2005; Gallese & Lakoff, 2005; Johnson, 2008), neuropsychological evidence (e.g., Chao & Martin, 2000; Engel, 2010; Garbarini & Adenzato, 2004; Jackson & Decety, 2004) and psychological evidence (e.g., Bub, Masson, & Cree, 2008; Mounoud, Duscherer, Moy, & Perraudin, 2007; Tucker & Ellis, 2001, 2004) strongly suggests that mind (i.e., a relational developmen- tal system composed of three interrelated subsystems—the cognitive, the affective, and the conative) is grounded in embodied action (i.e., embodied experience).

Three Relational Standpoints on Embodiment

A relational synthesis of standpoints is broadly unfamil- iar to those raised in a Cartesian scientific culture; as a consequence, the following sections will briefly explore each and present examples (see Figure 2.7). For con- trast, this approach to inquiry should be compared with a variable-centered approach discussed earlier and illus- trated in Figure 2.8. It is critical to note that the relational developmental systems perspective of developmental sci- ence does not in any way dismiss the notion or importance of conceptualizing foci of interest in terms of variables; it objects to variables conceptualized as split-off causes , even as causes of the kind that might be considered in the traditional notion of split-off interactions .

Biological Standpoint on Embodiment

The biological standpoint on embodiment stands in con- trast with typical Cartesian biological reductionism, which places explanation at, and only at, the level of brain mech- anisms, genes, and DNA. The neurobiologists Antonio Damasio (e.g., 1994) and Joseph LeDoux (1996), explor- ing the neurological dimension of emotions, as well as the Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman (1992, 2006; see also Edel- man & Tononi, 2000), exploring the neurological dimen- sions of consciousness, all support an embodied approach

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Metatheories, Theories, and Concepts in the Study of Development 47

Embodiment Living body

Cognition (knowing) Conation (wishing) Emotion (feeling)

Biological systems

Self-organizing action systems

Sociocultural and

Physical world

Instrumental Actions

A. Person-centered B. Sociocultural-centered C. Biology-centered

Inquiry focus (Standpoints)

Per son

Expressive/Constitutive Actions

Person-level

Sub-person-level agency

Figure 2.7 The relational developmental systems approach to inquiry: Three standpoints on embodied action.

Reflection of culture and biology (Conceptualized as

person factors)

Biological factors

Sociocultural and

Physical world

Instrumental behavior

Inquiry factors

Cause (Correlate)

(Risk factor) (Predictor)

Cause (Correlate)

(Risk factor) (Predictor)

Figure 2.8 A variable approach to psychological inquiry

to biological–psychological inquiry. In addition, all argue that the cognitive, affective, and motivational meanings that define the mind can no longer be thought of as the direct expression of genetic modularities (as nativists such as Steven Pinker, 1997, would claim). Nor can they be thought of as a functionalist piece of software, nor even as merely a function of brain processes. Rather, they argue, these meanings must be considered in a fully embodied con- text. As Damasio said, “Mind is probably not conceivable without some sort of embodiment” (p. 234), and further, commenting on contemporary perspectives on mind,

This is Descartes’ error: the abyssal separation between body and mind. . . . The Cartesian idea of a disembodied mind may well have been the source, by the middle of the twentieth century, for the metaphor of mind as software program. . . .

[and] there may be some Cartesian disembodiment also behind the thinking of neuroscientists who insist that the mind can be fully explained in terms of brain events, leaving by the wayside the rest of the organism and the surrounding physical and social environment—and also leaving out the fact that part of the environment is itself a product of the organism’s preceding actions.

—Damasio, 1994, pp. 249–250

Similarly, Edelman (2006) has argued, “We must not lose sight of one set of facts. The brain is embodied and the body is embedded” (p. 25). And:

The mind is embodied. It is necessarily the case that certain dictates of the body must be followed by the mind. . . . Symbols do not get assigned meanings by formal means; instead it is assumed that symbolic structures are meaningful

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48 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

to begin with. This is so because categories are determined by bodily structure and by adaptive use as a result of evolution and behavior.

—Edelman, 1992, p. 239

Other authors who have recently considered biological features of embodiment include Colombetti and Thomp- son (2008), Engel (2010), Thelen (2008), Thompson (2007), and Voneche (2008).

Sociocultural and Environmental Standpoint on Embodiment

Broadly moving to the sociocultural and the environmental (i.e., physical world), the Cartesian framework privileges these as split-off elements, and thus argues that, as men- tioned earlier, social discourse is “prior to and constitutive of the world” (Miller, 1996, p. 99), or claims a “Primacy of Cultural Mediation” (Cole & Wertsch, 1996, p. 251). Increasingly, however, social constructivists such as Csor- das (1999), Good, (2007), Harre (1995), Ingold (2000), and Sampson (1996) have argued for embodied action as a relational anchoring to the relativism of any split-off dis- course or split-off cultural analyses. Sampson, for example, has argued for “embodied discourses,” as these “refer to the inherently embodied nature of all human endeavor, includ- ing talk, conversation and discourse itself” (p. 609; see also Overton, 1997b). Perhaps the most fully articulated contemporary employment of embodiment in a develop- mentally oriented cultural psychology can be found in the work of Boesch (1991). Boesch’s presentation of “the I and the body” is a discussion of the centrality of embodi- ment for a cultural psychology. Thus, he stated, “The body, obviously, is more than just an object with anatomical and physiological properties: it is the medium of our actions [italics added], it is with our body that we both conceive and perform actions” (p. 312).

Recently, as mentioned earlier, Mistry and Wu (2010) have been developing and testing a sociocultural the- ory that is deeply embedded in a relational framework. As such, it is strongly committed to embodiment: “Our conceptual model exemplifies a developmentally ori- ented embodied action metatheory [Overton, 2006] in which embodiment represents the interpenetrating rela- tions between person, biology, and culture” (p. 22).

The idea of situated cognition or situated learning— when freed from its Cartesian strict contextualist moor- ings, which splits object from subject and privileges the former—is tightly intertwined with the environmen- tal and sociocultural embodied standpoint. It should be

recalled that the relational meaning of embodiment as a body actively engaged in and with the world necessitates that not only cognition and learning, but all psycho- logical functions, including motivations and emotions, are co-constituted by the sociocultural and environmental context.

With respect specifically to the environment (i.e., the actual world), Sanders (1999) describes a framework for transforming the Cartesian split between subject and object into a relational embodied joining through a con- cept of the environment as a system of “affordances” (Gibson, 1979). Sanders begins from a relational perspec- tive on the contrast between organism and environment:

For any way of characterizing the contrast, the important feature to be noted is that neither contrasted pole [i.e., point- of-view] can be characterized independently of the other. “Environments” just are organism-indexed parts of the world. “Organisms” are just part of the world distinguished, for particular purposes (whatever they may be), from what they are embedded in.

—Sanders, 1999, p. 133

Defining affordances as “opportunities for action in the environment of an organism” [resources] (p. 129), Sanders goes on to argue,

The perceptual readiness or theoretical set with which we frame particular experiences varies not only from time to time and from culture to culture, it varies from moment to moment in any individual’s life as a function of interest, purpose, desire, and the like. It is relative to this changing background that the world gets cast in terms of opportunities and risks—in terms, that is, of affordances. (p. 135)

Sanders completes his affordances argument by describing the role they play in embodiment:

Affordances serve . . . as analytical units of embodiment. This is not an embodiment that is merely physical, the language of affordances relativizes ontology not simply to the physical body, but to what an agent can do. The “environment” within which affordances may be deployed is not only the perceptual environment but also the entire universe of potential action. What it is comprised of and how it is parsed will be a function of affordances. The embodied agent is “embodied” precisely insofar as the agent’s capacities and functions are understood as deriving in vital part from activity, rather than from an a priori gift of passive assimilation of external messages . . . . Affordances thus help to elucidate both the theoretical insight and the dynamic implications of the idea of embodiment and engaged agency. (p. 135)

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Good (2007) elaborates on this relational intertwining of the ecological approach, embodiment, and affordances for social knowing. The elaboration itself is explicitly formulated within a metatheoretical perspective that is closely related to relational perspective that Good terms “mutualist”:

I employ the term “mutualist” to describe a perspective which has its source in Hegel and in the anti-mechanistic philosophy of Romanticism. . . . From this perspective mind, body and environment cannot be understood in isolation, but are constructions from the flow of purposive activity in the world.

—Good, 2007, p. 269

Phenomenological and Person-Centered Developmental Standpoint on Embodiment

If embodiment entails, in part, the body as lived experience actively engaged, then a phenomenological and person- centered standpoint of relational synthesis becomes a nec- essary vantage point (see Person cube in Figure 2.7) for understanding embodiment as a whole. This point of synthesis maintains a theoretical and empirical focus on the psychological processes and changes that consti- tute the psychological subject and the development of the psychological subject. The single most important value of recognizing a person-centered standpoint as a neces- sary point of synthesis—along with the biological and sociocultural points of synthesis—is that it rescues psy- chology generally, and developmental psychology specif- ically, from becoming a mere adjunct to biology (includ- ing genetics and neuroscience), or to culture, discourse, narrative, or computer science. Psyche initially refer- enced “soul,” and later, “mind”; if psychology is not to again lose its mind—as it did in the days of the hege- mony of behaviorism—keeping the psychological sub- ject as the center of action is a necessary guard against explanatory reduction to biology, culture, discourse, and so forth.

The person-centered point of view entails five inter- related concepts: (1) person, (2) subpersonal system, (3) action, (4) experience, and (5) person–embodiment.

Person–Subpersonal System. Person and subper- sonal system are complementary levels of analysis of the same relational developmental system whole. The person level is constituted by genuine psychological concepts (e.g., thoughts, feelings, desires, wishes) that have intentional qualities, are open to interpretation, and are available to consciousness (Shanon, 1993), or in other words, have psy- chological meaning. The subpersonal level (Dennett, 1987;

Hurley, 1998; Russell, 1996) refers to action systems or the relational developmental system that provide explanatory mechanisms for person-level concepts. Schemes , opera- tions , ego, and attachment behavioral system are some of the systems that function at the subpersonal level.

Taken as a whole, the person–subpersonal, when framed by a relational context, entails engaged human agency (Bandura, 2006; Taylor, 1995) and forms the nucleus of a psychological metatheory of mind. As mentioned ear- lier, from this perspective, mind is defined as a relational developmental system composed of three subsystems of meanings: (1) the cognitive (knowings, beliefs), (2) the affective-emotional (feelings), and (3) the conative or moti- vational (wishes, desires) subsystems, along with proce- dures for maintaining, implementing, and changing these meanings. Importantly, it must be stressed that a person- centered metatheory of mind endorses a perspective that examines the rich interplay among emotions, wishes, desires, and cognition; it does not support the idea that cognition is an encapsulated module. Further, there is no question about where mind is “located.” Mind emerges from a relational biosociocultural activity matrix. In the present context, mind is a person-centered concept because the approach being described takes the person standpoint. As a person-centered concept, mind bridges naturally to both the biological and the sociocultural.

Action, Intention, Behavior. The personal– subpersonal as a relational developmental system is the source of action, which is itself a necessary feature of engaged human agency. Action is fundamental to what have traditionally been termed “action theories of psy- chological functioning and development” (Brandtstädter, 1998; Brandtstädter & Lerner, 1999; Eckensberger, 2011; Müller & Overton, 1998a, 1998b; Overton & Ennis, 2006a). At the subpersonal level, where it is not necessary to limit a definition to the human organism, action is defined as the characteristic functioning of any complex adaptive self-creating and system-organizing system. For example, a plant orients toward the sun. Weather systems form high- and low-pressure areas, and move from west to east. Engaged human systems organize and adapt to their biological, sociocultural, and environmental worlds. At the person level, action is defined as “intentional activity” (i.e., meaning-giving activity). Intentionality, however, is not to be identified solely with consciousness. While all acts are intentional, only some intentions are conscious or self-conscious. In a similar fashion, intention is not to be identified solely with a symbolic or reflective level of knowing. Following Brentano (1973), all acts, even those

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50 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

occurring at early sensorimotor levels of functioning, intend some object.

Action is often distinguishable from behavior, as the action of the person implies a transformation in the intended object of action, while behavior often simply implies movement and states (e.g., the classically defined “response” was understood as specific movement in space and time, a behavior, see von Wright, 1971, p. 199). When the infant chews (act) something that from a sociocultural standpoint is called a “basket,” the infant is, from a person-centered standpoint, transforming this part of her known world into a practical action (i.e., the object is something “chewable”).

Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory is a good example of a child-centered relational developmental sys- tems theory, where the metatheoretical “action” becomes translated into specific theoretical concepts. Thus, Piaget’s basic subpersonal theoretical concepts of “function,” “assimilation,” “accommodation,” “scheme,” “operation,” and “reflective abstraction” all reference action. Piaget repeatedly affirms the centrality of action throughout his writings: “I think that human knowledge is essentially active. To know is to assimilate reality into systems of transformations. To know is to transform reality. . . . To my way of thinking, knowing an object does not mean copying it, it means acting upon it” (Piaget, 1967, p. 15); “To know an object . . . is to act on it so as to transform it” (Piaget, 1977, p. 30); “Nothing is knowable unless the subject acts in one way or another on the surrounding world” (Piaget, 1980, p. 43).

Action serves at least three major functions in the devel- opment of mind. First, action of engaged human agency expresses cognitive/affective/ conative meaning. Here, it is important to recognize that meaning , like many other basic concepts, has relational complementary definitions that are determined by the standpoint being taken (Overton, 1994b). “I mean” and “it means” operate in a relational matrix. The former is concerned with person-centered meanings, the latter with sociocultural meanings and reference. From a person-centered standpoint, the focus of analysis is on “I mean,” and secondarily, on how “I mean” becomes asso- ciated with “it means.” Considered as expressive, action entails the projection of person-centered meanings, thus transforming the “objective” environmental world (e.g., an object point of view) into an “actual” world as known, felt, or desired. “World” here is another relational bipolar concept. The actual world—the world of meanings con- structed by the person; the known world. The environmen- tal or objective world is the world of reference, examined from a sociocultural or environmental standpoint.

The second function that action serves is the instru- mental function of communicating and adjusting person- centered meanings. Communication, dialogue, discourse, and problem solving all call attention to the relational to- and-fro movement between the expression of the relational developmental system and instrumental adaptive changes. Completely adapted (e.g., successful) action entails only the projection of meaning onto the world (e.g., If I intend this object before me to hold water as a “cup,” and I suc- cessfully drink from it, no change occurs in my concep- tual system). Partially adapted (e.g., partially successful) action results in exploratory action, or variations (e.g., If the intended “cup” leads to water leaking onto my shirt, I vary my actions, such as putting my finger across a crack in the object). Exploratory action that is adaptive (e.g., the finger placement permits successful drinking) entails reorganization of the system (transformational change) and hence, new meanings (e.g., cup is an object with- out cracks).

Experience and Action. This general cycle of pro- jected action and exploratory variational action in the face of encountered resistances, constitutes the third and most general function of action: Action defines the gen- eral mechanism of all psychological development. From a person-centered developmental action standpoint, all development is explained by the action of the subject. Again, however, this metatheoretical concept will be trans- lated into specific theoretical concepts at the level of theory itself (e.g., Piaget’s concepts of “assimilation- accommodation” and “equilibration” identify action mech- anisms of development).

In claiming that action is the general mechanism of all development, it is necessary to recognize that within a relational developmental systems perspective, action and experience are identical concepts. Consequently, the claim that action is the mechanism of development is identical to the claim that experience is the mechanism of devel- opment. All development occurs through experience. In this definition, however, it should be clear that experience as action excludes neither the biological nor the sociocul- tural and environmental. In fact, experience understood as action of the person-agent represents a synthesis of these points of view.

Experience is itself, however, yet another concept that acquires complementary meanings depending on whether the focus is from the person-agent or actual environmental standpoint. From each perspective, experience is identified as the co-constitution of the act and the environment, but each has a distinct emphasis regarding the locus of this co- constitution. From the person-agent standpoint, experience

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Metatheories, Theories, and Concepts in the Study of Development 51

is the action of exploring, manipulating, and observing the world, while from an environmental standpoint, experi- ence is an objective event or stimulus present in the context of the act. Further, as understood from the person-agent standpoint, when experience is described as feeling or qualia, the reference here is the person-centered felt mean- ing of the observational, manipulative, and exploratory action. In a similar fashion, to speak of “perceptual experi- ence” is to speak of the felt meanings of the observational, manipulative, and exploratory action.

When experience is understood as entailing the devel- opmental action cycle of projection and transformation (of the known world) and exploration-transformation (of the system), experience also becomes the psychological bridge between biological and cultural systems. There is no sense here of an isolated, cut-off, solitary human psyche. Person-centered experience emerges from a bioso- ciocultural relational activity matrix (see, for example, Gallese, 2000a, 2000b; Suomi, 1999), and this experi- ence both transforms the matrix and is transformed by the matrix. Person development is neither a split-off nativism, nor a split-off environmentalism, nor an additive combina- tion of the two. The neonate is a relational developmental system of practical action meanings. These meanings rep- resent the outcome of nine months of the co-constituting action of biology-environment, and this co-constituting stretches all the way down to DNA (Gottlieb, 2002; Lewontin, 2000). Finally, it is important to repeat that the idea that biology and environment (including the socio- cultural environment) play an integral part in this explana- tion. The fact that development is explained by experience does not deny that development is explained by biology and that development is explained by the sociocultural. What is denied is the absolute exclusivity of any of these standpoint explanations.

Development of the Relational Developmental System. Psychological development of the person– subpersonal—and hence, engaged human agency— entails the epigenetic stance that novel forms emerge through the co-constituting actions of the target system, as well as the resistances the target system encounters in both the actual and objective sociocultural and physical environ- ment. It is through co-constitutive actions that the system changes and, hence, becomes differentiated; however, dif- ferentiation of parts implies a novel coordination of parts, and this coordination itself identifies the emergence of novelty. Thus, as suggested earlier, the neurological action system becomes differentiated through the co-constitutive actions of neurological–environmental functioning.

This differentiation leads to a novel coordination or reorganization, and through continuing transformations to the adapted level of conscious practical action found in the neonate.

Consciousness is a person-level systemic property of this emergent action system as it operates in the world. The initial adapted practical consciousness entails a minimum awareness of the meaning constituted by an act (Zelazo, 1996). Consciousness cannot be reduced to or “squeezed out of” lower stages; it is the result of organism–environment transformations. Similarly, fur- ther developmental differentiations and coordinations of actions—described as “higher” levels of consciousness— emerge through the co-constitution of conscious action and the sociocultural and physical worlds it encounters. Symbolic meaning and the symbolic representational level of meanings (Müller & Overton, 1998a, 1998b) describe forms of consciousness that arise from the coordination of practical actions. Reflective and transreflective meanings (reflective symbolic understandings of reflective symbolic understandings) describe further developmental advances in the coordination of action systems.

To summarize to this point, the nucleus of a person- centered, relational developmental system of mind has been described, where mind is conceptualized as a rela- tional developmental system composed of subsystems of cognitive (knowings, beliefs), emotional (feelings), and conative or motivational (wishes, desires) meanings or understandings, along with procedures for maintain- ing, implementing, and changing these meanings. Mind, through expressive projections, transforms the world as known, and through adaptive instrumental exploration, transforms itself (e.g., develops); however, this set of ideas remains a nucleus and only a nucleus, because it lacks the critical necessary feature of person embodiment.

Relational Developmental System Engaged Embod- ied Actions. Person–subpersonal is the source of acts, and acts are the source of meaning; but these acts are themselves necessarily embodied. As described earlier, embodiment is defined, in part, as the body as lived experience actively engaged . Person embodiment is the claim that the person’s perception, thinking, feelings, desires—the way the person experiences or lives the world—is contextualized by persons being active agents with this particular kind of body. At the subpersonal level, embodiment specifies the physical nature that is the con- dition of the activity of any living system (e.g., the world of the fly is necessarily shaped by the nature of the fly’s physical body). At the person level, embodiment affirms

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52 Foundations of Development Across the Life Span

that, from the beginning, bodily acts constrain and inform the nature of intentionality (Margolis, 1987). Intentionality is not limited to a symbolic, reflective, or transreflec- tive system of psychological meanings; intentionality also extends to a system of psychological meanings that char- acterize practical, embodied actions operating at the most minimum level of consciousness (see Müller & Newman, 2008). These most basic meanings and all others “come from having a body with particular perceptual and motor capabilities that are inseparably linked” (Thelen, Schoner, Scheier, & Smith, 2001, p. 1); that is, they arise, as Piaget repeatedly insisted, from the sensorimotor functioning that represents a concrete instantiation of embodied actions engaged with the world.

Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (1991) sketched a gen- eral outline for an embodied theory of cognition, which they termed enaction . More recently, this program has been elaborated by a number of investigators (e.g., Barsa- lou, 2008a, 2008b; Noe, 2004; Stewart, Gapenne, & Di Paolo, 2010), and it has come to stand as viable relational alternative to cognitivism’s computational or representa- tional theory of mind. But the centrality of embodiment and enaction is not limited to the cognitive subsystem. The significance of embodiment for emotions and motiva- tions has been explored by Colombetti (2010; Colombetti & Thompson, 2008), and Santostefano (1995, 2010) has detailed the developmental emotional, motivational and cognitive dimensions of practical, symbolic, and reflective embodied meanings. Furthermore, many who have stud- ied personality development and psychopathology, from R. D. Laing (1960) to Donald Winnicott (1965) and Thomas Ogden (1986), have argued that disruptions in the embodied actions of the person-agent are central to an understanding of the development of severe forms of psychopathology (see also Overton & Horowitz, 1991)

The proprioceptive and exteroceptive systems have become a central focus in explorations of the devel- opment of practical actions or prereflective knowing (see, e.g. Bermudez, 1998; Freeman, 1999; Gallagher, 2005; Gapenne, 2010; Noe, 2004; O’Shaughnessy, 2000). Gapenne reviews a large body of research in support of the argument that the coordination of these bodily sensory flows—termed the “kinesthetic function”—constitutes the fundamental embodied basis for the organism’s developing construction of a sense of self and a sense of an external world of objects; “perception is essentially relational and . . . this relation simultaneously codetermines both the sub- ject and the object (Gapenne, 2010, p. 194). Bermudez’s (1998) perspective that late-emerging forms of meaning found in symbolic and reflective consciousness develop

from—and are constrained by—embodied self-organizing action systems available to the infant, follows a similar line of argument. For Bermudez, most importantly, these early systems entail person-level somatic proprioceptive and exteroceptive systems. As these person-centered processes interpenetrate the physical and sociocultural worlds, pro- prioception operates as the differentiation mechanism for the emergence of a self-consciousness action system, and exteroception operates as the differentiation mechanism for the emergence of an object-consciousness system. Hence, over the first several months of life basic practical action systems associated with “me” and “object world” are constructed by the infant, which through further embodied action in the world become transformed into the symbolic “me” and “object world” of early toddlerhood.

The work of Sheets-Johnstone (2010) on the role of the “tactile-kinesthetic body” also illustrates the importance of embodiment at the level of practical actions. As she says in a summary of her work: “We build our perceptions and conceptions of space originally in the process of moving ourselves, in tactile-kinesthetic experiences that in fact go back to prenatal life where the movement that takes a thumb to a mouth originates” (p. 174). Similarly, Thelen’s (2008, see also Smith, 2005) focus on movement generally, and specifically “body memory” in infant cognitive function- ing, extends the field of inquiry into the significance of embodiment at the prereflective level of cognition.

Langer’s (1994) empirical studies represent impor- tant demonstrations of the intercoordination of embodied action systems, as these intercoordinations move develop- ment from the practical to the symbolic plane of meaning. Earlier work by Held and his colleagues (e.g., Held & Bossom, 1961; Held and Hein, 1958, 1963), on the other hand, illustrates the significance of voluntary embodied action at all levels of adaptation (see also Noe, 2004). Acredolo’s research (e.g., Goodwyn & Acredolo, 1993) on the use of bodily gestures as signs expressing practi- cal meanings in older infants suggests the expressive and instrumental value of embodied practical gesture. Other work has elaborated the significance of bodily representa- tions at the symbolic and reflective levels of meaning. For example, while the use of fingers for counting is well doc- umented (Gelman & Williams, 1998), Saxe’s (1981, 1995) research has shown cross-culturally that other bodily rep- resentations enter into counting systems. Further, earlier research by Overton and Jackson (1973) and more recently by Dick, Overton, and Kovacs (2005) has demonstrated that bodily gestures support emerging symbolic represen- tations at least until the level of reflective meanings is attained.

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At the levels of symbolic, reflective, and transreflective conceptual functioning, the writings of Lakoff and John- son (1999) (see also, Johnson, 2008; Lakoff, 1987) are well known for their detailed exploration of the significance of embodiment. For Lakoff and Johnson, embodiment pro- vides the fundamental metaphors that shape meanings at all levels of functioning. In a parallel but distinct approach, Kainz (1988) has described how the basic laws of ordinary logic (i.e., the law of identity, the law of contradictions, and the law of the excluded middle) can be understood as emerging from the early embodied differentiation of self and other. Finally, Liben’s (1999, 2008) work on the development of the child’s symbolic and reflective spatial understanding presents a strong argument for an under- standing of this development in the context of an embodied child rather than in the context of the disembodied eye that traditionally has framed discussions in this domain.

CONCLUSIONS

This chapter has explored background ideas that ground, constrain, and sustain theories and methods in psychol- ogy generally, and developmental psychology specifically. An understanding of these backgrounds presents the inves- tigator with a rich set of concepts for the construction and assessment of psychological theories. An understand- ing of background ideas also helps to prevent conceptual confusions that may ultimately lead to unproductive the- ories and unproductive methods of empirical inquiry. The importance of this function has been forcefully articulated by Robert Hogan (2001) who, under the title “Wittgen- stein was right,” notes with approval Wittgenstein’s (1958) remark that “in psychology there are empirical methods and conceptual confusions (p. 27),” and then goes on to say

Our training and core practices concern research methods; the discipline is . . . deeply skeptical of philosophy. We empha- size methods for the verification of hypotheses and minimize the analysis of the concepts entailed by the hypotheses. [But] all the empiricism in the world can’t salvage a bad idea.

—Hogan, 2001, p. 27

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